The Great Lifespan Escape

At the time when the lines begin, in the mid-18th century, life expectancy in Europe and the Americas was around 35, where it had been parked for the 225 previous years for which we have data.3 Life expectancy for the world as a whole was 29. These numbers are in the range of expected life spans for most of human history. The life expectancy of hunter-gatherers is around 32.5, and it probably decreased among the peoples who first took up farming because of their starchy diet and the diseases ...

 Mental Illness is Not Correlated with Genius

What madness may have to do with creativity and genius has continued to intrigue down to this day, with scholars arguing for and against the association, its benefits and its deficits. In 1995, in a large scale and statistically convincing study of 1,004 eminent individuals of the 20th century, psychiatrist Arnold Ludwig argued that no necessary or sufficient correlation, hence no causal connection, between mental illness and creative achievement was to be found. Individuals in artistic profe...

 Technology Enables IA, but Culture Must Evolve for It

Look at what intellect would be without writing or the printing press—these primitive technologies already make such a difference. Just think of what the latest computer technology will be able to do to further augment the intellect! But this is a non-sequitur: what makes writing and paper powerful is technology to some extent, but it is mostly the rich culture that grew up around it. Let’s look at writing first. The earlies extant samples of writing are Babylonian clay tablets containing t...

 Non-English Languages Lack the Words for Talking About Te...

By the early 19th century, just three—French, English, and German—accounted for the bulk of scientists’ communication and published research; by the second half of the 20th century, only English remained dominant as the U.S. strengthened its place in the world, and its influence in the global scientific community has continued to increase ever since. As a consequence, the scientific vocabularies of many languages have failed to keep pace with new developments and discoveries. In many languag...

 The Biggest Gains in g

It is one thing if a child’s IQ is elevated over time because she is drilled daily on vocabulary and basic number facts (two of the subtests of major IQ batteries). But Flynn and others have shown that these are not the areas where IQ has risen much. It is in what Flynn refers to as “on-the-spot reasoning” about relations between objects that are either totally familiar to everyone, hence no one can be claimed to have a prior advantage (e.g., arranging familiar pictures so they tell a coheren...