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Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

(www.psychiatrymargins.com)
262 points Anon84 | 2 comments | 28 Jun 25 21:22 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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tempestn ◴[29 Jun 25 17:40 UTC] No.44414865[source]▶
This is fascinating, and makes me wonder if human intelligence itself is such a cliff edge trait. For most of human history our advanced intelligence has obviously been a benefit, but now we see, as people and societies become wealthier and better educated (both correlated with intelligence), their reproduction rates drop precipitously. Perhaps we've overshot the intelligence cliff and evolution is now gradually pulling us back. (Evidence of this would be less intelligent people having more children on average than more intelligent ones.)
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varjag ◴[29 Jun 25 17:55 UTC] No.44414980[source]▶
There is no evidence people are measurably more intelligent now than two-three decades ago.
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tempestn ◴[29 Jun 25 18:31 UTC] No.44415248[source]▶
Yes, the genetics wouldn't have significantly changed over such a short period, but the environment has.
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staunton ◴[29 Jun 25 18:41 UTC] No.44415320{3}[source]▶
Genetics isn't all that matters. Things like malnutrition (and a lot more things) very much also do.
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1. sheiyei ◴[29 Jun 25 21:01 UTC] No.44416396{4}[source]▶
I think the point is that the evolution of human intelligence reached a point that enabled us, over evolutionarily short timescales, to develop an environment (social structures etc.) that broke evolution as it was – the meaning of "fittest" is now rather arbitrary in human context.
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2. tempestn ◴[30 Jun 25 02:29 UTC] No.44418653[source]▶
I'm not sure it is arbitrary, just different from what it was a hundred or a thousand years ago. There's no real survival differentiation in modern society, and while classically beneficial traits like physical fitness and intelligence do help with finding partners, most people are able to do so regardless. The other big difference now though is that people can have sex without choosing to have children. So istm the most successful traits from an evolutionary perspective at this point are those that encourage a desire to have more children. (If there's a genetic predisposition toward religious adherence, that's a likely example.)