Humans haven't changed in millions of years...

Hell no!!!

Intelligence isn't just about your DNA—it’s heavily tied to sociological factors too. That whole thing about brain density and synaptic complexity being the ultimate biological marker? Yeah, that depends on things like:

1) How much info you're pumped with as a kid
2) The actual quality and variety of that info
3) Whether you actually use what you learn
4) Your diet

Those are at least four massive social variables that shape how smart someone becomes—variables that look nothing like they did in the old days. Look at IQ scores; they show a steady climb over the last century. It’s a small bump, sure, but it’s measurable. If we had solid data from 2,000 years ago, I bet we'd see an even more insane gap.

Then there's collective intelligence—this massive web of social connections and shared knowledge. It's lightyears ahead of anything people dealt with in the past.

And here’s the kicker: now that we're basically standing on the doorstep of using genetic engineering to redesign the human race, intellectual performance is going to be one of the first things targeted. Mark my words—ethical debates will eventually crumble once the pressure to engineer a "superior" species kicks in. Once we trigger artificial evolution, there's no telling where this rabbit hole ends.

Eratosthenes definitely wasn't smarter than the top-tier scientists we have today—he just had the same genetic baseline. To put it bluntly, if Eratosthenes had been born in a modern US tech hub instead of ancient times, he’d probably be even sharper than his 2,000-year-old self. Not like a massive leap or anything, but still—a little bit smarter.

matija said:Nah, no way. Instinct hasn't changed. It’s still right there inside us. We just call it parapsychology now for whatever reason.

Instinct just got stunted. It didn't vanish.

Kali said:I don't think he would act the same way people do today. Back then, humans were guided by incredibly sharp instincts; they lived in much closer harmony with nature, which is something we can't say for ourselves anymore. We’ve become stunted. What drives most people nowadays has absolutely nothing to do with our true nature. Everything is artificial, calculated, unnatural, and just plain wrong. Change has certainly occurred, but not in any positive sense. This constant shifting of boundaries is merely a step further toward losing the very essence of what makes us human.

No. We haven't lost our instinct. It's simply dormant. It sleeps within us because, lately, we haven't had any need for it.

Richard Howard2 said: Civilization is overflowing with inventions, massive amounts of knowledge, and constant progress, but how much does the average person actually understand or even have the capacity to replicate? Huh?

We aren't talking about the average Joe here; we are talking about the specific individuals who actually drive civilization forward.

To be clear:

The reality is that most of us won't ever create anything revolutionary—nothing that sticks in the minds of future generations who might build upon that knowledge. However, within our ranks, there will always be two or three people who possess that drive, and they are the ones who matter.
An average person might technically be capable of reproducing these advancements, but they simply lack the interest. Only the exceptional—those driven by genuine curiosity and intellect—will push the boundaries of what we know.

The system of our collective intellectual organism functions much like biological fertilization:

you have to release millions of sperm just to ensure a single egg gets fertilized.

Sound & Fury said:Absolutely not!

Intelligence isn't just about genetic predisposition; sociological factors play a massive role too.

There isn't just one way to be smart. What you're describing is social intelligence, and honestly, we shouldn't conflate that with standard IQ.

When people talk about "classic" IQ, they're usually referring to spatial reasoning, temporal awareness, and the capacity to tackle novel mental problems—tasks where there is no pre-existing template to follow.

An individual's overall cognitive profile might actually be an accumulation of various types of IQ, not just the traditional metric.

It's a well-documented phenomenon that those with exceptional IQ in one specific area often struggle significantly in others.

That’s why we see this pattern where geniuses tend to be highly introverted, socially awkward, or emotionally volatile; they simply lack that social IQ component.

The reason we see a slight uptick in average IQ compared to previous generations is because the challenges facing Americans today are inherently more complex than those faced by our ancestors. We are constantly building upon an accumulated foundation of knowledge.

In the old days, people had to start their intellectual journeys from scratch. Today, long before someone even enters the workforce, they've already been trained through childhood on concepts that modern civilization essentially handed to them on a silver platter.

Sound & Fury said:Eratosthenes certainly wasn't outperforming today's top-tier scientists. He just happened to have the same genetic baseline. To put it bluntly, if Eratosthenes had been born in a modern, developed nation, he would likely be smarter than his own 2,000-year-old clone. Perhaps not by a massive margin, but still smarter.

Now, I suppose we need to define what you mean by "intelligence": are we talking about wisdom, raw cognitive ability, or simply an accumulation of education? If we are strictly discussing the volume of schooling, then yes, he’d be lagging behind modern people. But if we mean intelligence or wisdom, that isn't necessarily a foregone conclusion.

If we define intelligence as the ratio of one's ability to navigate new situations compared to the average capability of one's peers—which naturally factors in age—then a modern-day Eratosthenes would undoubtedly be more intelligent than his ancient counterpart. This is because, in a shorter span of time, he would absorb a wealth of knowledge that would have taken his ancient version a lifetime to acquire. And we all know that the faster a person acquires knowledge at a young age, the higher their perceived intelligence becomes.

In such a scenario, a much younger Eratosthenes would reach conclusions far sooner than his prehistoric clone ever could, simply because his environment serves up critical information on a silver platter.

I hope I haven't overcomplicated things too much...

matija said:Nah, the biggest shift is actually about self-awareness and education. A long time ago, you didn't necessarily need an education just to get by in life $\rightarrow$ today, it’s a requirement. As for self-awareness, people have this skewed perception of their surroundings (take nature, for example) $\rightarrow$ just look at vegetarians: "we won't eat anything with a face."

Plus, people have gotten too comfortable taking everything for granted, which basically halts any real progress. Our civilization is packed with incredible inventions, science, and breakthroughs, but how much does the average person actually understand or even know how to replicate? Seriously?

I think a lot of people are either missing Django's point or just refusing to see it...

Here is what Django was getting at... if you took Eratosthenes and dropped him as a baby into modern society... he wouldn't grow up to be any different from anyone else. Or, if you did the opposite and placed a baby version of today's George or Pete into Eratosthenes' era... that kid would grow up looking and acting just like any other peer from that time period..
Because, honestly, a human being from two and a half thousand years ago is fundamentally the same as a human being today... there hasn't been some massive evolutionary leap in the meantime...

In this context, social intelligence is irrelevant because it's always present... and frankly, it can even be used to manipulate people...
If you swapped the baby of a prince with the baby of a janitor... a royal baby raised in a poor, uneducated janitor's family would most likely grow up behaving like a janitor, while the janitor's baby raised in a palace would grow up acting like a prince...

Honestly, it’s wild! It feels like something straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster or a classic fairy tale—and honestly, maybe it is.
What else can you say? The other kid—same exact packaging. 😉

And then there’s genetics, which always creeps back into the conversation. You can train intelligence and sharpen social skills relatively easily, but if a baby is born with zero foundation, they aren't going to thrive in this day and age—even if you try to teach them every survival skill under the sun.

Quote : Originally posted by Richard Howard2
There’s more than one way to be smart. What you’re talking about is social intelligence—which is totally different from actual, classic IQ—so don't go mixing them up.

No, no, and no... I never even mentioned social IQ. 😕 I’m telling you—if we cloned Eratosthenes today, his brain would be built totally differently. We’re talking higher synaptic density per volume unit, almost certainly. There’d probably be other structural differences, too. Look, IQ is just a metric—it's an indicator of how complex that internal brain structure actually is. That rise in scores? It’s just proof of biological shifts in the neurological system triggered by changing social conditions. The brain is like a lump of Play-Doh—just this highly formable little ball.

Quote : Originally posted by Richard Howard2
The "classic" IQ everyone keeps yapping about basically just boils down to how fast you can navigate space and time—you know, that ability to tackle brand-new mental puzzles on the fly without having some pre-made template to lean on.

Look, an IQ profile isn't just some single number—it’s basically an accumulation of all different types of intelligence, not just that one classic metric everyone obsesses over.

It’s a known fact—people with insane IQ levels usually end up getting totally screwed over compared to everyone else.

I’ve seen it enough times to know—people with massive IQs are usually either total introverts, complete social outcasts, or just emotionally unstable messes—mostly because they're basically lacking any kind of social intelligence.

Jesus... if that were actually true, then intellectual evolution would just be stuck depending on a handful of social idiots. 😁
That’s just how people comfort themselves when they don't have a single shred of actual talent—it's pathetic. Calling it "simplification" is honestly just childish nonsense, but hey, Richard Howard2 is still a kid anyway.

People calling geniuses "socially awkward" is just what losers say to feel better about themselves—it’s pure subjectivity. Look at Flaubert—everyone wrote him off as some hermit freak because he kept to himself, but his work proves he was actually incredibly tuned in to the subtle nuances of how people actually interact. He wasn't an idiot; he just saw things others missed.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe—the ultimate Renaissance man—was a poet, novelist, philosopher, and scientist all rolled into one. He’s easily ranked among the smartest people to ever walk the earth. The guy was a total social butterfly too, loved by everyone from high society to the common folk, and he had this insane, almost supernatural knack for reading people instantly.

Johann Gottlieb Leibniz—the absolute king of polymaths. Some people actually claim he’s the greatest genius to ever walk the earth. I mean, the guy was a mathematician, inventor, philosopher, historian, AND a lawyer. Talk about a powerhouse. He could charm anyone with his silver tongue, especially those high-society ladies in old-school Prussian circles. Word is, there wasn't an aristocratic bedroom in the whole country he didn't manage to slide into.

I could go on forever listing people who actually had both massive brains and enough social grace to be respected leaders in their era—not just some isolated geniuses, but actual icons.

Quote : Originally posted by Richard Howard2
The only reason we’re seeing even a slight bump in average IQ compared to back in the day is because life keeps getting harder—we're constantly being thrown these massive, complex puzzles that make ancient problems look like child's play. It's all just one long chain reaction of us building on top of everything everyone else learned before us.

That’s a massive oversimplification—way too vague. The whole reason for a higher IQ comes down to structural differences in the neurological system. That was my entire point in the last post. But hey, if you want to sit around and philosophize about the social conditions that led us here, be my guest.

Richard Howard2 said:
Back in the day, people actually had to build their intellect from the ground up—starting from scratch. Nowadays? People are basically spoon-fed everything by civilization before they even hit their intellectual stride during childhood.

Yeah... yeah, totally. Childhood is everything—basically everything up until you're 20 since that’s when the brain is still growing. Sure, structural changes can happen later—just look at people recovering from strokes where the brain has to rewire itself to pick up the slack from dead tissue—but the foundation is set early.

The whole learning process is really just carving out new paths between neurons—sometimes building actual synapses, but mostly just opening up traffic through pathways that used to be totally blocked or barely used.

Think of neurons like little lightbulbs, and a thought as a specific pattern of those lights flashing. Two different thoughts aren't just about which bulbs are lit, but the sequence of them turning on and off. Chemical shifts in the synapses create these unique patterns. But here's the kicker—the most important thing about the cerebral cortex (which, unlike animals, we actually have) is this principle of energy minimization. Learning burns through massive amounts of fuel. When you first try to memorize something, your brain is working overtime. By the tenth time you repeat it, the energy spike is so tiny even high-end medical equipment couldn't detect it. That’s when the knowledge becomes part of you. Without this biological shortcut, learning more would be impossible because we'd eventually run out of juice—our chemical processes just can't provide infinite power. Still, that limit is high enough that our neurological system hogs about 33% of all the oxygen in our blood, even though the brain is only 2% of our body weight. That crazy disproportion is just one more thing that separates us from the animal kingdom.

I find myself in agreement with the notion that humanity simply doesn't progress. If a minor Julius Caesar were born today, he would fit perfectly into modern society without skipping a beat. Just as a dog remains a dog, humans have remained fundamentally the same for thousands of years—perhaps even longer. How long this will continue, or if we will ever truly change, is ultimately irrelevant. It’s all trivial. We lack the capacity to make ourselves either changeable or immutable; that level of control lies entirely outside our grasp.

However, regarding the distinction between humans and animals, I must first point out that I am unclear on which specific animals are being referenced. Within the animal kingdom, there are greater disparities than those between humans and certain species. What is the difference between an orangutan and a toad, a fox and a snail, or a fish and an elephant? None at all? Fine... absolutely none. They all breathe oxygen, possess DNA, and reproduce. So, if we examine how we have aggressively lumped all these creatures into one single category just to pit them against humanity, I can confidently say there isn't much of a distinction to be found.
If the original poster was instead referring to intellectual differences, my view is that such gaps aren't significantly larger than the difference in mobility between a snake and a lion, or a caterpillar and an eagle.

Great to see you back here 😉 🙂))

By the way, killer post

Jose Palmer2 said: If this biological phenomenon didn't exist, learning—as the process of building upon existing knowledge—would be impossible. To expand our quantum of knowledge, we would require increasingly massive amounts of energy per unit of time, far exceeding what the energy-limited chemical processes in our brains can actually supply.

😉 Jose Palmer2, you explained the growth of knowledge beautifully, but I believe intelligence is something else entirely—essentially, the ability to navigate unfamiliar situations. The problem is that testing methods are constantly being recalibrated; for instance, early tests were adjusted so women could achieve averages comparable to men, and later, they were modified so Black Americans in the US could reach similar results. I’m not trying to diminish anyone's intellect here, but I want to point out that the measuring tools themselves are incredibly subjective, if not outright elastic.
There simply isn't an objective, unbiased way to measure intelligence. Even if you subjected participants to rigorous, weeks-long testing, the results would still be highly unreliable.
There is also a fundamental paradox at play: the more a person knows, the fewer "unknown" situations they encounter, which leaves us wondering what these instruments are actually quantifying.
I really feel it's foolish to fetishize IQ tests, as they are just as "unfair" as the questions on a game show like "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."😉

Jose Palmer2:

I maintain that the brain of an Eratosthenes clone from the 1900s would be different. It would almost certainly possess a higher synaptic density per unit of volume. Perhaps other structural discrepancies would also be evident. IQ is merely a metric—an indicator of the internal structural complexity of the brain. Its rise serves as evidence of biological shifts within the neurological system, conditioned by changing social environments. The brain is much like a lump of clay, a highly formable sphere.

Perhaps he might have had a higher density due to evolutionary differences spanning 2,000 years, but such differences would be negligible since evolution is not a particularly rapid process. For any evolutionary changes to actually manifest, my estimation is that at least 100,000 years would need to pass. A 2,000-year gap is insignificantly small.

Furthermore, IQ is not defined by synaptic density, but rather by the ability to navigate novel problems. I am not suggesting that IQ has no connection to that, but that isn't its definition.

Jesus.... if that were the case, intellectual evolution would depend entirely on a handful of social morons.

Perhaps I misstated myself somewhat: civilization does not rest upon super-intelligent individuals, but rather upon industrious and ambitious people. Another thing regarding super-intelligent people is that they often lack ambition. Intelligent people are plenty, yet there are very few who are both intelligent and ambitious. Try researching the lives and works of the great scientists and artists of history—you will be surprised by the superhuman strength they possessed to push through certain realizations.

Moreover, I did not say that super-intelligent people are necessarily social morons; nor did I say they are morons at all, really. They are simply maladapted. There is a distinction, you know?
To that, I would add not just maladaptation, but also being rejected by their obviously intellectually inferior surroundings. This is why, in the vast majority of cases, great figures are only truly understood long after their deaths...

The reason for a higher IQ lies in the structural differences of the neurological system. That was the essence of my previous post. Now we can philosophize about the social conditions that led to it.

As I stated:
the definition of IQ is not this: IQ is the amount of structural density of neural units in the brain, or something to that effect.

The actual definition of IQ is as follows: IQ, or intelligence quotient, is a number (a ratio) obtained when a person's measured ability to solve novel problems is divided by the average measured ability to solve novel problems for the general population of an equivalent age.

An IQ score essentially indicates how much greater or lesser an individual's ability to solve emerging problems is in comparison to their environment. It is well known that this even depends on one's nationality, as different national or cultural groups possess different average abilities.
Do you honestly believe some nation is, on average, more intelligent than another because of a higher neuron density?

swiftcobra15 said:😉 You made a great point about how knowledge grows, but intelligence is a whole different beast—basically, the ability to handle new situations on the fly. These tests get tweaked all the time just so women can hit averages similar to men, or so Black Americans reach equal scores, etc. Look, I’m not trying to insult anyone, I'm just saying the measuring stick is incredibly biased—if not totally flexible.
There’s no such thing as an objective way to measure intelligence. Even if you tortured the test subjects for months on end, the results would still be totally unreliable.
Plus, there's the fundamental issue: the more someone knows, the fewer "unknown" situations they face, which leaves you wondering what the hell these tests are actually measuring in the first place.
Honestly, obsessing over IQ tests is stupid—they’re just as "unfair" as the questions on a Millionaire game show. 😉

I don't know where you're getting your data, because everything I've read from various sources says the exact opposite, so I'll go out on a limb and assume yours are wrong. I don't have the hard numbers for Black Americans specifically, other than they have the lowest average IQ in the US population, but I do know that Japanese Americans score about 10% higher than white Americans on the standard Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, and Chinese Americans are up by 20%. The exception within the white race is Jews, who crush it across all five main categories—verbal, logical, math, spatial, and symbolic—except for spatial perception, where the Chinese take the lead. That said, the white race seems to have much more variance on the scale compared to Asians—meaning a higher standard deviation—which basically means there are more idiots among whites, but also more geniuses (you see a similar gap between men and women). So, the idea that tests are rigged for racial equality is wrong, and the same goes for gender equality—just look at the math: for every one highly talented female mathematician, you’ve got 14 talented males. On verbal tests, though, it’s almost the reverse—for every talented male linguist, there are 9 talented females. Also, women perform noticeably worse on spatial perception tests. The reason the average IQ for women is nearly identical to men's is simply because there are way more total idiots among the male population who fail every single type of test. You can easily explain these differences through experimentally proven brain functions. The left hemisphere handles verbal info; it's way more active in women due to higher estrogen levels—that's why women excel at languages. The right hemisphere handles visual and especially stereoscopic info, and it's much more active in men due to steroid hormones. That’s why men dominate spatial perception. Since spatial perception is a massive helping tool in advanced math, that’s where the male advantage comes from. And yeah, Asians have better spatial perception than other races because their average steroid levels are slightly lower. Studies show that spatial ability climbs sharply with steroid levels up to an optimal point, but once you push past that, it actually starts to dip.

So, get this—among all the geniuses they’ve ever tested, there’s always this massive imbalance in brain activity between the left and right hemispheres. The right side is just cranking way harder. It turns out a ton of guys who pull off insane IQ scores actually learned to read visually when they were tiny kids—like, they recognized the whole shape of a word before they even knew what individual letters were. It used to cause so much confusion that people would misdiagnose these gifted kids as having dyslexia—kind of like how folks used to look at Einstein. Most of them didn't even start breaking words down phonetically until they were practically grown.

Quote : Originally posted by Richard Howard2

Maybe you'd see some density shift due to evolutionary gaps—but honestly? It’s a non-issue. Evolution isn't exactly sprinting along—it's a slow burn. In my book, you'd need at least 100,000 years before you'd even notice a measurable difference. A 2,000-year gap is basically nothing.

Human evolution is officially dead. It’s done. Evolution relies entirely on genetic mutations within sperm—that’s the data from Dr. Jones, one of those top-tier geneticists who wrote "In the Blood" (the one they made that documentary about on PBS—he even hosted it himself). Given how massive the population has become and the fact that natural selection is basically non-existent now thanks to modern medicine, natural evolution, as far as the human race is concerned, is over.

When you’re dealing with a small population, evolutionary shifts can actually happen way faster than people think—it's just basic math. Humans are the perfect example here. We have skeletons from early Homo sapiens dating back about 100,000 years, and if you track our evolution from 4 million years ago down to that 100,000-year mark, the lineage is pretty much seamless—just a few tiny gaps here and there. But then—and this is where it gets infuriating—there is this massive, gaping hole between 8 million and 4 million years ago. We have absolutely zero remains from that era. The theory is that our ancestors were living in areas prone to heavy erosion—probably along a coastline or near a massive lake—and were basically scavenging whatever washed up or grew near the water. There’s plenty of circumstantial evidence pointing toward this, but we’re still missing the actual smoking gun. Here’s what we know:
So, apparently humans have this "diving reflex" where our heart rate just drops to half its normal speed the second we hit the water—and get this—we’re actually the only primates that pull this off. Just wild how weird our bodies are sometimes.
We’re literally the only primates out there with webbed skin between our fingers—it's wild when you actually think about it.
We’re the only primates out there with hair that lays flat against the skin—supposedly because it helped us slice through water more easily back in the day. Honestly, sounds like just another one of those half-baked evolutionary excuses to me.

I don't even know why I bothered rambling about that above—it’s barely even related to the topic—but my point is this: humans have evolved massively over the last 4 million years from some chimp-like creature. If you assume evolution moves at a linear pace, then 100,000 years is a massive chunk of that timeline—we're talking 1/40th of the whole period! That's plenty of time for evolutionary shifts to become obvious—if they were actually happening. Any seasoned paleoanthropologist could probably rattle off way more than 40 distinct differences between a chimp and a human, and don't even get me started on the genetic gaps. So, if evolution was still moving at that same speed today, we’d be seeing major, noticeable differences between early humans and us... but we aren't.

Look, if we’re actually going to have a serious debate here, we need to stop bickering over semantics—Richard Howard, for instance, using terms like "social misfit" isn't an insult in a clinical sense; it’s just a medical descriptor for the socially inept groups you listed. It's not some playground slur. And honestly? Talking about intelligence in the abstract without accounting for biological facts is totally pointless—I've already laid out plenty of those points. IQ is just an abstract, somewhat imprecise metric, sure, but it measures something tangible: internal brain structure. An absolute IQ score doesn't mean squat on its own—it only works as a comparative tool. If we see that people today crush spatial perception tests better than they did a century ago, that points to actual neurological shifts. That’s just a fact. You can philosophize about the *nature* of those changes all you want, but don't ignore them. Trying to discuss IQ without knowing what it's actually measuring is like arguing about dimensions without knowing if you're talking about an ocean liner or a high-rise apartment building.

Look, I’m sticking to my guns here—humans are still trending toward some kind of sociological sweet spot to hit their peak intellectual potential. Social environments, especially during those formative childhood years, absolutely hammer away at how the brain develops.

Oh, and I totally blanked on one super important little detail. Back in the day, Rob Reiner—yeah, the guy who directed "When Harry Met Sally"—actually made a documentary about this. And what am I talking about? It’s a scientifically proven fact that kids who get tons of love and attention early on end up with more neurons and synapses. And I mean actual, physical affection here. Kids need to be cuddled—just like any other mammal, unlike those cold-blooded reptiles—and believe it or not, that physical touch is massive for brain development.

So, given everything I just laid out, it’s a total no-brainer: some spoiled kid growing up in the comfort of modern American society is going to have a way more advanced neural network than anyone living back in the days of Eratosthenes.

Jose Palmer2

Ultimately, I still hold onto my conviction that humanity is steadily moving toward a sociological sweet spot for reaching our intellectual peak. Social environments—especially during childhood and adolescence—play a massive role in how the brain develops.

Human evolution has reached its finish line. Evolution is driven exclusively by genetic mutations within sperm cells (that’s a point made by Dr. Smith, one of the top geneticists and the author of the book "To the Blood," which was adapted into a documentary aired on NBC, which he also hosted). Given our massive global population and the fact that natural selection has basically been sidelined by vastly improved healthcare, natural evolution, as far as the human race is concerned, is over.

This is bugging me though… if human evolution is actually over, how is it possible that the human brain continues to change and our intelligence keeps climbing?

When you're dealing with a small population, evolutionary shifts can actually be spotted in much shorter timeframes. Humans are a perfect example here. The remains of the earliest *Homo sapiens* date back roughly 100,000 years.

Just a quick tangent here… it's a bit misleading to call modern *Homo sapiens* the earliest *Homo sapiens*. They definitely aren't. Anatomically modern humans, or *Homo sapiens sapiens*, appeared about 100,000 years ago. Meanwhile, early *Homo sapiens* were actually archaic *Homo sapiens*, dating back about 500,000 years. Those archaic humans branched into two distinct groups: Neanderthals and modern *Homo sapiens* (*Homo sapiens sapiens*).

I forgot to mention one more super important little detail. Rob Reiner, the director famous for *When Harry Met Sally*, once filmed a documentary on this. And what am I talking about? Well, it's the scientifically backed fact that children who receive more love and attention in their early years end up with a higher number of neurons and synapses. I'm primarily talking about physical affection here. Kids need to be cuddled, and that physical touch is vital for brain development.

And because of all those factors, it's pretty certain that a spoiled kid growing up in the comfort of Western civilization has a much better shot at developing a sophisticated neural network than people living in the Eratosthenian era.

So, I guess that means Socrates, Archimedes, Pythagoras, Aristotle, and all those other geniuses from 2,000 years ago... were just better loved and pampered by their parents than most of us are today...

Honestly, it feels to me like that Reinerian documentary and the theory about childhood affection boosting neuron counts might be rooted more in political correctness than hard science… but hey, what do I know? 🙄

The whole thing reminds me of that theory about plants growing better when you play Mozart for them...🙄

Look, plants don't have ears—comparing them to Mozart or weeds is just nonsense. It’s honestly stupid. But the human body? Because our neural networks are so interconnected, we’re basically one giant tactile receptor. If you stimulate it, you get a spike in neurological activity. And more activity means more good stuff flowing straight to the brain. Sit down, Jose Palmer2, just listen for once. We've known forever that physical affection is huge for developing mammal offspring, but we're finally getting the hard facts to back it up. I'm in a rush right now, but I promise I'll send over some sources so you can actually read up on this.

P. S. I added a few extra points to my last post.

Look, Blijedooka, biological evolution is just genetic shifts driven by natural selection—it’s simple math. It used to be that only the strongest survived long enough to pass anything on, but nowadays? People are kicking the bucket well after they've had kids, and practically anyone can have them (Hemingway once joked that making a kid is easy—just build an umbrella if you know how). Sociological evolution is about changing living conditions, mostly just cranking up the standard of living. Those conditions actually shape the brain because, while the brain has genetic predispositions like any other organ, it's basically a massive lump of highly moldable clay—well, lipoproteins, technically—and unlike, say, your liver, the social environment a kid grows up in is going to have a massive impact on their brain.

Sound & Fury said:Look, plants don't have ears, so comparing them to Mozart or weeds just doesn't make sense—it’s honestly pretty ridiculous. But here's the thing: the human body is basically one giant tactile receptor because of how interconnected our neurological network is. If you stimulate it, you trigger increased neurological activity. And more activity means more beneficial chemicals flowing to the brain. Take a seat, Okice, and listen up. It's been known for ages that physical affection plays a massive role in the development of all mammal infants, though we're only starting to pin down the hard science lately. I've gotta run, but I promise I'll send over some sources where you can actually read about this.

P.S. I added a few extra thoughts to my previous post.

That bit about the plants was sarcasm, which clearly flew right over your head... 🙄 I wasn't actually trying to compare plants to the human body... I was just trying to point out how nonsensical certain scientific theories are when even the experts can't agree on them...

Anyway, I didn't invent the theory that plants grow better to classical music; some "scientist" came up with that.

I do agree, though, that the way parents treat their kids definitely reflects in how those children behave as adults... but I'm not so sure there's a direct link to intelligence...
I don't want to risk looking foolish by making sweeping claims about "socially inept" people... but I honestly can't remember ever reading a biography of any "great" historical figure who was absolutely coddled as a child... I have read theories suggesting that overindulged kids often grow up to be weak, indecisive, and passive adults...

Feel free to keep being your own primary source... then I'll play the role of the skeptic providing links... maybe we'll eventually reach a consensus. 😉