Are We Getting Smarter Or Dumber? There is an opinion which states humans are still evolving. Are we smarter than our ancestors 5,000 years ago? We know scientists have said are brains have gotten smaller, but many scientists don’t think brain size is always important for intelligence. Some point to the crow which has a relatively small brain, yet many scientists believe a crow is smarter than a dog. But what is happening with animals? If our brains have gotten smaller, will this trend continue and will humans get like they were pictured in the movie Idiocracy? In case you don’t know what I am talking about because you never saw the movie, an average intelligence American is part of an experiment in hibernation, but things happen and the scientists forget all about him and he wakes up hundreds of years in the future and by that time everyone is much dumber and this average guy is considered a genius. This is one of my favorite comedy movies. Under some conditions could a small brain make people smarter. If we look at traditional computers, the smaller the process for making the central processor, the faster the chip operates because distances are smaller for the current to travel. Perhaps in some instances this could make us think faster because our thoughts would be traveling a shorter path. The question would then be, could we equate speed with intelligence? Maybe the crow is smarter than the dog because not only are the connections in the brain smaller, but they are hooked up more efficiently. This begs the question if people had bigger brains 5,000 years ago, could I be wrong and could they have been smarter than we are today on average? There is a theory held by some which states we came from Mars or some other planet because we left when that planet got into trouble. If that is true, wouldn’t that mean they were probably smarter than we are today? They would have had to have space travel and did something we are so far not capable of and that is moving large amounts of people from planet to planet and maybe even from outside the solar system. If this turns out to be true, does this mean we could have gradually become dumber and maybe those Martins who others who settled here had much bigger brains. This argument could go in many different directions. If we are so smart today, how come we can’t figure out some things the ancient humans were doing thousands of years ago. Let me give you an example. Engineers have said they didn’t think we could build the Great Pyramid in Gaza, Egypt as accurately as the Egyptians did. They also said we have no way of moving some of the giant stones which were stacked by many different ancient civilizations because our machines have a weight limit on what they can lift. We are talking about ancient civilizations who had no machines and in some cases even no metal for tools. Were they able to figure this out because they were smarter than we are today? That would be a sad thought. An Artificial Intelligence program called GPT-4, which is online, is said by people who use it to be getting dumber and they can’t figure out why. It is being said not only is it getting dumber, it is getting significantly dumber. This is being studied right now. Could it be interacting with humans has made it dumber. If it is a learning process, could the asking of many dumb questions by people have started the dumb down process? There is also the question of what does dumber mean when we are talking about artificial intelligence? Does it really mean slower or does it mean makes more errors? It seems it is making errors. When it was asked if a non-prime number was indeed a prime number it just said yes and gave a look at the process it used. Have the interactions with humans polluted the software? Are animals also evolving and getting smarter as some think humans are? It turns out there is an animal which is very close to us in intelligence and can you guess what it is? I will tell you, it is the Orangutan. An I.Q. test was conducted on television between a few humans and Sandy the Orangutan. She scored 75 and even beat one of the humans. I know how incredible this sounds, I will say this however, I wouldn’t want to be known as the human who was beaten by an animal on an I.Q. test. When Orangutan are studied they are found to do incredibly smart things. They use different tools for different problems. They will use a hammer like object to pound open a termite nest for example. Another example is making a hanger to dangle from to get food out of a river. They can swim. They help each other when hurt. They have been observed teaching their children different tasks. An orangutan named Chantek speaks American Sign Language. They also gesture when they want something. They have learned too well. Some have been caught making believe they were being nice to another orangutan and then secretly stealing from it. Maybe they are too smart. What about man’s best friend, the dog? Has the dog gotten any smarter over the centuries? One thing is for sure, dogs have been adopted by humans for thousands of years and in all that time one might think they have learned things from us. It has been proven dogs are able to learn complex tasks we thought were not possible before. Does this mean they are evolving, or were they always capable of this? There is no doubt dogs have learned at least a few things from us. Sometimes these are not what we would call good things to teach them. There is the thought most animals are getting smarter and much of this has to do with creeping city life. They are adapting ways of getting food and living without getting caught. There is no better example than our friend the squirrel. They live right in with humans many times. I myself had a squirrel which decided to make friends with me and when I would go out, it would get out of its tree and sit with me. It is amazing to me how well they have taken to city life. The same is true for other animals like coyotes and foxes, to name a few. If they haven’t gotten smarter, they certainly have gotten more cunning. Could it be the entire world is either getting smarter or dumber, depending on how you feel about things?
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