At New Scientist: Human intelligence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be

_{Denyse O'Leary

December 17, 2019

Animal minds, Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism}

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INTELLIGENCE has enabled humans to reach for the moon, cure disease and generally dominate this small blue dot of a planet. Arriving at a working definition of intelligence still defeats it, however.
Alison George, “D’oh! Why human beings aren’t as intelligent as we think” at New Scientist

A working definition of intelligence defeats us for the same reasons as a working definition of beauty defeats us. Once abstractions become instantiated, they are laden with particulars. That does NOT mean that the idea is without meaning.

But the New Scientist approach is to go on and deny that any such thing as significantly different human intelligence exists:

In our unusually big and well-connected brains, general intelligence has morphed into special talents for abstract thinking, detailed forward planning, understanding the minds of others and insight – those “aha!” moments when we connect cause and effect.
But we shouldn’t get blown away by our supposedly superior abilities: we share virtually all our intelligence skills with close animal relatives. “Humans are limited by our size, our evolutionary history,” …
Alison George, “D’oh! Why human beings aren’t as intelligent as we think” at New Scientist

To hear more, you would have to send them money. Don’t trip and hurt yourself while rushing to find your credit card.

See also: The real reason why only human beings speak. Language is a tool for abstract thinking—a necessary tool for abstraction—and humans are the only animals who think abstractly. (Michael Egnor)

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Comments

EG
I think it is reasonable to assume that these will lead people to want to know why? How? Early humans had these desires but didn’t have the knowledge that we have today. Add to this the fact that, for some reason (insecurity?) we want there to be a purpose to our existence. Desiring something can be a very powerful motive. But the great variability in these belief systems is what casts doubt on it for me.
Variability in some ways, yes - but the common element is a religious belief in a divine order, or supernatural. But I don't think you gave an answer on why diverse human communities, that were independent from each other, isolated on different continents, all had religious belief systems - not only in god or gods - but also had ritual worship, prayer, various sacrifices and offerings, an awareness that moral conduct affected the god(s), and belief in existence of souls after death. Those are very strong common elements among widely diverse human societies. All of these point to supernatural or immaterial entities. Wouldn't the fact that there is some variation in belief be easily explained by the fact that humans are trying to express an ineffable, infinite, divine reality and we use diverse (but very unified in essence) means of doing that?
But this argument presupposes that these constants could be different. Do the constants determine reality or does reality define the constants?
Either way, an Intelligent Design explains both and an Unintelligent Design explains neither. If the constants could have been different, then fine-tuning could not have been the result of a random dispersion of elements - it's a strong indicator of Design. If reality (blind, material) itself determined that the constants had to be that way, then it's just a lucky arrangement within a multiverse? But this just pushes the problem of origins out to an infinite regress, and does not explain the origin of the multiverse or how and what sustains it, since it is a contingent entity itself.Silver Asiatic_{December 19, 2019
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Acartia Eddie:
Humans are extremely curious, and have the ability to think abstractly and predict consequences.
Right and there isn't anything capable of explaining our existence besides some form of Intelligent Design. "Minds from the mindless via blind and mindless processes" is absurd.
This all revolves around the physical constants and that if any of them deviated by even a small amount, our universe would be greatly different, or not exist at all.
That is false. The constants are one of three- the laws themselves and the fine-tuned conditions in the early universe are the other two.ET_{December 19, 2019
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.
Let’s take fine tuning for example
I thought for certain he would choose von Neumann's prediction of a symbolic language system, and then follow up with Crick's Nobel prize-winning discovery of it. After that, the coordination of semantic closure and the onset of spatial-orientation in coding would be mere curiosities. :)Upright BiPed_{December 18, 2019
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SA
What do you think is a better explanation that fits all of the evidence (that virtually every human society since the beginning of recorded history (through to the founders of the USA) has a religious belief system in the supernatural.
Humans are extremely curious, and have the ability to think abstractly and predict consequences. I think it is reasonable to assume that these will lead people to want to know why? How? Early humans had these desires but didn’t have the knowledge that we have today. Add to this the fact that, for some reason (insecurity?) we want there to be a purpose to our existence. Desiring something can be a very powerful motive. But the great variability in these belief systems is what casts doubt on it for me.
Why do you think the arguments for a necessary being, first cause, origin of immaterial forms (natural laws, logic, mathematics, language), origin of first principles of reason, fine-tuning or the incoherence of infinite regress are not as good?
Because they all appear to be special pleading rather than compelling evidence. Let’s take fine tuning for example. This all revolves around the physical constants and that if any of them deviated by even a small amount, our universe would be greatly different, or not exist at all. But this argument presupposes that these constants could be different. Do the constants determine reality or does reality define the constants?Ed George_{December 18, 2019
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.
Has that situation ever been resolved here (with an apology, explanation, etc.)?
An apology? I am not sure what anyone would expect in the way of an apology. I am quite certain that Ed saw no reason for an apology (and GP certainly has thick enough skin not to seek or expect one). Let us be at least as wise as the average 12 year-old who would recognize the situation – any apology (!) coming from Ed to this community would only be attractive to Ed as an opportunity to reinforce his narrative, and cleverly used to justify his imagined “need” to be deceptive in the first place. I suspect Ed sees ID proponents as those who cower in fear of the facts and observations he might make, and thus he would sell himself as not-a-foe so that he wasn’t (perhaps) banned from hanging around. What a glorious irony that is. But as I said, I seriously doubt even the idea of an apology ever crossed Ed’s mind. If it did, he responded by successfully suppressing it. Enough about Ed. Cheers...Upright BiPed_{December 18, 2019
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EG
I am not saying it is great evidence, because I think there are rational explanations as to why different civilizations develop belief systems that involve the supernatural.
That God does actually exist is a rational explanation that fits the evidence. But I think you mean "there are better explanations". What do you think is a better explanation that fits all of the evidence (that virtually every human society since the beginning of recorded history (through to the founders of the USA) has a religious belief system in the supernatural.
However, nobody has presented any evidence that I find comes as close as this.
Why do you think the arguments for a necessary being, first cause, origin of immaterial forms (natural laws, logic, mathematics, language), origin of first principles of reason, fine-tuning or the incoherence of infinite regress are not as good?Silver Asiatic_{December 18, 2019
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SA
Why do you consider this the best evidence?
I am not saying it is great evidence, because I think there are rational explanations as to why different civilizations develop belief systems that involve the supernatural. However, nobody has presented any evidence that I find comes as close as this. But, really, you are asking me to provide what I think the best of a bad lot is.Ed George_{December 18, 2019
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UBP @ 29 Has that situation ever been resolved here (with an apology, explanation, etc.)?Silver Asiatic_{December 18, 2019
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EG
Probably the fact that most civilizations have developed some sort of belief system that involves some supernatural being is the best evidence I have seen.
Why do you consider this the best evidence?Silver Asiatic_{December 18, 2019
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Erik
For example, if we total the highest estimates from the European religious wars across multiple centuries, it is about 17 million. On the other hand, if we look at communism just in the 20th century, it has killed well over 100 million.
Yes, it is true that the numbers are much higher in the 20th. But it is also true that the population in the 20th was orders of magnitude greater than in the previous centuries. I haven’t seen any estimates normalized for population size but they might be interesting.Ed George_{December 18, 2019
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@Ed George, yes religious groups have all certainly done horrible things, though it is still nowhere near the scale of the atheist communist countries in the 20th century. Additionally, especially in the case of Christianity, these horrible things were done in direct contradiction to the religion's core teachings. On the other hand, there is nothing in atheism that says one should not kill millions of people and perform torturous experimentation on fellow human beings, sometimes (often?) just for the fun of it. For example, if we total the highest estimates from the European religious wars across multiple centuries, it is about 17 million. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion#Death_toll On the other hand, if we look at communism just in the 20th century, it has killed well over 100 million. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes You may say this is because communism occurred in the scientific age, and had a greater ability to kill people. Maybe so, though a lot of the killing was due to starvation, workcamps and deportation, which are not modern. Regardless, today we have both oppressive religious and atheist regimes, and the former are no comparison to the latter. Today, I'd much rather be a Christian resident in a Sharia Islamic country than an atheist Communist country. Finally, you should research the particular examples you've given. Read Rodney Stark's work. A lot of events religion (esp. Catholicism) is blamed for is more propaganda than fact.EricMH_{December 18, 2019
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. Mimus if you have a point you’d like to make about the text you quoted, why don’t you just make it.Upright BiPed_{December 18, 2019
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Once abstractions become instantiated, they are laden with particulars. That does NOT mean that the idea is without meaning.
Is this the same News who writes a post every time she sees a press release stating that no single definition of "species" can work for all cases, and claims this is evidence for the (alwasy imminent, never actual) collapse of Darwinism?Mimus_{December 18, 2019
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Eric
These also can be oppressive and corrupt, but nowhere near the scale of the explicitly anti-God communist countries.
I think this is up for debate. The Spanish Inquisition. The witch trials (and I am not talking about the impeachment. :) ). ISIL beheadings, the Taliban, etc. I agree, the communist treatment of Christians is horrific. But the Christian treatment of non-christians was no joy. Why don’t we admit that we all have a burden of guilt.Ed George_{December 18, 2019
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SA
If you were weighing options about what that evidence means, I don’t think there is a stronger conclusion than God actually exists and the reason ancient human civilizations had parallel belief systems with others they were isolated from is because they recognized a supernatural, divine presence for worship and for moral obligations.
If they all came to the same monotheistic system, with the same moral system, I would agree with you. But they didn’t. Some demonized homosexuals, others revered them. Some had one God, others had many (and some had none). Some revered human sacrifice (even of children), others didn’t. Some revered cannibalism, others didn’t.Ed George_{December 18, 2019
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A book you may remember by a secular humanist -- "The God Argument: The Case Against Religion and for Humanism" by atheist philosopher & professor A.C. Grayling. I had occasion to hear Dr. Grayling pitch his new book in a bookstore in Madison Connecticut a few years back which touches on the issue of removing God from government and replacing God with secular humanism. . I ran across his book a week earlier at the Yale B&N bookstore and browsed around in it for a time, and thus was anxious to see and hear him in person. As the subtitle indicates, Dr. Grayling advocates Humanism as superior to religion in the governance of human affairs, and I went to hear him in hopes that I may ask one question of him - and I did. “Can you name the nations or civilizations that have been successful and prosperous over a long period of time with humanistic governance such as you advocate?” I asked this of him because in my knowledge of history there are none, and yet this philosopher is asking us to place our faith in his teachings. There is however, a recent experience in governance under a state sponsored extreme form of humanism, and that experience has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster for tens of millions of souls. That experience of course is the world wide Communist movement of the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Cuba, Venezuela and elsewhere. It was preceded in centuries past by the French Revolution which based its foundational philosophies on the faith that man is the measure of all things, with God banished from the public square. This glorious experience in humanistic governance resulted in rampant bloodshed throughout France and the rest of Europe throughout the 19th century. Getting back to Dr. Grayling, his answer to my question was “China” at which point I asked, which China, ancient China or modern China, which caused the deaths of millions of Chinese? Ancient China was his qualifying answer where supposedly they had no gods. He then went on with a discussion as to how Communism was structured in much the same way as the Catholic Church in Russia, and thus Communism could be considered a religion (I agree, it is a religion.) There was more but I was having trouble hearing all he had to say. I don’t believe he answered my question in an honest way. So Dr. Grayling, given the models of the Biblical (i.e. religious) foundational philosophy of the founders of the Untied States of America Vs. the humanistic foundational philosophies of the French Revolution and Communism, I think I’ll stay with Locke, Montesquieu, Madison, Hamilton and Washington. My original post is at: https://ayearningforpublius.wordpress.com/2013/04/13/the-god-argument-the-case-against-religion-and-for-humanism/ayearningforpublius_{December 18, 2019
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Difference between secular governments and say the Soviet Union or China is the former do not make belief in God a necessity, but the latter require a disbelief in God and actively persecute those who follow any authority not controlled by the state. Similarly, there are more overtly religious governments such as Islamic and Catholic countries. These also can be oppressive and corrupt, but nowhere near the scale of the explicitly anti-God communist countries. So, on a scale of oppression from least to greatest: 1. Secular government where God is acknowledged but belief is not forced 2. Religious government 3. Anti-religious government There may also be the category of secular government that does not acknowledge God. Maybe it is better than #1, but I do not have any data on this option.EricMH_{December 18, 2019
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I don’t think I’m intelligent enough to understand what’s going on! Buduchu I’ll be here all nightAaronS1978_{December 18, 2019
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. You fellas need to remember that Ed George is a strong believer in ID not because of some mere collection of scientific facts, logic, or reason. Indeed it is not data that brings Ed to his belief in ID, it is, not surprisingly, his profound faith instead.
I will admit that my belief in ID is largely due to faith, not a thorough examination of the data -- Ed George, December 5, 2018
Oh wait. Some of you might be confused. You might be wondering; how can a man speak of his "Faith" if he is the same man who proudly states that there is no objective right or wrong in the universe, and that he alone can decide, for instance, if it is okay to be honest or dishonest to another person (or even rape a woman for that matter). It is confusing after all. He simply must have been lying. But wait! There must be a good reason for such a man of high principle to tell such a lie in public. After all, he has already told us of his deep abiding principle that he refrain from speaking to others who are overtly confrontational towards him, so surely that must be it. He very obviously must have been confronted in an overbearing way -- bordering on rudeness -- which drove him to this public indiscretion. But wait! It was none other than GPuccio, the mildest, most benign and un-offensive ID proponent on UD that Ed was talking to. How it is possible that Ed George could have felt so confronted, so fractured, by GP that he would so clearly and so publically lie about his own beliefs? Whatever it is that GP said to Ed to set him off this way -- it is a real head-shaker -- but there it is for all to see. This is simply something that GP himself (and his apparent rudeness) must answer for. But wait! GP simply told Ed that the research literature that GP was presenting in his OP "supported ID" even if the authors themselves were not ID proponents. That doesn't sound so confrontational towards Ed, does it? Indeed, Ed George (presenting himself as an faithful ID believer) agreed with GP on the matter:
To be fair, it is your opinion that they support ID. And I generally agree with you
This is all so confusing. Ed even goes on to tell GP that he "respects his choices" and "enjoys reading his OPs" which surely doesn't sound like Ed has been triggered by some unpleasant confrontation. So what gives? How can a man of such high principle as Ed George be abjectly lying to a man he apparently agrees with and admires. Maybe he's a con man. Maybe he's a con man using the mere façade of high principles and reason as a means to taunt and tease his intellectual opponents, to frustrate the open conversation of documented facts, and avoid having to personally engage in the universal evidence against his personal perferences.Upright BiPed_{December 18, 2019
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EG
Probably the fact that most civilizations have developed some sort of belief system that involves some supernatural being is the best evidence I have seen.
If you were weighing options about what that evidence means, I don't think there is a stronger conclusion than God actually exists and the reason ancient human civilizations had parallel belief systems with others they were isolated from is because they recognized a supernatural, divine presence for worship and for moral obligations.Silver Asiatic_{December 18, 2019
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Ed George, What about design in nature? Andrewasauber_{December 18, 2019
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SA
What’s the best evidence (while not compelling) that you see?
Probably the fact that most civilizations have developed some sort of belief system that involves some supernatural being is the best evidence I have seen.Ed George_{December 18, 2019
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ET The difference to us is if we emerged from a blind, unintelligent, purposeless material process or from an Intelligent Designer. The a-mat, evolutionary view cannot even proclaim that something is good or better than another thing. Human life is unnecessary and meaningless. It is nothing. On the other hand, human life created by an Intelligent Designer offers purpose, meaning, value and direction. It makes sense of religion, at least any that explain God or gods. That is obviously much better for a person's life. Evolution makes sense of nothing - not even it's own theory. EG compared God with the tooth fairy. I just hope there is a greater level of understanding about God than that.Silver Asiatic_{December 18, 2019
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Silver Asiatic- Even the best evidence for Intelligent Design doesn't point to any God or gods. However, knowing there was an Intelligent Designer would greatly increase the odds that there is a higher purpose to our being. That alone would make anyone's life better. Except, of course, for those a-mats who will continue to choose the willful ignorance path to bliss.ET_{December 18, 2019
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EG
I don’t see any compelling evidence
What's the best evidence (while not compelling) that you see?Silver Asiatic_{December 18, 2019
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^^^^ Again reality itself betrays you!bornagain77_{December 18, 2019
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BA77
Ed apparently falsely imagines that his life is much better without God in it, yet the reality of the situation is far different than what Ed falsely imagines to be true:
I don’t imagine that my life is better without God any more than I imagine that my life is better without the tooth fairy. But I do know that believing in something when I don’t see any compelling evidence for it would be an act of self-delusion.Ed George_{December 18, 2019
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ba77
who must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the reality of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is too much for him to bear
When people who proclaim a nihilistic view refuse to admit or accept the consequences of that view (and they actually contradict and try to deny nihilism) - it's evidence that they really aren't thinking about their own worldview very deeply. They don't understand what they are so ready and happy to proclaim.Silver Asiatic_{December 18, 2019
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Bob O'H
The constitution explicitly removes all religions from governmental affairs.
This is a very mistaken idea.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017 A federal court ruled Wednesday that Congress can continue to open its sessions each day with a prayer, and upheld the House’s ability to pick and choose who’s allowed to lead the prayer.
Silver Asiatic_{December 18, 2019
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AYFP
Here are a few snippets from the book “The Not-So-Intelligent Designer” by Abby Hafer:
It's hard to believe someone actually wrote a book like that. Is she just arguing for atheism on the basis that she doesn't like some of what she observes in the world? It sounds like the classic objection to the presence of evil.
Dr. Abby Hafer (doctorate in zoology from Oxford University and teaches human anatomy and physiology) argues that the human body has many faulty design features that would never have been the choice of an intelligent creator.
If evolution could actually show what it claims then there wouldn't be any need for arguments like this. But instead, this is her argument in favor of evolutionarily theory: "what we observe in nature is not what I'd expect God to create - therefore, it must have evolved from random mutations". That's science?Silver Asiatic_{December 18, 2019
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