From what I know people of below average intelligence have higher fertility than people of average intelligence. I think modern civilization has changed the selective pressures massively from the ones that produced the current averages.
The pattern though it holds overall obviously isn’t uniform for all groups, Black males for example do seem to in the US to be enjoying slight positive selection for a higher mean IQ (I need to crunch the numbers to see if this is so) or at least have peak fertility at about the US mean IQ, which is good. What concerns me however is the gender difference in these pressures (graph from the paper I link to). I fear that we will be selecting for gender dimorphism in abilities until we hit better reproductive technology. Prolonged education in a meritocracy is bound to eat up more female than male fertility due to the lost peak years of reproduction. Also we have the problem of men caring less about the socio economic status of the partners they choose to reproduce with than women. Extra status buys men more reproductive options later in life than it does for women in the same age bracket. This sucks quite a bit.
The artificial uterus can’t come quick enough. Thought I think life extension and rejuvenation tech could also help if we could make pregnancies in the 50s and 60s healthy and convenient.
From what I know people of below average intelligence have higher fertility than people of average intelligence. I think modern civilization has changed the selective pressures massively from the ones that produced the current averages.
One of the sources off the top of my head
The pattern though it holds overall obviously isn’t uniform for all groups, Black males for example do seem to in the US to be enjoying slight positive selection for a higher mean IQ (I need to crunch the numbers to see if this is so) or at least have peak fertility at about the US mean IQ, which is good. What concerns me however is the gender difference in these pressures (graph from the paper I link to). I fear that we will be selecting for gender dimorphism in abilities until we hit better reproductive technology. Prolonged education in a meritocracy is bound to eat up more female than male fertility due to the lost peak years of reproduction. Also we have the problem of men caring less about the socio economic status of the partners they choose to reproduce with than women. Extra status buys men more reproductive options later in life than it does for women in the same age bracket. This sucks quite a bit.
The artificial uterus can’t come quick enough. Thought I think life extension and rejuvenation tech could also help if we could make pregnancies in the 50s and 60s healthy and convenient.