It’s Not Your Imagination, We’re Getting Stupider

Of course, no one knows for sure, but according to a researcher at Stanford University, humans have been getting stupider ever since the invention of agriculture first let us sit on our huts and munch on grains.

Ever since, Dr. Gerald Crabtree of Stanford, maintains, we’ve been losing our intellectual and emotional capabilities because the intricate web of genes endowing us with our brainpower is particularly susceptible to mutations, and these mutations are multiplying in our modern society.

In other words, it used to be that the stupid were eaten by saber-toothed tigers. Now they merely sit home, watch reality shows and text. If a tiger eats them, they get another life and start the video game over.

With the development of agriculture came urbanization, says Crabtree, which may have weakened the power of selection to weed out mutations leading to intellectual disabilities. Based on calculations of the frequency with which deleterious mutations appear in the human genome and the assumption that 2,000 to 5,000 genes are required for intellectual ability, Crabtree estimates that within 3,000 years (about 120 generations) we have all sustained two or more mutations harmful to our intellectual or emotional stability. Moreover, recent findings from neuroscience suggest that genes involved in brain function are uniquely susceptible to mutations. Crabtree argues that the combination of less selective pressure and the large number of easily affected genes is eroding our intellectual and emotional capabilities.

Are we headed to a disastrous idiocracy? Crabtree believes that technology will eventually be able to rescue our brains. Until then, reality TV marches on.