It’s easy to think of history as a march of progress, with humans growing smarter and more capable over time. But if you think about how evolution really works, Stanford biologist Gerald Crabtree argues in a new article in the journal Trends in Genetics, the march may be the opposite direction: We’re likely getting dumber.
The relatively stable societies we live in can make up for a lot of the resulting defects in thinking, he points out. “Community life would, I believe, tend to reduce the selective pressure placed on every individual, every day of their life,” he argues. “Indeed that is why I prefer to live in such a society.”
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View the original article here: We’re getting dumber all the time
