Are people cleverer now than they used to be?

That's because people are stupider than they used to be

Also shorter attention spans.

Just because we, as a species, have aquired more knowledge doesn't make the individual members "cleverer". I think people in previous ages might not have had the same access to information that we have now, but they certainly were able to do things and remember things that we would would be hard pressed to match.

should acquire. but usually fail to. kate OTM above.

xpost

yeah but i can speak Java, C++, Haskell, BASIC and txt msg lng?!??!?! not to mention 133+!

Well, not Hebrew

But that's because it's not really necessary anymore. Why learn three languages when one suffices? Only if your mother tongue is a *rubbish* language - like Dutch - you don't really need to learn another language. English is more than enough, unless of course you go to, for example, Japan.

I speak two languages very well (or at least I like to think I do) and three others I can manage to get by.

i think cultivating things most people can do (especially with a quick browse on the 21st century world wide web ;)!), as to catching and killing for food - isn't that a lot more to do with physical strength and skills rather than mental ability?

(of course you can argue that back in the days people don't really need to know how to drive for there was no cars)

xpost

once again, being smarter!

I doubt people are, on average, any cleverer or stupider than they have been in previous eras - they just have different priorities and value different skills, innit.

i'd be able to learn heaps more stuff an' that like poems if i didn't have a telly.

because people have learned to know better than this since?

Thing is, like, back in the day people were forced to memorise poems in school and stuff, weren't they? (I base this on swallows and amazons where they have to recite casablanca or something for the evil great-aunt) And to have piano lessons and do their practice and speak proper and all; but no-one would be so inhumane as to force kids to do that now as it is horrendously dull and unpleasant for most people and the benefits aren't all that proveable, are they.

I wish I could quote juvenal from memory! I know some catullus tho.

i think this is a little undialectical.

i think spontine is right. no one period of time is cleverer or dumber - just different.
-- gem (gemilyinterrupte...)

are you, by any chance, a schoolteacher?

people haven't got cleverer; power has got cleverer. the powerful use technological advances to safeguard and butress their own positions. people in general have got stupider because we place increasing faith in technology (in the sense that we rely on it to do everyday tasks which would previously have required individual competence) but our access to that technology and our entire relationship with it is not controlled by us. this will be borne out as government's place increasing control over the internet. ilx addicts will become increasingly forlorn as they realise that their desire to post conflicts with their desire not to have every post scrutinised by people looking for intentions to commit unsociable activities. etc. etc.

But as a thickie 21st century boy, I don't speak any dialects. Also, Hegel was a wanker.

i was joking.

i do think that we know comparatively little now in terms of being able to fend for ourselves tho.

the 2000 year old dude may well have more muscles etc. but then again the dude from now might know MARTIAL ARTS (or have at least watched WWE)

there's also the whole case for information overload making us stupider. the internet's kinda overwhelming innit.

-- ken c (pykachu10...), September 1st, 2005.

mai non, he would be about 5ft tall, i think. less well-built anyhoo.

I am, however, really interested in the ways thought patterns change, esp the whole pre-literate thing and the increased reliance on symbol & metaphor and how that's tied to religious beliefs. Not that I've done any heavy reading on the subject, you understand -- but I will! Erm, might.

I haven't answered the orig question, so shoot me -- but haven't we resolved this silly issue already?

That's stupidity and docility are two of the things cows have been bred for. You try outwitting an auroch - the wild cow, about 50% larger than a modern cow and a hell of a lot smarter and more aggressive.

Oh, and with pointier horns too.

I find it astonishing that people did things like build bridges and castles and huge buildings WITHOUT THE AID OF COMPUTERS OR CALCULATORS OR POWER TOOLS OR EVEN ARCHITECTS AND ENGINEERS SOMETIMES in the olden days. Which nobody would even attempt today to put up a shed, let alone London Bridge. (OK, that fell down seven times, but lots of other things are still standing.)

The things that are still standing were hugely over-engineered, mostly by accident. It was only in the 20th century that materials science at all developed as a subject, and engineers started to learn things such as: how dangerous things like sharp steps and corners are.*

Medieval cathedrals were built over several decades, largely by trial and error. If it looks like it's going to fall outwards, you add extra flying buttresses. If the foundations start moving, you either start again or do your best to make stuff lighter (see: Ely cathedral). If it looks like it's going to fall inwards, you try to add flying buttresses on the inside of the building (see: Wells cathedral).

People used to play instruments more too but only because they were desperately waiting for somebody to invent the gramophone.

OTM. Instead of buying an album, you'd buy the sheet music for the latest popular songs and learn to play them yourself.

personally, i despair of "people" ... but that's mostly because i've just had a particularly idiotic e-mail from our IT department, who have sunk to an all-time low.

Hurrah for IT!

* the rules for this are rather non-intuitive. If you drill a hole in a stressed object, the stress around the hole is multiplied by three whatever the size of the hole. If it's a square hole, the stress at the corners is multipled a couple of hundred times.