Will the world become less intelligent?

Poorer families tend to have more children than more wealthy families. Although wealth and intelligence aren't directly proportional more intelligent people tend to earn more money due to the careers they are able to pursue. These careers often mean wealthier people also have children later than poorer families.

This means that as poorer families (we'll assume they're less intelligent) have more children than wealthier (more intelligent) there will be less intelligent people (as a percent of the population) in the next generation. Of course things such as school and environment have an impact on this, but for natural intelligence wouldn't this be the case?

Reply 1

coolmushroom

Yeah so labour camps may have to be created.

Reply 2

moregano

Poorer people have always tended to have more children than wealthy people, and poorer people have always made up a much larger proportion of society. But because society as a whole has become wealthier, education has become better, nutrition has improved, etc etc, intelligence in general has increased. There is no reason why this shouldn't continue.

Reply 3

situationostrich

Your argument relies somewhat fatuously on the assumption that the poorer are have less innate intelligence. At first you indicated that wealth and intelligence are not directly proportional, which was correct; however you proceeded to add that "we'll assume... [poorer families are] less intelligent." This is simply not the case.

The wealthier, through better schooling, are able to educate their children to a significantly higher extent. This, I'll concede. It follows as a natural consequence that as a result of this better schooling, the children of the wealthier are able to gain higher academic credentials. From this, they are able to obtain generously paying, high-status and powerful occupations. Not all of them but many gain such jobs; as a result we can see disproportionately composed institutions such as the House of Lords and House of Commons favouring the upper-classes.

You then go on to add, "school and environment have an impact on this, but for natural intelligence wouldn't this be the case?"; in response, no. Class and wealth bears little significance in relation to intelligence, less so than the effects of gender or ethnicity perhaps.

So, there may be in the future, a larger proportion of poorly educated working class. However, this does not categorically prove the lack intelligence in relation to higher classes. Merely it is a reflection of the disparity in quality between different educational institutions, whether this be as a result of their intake, resources or administration. In all events, it's likely to be a combination.

Reply 4

concubine

The proportion of poor 'simpletons' to educated people will probably continue to grow for quite some time but the actual number of educated, 'intelligent', people will also continue to grow. More advances in science and technology will probably be made in the next 50 or 30 years than the 100 that preceded it.

Reply 5

ed_jnr

Assuming that education throughout the world is seen as a basic human need, the provision of state education is growing as well with the quality of it.

The same can be said of developed nations where state education is already provided, but teaching methods are improving. Because of this and with technology which is already making its way into schools and i'm sure will play a much larger part in the future, I think the world will become more intelligent.

To analyse further, why are private schools more effective than state schools? To name a couple of reasons: more attention from smaller class sizes and better teachers. If there was technology which could teach one-on-one to children and could play the part of the most intelligent, effective and inspiring teacher then no doubt this will have a similar effect to private schools and could be provided to children from both wealthy and poor backgrounds due to the falling cost of technology and the massive economies of scale that would be concerned.

Sure it's a far-out futuristic idea but i've no doubt someday that technology will heavily bring up the standard of education.