Science
Intelligence Predictor Shows One Standard Deviation Increase Over 10,000 Years
Dwarkesh Patel Podcast
David Reich – Why the Bronze Age was an inflection point in human evolution
"We see very strong natural selection for this combination of genetic variants that predicts people's performance on IQ tests and also is highly correlated to the predictor that predicts the number of years of school or the household wealth of people, all crazy traits in the past because there was no wealth in the past, there was no school in the past. But if you look at the predictors today, there is a strong movement in a systematic direction, a large effect, about a standard deviation on the scale of modern variation."
Analysis of ancient DNA reveals genetic variants correlated with modern intelligence test performance increased by approximately one standard deviation over 10,000 years in Europe and the Middle East. Selection peaked during the Bronze Age (4,000-2,000 years ago) and virtually ceased in the last 2,000 years. European hunter-gatherers from 10,000 years ago scored an estimated three standard deviations below modern Europeans on these genetic predictors—a gap largely closed by migration rather than selection.
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Dwarkesh Patel Podcast