Globe & Mail Displays Disturbing Scientific Illiteracy
Here’s a thought for would-be editors of a national paper of record: any time your headline editorial starts with the phrase “in spite of the evidence,” it’s probably a good time to reconsider what you’re writing. On what basis are you going to argue, then, if not evidence? Gut feelings? Dreams? Divine revelation?
Ever since the Margaret Wente scandal broke (if not before that), the Globe & Mail has certainly made an art form out of making an ass of itself. Friday’s editorial, however, took the cake. I almost hesitated to be that harsh on them. Unlike most of their rivals in the newspaper sphere, the Globe & Mail at least claims to be pro-science. But it isn’t. It isn’t even science literate. And that, I have to suspect, is why it published an editorial more becoming a third-rate free community weekly than a national “paper of record.”
Last week, a Stanford biologist named Gerald Crabtree published the first part of a series of papers which will argue that human intelligence peaked thousands of years ago and is now gradually declining. It’s the result, Crabtree says, of the accumulation of genetic defects on the X chromosome. Once communities began growing large and well-organized, especially but not solely because of the invention of agriculture, individual baseline intelligence started to become less important than other factors for survival in groups, combined with the fact that once we invented language we could pass on knowledge through education, rather than each of us needing to carry with us a genetically determined toolkit making each individual capable of, in essence, re-inventing the wheel.
It’s heady stuff, the sort of “reality TV is making humans dumber” stuff that’s guaranteed to get a lot of headlines (even though, you’ll note from the above, Crabtree is talking about genetic evolution resulting from group dynamics over thousands of years, not reality TV or any other modern-day ills). So naturally he got a lot of headlines. Even the Globe & Mail couldn’t pass the story up. And that’s where the trouble started.
First off, Crabtree’s piece, in the journal Trends in Genetics, is behind a paywall. That didn’t stop the redoubtable Sixth Estate, but it was evidently too much for the Globe & Mail’s ace reporter, Wency Leung. Irony abounds. The Globe & Mail wants us to pay to get through their paywall, but other people’s paywalls present an insurmountable inconvenience to our newspaper’s top journalists. As a result, Leung based her story on quotes from various public sources rather than the paper itself. Her main quote from the paper itself, for instance, was drawn from a story already written by a superior newspaper, the Independent (UK). Their reporter evidently did read the paper.
Leung worked the Globe’s special magic on the piece forom the start. Her first sentence judges Crabtree’s claims to be, at least on the surface, “ludicrous” because we’ve created space travel, nuclear power, and the Internet during the past century. She then closed the article by noting that “Crabtree’s conclusions are hotly debated,” without bothering to mention a single credible challenger, followed by some irrelevant speculation about the effects of Google and cell phones on our “brain power.”
In the minds of the Globe’s editorial board, however, Leung hadn’t mashed the article up nearly good enough. So, on Friday, they ran an extraordinarily incompetent editorial which, as I mentioned, is hardly worthy of placement in a national paper. It is particularly upset that Crabtree claims we are “devolving.” I don’t know whether Crabtree actually used this word or not. I kind of doubt it, though. There is no such thing as “devolving.” Evolution doesn’t go “backwards.” And they had more to say, too:
Take the idea of a man from 1000 BC Athens in a room full of his modern peers. Aside from the fact that he wouldn’t be so rude as to stare at his smartphone while we tried to ask him questions about his trip to the future, there would be little to recommend this unwashed slave owner who considered women to be inferior and wind to be an element… No, we’re smarter than we used to be.
So nice to see that the chief muckety-mucks of the Globe newsroom flunked biology.
Actually, it’s worse than all that. Crabtree was talking about genetics. The Globe claims to be responding to Crabtree; consequently, either it is arguing that human genetics play no part in human intelligence (which would be a blatant, Sun Media-esque denial of basic science), or it is arguing that Crabtree is wrong about the direction in which the genes determining intelligence are evolving. If today’s intelligence is higher because of genetics, and we can see this through the rise of Western science, then until very recently almost all of the genetic “improvement” in intelligence would be occurring specifically among Europeans. Ergo, the Globe would be arguing that white people are genetically superior to people of Asian, American, and African descent.
There is a third possibility open here — that genetically determined intelligence is neither greater nor lesser than it was 10,000 years ago — and, although that opportunity was open to it, the Globe & Mail didn’t take it. And there’s even a fourth possibility — that the Globe & Mail has no idea what it is talking about, and blundered into a discussion about intelligence without understanding that Crabtree was talking about the accumulation of barely perceptible genetic defects, rather than the accumulation of scientific knowledge.
I suspect the fourth possibility is the correct one: the Globe has no idea what it is talking about, and evidently considers that there is no need to educate itself before printing an editorial for a national audience. This statement shows what I mean:
The most striking thing about the study is that it reminds us that we are now smart enough to theorize that we are not as smart as we used to be.
Uh-huh. Crabtree’s point was that humans were genetically capable of doing this “theorizing” thousands of years ago, too. I assume the Globe would actually agree with him on this.
If this was just a minor theoretical science paper, it would be a little titillating and we could have a good laugh about it. But it isn’t. The Globe evidently didn’t think so either, given that it published this editorial on the subject. We have real, complicated, problems to solve over the next several thousand years. All of them will require science. Which means we will need high-quality science education and high-quality science reporting. And high-quality science policy.
And we’re off to a good start!
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I always was a bit dubious about reading any newspaper’s editorials. In the G&M ‘s case, I think it is pretty dubious. For media such as the Toronto Sun, it is a complete waste of time as the stories near the editorial always reflect the editorial.
The solution, I think, is to stop reading stupid editorial columns written by people who seem to be pretty sloppy at writing them.
Anon
Maybe Devo was right after all….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZDl_R8Zp2E
kirbycairo
What I find interesting about this story is not the specifics about the story itself but the fact that its context is such deep water. While it is relatively easy to talk about, for example, global warming or dutch elm disease in strictly scientific terms, human intelligence is a concept significantly more fraught with normative and philosophical dilemmas. If we were to bring together some of the great minds of the 20th century, (let us say for the sake of illustration Max Planck, Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault, Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Marcel Proust, Jean-Paul Sartre, Walter Benjamin), and they attempted to come to some meaningful conclusion about exactly what human intelligence is, The question in not unlike “what is Art.” I suspect, therefore, that no agreement would be forthcoming. Lack of agreement on base definition makes the problem deeply problematic.
But I am sure the Globe and Mail editors were not, let’s say, ‘cunning,’ enough to take this conceptual tack.
Sixth Estate
kirby — A good point, and Crabtree evades this by not developing a complex notion of intelligence himself. He just points to the fact that there are several thousand genes that go into determining intelligence (however one defines the end result), and then says that since maximum intelligence is no longer being selected for through evolution, errors in the intelligence-linked genes will begin to accumulate and humans will gradually move towards a more “efficient” low-intelligence state.
There are presumably a number of arguments against this point, but I assume they would revolve around whether high intelligence is still an important factor in maximizing family size. I.e. the argument would be about biology, since Crabtree is a biologist. Pointing to recent scientific accomplishments as evidence of our superiority over the Athenians is irrelevant, unless the Globe & Mail is saying — as they seem to imply here — that culture is rooted in genetics, and therefore that superior human cultures are created by superior human “races.”
MoS
Why do you find the G&M’s scientific illiteracy “disturbing?” What do you expect of hacks and shills?
I just finished a fascinating TED Talk given by Juan Enriquez in which he addressed the alarming 78% increase in autism in the U.S. between 2000 and 2008. He explained it’s entirely conceivable that this is a manifestation of a remarkably quick evolutionary burst in our brains.
http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_will_our_kids_be_a_different_species.html
Beijing York
What are Wendy Leung’s credentials for being on the science beat? Not bothering to read Crabtree’s work is irresponsible, lazy and disingenuous. To add her own pretzel logic in providing a critique moves the story out of the realm of science news reportage to editorial opinion.
As for Crabtree’s findings, I’m curious if there has been any other similar studies conducted with respect to genetic intelligence peaking in any other species. Reviewing such work might make it easier to understand Crabtree’s research from a purely biological perspective.
Sixth Estate
MoS — That seems phenomenally unlikely. In a large population, I don’t think something can’t double in 8 years as a result of genetic mutations. But then again, I am committing the same sin as the Globe by not going directly to the source.
Is Enriquez a geneticist?
Sixth Estate
Beijing — Good question, and I’m not sure.
The underlying logic seems sound: in a community where language allows the simple transmission of most knowledge, technology reduces the difficulty of completing necessary functions like getting enough food to eat, and collective action reduces the situations in which any one person will need to display unusual perceptiveness in order to find food, find mates, or evade predators, natural selection probably won’t drive incremental increases in intelligence.
I’m not aware of any studies of evolution towards decreased intelligence, but I know there are similar processes at work in other species. Birds that wind up lost on small predator-free islands, for instance, evolve towards flightlessness because wings are expensive. (The dodo is the classic but not the only example.) The cells in your body are descendants of something like bacteria that could survive and thrive independently. They can’t do that now. And so on.
Of course, all of that is just logical reasoning. Crabtree would need to support his arguments with something more, and that’s the part where I as a non-expert have to admit I wouldn’t be able to credibly judge his work anyways.
Sixth Estate
Oh, and with regard to Leung — “a general assignment reporter for the Life section.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/authors/wency-leung
It’s only science. I’m sure it doesn’t require any particular credentials to report on science. It’s not rocket science or anything. Oh, wait…
MoS
I don’t think he’s a geneticist, 6E., but he is a founding director of the Harvard Business School Life Science Project and has held other senior posts.
As for Wendy Leung’s science credentials, why would anyone assume she has any? Eve Savory became CBC’s health & medicine reporter and she began with me at CBOT Ottawa with a drama arts degree. (Back then she didn’t shave her pits and had the snorts for Craig Oliver) Look at John Roberts who had thought he was in line for the top CBS job. He came from Much Music.
kirbycairo
Thanks for the reply Sixth Estate – It seems to me that the conceptual dilemma that I am pointing to could, in a sense, be expanded to tackle even the softer definition provided by Crabtree. Let’s say we agree that the strict definition of intelligence cannot be established because of the inherently normative and value laden nature of such a concept. But, Crabtree might reply, these are the genes associated with problem solving in the process of active living. Now let’s say we concede this (not entirely clear) point for the sake of argument. To go on and say that we have reached are optimal intelligence we would have to still concede a number of points that may be relevant (at least if we are to concede that a technical limit on intelligence is somehow a limit to development). To wit: We would have to concede that certain social processes have not impeded the application of our present intelligence. (In other words, someone might argue that capitalist social relations have prevented the widespread application of many problem-solving developments). We would also have to concede that collectivism could not significantly magnify our problem-solving capabilities (the say multiple basic computers can be connected to create a de facto super computer.
These are just two of the obvious issues. This is truncated but I think you will see my point
Sixth Estate
MoS — I would be fairly hesitant to accept a speculative scientific theory from someone at a business school. I’m not saying that makes him wrong, but the theory sounds a little bit out there. Genetic change alone can’t account for the growth of a phenomenon that rapidly, in that diverse a population. Unless it’s genetics coupled with environment, i.e. exposure to some chemical that causes weird physiological effects. But again, it sounds pretty speculative.
Kirby — I see your point and I suspect you’re over-thinking where’s coming from, but I agree with a couple points and I’ll address that.
Crabtree is saying that there’s a certain body of genes which we know go into building cognition in the brain. Exactly how that works, and exactly how you want to define the outcome of that building process, is another question. But we know that there’s a group of genes which construct key parts of the brain and that the outcome of that construction is what we call intelligence. Somehow.
Now, the theory of evolution tells us that this result has probably occurred because, in the past, humans were more likely to survive and have children when those genes were arranged in such a way that people were highly intelligent, compared to arrangements that made people less intelligent. Again, however intelligence is defined. But, Crabtree says, because we live in societies where it’s now pretty easy to get food and sex, the conditions that filtered out the “less intelligent” gene arrangements no longer really apply. So the various genetic errors and configurations that are “less intelligent” are going to start appearing in higher numbers because they’re no longer being screened out.
None of this is to say that any one level of intelligence is “maximum” or really better in any objective sense. Generally speaking, a stable level of this “genetic intelligence,” again however defined, would be the level at which going any lower would result in reduced survival chances because of lack of fitness, and going any higher would result in reduced survival chances because too much energy is intended on building smarts compared with getting food and sex.
Now, with regard to collectivism and current social processes, Crabtree’s not saying that our cultural development will cease or be impeded by this evolution. What he’s saying is that individual genetic programming for intelligence is slipping precisely BECAUSE our collective ability to shape our lives has become so vast. Education and collective action pick up the slack.
If we follow this out to the limit, hypothetically speaking, the result would be either total degradation of the human species, sort of a far-right-wing, social Darwinian paranaoia that unrestricted breeding by the lesser classes will doom society’s future. Or, as an alternative that’s sort of a socialist/left-wing utopian idea of the same process, it could lead to a sort of biological singularity — a point at which human society became so well coordinated that it would truly make sense to talk about societies as a whole rather than as individuals. At that point individual genetic fitness would be relatively unimportant in any sense so long as those qualities necessary for the survival of the collective were maximized. Individuals could become totally genetically incapable of functioning as they used to.
This may sound kind of crazy, but it’s not entirely unprecedented. That’s basically analogous to the evolution of multicellular life (including eventually us) from single-celled bacteria. Our cells have lost a great deal of their descendants’ independence and capability. We don’t see to mind that fact. And they made that transition without any awareness or consciousness at all.
But all of this is kind of random speculation off the top of my (mostly uneducated) head.
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