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mhl47yesterday at 1:05 PM4 repliesview on HN

How do you arrive at the statement that a cavemen would have the same intelligence as a human today? Intelligence is surely not usually defined as the cognitive potential at birth but as the current capability. And the knowledge an average human has today through education surely factors into that.


Replies

Peritractyesterday at 1:10 PM

Knowledge is a thing you can use intelligence on, but not a component of intelligence itself.

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darkwateryesterday at 10:07 PM

I think the core idea is that if a baby with "caveman genetics" so to speak were to be born today, they could achieve similar intellectual results to the (average?) rest of the population. At least that's how I interpret it.

technothrasheryesterday at 1:46 PM

Your attempt to commingle intelligence and knowledge is not needed to support your initial question. The original statement that a caveman 200K years ago would have the same intelligence as a modern human was blankly asserted without any supporting evidence, and so it is valid to simply question the claim. You do not need to give a counterclaim, as that is unnecessarily shifting the burden of proof.

wang_liyesterday at 3:07 PM

It's even sillier than that. You can look at populations in the modern world and see there are huge differences in intelligence due to various factors such as cousin marriage and nutrition.