As a consequence of my e-mail on this subject a few days ago, I had a
private message from an FW'er asking for further elaboration on a few
points.
In case anybody doesn't remember what I wrote I will recap very briefly. I
said that the first period of mankind was Hunter-Gatherer and that the 'job
structure' of that way of life was similar to the distribution of abilities
within the human population -- that is, a diamond shape. The second period
of Peasant Gariculture was characetrised by a highly pyramidal society and
that most of the middle-ability part of the population was repressed. The
third period was of Industrial society in which the job structure was, once
again, similar to the diamond-shaped normal distribution. However, the
post-industrial Service Society -- the one into which we are now entering
-- seemed to need either very high ability people or low ability people. On
present evidence, the job structure is more like an hour-glass than a diamond.
My interlocutor asked me how certain I was about these four major
classifications of mankind and also whether I had solutions. I replied
thuswise:
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I'm pretty certain and pretty uncertain about various parts of my piece.
I'm certain in my own mind that the job structure of the first three of the
periods of mankind were distinctly different from one another.
I'm less sure about the Post-industrial Service Society. However, the signs
are, indeed, that the employment scene is being hollowed out as between the
very talented and the inadequate, and there is a view that if technological
change proceeds for much longer at the fast pace of the last 50 years or
so, then the gap between the highly-talented members of the working
population and the less talented will continue because the 'rate of
separation' will exceed the normal 'rate of regression of abilities'. By
the latter I mean the regression to the mean (of height, of abilities,
etc) first pointed out by Galton in the last century. For most purposes,
this can be considerared to be a three generation effect. Thus, the
children of exceedingly intelligent parents will be intelligent but not as
much as their parents; in turn, their children will also be intelligent but
not as intelligent as their parents; in turn, their children will be of
less intelligence than their parents and by now will be of about average
intelligence. And it works the other way round for exceedingly
unintelligent people -- after three generations descendents are likely to
be of average intelligence.
In the above example, we are talking of GENERAL trends. By chance, any one
of the children or grandchildren or great grandchildren can throw up
geniuses [or idiots], but these will be very rare. Generally, there's a
two-way convention current effect between the extremes of abilities, in
which one current is sending a large stream of offspring [of both dull and
clever parents] towards the average and another much smaller [double]
stream -- much smaller -- is sending out either exceedingly dull
individuals or exceedingly bright ones.
However, the highly intelligent will tend to marry the highly intelligent
and if the rate of technological change remains high, preferentially
selecting the more intelligent, then a high-intelligent caste will tend to
emerge (as also a low intelligent caste) because the technological change
and selection for employment is outpacing the normalising effect of
regression to the mean.
The point is that social isolation of this sort could be just as much a
factor in evolution as geographical isolation has been in the past. If
technological change continues for more than a few generations then it's
almost certain that a real species division will take place in exactly the
same way as two human populations on two islands would if they were not
allowed to intermarry.
Now, until fairly recently, I would say that there would be little chance
of this because all technological change comes to a rest sooner or later,
and then the normal sort of ability mixing then takes place. Meritocracies,
however, nepotic, wither away. However, in recent years we now have the
additional prospect that genetic selection will become conscious. Despite
the protestations of politicians and ethicists, those who can afford it are
quite definitely going to influence the genetic make-up of their children.
Furthermore, their children (just like the Ashkenazi Jews of London at the
present time with regard to a particularly nasty recessive gene which
results in early death) are going to allow themselves to be tested and pay
a great deal of attention to the genetic make-up of their potential
partners. We'll then have species separation with a vengeance.
Now then, as for what to do, it is possible that nothing can be done. If
the rate of technological change continues at its present speed, requiring
people of ever-higher intelligence from one decade to the next to run the
economic machine, then I see no answer. The human population is bound to
divide into two parts.
However, we can't measure either of the rates of change in agreed common
terms at present because intelligence is so complex and we really don't
know what or how to measure it. One apparently obvious solution -- that of
a vastly improved educational system for all -- is no good because the
better it is, the more effective would be the separation effect.
However, there's no reason why the highly intelligent working population of
the future shouldn't treat the lesser intelligent strain with kindness and
consideration -- indeed just as we are now beginning to regard our fellow
primates and not as experimental subjects in laboratories.
Keith Hudson
