What If We All Got Smart?

A number of years ago, when he was beginning what turned out to be a very important line of research, Ian Deary (U. of Edinburgh) remarked that he was going to study "cognitive epidemiology." My first (scurrillous) thought was that I had not realized that a dangerous outbreak of intelligence was very likely.

The question surfaced again when a journalist from a "newspaper type" blog, "Life's little mysteries," asked me what I thought the world would be like if the average person had an IQ of 200 instead of 100? She also asked if I thought there were any such people alive today?I wrote her a rather long note, which I have decided to edit just a bit, and put here. The journalist also talked to Rich Haier (UC Irvine), one of the pioneers in using brain imaging to study intelligence. She amalgamated my comments and Haier's. If you want to see her take, go the the "Life's little mysteries" website. Here are my extended thoughts. I'll be interested to hear what others think.

First, for the technically inclined...a person with an IQ of 200 would not be literally "twice as smart" as a person with an IQ of 100, because the concept "twice" is not meaningful in terms of IQ units. We're speaking metaphorically. Because the IQ scale is defined relative to the distribution of cognitive abilities, a person with an IQ of 100 or more is in the smartest half of the present population. If the IQ test was designed to yield a score as high as 200 (which it is not) this would correspond to approximately one in 10 billion! That sounds huge. However the population of the world, at present , is roughly 7 billion, and it is estimated to go to 9 billion. So, the question "What if the average person had an IQ of 200?" ought to be interpreted as "What if, at some time in the near future, the average person was about as intelligent as the most intelligent person alive today?" We can speculate about that. It's just that, speculation, but it is sort of fun.

The most obvious effect would be on education. A number of studies have been conducted of the performance of "gifted" students...arbitrarily IQs of 140 or higher. Gifted students can go through school much faster than people progress through school today. Bachelor's degrees at 14 and doctorates (including MDs, PHDs, and LLDs) at 18 would be common. Now these people would still be adolescents, with the accompanying problems of impulsivity and lack of experience. (They would probably, on the average, be somewhat more mature than the typical teen-ager today, but not a lot more mature.) How would society be changed by the injection of a bunch of bright, well-educated teen-agers into the workforce? One can imagine both good and bad consequences.

There are a number of more nebulous effects. My predictions here are driven by the fact that there are small but reliable correlations between intelligence test scores and a number of important social variables, such as health and income. The direction of causation is not clear. Healthy older people tend to have higher cognitive scores than infirm elderly people. Is this because being healthy protects against age-related deteriorations in intelligence, or because being intelligent helps people maintain healthy life styles, or is it because both being physically healthy and having higher intelligence reflect variations in general fitness? Any or all of these effects may occur.

Similar questions can be asked about a number of other interesting variables. Here are some of the effects we could be pretty sure would happen because the small effect (the relation between intelligence and the other variable) would be accompanied by a BIG jump in intelligence.

People would generally be healthier and would live somewhat longer. Many of the biggest challenges to health in developed countries are due to behavioral issues; we eat too much fat, we drink too much alcohol, etc. etc. The University of Delaware psychologist Linda Gottfredson has pointed out that maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and even more, managing a chronic illness such as diabetes, can be quite cognitively challenging. That's the sort of challenge intelligent people can meet...by definition.

People would also be better looking! A study from Harvard University found a .16 correlation between cognitive test scores and ratings (by other people) of physical attractiveness. If we do the math, the .16 correlation, multiplied by the 7 standard deviation units an IQ of 200 implies, would result in the "average looking person" (i.e. one in the top half of present day physical attractiveness) moving up to about the top 15 percent in looks. Taking a less mathematical view, I think what would happen is that there would be fewer homely-looking people; especially people who are unattractive because they are slovenly. Intelligent people are aware that looking badly is a handicap in getting jobs, being invited to parties, etc. It's not necessary to be real good looking, but you don't want to be bad looking.

There would probably be a lot less low-level violent crime, such as mugging or assault. People with high test scores tend, statistically, to be less involved with this sort of breaking of society's rules. On the other hand (and this, I stress, is pure speculation), white collar crimes such as banking scams, might very well increase! This is bad news, for such crimes account for far greater financial losses than do strong arm robberies. And as for loss of life or injury due to crime...decisions to do such things as leaving dangerous drugs or vehicles on the market without (technically) breaking a law can account for much more human suffering than violent crime. For those with a sense of history, recall (a) the 1971 Ford Pinto, which had a disturbing tendency to break into a fire during a collision, but was marketed to the public anyway, (b) the anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx, which was marketed after the manufacturer pretty well knew that it was linked to heart failure, and (c) the over 2000 year history of the use of industrial lead because it is cheap, in spite of its known public health benefits. Each of these decisions made someone or some corporation a lot of money, in no small part because of clever (intelligent?) techniques for avoiding outright breaking of a law and outright exposure. Increasing intelligence would lead to an interesting arms race: the evil corporate villains would be smarter than ever, but so would the government officials who were writing and enforcing the safety regulations! Who would win? Who knows?

There are low but reliable correlations between political and social attitudes and cognitive test scores. There is a small tendency for people with high scores to be more liberal in their social attitudes and less likely to accept strong religious beliefs. This makes sense; we can know things by reasoning or we can accept something on faith. If we all became very good reasoners, there would probably be a small shift to preferring reasoned over faith-based explanations of the phenomenon of life. The shift certainly would not be complete, for some very intelligent people have accepted faith-based arguments. (St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Blaise Pascal spring to mind.) Nevertheless, I think a hift toward preferring reason over faith would occur.

Intelligence Essential Reads

How Do You Know What You Know?

How Gifted Children Change in the Teenage Years

Then there are a whole lot of effects that are hard to predict because intelligence is a "can do" concept, and much of our world depends upon a "will do" attitude. If there were a lot more very intelligent people there might be a magnifying effect on a trend, but it is hard to predict which way the magnification would occur. Here are two very different examples: warfare and literature

Warfare: Full scale modern warfare, with no holds barred, would be suicidal for everyone. In retrospect, the Cold War of the 1950-2000 period was an exercise in rationality; the two sides studiously avoided the ultimate insult that could lead to a nuclear exchange. It is possible that greatly intelligent people would decide that warfare in general was not a good way to go; hugely expensive and without all that much profit...sort of the international version of mugging. This could well lead to a rational, prosperous international scene. BUT on the other hand hugely intelligent people might figure out a way to make offensive warfare a rational, if immoral, option. Suppose that some future, very intelligent Dr. No (James Bond's favorite villain) developed a highly lethal, highly contagious biological weapon AND also developed a fool-proof antidote. All of a sudden biological warfare looks a lot more feasible.

If you think this worry is irrational, take a look at the recent controversy over the advisability of research on a contagious version of the deadly "avian flu."

Literature: Highly intelligent authors and highly intelligent readers could lead to enjoyable, subtle literature and drama. Imagine a writer who was funnier than Mark Twain and could write plots as involved as Tolstoy's! But on the other hand...a highly intelligent author would be capable of writing a steamier sex novel than anything we have today, and a highly intelligent reader would be able to visualize every scene. Would a detailed description of Anna Karenina in thong underware be an advance in literature? I have my doubts. But the book might sell like hotcakes.

So I have a take home message for my journalist, and a question for all of you.

The message: A great increase in intelligence would increase the ways in which humans could remake our society. What way was chosen might well depend upon attitudes, beliefs, and values that aren't, strictly speaking, part of cognitive capabilities.

The question: Suppose that in some future society part of the population, say 10%, became hugely intelligent, while the rest stayed where we are now or even dropped behind a bit. What would that do to society? (Since I wrote this the first time, the social commentator Charles Murray has published a book, "Breaking Apart", where he describes present day social trends that would have exactly this effect. I'll discuss that in a later blog.

Hope to hear from you.