Intelligent people have 'unnatural' preferences and values that are novel in human evolution

Physorg.com article link

"More intelligent people are significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history. Specifically, liberalism and atheism, and for men (but not women), preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.

The study, published in the March 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed scientific journal Social Psychology Quarterly, advances a new theory to explain why people form particular preferences and values. The theory suggests that more intelligent people are more likely than less intelligent people to adopt evolutionarily novel preferences and values, but intelligence does not correlate with preferences and values that are old enough to have been shaped by evolution over millions of years."

"Evolutionarily novel" preferences and values are those that humans are not biologically designed to have and our ancestors probably did not possess. In contrast, those that our ancestors had for millions of years are "evolutionarily familiar."

"General intelligence, the ability to think and reason, endowed our ancestors with advantages in solving evolutionarily novel problems for which they did not have innate solutions," says Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science. "As a result, more intelligent people are more likely to recognize and understand such novel entities and situations than less intelligent people, and some of these entities and situations are preferences, values, and lifestyles.

An earlier study by Kanazawa found that more intelligent individuals were more nocturnal, waking up and staying up later than less intelligent individuals. Because our ancestors lacked artificial light, they tended to wake up shortly before dawn and go to sleep shortly after dusk. Being nocturnal is evolutionarily novel.

In the current study, Kanazawa argues that humans are evolutionarily designed to be conservative, caring mostly about their family and friends, and being liberal, caring about an indefinite number of genetically unrelated strangers they never meet or interact with, is evolutionarily novel. So more intelligent children may be more likely to grow up to be liberals."


I dont care if you're liberal, conservative, Christian, Muslim or a damn rock at the bottom of a river. This article states that progressive social growth is BASED on going against mainstream ideals regarding more common social structures. I see a complete lack of rational thought in our culture and world. It makes me ill that the majority of people are robotic and driven by instincts based on power and control games, without ever considering individuality based on compassion.

If we are to ever see some sort of better world, then it will take ego-driven human behaviors to be looked upon as a negative in our world. But instead, these behaviors are worshiped and way too common. These behaviors oppress, kill, torture and lead to an overall hellish existence for those perceived as "lower". I'm not talking about acting different, I'm talking about being different. Turning against petty social games, hurtful "mating" rituals and fear-driven behaviors that oppress those who wish to live a peaceful and meaningful life. These behaviors satisfy selfish instincts that have been proven to be a negative evolutionary growth path in our world. Count me out, because I refuse to ignore the intelligence that nature has given me. - Toby