Human Evolution: Intelligence, Liberalism, Atheism and Marital Fidelity
The results of the statistical study showed that people with high intelligence are more likely to be inclined to social values, as well as political and religious preferences that are new to the evolutionary development of humans as a species. The tendency to liberalism, atheism and male (but not female) preference for monogamy correlate especially clearly with the level of mental abilities.
The author of the article "Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent", which will be published in the March issue of the journal Social Psychology Quarterly, Satoshi Kanazawa from the London School of Economics at the University of London promotes a new theory explaining the reasons underlying the formation of specific preferences and values in people. According to the proposed theory, the higher the level of a person's intelligence, the more he is inclined to adopt new preferences and values from an evolutionary point of view, whereas mental abilities do not affect the preferences and values formed at the early stages of human evolution.
New preferences and values from an evolutionary point of view were alien to our ancestors and in some cases to a certain extent contradict the nature of man as a biological species.
According to Kanazawa, a high level of intelligence provided our ancestors with advantages in the event of new tasks for which they did not have ready-made solutions. As a result, intelligent people are more likely than individuals who are not burdened with intelligence to recognize and realize situations and categories that arise during the development of human society, in some cases determining new preferences, values and lifestyle features.
In his earlier work, Kanazawa found that more gifted people tend to be nocturnal: getting up late and staying awake at night. Due to the lack of electricity, our ancestors had to go to bed immediately after sunset and get up shortly before sunrise, so it is obvious that from the point of view of evolution, the nocturnal lifestyle is a completely new phenomenon.
When conducting his latest research, the author came to the conclusion that evolution has made a person conservative, caring mainly about his family and friends, while liberal views and caring for an indefinite number of strangers who are not relatives are obviously evolutionarily new signs. Therefore, it should be expected that more gifted children are more likely to become liberals in the future.
The data obtained during the National Long-term Study of Young People's Health (Add Health) confirm Kanazawa's hypothesis. Thus, the IQ of adolescents who consider themselves "extremely liberal" averaged 106 points, and those who consider themselves "extremely conservative" – only 95 points.
Religion is also a "by-product" of a person's desire to comprehend the causes leading to certain events, which results in seeing in all natural manifestations the work of the "hand of the Lord". In other words, evolution has made people paranoid and therefore they believe in God. This predisposition to paranoia underlies a person's extreme vigilance to all potential dangers, as well as his sense of self-preservation and desire to protect his family. Therefore, more intellectually gifted children are more likely to become atheists in adulthood.
Statistics also confirm this assumption. In adolescence, the IQ of young people claiming to be completely non-religious averaged 103 points, and "very religious" young people – only 97 points.
In addition, during the development of human society, people have always shown a certain tendency to polygamy. In some cultures, male polygamy is still considered the norm and no one expects men to be faithful to one partner. Women, on the contrary, in all ages and in all cultures (with the rarest exceptions) had to remain faithful to one partner. Therefore, monogamy is an evolutionarily new trait for men, but not for women. According to Kanazawa's theory, more intelligent men should be expected to be prone to marital fidelity, while the level of intelligence should not affect women's preferences in this matter in any way. The data obtained by Kanazawa when analyzing the results of Add Health confirm this assumption.
Kanazawa's interesting, but theoretically predictable finding turned out to be the fact that the level of intelligence does not affect the level of human awareness of the value of such important categories from the point of view of evolution as marriage, family, children and friends.
Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru according to the American Sociological Association: Intelligent People Have "Unnatural" Preferences and Values That Are Novel in Human Evolutionary History.
09.03.2010