Intelligence and metabolism
Extracts:
Intelligence is an interface between physiology and the environment, so it's necessary to think about each aspect in relation to the other. Things, both biochemical and social, that enhance intelligence enhance life itself, and vice versa.
About thirty years ago, someone found that the speed with which the iris contracts in response to a flash of light corresponds very closely to the I.Q. measured by a psychologist using a standard intelligence test. The devices used to measure reaction time in drivers' education courses also give a good indication of a person's intelligence, but so does measuring their heart rate, or taking their temperature.
But apart from ideologically institutionalized stupidity, there are real variations in the ability to learn, to remember and to apply knowledge, and to solve problems. These variations are generally metabolic differences, and so will change according to circumstances that affect metabolism. Everyday social experiences affect metabolism, stimulating and supporting some kinds of brain activity, suppressing and punishing others.
The “smart drug” culture has generally been thinking pharmaceutically rather than biologically. Behind that pharmaceutical orientation there is sometimes the idea that the individual just isn't trying hard enough, or doesn't have quite the right genes to excel mentally.
Many stimulants--amphetamine and estrogen, for example--can increase alertness temporarily, but at the expense of long range damage. The first principle of stimulation should be to avoid a harmful activation of the catabolic stress hormones. Light, play, environmental variety and exploratory conversations stimulate the whole organism in an integral way, stimulating repair processes and developmental processes.
Any chemical support for intelligence should take into account the mind-damaging stresses that our culture can impose, and provide defense against those. In darkness and isolation, for example, the stress hormones increase, and the brain-protective steroids decrease. The memory improvement that results from taking pregnenolone or thyroid (which is needed for synthesizing pregnenolone from cholesterol) is the result of turning off the dulling and brain-dissolving stress hormones, allowing normal responsiveness to be restored.
If we know that rats nurtured in freedom, in an interesting environment, grow more intelligent, then it would seem obvious that we should experiment with similar approaches for children--if we are really interested in fostering intelligence. And since violence and mental dullness are created by the same social stresses, even the desire to reduce school violence might force the society to make some improvements that will, as a side effect, foster intelligence.
During this time Lewis Terman was studying bright children, and wanted to disprove some of the popular stereotypes about intelligent people, and to support his ideology of white racial superiority. In 1922 he got a large grant, and sorted out about 1500 of the brightest children from a group of 250,000 in California. He and his associates then monitored them for the rest of their lives (described in Genetic Studies of Genius). His work contradicted the stereotype of bright people as being sickly or frail, but, contrary to his expectation, there was an association between maladjustment and higher I.Q.; the incidence of neurotic fatigue, anxiety, and depression increased along with the I.Q. The least bright of his group were more successful in many ways than the most bright. He didn't really confront the implications of this, though it seriously challenged his belief in a simple genetic racial superiority of physique, intellect, and character.
I.Q. testing originated in a historical setting in which its purpose was often to establish a claim of racial superiority, or to justify sterilization or “euthanasia,” or to exclude immigrants. More recently, the tests have been used to assign students to certain career paths. Because of their use by people in power to control others, the I.Q. tests have helped to create misunderstanding of the nature of intelligence. A person's “I.Q.” now has very strong associations with the ideology of schooling as a road to financial success, rather than to enrichment of a shared mental life. In a world run by corporation executives, university presidents (“football is central to the university's mission”), congressmen, bankers, oilmen, and agency bureaucrats, people with the intelligence of an ant (a warm ant) might seem outlandishly intelligent. This is because the benighted self-interest of the self-appointed ruling class recognizes that objective reality is always a threat to their interests. If people, for example, realized that estrogen therapy and serotonin-active drugs and x-rays and nuclear power and atomic bomb tests were beneficial only to those whose wealth and power derive from them, the whole system would lose stability.
Feigned stupidity becomes real stupidity.
Extracts:
Intelligence is an interface between physiology and the environment, so it's necessary to think about each aspect in relation to the other. Things, both biochemical and social, that enhance intelligence enhance life itself, and vice versa.
About thirty years ago, someone found that the speed with which the iris contracts in response to a flash of light corresponds very closely to the I.Q. measured by a psychologist using a standard intelligence test. The devices used to measure reaction time in drivers' education courses also give a good indication of a person's intelligence, but so does measuring their heart rate, or taking their temperature.
But apart from ideologically institutionalized stupidity, there are real variations in the ability to learn, to remember and to apply knowledge, and to solve problems. These variations are generally metabolic differences, and so will change according to circumstances that affect metabolism. Everyday social experiences affect metabolism, stimulating and supporting some kinds of brain activity, suppressing and punishing others.
The “smart drug” culture has generally been thinking pharmaceutically rather than biologically. Behind that pharmaceutical orientation there is sometimes the idea that the individual just isn't trying hard enough, or doesn't have quite the right genes to excel mentally.
Many stimulants--amphetamine and estrogen, for example--can increase alertness temporarily, but at the expense of long range damage. The first principle of stimulation should be to avoid a harmful activation of the catabolic stress hormones. Light, play, environmental variety and exploratory conversations stimulate the whole organism in an integral way, stimulating repair processes and developmental processes.
Any chemical support for intelligence should take into account the mind-damaging stresses that our culture can impose, and provide defense against those. In darkness and isolation, for example, the stress hormones increase, and the brain-protective steroids decrease. The memory improvement that results from taking pregnenolone or thyroid (which is needed for synthesizing pregnenolone from cholesterol) is the result of turning off the dulling and brain-dissolving stress hormones, allowing normal responsiveness to be restored.
If we know that rats nurtured in freedom, in an interesting environment, grow more intelligent, then it would seem obvious that we should experiment with similar approaches for children--if we are really interested in fostering intelligence. And since violence and mental dullness are created by the same social stresses, even the desire to reduce school violence might force the society to make some improvements that will, as a side effect, foster intelligence.
During this time Lewis Terman was studying bright children, and wanted to disprove some of the popular stereotypes about intelligent people, and to support his ideology of white racial superiority. In 1922 he got a large grant, and sorted out about 1500 of the brightest children from a group of 250,000 in California. He and his associates then monitored them for the rest of their lives (described in Genetic Studies of Genius). His work contradicted the stereotype of bright people as being sickly or frail, but, contrary to his expectation, there was an association between maladjustment and higher I.Q.; the incidence of neurotic fatigue, anxiety, and depression increased along with the I.Q. The least bright of his group were more successful in many ways than the most bright. He didn't really confront the implications of this, though it seriously challenged his belief in a simple genetic racial superiority of physique, intellect, and character.
I.Q. testing originated in a historical setting in which its purpose was often to establish a claim of racial superiority, or to justify sterilization or “euthanasia,” or to exclude immigrants. More recently, the tests have been used to assign students to certain career paths. Because of their use by people in power to control others, the I.Q. tests have helped to create misunderstanding of the nature of intelligence. A person's “I.Q.” now has very strong associations with the ideology of schooling as a road to financial success, rather than to enrichment of a shared mental life. In a world run by corporation executives, university presidents (“football is central to the university's mission”), congressmen, bankers, oilmen, and agency bureaucrats, people with the intelligence of an ant (a warm ant) might seem outlandishly intelligent. This is because the benighted self-interest of the self-appointed ruling class recognizes that objective reality is always a threat to their interests. If people, for example, realized that estrogen therapy and serotonin-active drugs and x-rays and nuclear power and atomic bomb tests were beneficial only to those whose wealth and power derive from them, the whole system would lose stability.
Feigned stupidity becomes real stupidity.
