The latest University of Life lecture can be found below:

Be Smart and a Duck (http://www.*******************/lectures/archive/lectures/021.html)


this time we discuss the notion of increase stupidity in our society and what modern genetic engineering can do for us in this respect. Unexpectedly there are some side effects.

Very nice Spuriousmonkey, and I would like to comment if I may!

The presupposition that large families are less intelligent is not accurate, in my opinion, and the people who have less children, or who have children when they are older, are not really the 'intelligent' ones, rather they are the immoral ones! It is this immoral path that gives the 'wicked' more power too! They have more years working to earn money, and they have more years of thinking and growing too, before they have the financial (and possibly emotional) drain that are children. Thus the 'wicked' are given more power, while the rightous are given lower status.

Also I do not think intelligence is genetically determined. Everyone has an equal intelligence (really), but it's a matter of how each person uses it. Therefore I can't really see genetic engineering doing anything to intelligence.

Incidently what does this have to do with being a duck?? :bugeye: lol.

Some people think that the answer lies in modern transgenic techniques. Why not simply do some light genetic engineering to make our children smart again?

Humans are already destructive enough with the present given intelligence levels. Do we really need to speed up armageddon?

Armageddon! (http://steroid-encyclopaedia.com/Armagedd.wav)

Originally posted by Mucker

Incidently what does this have to do with being a duck?? :bugeye: lol.

see the last paragraph of the lecture.

Originally posted by sargentlard
Humans are already destructive enough with the present given intelligence levels. Do we really need to speed up armageddon?

if the armageddon involves a huge flooding then the answer is yes.

A friend of mine a while back in one of those "on the way back to the office from lunch conversations" mentioned that as a child you are learning at a phenomenal rate and your brain is open with all these pathways connecting all these parts of your brain together.
When these "Pathways" are stimulated they like muslces get larger and more defined.
As you grow your mind starts to simplify this massivly complex organ by shutting down unused or little used pathways up until puberty when your body floods itself with chemicals that amougst other things finally totally destroy weaker and unused pathways leaving the final setup with the strongest pathways and links defined.

Does this mean that a lot of intelegence and personality relies on early stimulus even from the moment your brain is starting to form in the womb, such as language, the brains pathways that deal with certain phonetics or phononyms, i cant remeber the exact term, etc, those in a rich environment, many challenges, languages, coulours and activity will develope more pathways (I image typically rich famillies will have such an environment) and as such be ...in a way smarter? or have a wider scope in terms of thinking and personanilty and data processing, than a child brought up in an enclosed, monontonus environment that lets the majority of its brains pathways close?

I can see what you mean psycho-cannon, but I don't really beleive in that. I don't think biological pathways physically close down, rather psychological groupings are innately known to 'match' and therefore be useful, while other's aren't. My point is that I think it's psychological and not biological. A biological formation that you are describing would mean that each person could in fact have a varying 'intelligence', which I don't think is true. I beleive each person has the same intelligence, it's just a case of how it is accessed. :)

Lmao @ the Armageddon link. :D

or we could add a gene that makes them horney as hell then mutates after severale generations making grotesque monsters thus quickly polluting the gene pool with a sort of time bomb in our dna wiping out the spiecies.

oh and wed have to instotute a catolic governent and make birth controll and condums illigal.