Study: Human beings are becoming dumber.

Published in the journal Trends in Genetics (always a hot read with the kids), Stanford University researcher Gerald Crabtree suggests that evolution is making us dumber. Moreover, Crabtree argues we peaked at our intellectual nerdiest right before our hunter-gatherer ancestors strolled out of Africa.

Let me try to bluntly synopsize Crabtree's claim in two paragraphs or less:

Our ancient, ancient, ancient ancestors had it rough living out in the wild. Natural selection picked off our weaker members like the chubby kid gets mowed down in dodgeball during Phys Ed. If you couldn't make a fire or figure out what tool to use to help you survive--well, you didn't survive, and with you went your piss poor genetic makeup.

That is until today, where humanity's ability to create an ease-of-use for nearly everything in our lives--and the protections we input to keep us alive even when we've done something moronic that should have killed us (driving off the highway at 120mph without a seat belt--but, gumdang, those airbags kept you alive despite your idiocy!)--means more and more ::ahem:: stupid genes are surviving and being passed on. You don't need to figure out anything any longer to survive--and when you do something lethally stupid, well, you still remain alive nonetheless. Keep the stupid genes going, and they grow and dominate the longer they have a chance to spread.

/synopsis

As Crabtree notes in The Independent, "I would wager that if an average citizen from Athens of 1000BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions, with a good memory, a broad range of ideas and a clear-sighted view of important issues." A broad range of ideas on how to enslave people, amright?! Okay, so Crabtree didn't think out that last little tidbit of his comment.

Not everyone appreciates Crabtree's argument. Geneticist Steve Jones of University College London is all very Debbie Downer about this talk. "Never mind the hypothesis, give me the data, and there aren’t any," Jones told The Independent, presumably with a hand on his hip and a eye roll. "I could just as well argue that mutations have reduced our aggression, our depression and our penis length but no journal would publish that. [Ed. Aww, damn. I'd read that.] Why do they publish this?" Jones continued, "I am an advocate of Gradgrind science – facts, facts and more facts; but we need ideas too, and this is an ideas paper although I have no idea how the idea could be tested."

Clearly Mr. Jones never went clubbing with Lindsay Lohan on a Saturday night.