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IQ Could Mean Survival
Psychology Posted by on Thursday September 25, @11:49PM
from the what-would-darwin-say dept.
"A person's mental ability as a child could well be an indicator of their chances of surviving to a ripe old age, according to a landmark study which has followed up on surveys carried out in the first half of the last century," says this article. The research, which is being performed by Ian Deary, is based on a group of mental aptitude assessments from the 30s and 40s. Deary has managed to gather up some of the original test-takers, who were 11 at the time of the first test, and give them the same test almost 70 years later.

"The results: first, that the 70-somethings scored quite a bit better than they did at age 11; second, that mental ability differences are pretty stable from age 11 to age 77; with some interesting exceptions, the high scorers did well and the modest remained so."
Other results arising from the comparison is that mental ability at age 11 is significantly associated with survival up to age 76 (the greater the ability, the better the chance of survival). On the other hand, against this trend, men with high mental ability were more likely to die in active service in World War II. People with lower mental ability were more prone to lung and stomach cancer.

This seems to be in contrast of previous news that intelligence could be bad for evolution.


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