Short Answers to Good Questions: Was Pre-Historic Man More Intelligent than We Are?

Why do you believe that pre-historic men were more intelligent than the average modern man?
 

If you believe the Bible, you know that all humans came from one specially created pair: Adam and Eve. And it is logical to conclude that Adam and Eve, in the day of their creation, were genetically (that is, mentally and physically), perfect. But did the fall destroy that perfection? Obviously the cellular countdown to old age and ultimate death began at that moment,¹ but other than that, was their genetic code altered? I would argue not. The genes for the human race were so perfect that after 1600 years of degeneration, six humans had enough information in their DNA to repopulate the earth and form the diversity of “races” we see today.

So why do most people believe pre-historic man was an idiot? First, because they assume we worked our way up from apes, which are clearly less intelligent than we are. Second, because we tend to assume that anyone with less technology than we have must not be as smart as we are, an idea that falls apart immediately upon inspection. Our technology is the result of the combined knowledge of thousands of men across the centuries, as preserved by the humble printing press. It is not the fruit of our individual intellectual prowess. Could you build a computer from scratch? Does using one make you any smarter?

Since the time of the flood, we have lost genetic information, a lot of it. No six people living today could populate a planet with their genes--or at least not a planet full of healthy people. And it only makes sense that our intelligence has declined along with everything else.

Want to read more?

'Human Intelligence Peaked Thousands of Years Ago' The Independent
Savages and ancestors: A historian looks at the idea of human evolution before Darwin
Neanderthal Man Was An Innovator
New Evidence Debunks 'Stupid' Neanderthal Myth

1Salk Institute. "What makes us age? Ticking of cellular clock promotes seismic changes in chromatin landscape associated with aging." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 4 October 2010.