Are we smarter or dumber than people 500 years ago were?

Question

Human anthropologie experts, tell me please. I know we're more knowledgeable then them, but smarter?

Answer 1

I tend to agree with those who have answered that we are getting dumber ..

and JUST re plumbing .. PLEASE take a stroll around some sites that are about ancient Rome .. THEY had plumbing well and truly under control ..

http://www.theplumber.com/pom.html

http://www.sewerhistory.org/grfx/wh_era/...

and from the *wonderful Wikipedia* ( rolls eyes)

Sewers

The Romans also made major advancements in sanitation. Romans were particularly famous for their public baths, called thermae, which were used for both hygienic and social purposes. Many Roman houses came to have flush toilets and indoor plumbing, and a complex sewer system, the Cloaca Maxima, was used to drain the local marshes and carry waste into the Tiber river. Some historians have speculated that the use of lead pipes in the sewer and plumbing systems led to widespread lead poisoning which contributed to the decline in birth rate and general decay of Roman society leading up to the fall of Rome. However, lead content would have been minimized because the flow of water from aqueducts could not be shut off; it ran continuously through public and private outlets into the drains, and only a small number of taps were in use.[103]

We are definitely more knowledgeable about many things .. BUT tell me HOW many of us would actually know how to survive WITHOUT electricity and supermarkets

sometimes the more we know the dumber we get.. AND I also think the more ignorant and arrogant we become .. to assume WE are getting smarter....

Answer 2

Probably the same. Look at what those people created without knowledge, the pyramids and other ancient things we still could not produce. They were at least as intelligent as us, we just have technology but that might be making us dumber.

Answer 3

I think there are individuals today that are smarter, but we also have much more laziness than back then causing the average moderately wealthy person (which there are also more of) to use their brain less.  As you said, we are obviously more knowledgeable as a whole due to the ease of communication and knowledge transference, but on average I would say that the people of 500 years ago may have been wittier, smarter, and wiser than the people of today, though that may be heavily incluenced by my surrounding of Americans.

Of course, there are also individuals such as Leonardo da Vinci and others that may be argued to be the most ingenious and smartest people of all time, so I might even have to retract my first statement.

Answer 4

As a collective, humans are smarter. Understand that 500 years ago, most of the world couldn't fathom indoor plumbing (yes...a cliche) but think about it. Presently, we get information from hundreds of sources, in a plethora of languages and formats, and enjoy sharing it with people in faraway lands. Just the other day, I was debating Darwin with some chick in Algiers! Go figure.

Answer 5

Technically speaking, mankind's been of about the same intelligence level for about the last 100,000 years.  Of course, when looking at who we elect into office, I can understand why it seems we're getting stupider.

Answer 6

Yes, dumber by far most people think their animals at least the want to act and live like them. They have no morals or ethics no respect or manners.

Answer 7

According to the Flynn effect; yes!

Answer 8

There are two aspects to intelligence. The first is what you are predisposed to biologically and that hasn´t changed since humans are no longer evolving (eg. survival of the fittest no longer applies). The other is through education, and that can change as people gain more knowledge throughout the years.

"We are dwarfs, standing on the shoulder of giants and because of that we can see further than they do."

-- Gote.

Answer 9

We are a lot smarter than people 500 years ago. We are even more wiser.

Answer 10

As illness and malnutrition and lack of stimulation in childhood can have an adverse effect on intelligence I would think that we are more intelligent on average than folk living 500 years ago and also much more educated and open to different ideas.

Answer 11

Don't have to take an expert, we read it in the papers, journals all the time! We're getting smarter and smarter via evolution, and brain is getting bigger.

Answer 12

dumber

Answer 13

Both.  

Dumber-We are more dependant on machines.  As 500 yrs ago they did not have our technology.  They were more dependant on their own minds.

Smarter-We have all this technology we can use and they didn't 500 yrs ago.  So therefore we are more advanved.

It depends on how you look at it.

Answer 14

well only a small percentage could read and write 500 years ago (mainly priests, scribes, and the wealthy), so i would say smarter.

Answer 15

I agree ..      with both ..

while our designs in technology and such is expanding ..     we are certainly getting lazier and dumber since we have all this tech to do things for us now-a-days.