There’s a fascinating article and web-review at the Huffington Post regarding the decline of human intelligence. I’d expect most evolutionists to be shocked at such a finding, but this is something I’ve always maintained as a prediction of Creationism.

As the story of evolution unfolds, students are taught that humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor (genus homo) about 2.4 million years ago. Over those long ages, we supposedly became more and more intelligent and sophisticated, while becoming less brutish. But according to research at the University of Amsterdam in which 14 intelligence studies were analyzed between 1884 through 2004, our mental processing speeds have slowed down when compared to our Victorian Era ancestors. The study actually indicates that Westerners have lost 14 I.Q. points since then!

But if humans have been evolving from primitive ape-like ancestors, the human race should continue to advance and become far superior and more highly evolved than our ancestors. Popular movies such as the X-Men have hyped this type of thinking, suggesting that human evolution normally takes thousands of years, but sometimes “leaps forward”.

Previous research has suggested an apparent rise in I.Q. since the 1940s, such as the Flynn Effect, however others have since shown that any such rise in general intelligence stopped after the mid-1990s (Jon Martin Sundet and colleagues). And Dr. Jan te Nijenhuis, co-author and professor of work and organizational psychology at the University of Amsterdam, suggested that environmental factors may have contributed to the Flynn Effect and masked any decrease in intelligence.

I’d suggest that there’s a logical reason why I.Q. has dropped and should have been expected. According to the Bible, humans were already intelligent at the beginning of creation. Adam and Eve had the ability to speak and reason with God right after they were created. These first humans were able to farm, build cities, play all kinds of music, and created tools made of bronze and iron. Not only did they master these skills, but they also lived incredibly long periods of time and were able to pass along their knowledge and experience to the many generations to come. Adam, for example, lived to be 930 years old, his son Seth lived to be 912, Methuselah lived to be 969, and Noah lived to be 950. Therefore it stands to reason that- after thousands and thousands of years- the mutations that we’ve accumulated have taken a toll; modern humans are genetically inferior to the first humans. We’re not evolving into superior beings as we’ve been led to believe, but we’re devolving. Our offspring will have more mutations in their DNA than we have, and that breakdown will continue- even as we learn how to genetically modify humans and improve technology in an effort to improve and prolong human life.

Based on Biblical evidence it’s clear that the first humans were genetically superior to modern humans living today. It’s rare to find someone who lives to be 100 (Noah began building the ark after he was 500), and all of our technology is built off the work others have done. And not only that, but we now have computers and artificial intelligence helping us improve technology.

As modern science improves, it’s rewarding to see how the Bible’s claims are substantiated by the evidence.