From: The Toronto Star
Sorry, Ritalin’s not going to make you smart
The Toronto Star:
Popping pills won’t boost your brainpower if you have average or above-average intelligence, according to a new paper published by the Association for Psychological Science.
“Are you going to be able to manipulate your physiology to make yourself smarter? Chances are, you’re not going to be able to,” Thomas Hills, a psychology professor at the U.K.-based University of Warwick, told the Star. “Evolution’s already created the best possible physiological environment for you if you don’t have a deficit.”
And humans likely won’t get any smarter, according to the paper’s findings.
Published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, the paper analyzes existing studies on intelligence among humans. Co-authors Hills and Ralph Hertwig, a psychology professor at the University of Basel in Switzerland, suggest that human brains have already reached an evolutionary “sweet spot” and any long-term upgrades to intelligence would come at a steep price.
Read the whole story: The Toronto Star
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