IQ is highly heritable, so I don't think there is any environmental factor that has this big an impact, except in extreme cases like severe malnutrition. Also note that IQ increases with age roughly into early adulthood independently of environment, so the IQ of a 14 year old increasing is a perfectly normal part of the heritable parts of development.

Actually, I want to add something to this. The general vibe in this research area is NOT that you cannot compare IQ with genes. Indeed, its more or less an accepted fact that some portion of IQ and measures like it are indeed heritable. The specific issue this person faced is in the use of race. I'm not suggesting that we accept all the woke orthodoxy whole cloth, but race really is a socially constructed concept. No person out there in the world is "of a given race" as a scientific fact. People have genes, they don't have races. The scientific community recognizes that genes influence intelligence, but has no interest in promulgating the frankly dumb idea that humans have distinct races, probably because the last time people got really into that idea it lead to concentration camps, apartheid, and the pointless destruction of vast swaths of human potential.

The main issue with the research described is that it uses genes to construct a racial narrative. If that is the world you want to live in, you do you, I guess, but I would prefer that people not be pigeon holed on the basis of (for example) arbitrary qualities like "European Ancestry," which the person explicitly states they constructed a sort of genetic fingerprint for. In a meritocratic society people should be judged on their performance, not some inference people make about what genes they have on the basis of their level of melanin, to refer to the study this guy is talking about.

Sis, actually.

I wasn't speaking of the modern day either; I was only addressing prehistoric times - specifically the time before agriculture since we're discussing humanity at its earliest points. Prehistoric =/= tribal, incidentally.

I brought up your identity because it's relevant to the assumptions that you're making, and specifically it's causing you to miss very wide aspects of the human experience that are very relevant to the discussion you want to have. I see this a lot in these discussions (and before you get upset, that includes from women: the bad feminist argument that prehistoric people were completely gender egalitarian or matriarchal is just as much wishcrafting). In this case, you're assuming that every single prehistoric human being approached power acquisition and gender relations the way you do.

I find these discussions intellectually dishonest: You very clearly have a point of view regarding male superiority and want to convey that using objective language to prove your rationality. I didn't make assumptions about your character, I made assumptions about your age and sex. I also did attack your argument, because it's a weak argument, and you didn't address my points at all. You're being evasive on purpose and attempting to pass yourself off as rational person making an objective argument, but you're completely ignoring extremely relevant facts and data and spewing things that are completely false.

It's adorable that you think men can survive without women (condescension fully intended). This is pre agriculture. No domesticated animals. Every single one of those men spent at least a year completely dependent on a woman: birth to 12 months. No breast milk? No men. Older men are also going to be reliant on women for caretaking, as are sick men. What you mean when you say 'men can survive without women' is 'healthy men aged 15 to 50 can survive without women on a daily basis'. Yes, men can take care of the ill, but women can also build houses. To call women's contributions supplementary when nobody would reach the age of 3 without them is fantastic. Thank you for that. It's hilarious, and it makes it so clear what your informational sources are. Infants living aren't crucial for survival? You also ignore the social ties of early humans, which is ridiculous given we're a social species. The main dangers to early human women that weren't faced by early human men are childbirth and early human men. It's likely true that a woman benefited from male protection from other men, but it's untrue that this protection is only afforded via giving sexual access. A man will protect his mother. A man will protect his sister. Hell, you even said yourself that a woman got protection by bearing him children: Did you mean only sons? Do you think early human fathers would just shrug if someone tried to hurt their daughters because they weren't having sex with her? Women and men needed each other to survive, but that is a different argument from 'the only way a woman can receive male protection is by being young, hot, and giving it up.' Likewise, a sister will tend to her brother, a daughter will care for her aging father, and a mother will help her son with his children if his wife dies. Human bonds and gender relations go far beyond sexual relationships, even if they're important, and you just are completely ignoring that so that you can feel good. That's what this argument is actually about, and that's why I think it's intellectually dishonest.

And this is still granting you the foundations of the argument, which are also bad. Yes, it's very likely that gender roles have existed since homo sapiens sapiens evolved. It's also pretty likely those roles had at least some flexibility, since complete specialization requires a certain population density and nature is cruel and full of terrors. If your entire hunting party ends up TPKed, you want at least a few women who can hunt so they can teach the oldest boys left in the tribe and the knowledge isn't lost. Likewise, you want some of the men able to perform 'feminine' duties in case something happens to the women who know those things: If the men want their culture to continue and most of their women die, they're going to want the women they kidnap to be able to do things like know what plants are edible in their particular territory, etc. Humans are adaptable before we are anything else. Being overly rigid with roles when you live in groups of ~150 in a world where you have no writing, no domesticated plants or animals, and only basic stone tools isn't going to serve you. Efficiency and resilience are trade offs, and when you have very little margin for error and replacing members of the tribe is costly, it makes more sense to spread out knowledge and tasks so that there are fewer single points of failure. You probably want your medical experts teaching multiple students so that if one dies of a fever or in a hunting accident there are other options. You probably want more than one midwife, so your tribe isn't fucked if she dies. And so on.

Not necessarily. IMO the current demographic collapse can be mostly explained by people asking themselves whether they want children rather than just blindly putting penis into vagina.