The Marching Morons

It used to be an article of faith, among the self-appointed intelligentsia, that the human race would grow steadily stupider as time progressed. After the advent of reliable birth control, so the reasoning went, intelligent people would choose not to have children, or would stop after one or two—whereas the non-intelligent would continue to breed like rabbits. Over the course of generations, then, the proportion of intelligent people in the population would decline, and in the end, we would all be a bunch of morons.

This reasoning was impeccable—but it rested on the erroneous assumption that intelligence is hereditary. In fact, once economic factors are removed, there is absolutely no evidence of any correlation between the intelligence of parents and the intelligence of their children.

In short, the morons have not marched over the rest of us, because morons insist on having just as many intelligent children as do geniuses.

-from Closet to Chamber: An Autobiography by Miranda Maris, Firebrand Books, 2035

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Find out more in Dance for the Ivory Madonna by Don Sakers