Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Intelligence

Evolutionary psychology meets g

Nature volume 403, pages 378–379 (2000)Cite this article

Homo sapiens may not always seem to be wiser than other animals, but we are inclined to believe that we are more intelligent. Scepticism on this point is usually rebuffed by pointing to the hard evidence of the size of our brain and its threefold increase over the course of human evolution. But what is the nature of this superior intelligence given us by our large brains? And if intelligence has been of such importance to human evolution, why does it vary so much, at least as measured by IQ tests, among people today? Do IQ tests measure intelligence? If so, does the existence of the general factor g, extracted by factor analysis of any IQ-test battery, imply that there is a unitary trait of general intelligence? Or is the modular (Swiss army knife) view of the mind, beloved of evolutionary psychologists, a more accurate or fruitful metaphor?

These are large questions. If they were not all answered to everyone's satisfaction at a recent symposiumFootnote 1, there was a fair measure of consensus on some of them and much of interest to report on others.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Notes

  1. * The Nature of Intelligence, Novartis Foundation, London, 30 November–2 December 1999.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EB, UK

    N. J. Mackintosh

Authors
  1. N. J. Mackintosh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to N. J. Mackintosh.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Mackintosh, N. Evolutionary psychology meets g. Nature 403, 378–379 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35000333

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35000333

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing