Science has confirmed what people have observed since the Ancient Greek author Homer wrote in 725 BCE:
So, the gods don’t hand out all their gifts at once, not build and brains and flowing speech to all. One man may fail to impress us with his looks but a god can crown his words with beauty, charm, and men look on with delight when he speaks out.
However, this diversity in intellectual gifts has a major advantage for the survival of our species, homo sapients. Those species in which the individuals become too much alike are less likely to survive as the environment changes, while the species with the greatest diversity have the greatest likelihood of survival.
Intelligence is a multi-faceted entity that is manifest in a variety of special talents and proclivities. The fact that humans differ in these proclivities provides us with a rich variety of human expression in the sciences, the arts, music, art and architecture. Those with a great capacity for abstraction expand the fields of mathematics, physics and computer science, while people with an acute visual sense of design contribute to art and architecture. Those with musical talent enrich our lives with intricate patterns and rhythms, while people we call “comedians,” lighten our perspectives by revealing life’s anomalies.
A major implication of this diversity, is that it enables us to have a society with an expansive labor force to which each individual can contribute their unique abilities. Those who wish to work long and hard can do so, while those who want more time for leisure also have that option. Of course, the fact that people have different talents, abilities and drive results in different levels of income. This means that there are different social classes based on the various levels of education and income.
With this division of people into different social classes comes the potential for human discontent and possibly conflict. Our species spent most of its evolution living in tribes as hunter-gatherers. Ingrained in our psyche is that the spoils of a kill are divided relatively uniformly throughout the tribe. Some may get twice as much as others, but the distribution was not heavily skewed. If someone was perceived to be taking more than his (or her) fair share, the others in the tribe would united against them. We saw this “envy” in the ancient Biblical texts in the parable of the vineyards.
Today, technology has been an “intelligence amplifier.” Today’s richest billionaires have been able to use their high intellect to create software that generates huge profits. People like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page and Sergey Brin have created wonderful products that enhance our lives and made huge incomes in return. This enables them to acquire, if they so choose, a larger share of amenities than most. This triggers the “envy” button that is hardwired into our DNA resulting in political movements and the division of society into factions. These factors are at the root of the differences in the philosophies of Socialism and Capitalism. So the implications of differences in individual intelligence are extremely significant in human society.
