> We really are the same people. No measurable difference in IQ (as well as that can be "measured").
There is definitely IQ variation in the same society on a short timescale and between societies and the same time, during the time when we have been able to measure it; given what we know about the wide variety of environmental influences on IQ, it stands to reason that Egypt 3,200 years ago would have significantly different IQ average and distribution than a society from today, even if the genetic factors were exactly the same as in some modern society being compared. Sure, we can't directly measure that for a past society, but that doesn't mean it is roughly the same.
If people lived and thought and partied and slept, had friends, raised family, and weren’t too miserable, I’m not sure how variations in IQ distribution really matter much?
Maybe the metric captures something arbitrary about modernity — and a community’s conformance to it — and not much meaningful about the people in other times and places.
> If people lived and thought and partied and slept, had friends, raised family, and weren’t too miserable, I’m not sure how variations in IQ distribution really matter much?
I was addressing a claim about the absence of differences in IQ, not a claim about whether differences in IQ are or are not important in the first place.
There is definitely IQ variation in the same society on a short timescale and between societies and the same time, during the time when we have been able to measure it; given what we know about the wide variety of environmental influences on IQ, it stands to reason that Egypt 3,200 years ago would have significantly different IQ average and distribution than a society from today, even if the genetic factors were exactly the same as in some modern society being compared. Sure, we can't directly measure that for a past society, but that doesn't mean it is roughly the same.