Ask A Genius 1565: Rapid Climate Change, Extinction Pressures, and Human Adaptation
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/11/08
How do rapid, human-driven climate shifts reshape evolutionary pressure on specialists versus generalists—and what does that mean for us?
Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner examine how rapid, human-driven climate change reshapes evolutionary pressures, favoring generalists and behaviorally flexible species while endangering specialists. They review past mass extinctions, argue that diversification often follows crises, and note human attempts to steer evolution via breeding and biotechnology. They separate scientific feasibility from cultural taboo when discussing cryonics. Turning to intelligence, they critique extreme-range IQ claims, emphasize real-world achievement, and revisit Terman’s findings on socioeconomic predictors. Drawing on relationship science, they highlight contempt as a corrosive force. Overall, the conversation challenges myths about genius while stressing evidence, historical context, and ethical responsibility.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Here’s a thought: climate change is occurring on a rapid timescale compared to natural climate variability driven by orbital cycles and other slow processes over tens to hundreds of thousands of years. Asteroid impacts and very large volcanic eruptions can trigger abrupt cooling; major eruptions can inject sunlight-reflecting aerosols and cause “volcanic winters” lasting roughly one to three years (for example, Tambora in 1815 and the “Year Without a Summer”).
In this context, organisms with nervous systems will experience a major shift in conditions. Their relationships to their surroundings will change, which will alter their behavior. As each species adjusts, interactions among them will also change. The entire ecological equilibrium is disrupted.
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This raises questions about pressures that first cause extinctions but also push some organisms—especially those with greater behavioral flexibility—toward rapid adaptation. Any thoughts?
Rick Rosner: In the fossil record there have been five major mass extinctions; today’s human-driven biodiversity decline is widely described as an ongoing sixth mass extinction. The Chicxulub asteroid impact about 66 million years ago eliminated roughly three-quarters of species, not ninety percent.
Large, abrupt crises tend to outpace most lineages’ ability to adapt in the moment, though rapid evolutionary responses can occur in some cases. The broader diversification usually follows the crisis, as transformed ecosystems present new and reopened niches that survivors can occupy.
One way to frame it is specialists versus generalists: during stable, long-established conditions, many specialists thrive; when conditions collapse or shift quickly, generalists and behaviorally flexible species often have an advantage. Some specialists persist, some flexible species establish novel behaviors that persist, and some lineages reveal unexpected plasticity that helps them adapt.
Less flexible, highly specialized organisms tend to be disadvantaged under new conditions, whereas generalists and cognitively adaptable species may gain a relative edge—though all face increased risk. The more general the adaptation, the broader the range of circumstances an organism can tolerate.
Humanity has taken evolution to a new place in the sense that we can intentionally influence it through selective breeding, biotechnology, and ecosystem engineering.
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Jacobsen: However, germline genome editing in humans remains experimental and is largely prohibited or tightly regulated; the current clinical standard for avoiding many single-gene disorders is IVF with preimplantation genetic testing rather than editing embryos.
Cultural norms and laws strongly shape what is adopted and when. Technologies often spread once they are demonstrably safe, effective, and accessible. Cryonic preservation, for example, is unproven: there has been no successful revival of a cryonically preserved human or mammal, and current successes are limited to cells, tissues, and some small organisms.
Rosner: The only celebrity I know who’s publicly said he plans to be cryonically preserved is Simon Cowell, who’s known for being abrasive. That was, I don’t know, five to eight years ago. I’m not sure if there are any other celebrities now embracing the idea, but if the technology actually worked, that would override the taboo. If you could be preserved with, say, a 98% success rate, then if you were a tech magnate of Bill Gates’s age—early seventies—you might choose to be suspended for eight years with a 98.5% chance of successful revival.
Some billionaire tech figures, especially those older than Gates or facing cancer, would likely take that risk. The desire to keep living would outweigh any societal taboo.
Or take someone like Brad Pitt, in his early sixties. If he wanted to extend his career, he might gamble on being suspended for four or five years, then return after the public had missed him. He’d seem fresh again, and meanwhile his fortune would have nearly doubled just from interest.
Jacobsen: So you don’t really buy that cultural taboos would stop people if the science worked.
Rosner: The taboo only matters while the technology doesn’t. Anyway—rotten tomatoes. Okay, can we talk about lunacy?
Jacobsen: What kind?
Rosner: A couple of days ago, we talked about what I do… Actually, wait, we talked about lunacy and creativity.
Jacobsen: No, we talked about “loons,” which led into lunacy, but it was about intelligence and creativity too.
Rosner: First, we need to talk about the terms “cunt” and “twat.” These are sexist terms, but they’re funnier than “prick” or “cock.” It’s funnier to call someone a “cunt” or a “twat.” They’re Britishisms. They’re just funnier words. One of the traits often associated with intelligence and creativity is being, frankly, a bit of a prick—or a cunt or a twat.
I think I score fairly low on the overall “twattiness scale” for high-IQ people, though there are plenty of examples. Richard May was a good example of a decent, grounded, intelligent guy. Chris Cole too: well-adjusted, high-achieving, not egotistical. For every notorious egomaniac like Keith Raniere—maybe the biggest twat among high-IQ types—there are fifty others you never hear about, because they’re busy leading normal lives and not forming cults.
Jacobsen: The key point being that a high score doesn’t define your identity.
Rosner: Right.
Jacobsen: The more mythology builds up around a person and their intelligence score, the more likely they are to start behaving in line with that myth. It becomes self-reinforcing. There’s too much incentive to play into it, and certain types of men are especially prone to that. It feeds something they need.
Rosner: Absolutely. Isaac Newton is a great example—brilliant, but vengeful, mean, and often petty. That’s not the first thing people remember about him, but it’s definitely part of the historical record.
Jacobsen: The more a gifted person embraces their own mythos, the more they use it as an excuse structure to act like an ass. They treat the score as destiny, as though it entitles them to special treatment. I think it encourages personality disorders, or at least amplifies traits like egoism and deceit to justify their sense of entitlement. It’s a whole cluster of bad behaviors that grow together.
That’s why I think the original intent of identifying the gifted—and still, ideally, today—should focus on supporting those who need help rather than glorifying the few who perform exceptionally well. But psychometric reliability drops off sharply above certain thresholds. IQ tests are generally solid up to around 130, start losing reliability beyond 145, and are essentially meaningless past 160. The only extreme-range tests that ever had any semi-structured data were the Mega and Titan tests, and even those lacked proper psychometric validation.
Rosner: At that point, real-world achievement is a far better measure.
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Jacobsen: The same dynamic applies there too. For instance, the Terman longitudinal studies—the “Termites”—showed that life success involves far more than high intelligence. Socioeconomic status, for example, turned out to be one of the strongest predictors of life outcomes. That question was effectively settled decades ago.
It’s like John Gottman’s findings in marriage research. After forty or fifty years studying couples—tracking physiological readings, speech patterns, and behavior—he found that the single best predictor of divorce is contempt: the physical expression and feeling of it. The prediction rate was around ninety percent.
In those studies, they’d observe couples talking, arguing, and reconciling. Everyone fights—but the key predictor of a healthy relationship is how partners repair things afterward. Contempt, by contrast, metastasizes. When one partner truly feels the other is inferior, it corrodes the relationship from within.
I wonder if anyone’s ever done a comparable study on the highly gifted—whether people regarded as geniuses, based on real-world achievement, are statistically more likely to be insufferable, whether there’s a measurable correlation between being a prick and being called a genius.
I think that’s similar to rage-baiting or “if it bleeds, it leads” journalism. In social media and news culture, outrage draws attention. Likewise, a highly intelligent person who’s also an asshole stands out. It’s the same dynamic you’ve pointed out before—people look at them and think, “Well, at least I’m not that.”
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Rosner: There’s a schadenfreude element. Still, it would be fascinating to see a statistical analysis.
Take Martin Scorsese, often regarded as a genius director—by all accounts, he seems like a genuinely nice guy. Steven Spielberg too. Alfred Hitchcock, on the other hand, was reportedly a creep and often cruel, though it’s hard to judge fully; it was a different era. Francis Ford Coppola doesn’t seem to be an asshole. Some of these figures succeed spectacularly, then fail just as spectacularly, but personality-wise, they vary widely.
I don’t think being a genius necessarily makes you a prick. Robert De Niro doesn’t seem like one—he can be cranky, but not mean-spirited. Al Pacino either. And Meryl Streep, by all accounts, is one of the kindest people in Hollywood, and she’s expressed just about every emotion known to humanity through her performances.
Maybe it’s different for collaborative fields like film, where realizing your vision requires working with hundreds of people. There’s a built-in check on narcissism. I can’t say the same for certain modern artists—Jeff Koons comes to mind.
Jacobsen: But public perception tends to focus on figures like Picasso, whose personal life included relationships with much younger women, some uncomfortably so.
Rosner: Whether or not they were underage, the power and age gaps were disturbing, and that’s what stands out now. People judge those dynamics through a modern lens, as they should.
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Jacobsen: But it’s part of the same broader pattern—genius and entitlement often get tangled up. The Terman “Termite” study remains telling, though. It’s on the scale of major government longitudinal studies, and its findings still hold up.
Those participants were highly gifted children, and I think a few even failed to qualify but still went on to major success—maybe even wealthier or more accomplished than some who did. I’d probably recognize a few names if I looked them up. But yes, it’s a bit tautological. These tests were originally meant to identify students who needed extra educational support or acceleration in a system where formal education became the main success marker. Over the past century and a half, education has become strongly tied to income, stability, and social status.
So when researchers measure “life success,” it’s partly circular—achievement often reflects access and opportunity.
Rosner: Probably to a degree. But still, I doubt there were many psychopaths among the Termites.
Jacobsen: Psychopathy’s more likely to cluster in big urban centers, where anonymity allows people to get away with more. In small communities, everyone’s accountable.
Rosner: And remember, the Termites were first tested in the 1920s. They grew up to become the so-called Greatest Generation—people who lived through the Depression and World War II. Afterward, the conformity culture of the 1950s. There was tremendous social pressure then not to be an asshole.
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I don’t know. It’s great that the Terman study exists, but it’s also culturally biased—it reflects the values and expectations of the era those people grew up in.
Jacobsen: My thinking is that sometimes people take giftedness or high achievement as a license to behave badly—to be, as you’d say, “Twats.”
Rosner: There might be a slightly higher incidence of “cuntiness” among highly successful people, but it’s not pervasive.
Georges Simenon comes to mind—the mystery writer. He could write a novel in a week, sometimes in just a few days, and he published around four hundred, maybe even five hundred books. But he was also famous for sleeping with thousands of prostitutes. I’m not sure that necessarily makes him a bad person or a twat.
If he was paying consenting sex workers, that makes him a man exercising his wealth and freedom, not necessarily a monster. If he was married, though—which he probably was—then sure, he was betraying someone. But as moral failings go, that’s a personal one, not evidence of psychopathy.
Then there’s Isaac Asimov. He wrote roughly as many books as Simenon but led a completely different kind of life. He went home to his wife every night.
Jacobsen: One of the most famous humanists of the twentieth century—honorary president of Mensa and of the American Humanist Association. He was even interviewed by Marilyn vos Savant. So you’re one degree away from Asimov, then.
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Rosner: Yeah, I actually wrote him a letter once and got a polite but noncommittal reply. I asked about his reading habits—I think I still have the letter somewhere in an old suitcase. He wrote back something quick and glib, didn’t answer the question directly. Still, I was happy to get a reply at all. That was about forty years ago.
Jacobsen: I think the major studies that could realistically be done on giftedness have already been done. The Terman study basically closed the case: intelligence alone doesn’t determine success. And I think schadenfreude plays a big sociological role in how people perceive “geniuses.”
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