Slowing life history (K) can account for increasing micro-innovation rates and GDP growth, but not macro-innovation rates, which declined following the end of the Industrial Revolution.
Woodley Of Menie, Michael A;Figueredo, Aurelio José;Sarraf, Matthew A;
the behavioral and brain sciences2019Vol. 42pp. e213
279
woodley-of-menie2019slowingthe
Abstract
Baumard proposes that life history slowing in populations over time is the principal driver of innovation rates. We show that this is only true of micro-innovation rates, which reflect cognitive and economic specialization as an adaptation to high population density, and not macro-innovation rates, which relate more to a population's level of general intelligence.