New Study: Are People Getting Dumber?

Ever worry there might be something to the plotline in the cult classic movie “Idiocracy?”

You know; the movie where a man from our time is put into hibernation and wakes up 500 years in the future only to discover he’s surrounded by nearly brainless people.

That plotline, according to Stanford University research Gerald Crabtree, isn’t so far-fetched. No, not the hibernation part; the dumbing down of the population part!

Crabtree says our comfortable way of living and lack of evolutionary pressures have given way to a higher incidence of people who are dumber than our forbearers.

"I would be willing to wager that if an average citizen of Athens of 1,000 BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions," Crabtree wrote in a study that appeared in Trends in Genetics, according to the Huffington Post. "I would also guess that he or she would be among the most emotionally stable of our friends and colleagues."

While Crabtree has his share of critics in the scientific world, we want to hear from you Tampa Bay!

Do you think people are becoming dumber? Is our instant gratification lifestyle having an impact on our intellect? Share your opinions in the comments section.