this happens when the selection process is entirely random. However, the colonists for Safehold were not randomly selected. We do know that their was a slection process of some kind. We just don't know what it was. It seems reasonable that above average physical fitness and intelligence would have been factors in the selection process. The biggest problem is that we have no information on how those or any other quality would have been measured.
There is also the fact that the colonists would have been selected from a gene pool that had already been winnowed by a brutal genocidal war. The colonists were being chosen from a group of survivors, which would probably make the base gene pool tougher, smarter and more fit than today's gene pool.
Finally, the effect of all this would be to move the average intelligence, and physical fitness upwards. It would not result in a large population of genius supermen and superwomen hiding in the general population. for that to happen everyone else would hace to get dumber and less physically fit.
RequiteKitty158 wrote:This is my first post here but have been a reader of RFC since 94.
I've wonder about the speed of Tech Development and the general competence level (IQ) of the inhabitance of Safehold for a while but I've always assumed that the mission planners who had the option to control the selection process for the colonist and specifically choose for the best of humanity (they choose the best STOCK for this using the best genetic science they had at the time) and based Off text in OAR marriages may also have been preselected. (predetermined and pre-analysized for best genetic tendencies) to sound like a cold uncaring breeder looking to enlarge my herd with the best stock possible.
hence, a far larger percentage of the humans on safehold every generation are Highly Intelligent Supergenies