Eli5 why wearing glasses became a stereotype for intelligence.
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Because glasses are often used for reading. And reading is associated with smart people. People who do not read a lot, probably wouldn’t wear glasses a lot, unless they had some sort of vision problem.
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In the study, the largest of its kind ever conducted, researchers from the University of Edinburgh analyzed cognitive and genetic data from over 300,000 people aged between 16 and 102 that had been gathered by the UK Biobank and the Charge and Cogent consortia. Their analysis found “significant genetic overlap between general cognitive function, reaction time, and many health variables including eyesight, hypertension, and longevity”. Specifically, people who were more intelligent were almost 30% more likely to have genes which might indicate they’d need to wear glasses.
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Near sightedness is only because we live in dark living places and stretch our eyes to much. In the ancient world where there were no books, vision was much better.
Told to me by optometrist when I asked “what did people do 500 years ago?”
Smart people close some background tasks like precise eyesight and muscle growth in order to enhance brain activity. Stephen Hawking was as smart as he was because he closed out all background processes.
Because the first glasses were reading glasses. It was over 800 years ago, and back then only the wealthy/powerful were educated or able to read. Because they were the ones that had access to information, they were also seen as more intelligent.
It would be almost 400 years before glasses for myopia (near sightedness) were made.
http://www.glasseshistory.com/
Well the way I looked at it. If you watched almost any movie the “smart” person wore glasses. My mother a of her sisters & brothers wore glasses. Of course I wanted to wear glasses and look smart, so at age 30 I got my wish I was diagnosed with astigmatism.
It is also self-reinforcing. If you tell a child they are supposed to be intellectually inclined, they will try to do it, to please you. Sometimes it just won’t work, but a surprising amount of ‘intelligence’ may be down to learned skills.
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