Posted on 04/10/2023 9:13:18 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
For decades IQs were climbing in the Western World. It was called the “Flynn effect.”
Average IQs were defined as 100 in each succeeding iteration of the IQ test, as by definition the average was normed to 100. But if you rescored earlier IQ tests based upon prior norms, the average IQ would have increased by about 15 points or one standard deviation.
In other words, if you took an IQ test in 1942 and scored 100, by today’s scoring you would have an IQ of 86.
That is, until the past 10 or so years. In the past 10 years, IQs have been dropping, and dropping pretty fast. And nobody is quite sure why. It is labeled the “Reverse Flynn Effect.”
There is lively debate about what exactly the Flynn effect and now the Reverse Flynn effect exactly mean. It could be something as simple as differences in education or education styles or something physical such as the effects of nutrition, as diets change over time. There could have been something that stimulated logic and reading abilities in the past and that no longer exists, or something else.
But the fact is that improvements in IQ over time are being erased.
Americans’ IQ scores are trending in a downward direction. In fact, they’ve been falling for over a decade.
According to a press release, in studying intelligence testing data from 2006 to 2018, Northwestern University researchers noticed that test scores in three out of four “cognitive domains” were going down. This is the first time we’ve seen a consistent negative slope for these testing categories, providing tangible evidence of what is known as the “Reverse Flynn Effect.”
In a 1984 study, James Flynn noticed that intelligence test scores had steadily increased since the early 1930s. We call that steady rise the Flynn Effect. Considering that overall intelligence seemed to be increasing faster than could be explained by evolution, the reason increase became a source of debate, with many attributing the change to various environmental factors.
One interesting clue is the fact that of the 4 domains of intelligence measured only 3 of the four have gone down, while the 4th–spacial reasoning–continued to rise.
Almost sounds like playing video games a lot dumbs down the verbal and logic abilities while increasing spatial reasoning. That is my favorite explanation.
Schools, too, have stopped emphasizing logic and reading and gone deep into ideological propaganda. The simplest conversation with a newly graduated student reveals their utter inability to reason coherently on almost any matter or use the English language as a sophisticated communication tool.
Hence the inability to define simple terms such as sex, or answer the question “what is a woman.”
We know that exposure to sophisticated concepts and reading matter a lot, particularly at the early stages of brain development. With the reduced emphasis on reading and logic skills and the enhanced ability to consume endless amounts of simple content–usually in very small bites–it wouldn’t be surprising to see the ability of younger people to exercise more sophisticated abilities.
Of course, this is speculation on my part.
Dworak, a research assistant professor at Northwestern University and one of the authors on the study, is very clear that these results don’t necessarily mean Americans are getting less intelligent. “It doesn’t mean their mental ability is lower or higher; it’s just a difference in scores that are favoring older or newer samples,” she said in a press release. “It could just be that they’re getting worse at taking tests or specifically worse at taking these kinds of tests.”
And, it should be said, there has long been debate over how accurately IQ tests are able to gauge overall intelligence and potential for success in society in the first place.
Regardless, scores are falling, and there’s got to be a reason for the decline. Dworak says it might have something to do with “a shift in perceived values in society.” She offers up the potential explanation that an increase in focus on STEM education may have allowed other areas, like abstract reasoning, to fall by the wayside.
I don’t buy that society is becoming more focused on STEM. We talk a lot about it, but STEM scores are pretty dismal in the schools, and STEM itself is becoming ideological.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if you sliced and diced the population in order to tease out some more sophisticated correlations. Race, income, type of school, hours on the Internet, content consumption habits, parenting styles.
I suspect we could learn a lot. And given the size of the data sample, I suspect that the studies could easily be done, or even have been done and the results not widely distributed for political reasons.
But again, that latter is just speculation. It may be that the variables simply weren’t recorded.
In any case, the fact remains: something bad is going on here. I think we have all seen the effects in our personal experiences, and now the anecdotal impressions have data to back them up.
Fluoride in water.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5285601/
https://fluoridealert.org/studies/brain01/
I think there’s a lot to that. Since the rise of the smart phone and screen culture the % of people who read during leisure time has fallen dramatically.
Freegards
Interesting topic. Personally, when I look at my father and grandfather, both their handwriting, vocabulary, and math were excellent. I feel there’s been a ‘dumbing down’ in education for decades. I’m not sure I agree that IQ’s were continually rising up through the 90’s. Dumbed down generations also produce the next generation of teachers, so the effect becomes generationally multiplied.
Maybe it’s because we’re too focused on trigger warnings, safe spaces, and transgenderism - it leaves little room for that which is ‘hard’. If Johnny can’t do calculus then nobody should do calculus, that is where we are.
Cell phones and immigrants.
Compare the people of the countries with the highest IQ’s and those of the USA. You will note those with high IQ’s all look alike. Japanese, the Scandinavian countries, etc. Whereas the US is highly diversified. The diversification of a country lowers it’s levels of excellence in every way. It’s as plain as day!!!!
“Trans Kids”. What a clever way to mainstream and normalize mental illness. Not referring to the little trannies in training but to the sick educators who are promoting this insanity.
Her t-shirt should read “misery loves company”
A lot of factors to consider in this problem.
Immigration, drugs both legal and illegal, lack of two parent household, lack of books or reading/comprehension skills, poor teachers in school, college indoctrination, overuse of technology, and on...etc.
But, IQ is more than rote knowledge and the IQ test looks for understanding and reasoning skills. Teach children false reasoning, false morals, and lead them into a world where wrong is right and you will quickly have a loss of actual intelligence. Intelligence needs discipline in order to fully develop.
Approx 13% of the US population is African/negroid race.
Around 75% Caucasian.
Reverse those percentages and ask yourself what the results would be.
Increase in IQ population and the deliberate dumbing down of our schools to accommodate the increasing number of low IQ kids.
The teachers are stupid.
Marijuana doses before age 26—when the brain fully matures.
Illegal Immigrants perhaps WORSE in this regard?
The military have played this game with IQ and enlistment scores. Every 10 years they lowered the content by 7-9 percent points to increase test scores. The has increased the 100 and 110 scores by Neary 35 points since 1970.
At the same time good cultural upbringing has maintained the quality of the super rich. The poor masses benefit up to 115 but the break thru above 1020, 125, ect., remain as hard as before to achieve.
This benefit maintains the divid between Old money and New money in upper crust society.
Obama’s wet dream of “fundamentally” changing the USA has come to pass. He had enough socialist/ Marxist/communist to help him weaponize America. I’m sure he is ecstatic and can’t stop smiling at how much he was able to accomplish.
Too many diverse subjects in middle and high school. Take it back to 1970 at least everybody had to take grammar, everybody had to take the math path, everybody had to take the science path, and everybody had to take at least 4 years of gym with a focus on physical fitness/training and wellness not necessarily goofing off.
Everyone should take Latin at least one year cuz at some point in your life you’re going to come across some Latin phraseology and if you go into Sciences or law it’ll come in handy.
Oh, and I think it’s about time for school uniforms to come back simple, affordable, modest.
Truant offenders go to work camps.
You would probably be surprised how many other countries have something very similar to this outline.
I’m sure the amount of garbage they pump into the foods is playing a part, as well as contributing to obesity rates in kids.
Also, if we look into the toxins and endocrine disruptors in shampoo, soap, etc., that can be having an effect.
Children inherit at least part of their intelligence from their mothers. Women are slathering all sorts of chemicals onto their bodies in a quest for beauty. What are the long term effects of that?
I found The Federalist Papers to be fascinating reading material. People just 10 years younger than me have a hard time understanding even a few paragraphs.
What changed?
I presume you know that literacy is not the same as IQ.
Stupid people having stupid children sending them to stupid schools.
My invoice is on its way.
...concurrently with the smart people NOT having children.
That’s true. Literacy is often presumed to be evidence of a high IQ but sometimes it’s nothing more than rote learning and memory. Similar to what actors do with dialog.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.