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.
The church we attend has a youth group (ages 13-18, I’d guess) of about 25 kids. During service, they sit as a group in the front rows with the youth director husband-and-wife team. Most of them come from HARD lives in rural impoverished areas of TN. Some have no parents in the picture — being raised by druggie grandparents or in foster care. Some victims of abuse. Many sad stories.
They are AMAZING kids, and we give credit the youth directors and pastor. I don’t know if they can help with basic I.Q. and schooling, but the kids have learned demeanor and how to behave in polite society. They sit up straight in church, listen to the sermons, and are polite to us “old folks”.
We had pretty much written off the younger generation, but now we’re hopeful.
IQ is something you are born with. You just can’t make dull people brilliant. You can provide a sound education to them both. The people with higher IQs will make something of themselves besides a social parasite.
It’s not rocket science.
Critical thinking is no longer taught at the very early levels.
Critical thinking is no longer taught.
Period.
Hell, even on this very sight are those that will attack people for critical thinking.
What is critical thinking?
It is the ability to look around you and, with the information at hand, come up with a conclusion and a solution.
Sometimes, the conclusion is wrong. Then you go back and review, to find where your conclusion went wrong.
Nowadays, if you are right, wrong or indifferent, you are attacked. The narrative does all your thinking for you.
“Schools, too, have stopped emphasizing logic and reading and gone deep into ideological propaganda.“
This has a LOT to do with it.
Plus, kids are being brought up by a VERY “ME!” oriented generation.
Oh yeah… we’ve been shoving God out of our society… He’ll let us see the consequences for doing things OUR way…
A teacher facing a high school class today will not see a single student paying attention to the lesson. They will see the tops of the students' heads as they attend solely to their cell phones, texting, shopping, watching movies and catching up on email. I often told my students that I had never seen any job ads asking for people who knew how to use a cell phone, but I'd seen plenty for engineers, accountants, nurses, etc.--none of which they'd be qualified to do ignoring lessons to play with their phones.
Problem 2 is importing low IQ immigrants.
Early teens through age 22 use of MARIJUANA. Chronic use.
20% drop in IQ which is permanent because of the developmental stage of the human brain which is disrupted,
enzymatically, chemically crossing the blood brain barrier. Why someone is called STONED, and the drug called DOPE.
Self fulfilling agent of morons who cannot speak, write or do basic math (like counting change at the register).
Smart phones— dumba@@ lazy people of any age.
And the new one “Artificial” Intelligence... cannot and will not replace ACTUAL intelligence, but the overlords of techie world want to make us all slobbering idiots.
IQ’s started dropping when the new math came out in the 70’s : )You're on to something there, and that along w/ the abandonment of grammar. Modern education things that kids can learn "holistically" and through "discovery", rather than through memorization and rules-based, repetitive practice.
Prolly too much of a socio-political hot potato to expect objective analysis. But the fact remains (and without getting into the associated developments), H. Sapiens only became dominant over the other apes after it adopted hunting as a lifestyle.
I'm not saying healthy vegetarianism can't be done (veganism is too stupid in concept to bother addressing) but it takes strategy and careful balancing of diet, and an extra layer of monitoring from your health care professional. And unless you grow your own, it can be pretty spendy. Which puts it beyond the fiscal and intellectual means of the majority of the hoopleheads who've jumped on the vegetarian bandwagon because it makes them popular with their peeps.
Those are the people who have volunteered to be progenitors to generations of the dietarily retarded.
Not entirely.
You just can't make dull people brilliant.
No, but you can make dull people a little brighter and you can make bright people duller.
There have been studies done with twins that were raised in different environments and the IQ difference was notable. Not a couple of points but up to twenty. And that is a BIG change.
The question is not "nature or nurture" it is both.
the sad part is the phone use is happening in the workplace as well, young people 20 somethings, play on the phone a lot, then complain that they have way to much work to do.
Common core
Communist woke wreckage
There will be people of all races in Heaven...and in Hell. ALL humans were made in God’s image. From having seen a lot of the worst of white people, from the lower classes to all manner of corruption of the upper middle class, I’ve recognized that sinfulness is part and parcel of all mankind (humanity).
re AI. I’ve seen several comments on how AI has been very helpful in creating their work product. They don’t seem to realize that they are beta testing AI for their employers.
How smart is that? lol
You just said what I was thinking about a vegetarian diet. It can be done and it can be nutritionally balanced and very tasty.
But it is expensive, time consuming and requires a serious commitment to nutritional education, monitoring of meals and top notch cooking skills. As a gardener I’d say that would also be expensive to do to grow and preserve everything you’d need.
And, as you say, all that is probably not enough so as to need regular blood work etc. to be sure you were on track.
It’s not workable for the lazy or those with time constraints imposed by work or leisure time activities.
That's it.
In the 70s, companies started adding bromine to bread. Bromine reduces iodine in people’s bodies.
Iodine deficiency reduces intelligence.
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