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Average IQ scores seem to have been falling and population ageing may be why

newscientist.com

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Re: Average IQ scores seem to have been falling and population ageing may be why

#31

Post by iam-TJ »

adsfqwop wrote: post #23
iam-TJ wrote: post #17

Being a long-suffering thoughtful inquisitive type that can turn their hand to anything I have spent many hours pondering why it seems that most people around me show traits of 'stupidity'. I've come to the conclusion 'stupidity' is not the issue; 'unthinking' is, and the specific sub-type is 'unable to apply logical analytical thinking'. I have a relation who, when challenged that the way they're doing some task is…

I shudder to think what happens in 20 more years, when the last potato peelers are gone :-/ The movie "Idiocracy" inevitably comes to mind [1] :( However I do think it's something more than just the burden or unburden of our new technology. Logical thinking should be an universal trait, no matter what the environment is like. However one thing which is eating into that equation, is logical thinking is almost never pr…

Agreed; there are many facets colluding.

I believe others of significance may be the exhaustion and stress many feel at the pace of life and coping with it.

On the educational side I think it very much depends on what culture, which country, which region, which politics, which teacher and even who your contemporaries are.

Re: Average IQ scores seem to have been falling and population ageing may be why

#32

Post by ZeroGravitas »

danieltillett wrote: post #19
matt4077 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And by "some people" you mean social darwinists advocating eugenics?

You don’t have to be an advocate for eugenics to notice a trend. Everybody these days is a eugenicist in that they all support the idea of helping pregnant women give birth to health children by ensuring they are well nourished and given good medical support. The section of 20th C. eugenics that is controversial is the part that suggests that one section of society should have more or less children.

It's not been established that there is a trend to spot.

Here's a recent and fairly pro-eugenics survey of all the results they could find showing a reduction in IQ:

https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2016-dutton.pdf

And even they basically are only at the stage of saying "maybe there's a hidden trend, that's obscured by other trends moving in the opposite direction" (they think society becoming more abstract has caused a false rise in IQ, due to IQ tests measuring that socially taught facility with abstraction rather than raw intelligence, this may have disguised an actual drop in intelligence).

So maybe it does help to have a preconcieved cause to spot this hypothesised trend.

Regarding their hypothesis, it's kind of a philosophical question about whether you'd rather have a society full of uneducated bumpkins (not sure there is an english word for someone with raw intelligence but no education) with sharper reflex times or ability to discern colors, than a modern post-graduate who scores slightly worse on those tests but better on IQ. It's also somewhat unlikely that the former is going to be having less children than the latter, so they whole dysgenic thing seems to be on shakey ground.

Re: Average IQ scores seem to have been falling and population ageing may be why

#33

Post by danieltillett »

jrimbault wrote: post #26
danieltillett wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The English word you want is not stutter, but stumble. Stutter (or stammer) is a medical condition, stumbling over words is the result of a poor quality education.

Thank you, I edited my original comment.

Not a problem. English is an easy language to begin, but a very hard one to master.

Re: Average IQ scores seem to have been falling and population ageing may be why

#35

Post by Ygg2 »

danieltillett wrote: post #29
Ygg2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but they are mentioning aging. Do you mean that the older men having children is reducing IQ of future generations?

Older men having children probably does reduce the IQ of future generations given they will pass on more mutations, but no this is not what I meant. Think of all the people you know, think of how smart each person is, and then count up how many children each person has. Unless you you know a very small number of people I think you will see what I mean.

Yeah, but your explanation conflicts with the article explanation.

Re: Average IQ scores seem to have been falling and population ageing may be why

#36

Post by thriftwy »

Ygg2 wrote: post #9
andriesm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The movie idiocracy comes to mind. Apparently the flynn effect slowed down. Some people hypothesize that the wellfare state has a dysgenic effect by redistributing income from high IQ (high income) people to low IQ (low income or wellfare recipients)... It effectively creates disproportionate economic incentives for having children, and some indications put heritability of IQ above 0.7

Flynn effect didn't slow down. It actually reversed. https://theeconomyofmeaning.com/2015/11/12/new-study-shows-r... It's like https://xkcd.com/603/ , except White Hat is is wrong on most accounts.

In 603, White Hat flies from arguments to preserve his naive positivistic view of the world where things fix themself magically.

"You arguments are wrong because Flynn effect, and if this one is reversed then your arguments are wrong just because."

Re: Average IQ scores seem to have been falling and population ageing may be why

#37

Post by raverbashing »

iam-TJ wrote: post #17

Being a long-suffering thoughtful inquisitive type that can turn their hand to anything I have spent many hours pondering why it seems that most people around me show traits of 'stupidity'. I've come to the conclusion 'stupidity' is not the issue; 'unthinking' is, and the specific sub-type is 'unable to apply logical analytical thinking'. I have a relation who, when challenged that the way they're doing some task is…

I find it funny that the 'Great Kingdom' didn't sell electrical appliances with a plug fitted on the 1980s since that was standard in pretty much all the rest of the world.

It's not about convenience, it's about selling a functioning and safe product

And yes I do agree the knowledge of replacing plugs is important and is getting lost, I didn't learn it by having to fit it to newly acquired equipment (rather by fixing equiment where that - or the cable - became faulty)

Re: Average IQ scores seem to have been falling and population ageing may be why

#38

Post by Idontknowmyuser »

danieltillett wrote: post #29
Ygg2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but they are mentioning aging. Do you mean that the older men having children is reducing IQ of future generations?

Older men having children probably does reduce the IQ of future generations given they will pass on more mutations, but no this is not what I meant. Think of all the people you know, think of how smart each person is, and then count up how many children each person has. Unless you you know a very small number of people I think you will see what I mean.

this seems to contradict what you're saying: http://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/older-men-have-geek...

Re: Average IQ scores seem to have been falling and population ageing may be why

#39

Post by danieltillett »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #32
danieltillett wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t have to be an advocate for eugenics to notice a trend. Everybody these days is a eugenicist in that they all support the idea of helping pregnant women give birth to health children by ensuring they are well nourished and given good medical support. The section of 20th C. eugenics that is controversial is the part that suggests that one section of society should have more or less children.

It's not been established that there is a trend to spot. Here's a recent and fairly pro-eugenics survey of all the results they could find showing a reduction in IQ: https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2016-dutton.pdf And even they basically are only at the stage of saying "maybe there's a hidden trend, that's obscured by other trends moving in the opposite direction" (they think society becoming more abstract has caused a…

I think you are missing my point which is noticing a trend does not mean you are advocating for political position.

Unless all the people I personally know are very unrepresentative of society in general I have a hard time believing that there is not a negative effect on IQ due to differential fertility.

Re: Average IQ scores seem to have been falling and population ageing may be why

#40

Post by thriftwy »

amelius wrote: post #27
terminalcommand wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think being wise and being intelligent are different qualities. You might solve a puzzle in shorter time if you're intelligent, or remember more things. But if you're wise you will spend your energy to solve the right puzzle and remember the right things.

How do we measure wisdom? Is there a "WQ test"?

We also really need a test that measures risk-taking and ability to bend rules to achieve positive outcome.
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