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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

#161

Post by coldtea »

0xFFC wrote: post #152
coldtea wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FYI the parent comment was not reasoned argument either. The notion of relation between education and IQ is questionable. Questionable based on ethical considerations is not the same as non-rational. It's a very logical thing to consider. A mechanism for example would be that people with higher IQ also tend to succeed in completing more higher education degrees. The inverse is also possible, and it's also a perfect…

>It's not however required for merely putting forward the argument as a possible explanation, or for judging whether the argument is rational or not. This is the difference between you and me. Before putting an argument forward I would evaluate it or at least calculate it a little bit! >It seems that your concerns are more tied to a priori axioms and emotional resistance than actual methodological issues in the quest…

>This is the difference between you and me. Before putting an argument forward I would evaluate it or at least calculate it a little bit!

Did this difference emerge very recently?

Because for someone who claims that, it seems bizarre that you entered this thread by stating: "Let me ask you how many of immigrants are grad students or people with high tech jobs?"

How is that more "evaluated" or "at least calculated" that what the parent wrote? Where were the numbers that go with this?

You then went on to give non-arguments combined with non-facts: "Is it one of the stupidest thing to say drop in IQ is connected to immigrants!"

And on with the non-arguments + non-facts: "It is greatly disappointing to see this kind of nonsense in HN which is kind of home for many hackers and programmers. Hearing these kind of stupid ideas in C-Span? Who cares? But HN, that shows how low our societies has become."

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

#162

Post by danieltillett »

soundwave106 wrote: post #122
maxerickson wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistics about how stupid people are outbreeding the smarts would be way more impressive than anecdotes. Especially given things like the Flynn effect.

High intelligence does seem to negatively correlated with fertility rate -- one study here, but there are plenty in Google Scholar. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289607... But "intelligence" / "IQ tests" are tangled up with a lot of correlating factors and biases so it's hard to say what this means. For instance, simply being poor affects cognitive ability considerably -- https://www.princeton…

Why I fully support every person having access to family planing methods as I don’t think anyone should be having children they don’t want, the relative cost of children would still cause differential changes to the population even if 100% of people had health care access.

Children are much more expensive to the highly educated, both directly through things like housing and education, and indirectly via opportunity costs. The more expensive you make something the less of it will be consumed unless it is a Veblen good.

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

#163

Post by Will_Parker »

yasp wrote: post #113
CyberDildonics wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book outliers says that research shows roughly half of IQ dictated by genetics. Do you have research that contradicts this?

50% would be "highly hereditary".

It's interesting to visualize what % heritable actually means. Here is a graph from a recent study trying to predict height from human genes. They found a correlation of 0.64

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4qSTryry0so/WcAhygytvTI/AAAAAAAAS...

That means, in practice, your height outcome tends strongly toward a fairly narrow range around the predicted mean. I found it illuminating to visualize the pattern.

(The full article is http://infoproc.blogspot.ca/2017/09/accurate-genomic-predict...)

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

#164

Post by godshatter »

Ygg2 wrote: post #105
danieltillett wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all as there are two effects going on. You become dumber as you get older (I unfortunately know this from personal experience), while the average intelligence of each generational cohort can also be changing through differential reproduction.

Yeah, but you becoming dumber as you get older won't affect scores, assuming each generation is tested at same point in their life. That's why I asked about their method.

They did talk in the article about how more subjects sitting for IQ tests are 60 or older, so they must do more than just test once in a person's life, or they have been branching out and testing more people.

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

#165

Post by KGIII »

Alex3917 wrote: post #153
subroutine wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. If I administer an IQ test to 1000 people in their 20s, and then retested them in their 60s, I'd be performing a classic within-subject test, where I could easily assess whether test performance increases, decreases, or doesn't significantly change.

My point was that let's say all 1,000 people in their 20s got every question correct, and then you retested them in their 60s and they all got every question wrong. Assuming the sample was representative of the overall population, the group's average IQ would have remained constant at 100.

That's not quite accurate. The score adjustments are periodic, not constant. The 100 average is from some years ago, and will be adjusted some time in the future. It is not constantly changing to reflect current scores.

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

#166

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

solveinequality wrote: post #151
Mangalor wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well drawing strict conclusions in a field that's still highly debated by researchers does, yes.

psychometricians largely aren’t debating the existence of intelligence, its variability, or the fact that it is heritable.

Actually...

http://www.apa.org/research/action/intelligence-testing.aspx

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/iq-tests-are-funda...

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/iq-test...

If intelligence were simple we'd know how to test for it. It isn't, and we don't. Not reliably, and certainly not in ways that are absolutely independent of culture and background.

The UK used to have a concept called "mental agility", which seems to be closer to the abilities measured by IQ than the much more complex quality psychologists call general intelligence.

You can have exceptional mental agility - the ability to remember and manipulate symbols and parse symbolic relationships quickly - and still be an utter idiot when it comes to dealing with some or all of reality.

A high IQ will not protect you from ideological beliefs, especially if you grow up with no exposure to other viewpoints, from a lack of mental openness (not to be confused with a lack of curiosity), from "moral" perspectives that are self-reinforcing prejudices, from poor socialisation, and so on.

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

#168

Post by Clubber »

jrimbault wrote: post #98
Clubber wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Though, in my opinion, education quality has gone down. What would you think if I told you I graduated in the 1990s and I felt the same way? Where would that put you? >there was a boy who couldn't read aloud a text without stumbling. There could be other reasons for that, like fear of public speaking.

Maybe you were in a pessimistic period in your life and I am the same way now. He didn't fear much. He was a bully.

Honestly I never bought into the stories that the current generation is full of dummies. It's mostly news hype made to make you feel superior about yourself. Those stories are amping up here in the US about Millenials. It's all BS.

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

#169

Post by 0xFFC »

coldtea wrote: post #161
0xFFC wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not however required for merely putting forward the argument as a possible explanation, or for judging whether the argument is rational or not. This is the difference between you and me. Before putting an argument forward I would evaluate it or at least calculate it a little bit! >It seems that your concerns are more tied to a priori axioms and emotional resistance than actual methodological issues in the quest…

> This is the difference between you and me. Before putting an argument forward I would evaluate it or at least calculate it a little bit! Did this difference emerge very recently? Because for someone who claims that, it seems bizarre that you entered this thread by stating: "Let me ask you how many of immigrants are grad students or people with high tech jobs?" How is that more "evaluated" or "at least calculated" t…

Do you understand this is a question : "Let me ask you how many of immigrants are grad students or people with high tech jobs?"

or not? And asking question or pointing calculation flow in one argument has nothing to do with evaluating your idea before puting forward.

Seriously, Why do you keep repeating yourself!

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

#170

Post by 0xFFC »

dpark wrote: post #160
0xFFC wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It does not indicate that only, e.g., spacial ability is falling. Given that verbal is a direct component in its own right (as well as a factor in other areas due to comprehension and communication), it is reasonable to state that verbal is likely a factor in the falling average IQ. You gave your answer here: >You're just asserting things you want to be true. Article states the IQ has been dropped. We don’t knew whi…

> You are just saying “immigrants have problem with language” -> “immigration causes this drop”. I never said anything like that. My comments have addressed nothing except your claim that linguistic skills are irrelevant in IQ tests, a claim which you've clearly based on nothing. > This is total nonsense. We don’t know. Maybe there is... No one said that this is the cause. Someone proposed it as a potential reason. S…

It seems you are not capable of understanding what "we don't know" means and continuing this discussion is pointless.

I asked for statistics and wanted a number. pointing ideas without any numbers is ridiculous. I am fascinated how much people can ignore what they don't like to see.

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