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Loss of Applied IQ Among UK Youth?
Baldrson writes "The UK Times Online reports that: 'After studying 25,000 children across both state and private schools Philip Adey, a professor of education at King's College London confidently declares: "The intelligence of 11-year-olds has fallen by three years' worth in the past two decades."' 3 years loss at age 11 is an IQ of 100*8/11 or 73 -- a massive loss of 27 points. Although the test measures, not general IQ per se, but general IQ applied to scientific and technical reasoning, it nevertheless appears to blow 'a gaping hole' in what has been called The Flynn Effect: that IQs have been rising in most parts of the world -- particularly the developed countries."
What with Celebrity Big Brother, the Crazy Frog and chav culture, I'm amazed it's that few!
You must think in Russian.
We're not stupid... We're advanced.
That obselete test just fails to keep up with modern applications of science and math. Like manipulating them to support your point, or redefining them for political reasons.
Why is IQ judged only on the basis of science & technical application?
Is science the only field worth measuring an IQ on?
The internet is a vast information resource available to a large portion of the civilized world, but I don't think kids today are interested in learning anything. As parents (and people in general, I think) have become more selfish as time goes by, this is the only behavior our children see, leading them to behavior that isn't interested in learning. All they really want is to be entertained. In this regard, the electronic age might be our worst enemy. Instead of using computers and the internet as a tool to expand thier world, they use them as a crutch -- for entertainment when needed, and to do the thinking for them when presented with things like math problems, spelling and grammar. If being smart is no longer 'cool', what's the incentive to learning anything? Money in the form of 'future income' is not enough of an incentive for many kids -- Future income means future work, and many of these kids will settle for a job at a fast food restaurant (despite those jobs being incredibly stressful and low-wage) because they don't want to put forth the effort to learn anything and/or find another job.
The category is too broad and the timeframe too short to making statements to the effect that young people are '30%' less scientific or technical minded than they were thirty years ago. There are far too many variables that can be changing to make a claim such as this. Usually when someone makes a 'study' like this and comes to these conclusions, there is a hidden agenda that is usually political behind it. A general study is made; an unsupportable but sensational conclusion is drawn, specific remedies are proposed. Remedies that tend to favor the people who initiated the 'study' in the first place.
What are the measurements? What are the controls? Who financed this? Who financed them?
And the real question to ask: What difference does it make?
Don't mistake a "drop" in IQ with rising IQs elsewhere.
Recall that places like India and China have, for various reasons, not been the best places to foster intellect in recent times (the last two or three hundred years). The people there are just as intellectually capable as anyone from a Western nation, but did not have many of the advantages that Western society was able to offer due to its better economic position, and so forth.
But times have changed, and education is far more available in places like India and China, in addition to many other developing countries. So it's no wonder that the comparative IQ gap between Western and Eastern cultures is closing, and closing quickly. It's not because people in the Western world are becoming stupider; it's because the people in the East are now able to take advantage of better educational opportunities.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
No, they had other problems that kept them from thinking of those things:
- Starving to death
- Cholera
- Freezing during the winter
- Smallpox
People during those times were depressed too, they just used alcohol (that's what most medicines were then anyway) People who were rich enough that they didn't have to worry about the things listed above had the same 'problems' you allude to the general population having today. It is only that now enough people are well off enough to sit around and worry about such higher level problems.There's nothing special about the chav "movement" of today. It's much like the punks of the late 1970s. They wear different clothes, but the attitude is still the same.
Even then, it's something that they'll be forced to grow out of. If any of them wish to obtain and retain jobs, even as custodians or trash collectors at McDonalds, they won't be able to act like chavs or punks. And if they don't conform, then they'll likely turn to crime, and end up dead or in prison.
The basic economics of living, and the criminal justice system after that, acts as the good parents that these kids didn't have.
Nevertheless, those with intellectual talent do almost always manage to succeed, even in the fact of punkism or chavism. There won't be a shortage of British scientists or researchers, for instance.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Speaking as a parent in the UK I have to agree with the general sentiment of the article, though I can't speak about the percentages, not being in possession of the statistics. One only has to listen to the Universities saying "we now have to set basic literacy and numeracy tests for all 18 year olds as part of the entrance process" to know that something is very wrong.
It's the "all shall have prizes" culture where children aren't told "that's wrong, go and do it again" lest we scar them for life and someone brings a law suit.
You're assuming that the UK powers that be want intellignet people. They don't. What they want is unquestioning masses who blindly accept government social programs, centralized monitary policy, and poor government finance.
This is very unsurprising.
There was a time when engineers and trailblazers were popular heroes. But a lot of damage was done in the 1980s and 1990s, when there was a culture of outright greed and everybody's dream was to be a fat-cat manager. Education reflected this, and children were trained to be capable pen-pushers, perhaps also possesing relational and organisational skills. (It was not all bad.) Politicians listened to business leaders, and business leaders naturally emphasised the type of skills they themselves had.
However, the people who did this forgot that management does not create ideas or value. Problem-solving, creative and scientific skills took a back seat; some of this was an understandable reaction to the way education was organized in the 1970s. But they were also considered less important because they were not culturally appreciated and besides, they were not the kind of skills a professional human resources department was looking for.
The result has been a loss of cognitive ability, in part a lack of creativity, but to substantial degree a loss of interpretative ability. The generation that was still educated in Latin and Old Greek may have wasted time on subjects managers now consider unimportant, but they did have a knack for extracting meaning from obscure and incomplete evidence.
I'd definitely agree with this. My little sister is 14, and although she's not bright in the way that my other sister and I were, she's not dumb. However, she and her friends generally seem uninterested in learning, reading (the hobby that I attribute most of my intelligence today to), and just general education. Kids today (and I say this as a 19 year old, so don't mod me -1, Old Timer) are just apathetic about learning, and I can definitely say that as time passes, kids just aren't getting smarter.
Same with a lot of other stuff. I could help out with fixing the car. Well stand by but you could actually see stuff and the adults could actually do things themselves. Todays cars? Black boxes.
I learned a lot about electricity helping out with a model railroad. Pokemon is a nice game but it is played on another black box.
But lets face it, the rot started without especially your generation. YOU are the one raising these 11 year olds and we just don't have the need to get down and dirty anymore.
Odd thing about the sexual revolution? Rather then men learning how to cook as well now nobody learns how to cook. Freaky.
As our tech increases we need less and less knowledge about it. My mom knew how to wire a fuse. I know how to screw in one. My kid knows how to throw a circuit breaker. Wich one of us would be more likely to be able to get a car moving when there is no replacement fuse available?
Maybe parents need to get more involved with their kids. Nah.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
But equally back in those days ( I has the same experience ) we had no Internet; Understand came from moth-eaten books out of the library with obscure impossible to purchase parts. I may remember romantically my first computer was a 6502 with 7 segment led, but finding information on how to do anything with it was next to impossible.
:o)
I'd rather be a kid now than then!
ok, I still am a kid, but I no longer live with my parents
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
My experiences were somewhat similar; I had a Sinclair Spectrum at home, and a friend taught me how to solder (his dad repaired photocopiers and the like) and a couple of adult members of the local computer club got me started with assembly language, but the rest I had to learn from books and magazines, and often without access to equipment, tools or parts to be able to test things myself. Also, I'd quite often get so far, then hit a brick wall, and could find no-one to show me the next stage. If I'd had Google back then, I probably could have learnt a lot more.
No. "3 years loss at age 11" means today's kids reach the same IQ at age 11 that their parents reached at 8.
This would translate to 73 if IQ rised linearly with age, but it probably doesn't.
AC
A nice dose of 220 through your hand will teach you more about electricity then any classroom lecture.
As for wiring a fuse with say a screwdriver. Sometimes you just got to do stuff that is unsafe. If we only did was what safe we would still be up a tree somewhere in africa. (or for the religious people, inside the garden of eden)
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think things like outsourcing and global capitalism are responsible for the "decline", think about it, if you're a kid growing up today you have to think about whether or not going into debt is going to pay off for the field you get into and by the time you graduate and how stable that job market will be for the future, not only that but you have to worry about companies outsourcing your whitecollar job to some high skill+ low wage country and then you're stuck with a crapload of debt if you can't find a job. I don't envy kids living today in first world countries because places like india and china simply outcompete them on $ per worker.
Why would I want to go to university or study hard to be a science/math nerd if the company is going to move or eventually outsouce and higher low wage workers or farm them in on visa's?
The problem with turtle graphics is that Logo is almost dead. It went with the Apple IIes that I learned BASIC on. I was going to try to revive Logo for a school project I was working on but it was a big hassle and it turned out I didn't have time. Its still out there but Nobody uses it. Especially teachers. Kids are learning how to use Microsoft Word instead. I think they want more too; my little brother (4th grade) came to me and asked me to teach him HTML. Its the education system that's not doing its job teaching technology. There are rumors at my school that a BASIC class used to exist but now all we have is "Honors Programming" which we're eligible for after two semesters of Computer Applications. Its pretty much limited to nerds and people who got stuck there because of scheduling. How sad.
( I
I think the Flynn Effect should really apply more to developing countries as opposed to developed ones. There is a greater imperative for higher intelligence in a country that tries to advance then those that are already under a popular consensus that they are already at the peak of development. I believe that this leads to decadence and a drop off in general IQ due to too much dependence on technology which reduces the need for mental agility. Why bother thinking too much when somebody else, or a machine, can do it for you?
My question is, where the hell are the parents of these kids? So many parents are in denial about what their children actually do- if there are even two parents. It sickens me to see lives go to waste like this.
What amazed me at the time was how scared the establishment was - It showed the power of detournment. Say what you will about McLaren he introduced a lot a people to situationist ideas. I have just been listening to a recording the Pistols live on tour 30 years ago and its power and relevance today stands out like a skyscraper in the desert.
I too was around during the birth of British punk in the seventies - I will never forget seeing the Clash play the RAR rally in Victoria Park or for that matter seeing the Slits and Sham 69 play before the premiere of Don Letts' Punk Movie.
However Punk is an ongoing international movement new and impressive bands form all the time and all around the world. There are young punks carrying on the struggle against the pigopolists, against the empire and for an anarchic freedom that transcends the society of the spectacle. To compare these young punks who are the children of the enlightment (and us boring old fart middle aged punks for that matter) with the co-opted brain dead zombies we call chav's is an insult.
BTW Rik Mayall was not the punk in The Young Ones television series. It was Ade Edmundson who played the punk Vivian and he of course would have nutted you for this insult, impaling the three superglued metal stars on his forehead in your skull. No you haven't seen the pattern you just can't see the wood for the trees.
This UK youth is not an elitist asshole.
/. here who posted earlier, I attend a grammar school. These are specifically designed to harbour the most intelligent and train them to their potential. If what is available in my year is the cream of our province, then we have serious issues, especially since my school is highly selective.
/. crowd, they were in the "geeky" social group. I'm a geek, that's where I like to be. Where we DO talk about maths, we DO talk about computers, we DO talk about more than "Lost" and, "OHMIGAWD DID YOU SEE WHAT SHE WAS WEARIN'?!" . None of us are dysfunctional geeks, we have lives, but our lifestyles are different enough to realise what we lack and have that the others don't have. What the others, who don't care how things work and have fun in free periods bundling each other on the floor work.
Like a fellow
I cannot imagine how other provinces ("Counties" here in the UK) manage. Grammar schooling was abolished in every other county, and there is a serious movement to abolish them here. Why? Through some twisted use political correctness and an attitude of, "All are equal in ability, thus, it is unfair to split staffing between schools, where the grammar school may take the better staff due to a more prestigious position." Luckily the Labour party has recently begun motions to keep and enhance selective schooling in the country, which I think is a good thing.
However, back to my experience. Technical and applied sciences are sorely, sorely lacking. I had a girl in my economics class a few weeks ago requiring explanation and a little time for the mathematical cogs to grind to work out the total sum of 50 - 40 = 10.
I am not joking.
I believe I know the problem, and it purely is our society, and the crap we are force-fed, and most of use ingest. Who to blame for this, I'm not sure. Maybe corporations aiming to control our habits from birth, maybe lazy parenting, maybe government attitude, likely a combination of these things and more. I am however certain of the society in my school.
I attend a sixth form at the top grammar school in my area, and I find it fairly boring, but I love to learn. Most likely like a lot of the
+ Major point: None of us watch TV. We do grow a liking to a certain series here or there and we watch (Much which is popular here, too. Futurama, Firefly, BS:G and so forth), but none of use sit in front of that square box and just sit there mindlessly because we don't have anything else to do.
+ We learn where we can in school. Let me explain this. I have slowly and methodically found out school grades are in no way whatsoever a representation of intelligence in any way. They are simply a test of memory, this is how ninety-five percent of the school treat it, and that is how it is taught. You never have to think at any point, you are told some bare facts, and you need to memorise them. This is why some truly idiotic people can get good marks. I think a further factor why science and maths is worst hit is that is requires minimal amounts of though, we have to memorise equations, sure, but then we have to APPLY them. Oh that scares them. They didn't memorise that one. We as a group want to truly learn. I aced triple physics with an A* at GCSE with barely any revision, it being the toughest physics test open to me at the time, simply because I've always been interested in physics, and how the world works.
+ Peer pressure of hatred of science and learning. Being a geek, I do of course have geek attire, such as the exceptionally cool, "Shroedinger's Cat is dead" T-shirt from ThinkGeek.com. Ninety-eight percent just don't care, ask, and as I'm always willing to teach, start off with the phrase, "It's about physics..." knowing it'll scare them off. They don't care. They don't want to stay and listen. Their social position may fall! However, people have complimented me on this T-shirt, in private. Girls especially, I'm assuming because they have a greater "pack" society. We don't do t
I always browse here at -1. I like to consider everyone's opinion, even those who wish to talk about the Penisbird, link to Goatse, write Slashdot editor erotica, and post random gibberish. Even the most moronic postings found here far exceed the childish fecal matter you'll find at the GameFAQs.com forums.
And before anyone becomes mistaken, no, I'm not the CyricZ who reportedly posts there. We are different people. I am Cyric Zndovzny. He is Scott somebody, if I'm not mistaken.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
It's odd that every comment here is about circuits and electricity. The article refers kids couldn't figure out that pouring water from a a tall thin jug into a fat small jug gives you the same amount of water!!!
What the living heck does that have to do with ICs? You can play with electricity not understanding the simply or complicated explaination underlying physics all day long. This is about the basics of interacting with this world on a mechanical level.
OK, but like many of you, I taught myself programming as a kid and studies EE later... but hell, I also played outside and got a sense for gravity, forces, and geometry. That's what this is REALLY about!
I don't know what chavs are, and there's no entirely kind way to put this:
oh, you geezer you. this line is hilarious:
"The punks were politically-motivated and rebelling against the Establishment, and even the establishment in popular culture."
Actually, most of them were drug/booze filled horny teenagers with nothing better to do. just like every other "movement" of that kind in the last, oh, I think I can safely say 'couple of centuries'. I can't provide any really old examples, but I'm pretty sure they existed. Heard of emos? (maybe a north american thing). they think they're an important movement too. so do many goths. Even hipsters often do. secretly, though, they're just a bunch of kids who have similiar taste in music. maybe they have similiar taste in politics too, but rocking out tends not to changed the world much.
the vietnam era hippies (beatles etc.) were a politically-motivated group, rebelling against the establishment. that's why they actually accomplished something. Even so, most hippies were in it for the free love and the cannabis.
The problem is that society has removed the negative effects of making a mistake or doing seomthing wrong, so theres no impulse for most people to attempt success.
In Australia, its called Occupational Health and Safty. I can see its purpose, making our lives safer through law, but the negative effects could be as large as what the article describes. A wildcard example that is very common, through law, in all workplaces now, is that kettles now have to be labled as hot. Toasters need to be labled as dangerous because of their electric contents.
Darwin described it many years ago, and called it Natural Selection. Developed society has removed the implications of being weak, and therefore made them as equal as the strong in their chances for success.
Its tough to say, but these days, to many children are stressed beyond belief at school, but in the wrong way. At school more work = smarter children, but this never happens if all that work is done incorrectly and then not corrected. To much these days children arn't told: You failed or Thats incorrect, do it again. In the current education system in Australia there is no fail. the marks on every single course range from 50 to 100.
People learn via a combination of things. 1. The rewards of succeeding, 2. Fear of failure and 3. Having initative enough to learn from mistakes.
The ultra clean environment we have made for our children is apparently weakening their immune systems. The ultra safe environment, is removeing their addaptive ability. The ultra success society, is removeing the distinction between success and failure. And the ultra information society, is removing the need for general knowlege. Sure, there are alot of good kids out there, alot of smart kids, who take the initative. But society is focused on protecting, not helping those who fail.
We have smart people, working, to pay taxes, to ensure that the people who dont work, have enough money to pay their bills for pay tv and alcohol while their kids run wild. All the same time as the smart people are having fewer and fewer children.
Another problem is that these days, the devices and tools the occupy out childrens lives cant be as easily taken apart. When i was young, i remember building a radio, playing with instructionless technic, playing with electronics, looking at motors. But now, the iPod cant be oppened, the motors in lawn mowers can only be touched by a licenced dealer, and Lego comes with specially designed pieces and themed instructions.
I hate to say it. But society needs to bring back the difference between success and failure, and therefore provide the impulse for people to learn from their mistakes, not their text books.
We need to bring back natural selection.
The best tool we have left in our stock now, is the combination of the economy and law enforcement. If the failures turn to crime, they might die or be arrested. If the failures want a job to support themselves they have to conform to that jobs regulations: pants, a tie and knowlege on a specific area. Sadly, the huge amount of welfare and the effect of liability in decreasing the law enforcement powers of the police have made these weapons weak.
I KNEW IT!!! All of those "please think of the children arguments" were true, piracy is inversely related to child study habits. Fortunately we have the RIAA to help us get our children into gear. But for all of the Europeans, won't someone please think of the European children?
What day is it? Could you please tell me?
Intelligence is heritable and the intelligent are having fewer children than the dull.
Intelligence is aborting/abstaining/contracepting itself out of existence and leaving the world to the idiots.