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Are We Getting Smarter? Rising IQ Scores In the Twenty-First Century
hessian sends this excerpt from The New Republic:
"[A] person who scored 100 a century ago would score 70 today; a person who tested as average a century ago would today be declared mentally retarded. This bizarre finding — christened the 'Flynn effect' by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray in The Bell Curve — has since snowballed so much supporting evidence that in 2007 Malcolm Gladwell declared in The New Yorker that 'the Flynn effect has moved from theory to fact.' But researchers still cannot agree on why scores are going up. Are we are simply getting better at taking tests? Are the tests themselves a poor measure of intelligence? Or do rising IQ scores really mean we are getting smarter? In spite of his new book's title, Flynn does not suggest a simple yes or no to this last question. It turns out that the greatest gains have taken place in subtests that measure abstract reasoning and pattern recognition, while subtests that depend more on previous knowledge show the lowest score increases. This imbalance may not reflect an increase in general intelligence, Flynn argues, but a shift in particular habits of mind. The question is not, why are we getting smarter, but the much less catchy, why are we getting better at abstract reasoning and little else?"
I think everybody is born dumb. you're either kept dumb or raised in a way that makes you intelligent.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Can't speak for Americans as I'm English but we are certainly not getting smarter.
Why would we be getting smarter anyway? It's pretty obvious from reading old Greek or Roman texts that people are pretty much the same now as they've always been. Shakespeare shows that nothing much has changed in England for over 400 years.
I thought the common explanation was that people are more used to thinking 'abstractly' in Western cultures. That's why people from outside the West still score more lowly even today.
Abstract reasoning used to be the almost exclusive province of mathematicians and philosophers. Now we teach it in schools.
Iodized salt.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I think the definition of "smart" is subjective. As Jerrod Diamond pointed out in his book "Guns, Germs, and Steel," a scientist from California looks "smart" on a university campus, but looks like a complete idiot in the New Guinea jungle, where he struggles to follow a trail or build a shelter or find potable water. Similarly, the New Guinean jungle-dweller can improvise all kinds of things in the jungle but doesn't understand how to cross the street or maybe even turn a doorknob. Going beyond Diamond's point, I would say the New Guinean doesn't *need* abstract reasoning or formal logic, but he does probably need to use his brain power in ways I can't really predict because I'd be an idiot in the jungle, myself. So, who is "smarter?" Their environments require different competencies.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Many researchers disagree with Flynn about the cause of the Flynn effect. Two other common hypotheses are that lower parasite load in children leads to better functioning brains and older people will have bodies under less stress. Better nutrition does essentially the same thing. There's a fair bit of evidence for these hypotheses. For example, if nutrition levels matter then one would expect a lot more movement on the low end of IQ than on the high end and that's exactly what we see. http://synapse.princeton.edu/~brained/chapter15/colom_andres-pueyo05_intelligence_Spanish-schoolchildren-nutrition-hypothesis.pdf. Meanwhile, a good case for the parasite load hypothesis can be found http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289611000286.
those shows aren't any worse than the dumb sitcoms i used to watch in the 80's
Family Ties, Different Strokes, One Day at a Time and lots of others. Friends was the peak of dumb sitcom and that's considered art now
kids watch shows their parents think are dumb
kids grow up and these shows become art because the people making the decisions on what art is used to consume that media
the kids' kids watch new shows that the grown ups think are dumb
repeat every generation
same with music. my mother swore Ozzy and metal was a passing fad. and all the crap i used to listen to as a kid is now considered art
Shakespeare couldn't spell his own name, and his handwriting was atrocious.
Only the best (according to the church) Greek and Latin texts survived. Of course they seem smart to us. The musings of the sub-literate didn't survive. Except for the graffiti on the walls of the bath houses in Pompeii, we don't know much about the low brow Roman.
This is like looking at the mansions in the old part of town and saying, "They sure knew how to build things in those days". Only the most well built house survived so it looks like there was more craftmenship 100 years ago.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Jersey shore peaks at less than 10 million watchers. Which sounds like a lot, until you realize that the US has ~300 million people, so it's ~3%. Even if you assume ten such shows watched by unique individuals, that'd be 100 million (less than, but still close enough), or 1/3 of the population. Considering that 1/2 of the populace has lower than (or equal to) 100 IQ, by definition, it isn't shocking that such shows are mildly popular.
And they had entertainment that bad 50-100 years ago as well. You just don't know about it, because crap like that tends not to be recorded and watched 100 years later.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
The reason is, IQ testing is subjective horseshit. People can be taught to think in a certain way, and people in an environment who think a certain way will do better than people who are in an environment where that 'way of thinking' isn't leraned/taught/reinforced.
When I started my first engineering job, I passed all of my courses pretty handily, but I still didn't know how to think for the job. My mentor told me this, and every beginning engineer he ran into had to learn how to think in the correct way. I spent all my co-op experience thinking for what was basically Engineering IT projects, and not product design stuff.
My IQ is a 142 by my last test, but it's only because of years of tech work. If I lived on a farm all my life and never did the variety of jobs I've done, there's no way I could score that.
"Despite being exceptionally bright"
haha. your posts say otherwise.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What blew my mind is seeing colleges have a "college arithmetic" course. I thought college algebra was one thing, but having to learn long division at the university level?
More people than ever before are seeking (and getting) education beyond high school. The best and the brightest have always gone, but colleges and universities are opening up to lower quality students - those with less education upon arrival. The institutions are simply providing an educational service to a group that needs it.
Don't get worked up over higher education hewing to its mandate, which is to provide an education to all (and possibly make some money while doing it by selling you some remedial courses to ease you along). Be happy that people aren't turning their noses up at it. It improves society for everyone.