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We're All Getting Dumber, Says Science (fastcompany.com)
dryriver shares a report from Fast Company: Researchers at Norway's Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research now have scientific proof of something we've long suspected -- we're all getting dumber. In their paper, "Flynn effect and its reversal are both environmentally caused," which was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Bernt Bratsberg and Ole Rogeberg report that IQ scores have been steadily dropping since the 1970s.
The study consisted of analyzing 730,000 IQ test results gleaned from young men entering Norway's compulsory military service from 1970 to 2009. They found that scores declined by an average of seven points per generation, a reversal of the so-called "Flynn effect" where IQ was seen to be rising during the first part of the 20th century. The decline may be due to environmental factors, but because the researchers couldn't find consistent trends among families, Bratsberg and Rogeberg discounted factors like parental education, family size, increased immigration, and genetics as significant causes.
The study consisted of analyzing 730,000 IQ test results gleaned from young men entering Norway's compulsory military service from 1970 to 2009. They found that scores declined by an average of seven points per generation, a reversal of the so-called "Flynn effect" where IQ was seen to be rising during the first part of the 20th century. The decline may be due to environmental factors, but because the researchers couldn't find consistent trends among families, Bratsberg and Rogeberg discounted factors like parental education, family size, increased immigration, and genetics as significant causes.
.... sounds exactly like one of those results that would vanish in a puff of annoyingly-irreproducible logic if anyone actually tried to replicate the underlying studies.
You know, like 90% of all other published research in the psychological sciences.
In the early 20th century, human living conditions, including improvements in sanitation, hygiene, and dietary needs being met likely all contributed to a net rise in human cogitative performance, however atmospheric CO2 levels have also been steadily rising in that time.
Then there's this.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
So yeah. Probably CO2 level rise has caught up to the benefits of improved standards of living.
One important thing about this study - it shows that there is not a strong genetic correlation with any of these findings. That means it is very unlikely that this represents any kind of "Idiocracy"-like trend of the 'dumb genes' outnumbering 'smart genes.'
Rather, as mentioned, it is a cultural/environmental set of factors.
If this is replicated outside of Norway, perhaps we've been making ourselves more dumb, either by forcing our less-well-off to live without access to education, or distracting ourselves in such a way that we no longer pass tests as children anymore.
On the skeptical side, while the Flynn effect studies counter for cultural-shift in popular knowledge pretty well - there could still be some measurement effect in there, like fewer students being able to cheat, or fewer administrators getting away with fudging numbers.
Ryan Fenton
Unless there is something VERY special about Norway, a wide-spread trend that cannot be attributed to education, gender, religion, or other environmental factor has pretty good predictive qualities, since the sample size is large, and unbiased (Only males tested most likely, but the service is compulsory, not voluntary. That means *All male citizens*, not "Those that show up to the recruitment office".
It means the sample is very very large, and that the trend is pervasive and wide-spread is pretty interesting.
To rule out that something is indeed special about Norway, it needs to be replicated with data from other geographic regions-- but so far it is a pretty compelling argument using raw statistics.
Having done the army test in 2003, as all Norwegian 18 year-old males had to even if they didn't end up serving, I can tell you it was a three part timed test.
1) Mathematics
2) Linguistics (In Norwegian)
3) Logic/Pattern analysis.
Education comes into play in the first two, and the third one is more about figuring it out as you go.
You are then scored 1-9 in each of them as well as all the other testing such as hearing, vision and colorblindness.
I suggest that you review the definition of the word "Compulsory."
It means you don't have a choice in the matter. Or, that the tests are applied to *ALL MALE CITIZENS*. Since this is literally a sample size of "All male citizens of service age in Norway from the start year, to the terminus year", you are talking a very large and unbiased (by ethnicity, race, cultural upbringing, religious practice, affluence level, ... etc.) sample. The only demographic excluded is likely to be female gender, which I explicitly lamplit. Unless you want to make a compelling argument that women are intellectually inferior to men (*gigglesnort*) in the face of a wide number of well reviewed studies to the contrary of that assertion, there is no grounds to claim systemic bias of the sample.
Hence unbiased.
I suggest that you review the definition of the word "Compulsory."
Somehow, the fact that you’re having to explain what “compulsory” means - in juxtaposition to the topic at hand - seems both very hilarious and very apt.
#DeleteChrome
Well no. At first, every male gets tested for fitness, including the IQ test taken. Only then people are either sorted out because of unfitness or can decide to go to a cilivian duty instead of the military duty.
IQ is actually defined as the common component of mental performance that is independent of domain and education. There are IQ tests that are independent of education and culture, but such tests are lengthy, costly, and tedious. That's why mass testing uses simpler tests that are calibrated for particular populations and are dependent on education, age, and culture.
Your test is calibrated for Norwegian 18 year olds; a Norwegian 18 year old that has more education than average would score better on the test, but the fact that he has more education than average would also strongly correlate with a higher IQ. If you give the same test to a Norwegian 30 year old, the results would be meaningless.
For example when is the IQ test conducted? Before they are conscripted into service of before that as an evaluation of their abilities? Because you need to keep in mind that while service is compulsory in theory, in practice they do not conscript even half of the people they test.
Maybe someone from Norway or simply with more insight can shed some light onto this. Wikipedia tells me that there's about 60k people available for conscription every year. But only up to 10k is actually conscripted. Even considering changes in population groth both numbers over a period of 39 years (from 1970 to 2009) don't come close to the 730k IQ test that were conducted. Of course the source is Wikipedia which provides some links to articles on news sites.
There could still be some bias. If you also consider that you can avoid being conscripted via other means. Up until 2012 there was also the option to do alternative civilian service (Sosialtjenesten) instead of military service in Norway.
Their findings are interesting nonetheless.
I started writing a reply, then realised that without more information it's hard to analyse the problem, and the article isn't freely available, unfortunately.
IQ tests don't test a single aspect of intelligence, and it matters what kind of tests have lower scores. Do these have more to fluid or crystallised intelligence? We could then further speculate what caused the particular change. For example, education has moved over the years to better address how girls learn, and it could have negatively affected how boys learn to think.
I've started replacing that term in my mind with "some random dude claims".
If you used to judge the content of the study by who wrote it, you were never interested in "science" anyway. Science was always done by some random dude. That doesn't make it any more or less right.
Question:
Is there any particular incentive to do either well or badly in the test? Does it affect your military service in any way?
The point I am getting at is that military service was to get more or less acceptable then this might affect the motivation of those taking the tests.
Simplified Example:
Many years ago potential conscripts thought "Gosh, my turn to do my bit for my beloved country. I'd better try really hard in these tests".
Today potential conscripts think "Bah, why do I have to do this stupid military service? I really can't be bothered".
Result: Noticeable decline in IQ results!
Well ya, if they gave English IQ tests to young Norwegians entering military service, I suspect they wouldn't do as well as they could
My guess would be that the difference would be extremely low, Norway is consistently ranked in very top for English proficiency, you start with English in first grade and we don't dub English shows except for little kids. With Internet, YouTube etc. kids also get exposed to lots of material that's neither dubbed nor subtitled. The Harry Potter books sold ~1 million in Norwegian, ~200k in English so one in six preferred English and that's for kids. If you take any kind of higher education, expect English textbooks. Even though English doesn't have an official status, with a high number of immigrants and foreign workers pretty much everything exists in an English translation. Now if you go as far back as this study it would be different, but apart from cultural reasons we could easily make English our official language.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I'm sort of in the ADHD camp. I've read a bit about the subject and somewhat adhere to the theory that a) ADHD isn't as much a disorder rather than a genetic predestination. Roughly 10% of society being Hunter/Gatherer (creative, priest, leader, rebell, etc,), the rest being farmers/settlers. It's a bit of a chicken/egg problem: Do I have low self-esteem because im ADHD or do I have ADHD as a symptom of low self-esteem? Or is both linked to brain performance or is both linked to lack of social proof for aberrant behavior (minimalist stoic)?
Childhood media consumption definitely plays into this, as it trains us to look for emotional states that are fully decoupled from the "mundane" reality around us.
I however have also noticed how much nutrition and psychological factors play into emotional wellbeing and how much that plays into brain performance.
Another thing that happened recently is that I finally had my nose-divider corrected (at the age of 47). I, for the first time in my life, can breathe properly. Or at least way better than before. The difference in my cognitive abilities is palpable. I can concentrate longer and deeper with less strain. I'm pretty sure that my confidence has risen due to that and that feeds back into my ability to concentrate. Sleep-apnosis is know to severely influence cognitive abilities (access to oxygen).
Last but not least, I've noticed how extremely nutrition influences cognitive performance. Processed foods make me less concentrated and more sleepy vis-a-vis organic fresh foods. Again, the difference is palpable.
Bottom line:
There are some theories about rising CO2 levels and whatnot, but I bet dollars to donuts that if IQ really is declining again across the board that childhood media consumption and nutrition are the most significant factors playing into this.
And I have some personal anecdotal evidence to back this up.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I still contend that computer usage makes smart people smarter and dumb people dumber (yet the now-dumber people think they're smarter).
For example when is the IQ test conducted? Before they are conscripted into service of before that as an evaluation of their abilities?
During the intake ("sesjon"), up until 2009 all males had to go through that even if they'd be dismissed afterwards as not fit for service, conscientious objector or whatever. Then they'd choose to draft some of the people deemed fit for duty. That's probably why the study is to 2009, from 2010 they added a pre-screening because they did have a lot more candidates than they actual needed. And now the process is gender-neutral, everybody goes through the same pre-screening but in practice you don't get called into service unless you want to. Though it theory they can now draft all men and women of service age if shit happens, of course we'd never have time to equip and train them in an actual emergency.
That debate was actually quite funny, originally it was mostly men complaining that why should they waste a year living in bunk beds and digging trenches and the women don't while the women were generally against it. The turning point was certain people taunting like "awwwww, of course us big strong men will protect you delicate little flowers" and feminists going "oh heeeeeeeeell no we can defend ourselves thankyouverymuch where's that's uniform?" Once it became their own cause then it was pretty much a done deal. Kinda like sex and porn, if it's women being what men want it's all hiss boo, if it's women embracing their sexuality then yeah hurrah. Even if it's doing exactly the same...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Problem with that is that if the recruiters want you to serve anyway you are going to be put in cannon fodder training.
It is much better to do well on the IQ and perception tests and fake being physically too weak to serve.
Having an inconvenient allergy or two might be useful too.
That way, if you have to serve you will probably get a position as a signalist or get some command training.
You will not be exempt from the service due to low scores in either, instead what happens is that the scores determines which kind of service that you will be sent to if you are included. So if you score low on IQ and low in physical then you will be spending your entire military service sorting laundry and other incredible dull tasks. And there is also no bragging rights in "Hey I score low in the military IQ test!!!".
Don't know how the situation is in Norway but back when we had compulsory military service in Sweden you would include your service record score (after the service you would be graded on your performance) when you applied for a job and if you haden't performed your service then some employers would see that as suspicious (aka are you a mad hippy stoner or are you simply unfit for anything).