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 Easy E wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
I agree that IQ is an inadequate measure of intelligence. However, it is a conventional measure and in some European countries the measure we use shows a decline.

A decline in what, though? You can't just say "IQ going down, therefore everyone is getting the dumbs", there could be any number of reasons behind why, from easy access to knowledge through technology altering the way people learn and think, to stress and anxiety due to changing economic circumstances impacting people when taking the tests. Even if you believe IQ was a useful and accurate measure of intelligence in the past, is it any more in a world with the internet in everyone's pocket?

That's the $64 Thousand dollar question now isn't it. What are the reasons for the decline? Perhaps, we could even discuss theories and hypothesis in this very thread!

Well this might be a reason.

IQ tests were originally developed with a preference towards upper and middle class experiences, and a bias against lower class individuals(as well as certain ethnic origins). IE: Somebody with a higher social and education background was more likely to do well on the tests. It was not really an indicator of someone's intelligence, but rather an indicator of experiences. If you hadn't had certain experiences common to more educated and wealthy individuals you are less likely to do well. Basically they were meant to prove the riffraff were stupid and reinforce the wealthy's perception that they were smarter than everybody else.

Its possible that since most of the social norms and practices that were done by the middle and upper classes at the time most of the IQ tests were written are not longer practiced by most people of all social groups that people simply struggle more on these tests. Not because of lowering intelligence, but simply because the stuff the test actually tests you on is no longer really applicable to anybody it shows an overall decline.

If anything, IQ tests are really a test that predicts your social class, according to late 1800s/early 1900s class structures. They are not a measure of intelligence. Especially since intelligence isn't a linear spectrum but more like a multi-dimensional space where one person might have a high intelligence relating to one subject but a very low one relating to another.

Example: A Victorian Gentleman might be well versed in the fine arts of music, while a lowly street urchin won't be. So when it comes to Music the Gentleman is smarter. However the Urchin is almost certainly more intelligent when it comes to navigating the twisted backstreets of London. An IQ test would however show the Gentleman to be more intelligent, however thats not what it is actually measuring.

That certainly used to be the case and was used to justify various prejudices about race and class.

However, modern IQ tests are designed to test pure abstract thinking.

If there is a visible decline in intelligence in the test group, it could be caused by selection of a test group with declining intelligence, and not representative of the population as a whole.

For example, 30 years ago about 10% of British teenagers went to university. It is now about 40%. That would seem likely to dilute the talent pool a bit, resulting in lower average scores.

 Vulcan wrote:
I.Q. tests are generally written by people who consider themselves intelligent, and thus are written in such a way that people who think like the writer score higher than those who do not. That alone makes them highly suspect.

I knew a guy who tested poorly on IQ tests - around 90, below average. His grammar was atrocious, and he claimed to be terrible at math. But give him a real-world problem and he was VERY good at coming up with an answer... and would re-calculate baseball statistics on the fly while we watched a game.

But because the IQ test said he was below average, he believed it and played the role...

One of my brothers is that to a T. In school they said he was below average and needed special classes to learn and blah blah blah. He would come off kind of dumb in certain situations but he is gifted in being able to repair anything mechanical. Doesn't matter what it is,if it broke he can repair it,I guarantee it.

On thing I've come to firmly believe in is that, through nature/nurture (and in most cases its like a combination of the two) some people, esp when young, are very capable of learning theory. Ergo they can be book smart.

Others are very incapable of that kind of focused learning, however they react far better to hands-on situations and teaching.

Sadly modern schools focus far more on the book smarts than the hand skills and many hand-craft lessons are often far too short and of too high a density of students to staff to really make them good enough for most.
There is also a heavy bias in the system against practical skills with most of your grades and scores being book smarts and examination papers. .


I've often felt such students would benefit far more from being taken out of the classrooms for 3 or so days and being put into a practical apprentice situation. Ensure they get their key basics of reading, writing and maths, but give them something practical instead as the primary focus of their education. I'm fairly sure a good number of disruptive/failing students might well flourish under such a system far more than trying to beat book learning into them for most of their most formative years.

I definitely feel like something’s changed. For example, when I was a kid (and I’m talking from the age of four), we knew to stay off the road when cars were present, and we had a system in place to deal with it (the old call out “car” and move off the road system).

Now however, kids are actively charging out onto the road to literally play with the traffic. I pull into my street, one dopey kid shouts “yay” and literally runs as fast as she can towards my car with her arms outstretched as if I was I her parent, then gets all hurt and confused when I blast the horn at her.

However, I don’t think this is related to intelligence though. I think it’s more to do with discipline.

 KingCracker wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
I.Q. tests are generally written by people who consider themselves intelligent, and thus are written in such a way that people who think like the writer score higher than those who do not. That alone makes them highly suspect.

I knew a guy who tested poorly on IQ tests - around 90, below average. His grammar was atrocious, and he claimed to be terrible at math. But give him a real-world problem and he was VERY good at coming up with an answer... and would re-calculate baseball statistics on the fly while we watched a game.

But because the IQ test said he was below average, he believed it and played the role...

One of my brothers is that to a T. In school they said he was below average and needed special classes to learn and blah blah blah. He would come off kind of dumb in certain situations but he is gifted in being able to repair anything mechanical. Doesn't matter what it is,if it broke he can repair it,I guarantee it.

And this is why I’m solidly in favour of reworking the education system.

Me, I’m lucky enough to have an abstract mind. My IQ is somewhere around 130. You give me a maths textbook, and I’ll get it. But ask me to apply it to a real world problem, and I’m all sixes and sevens.

For those unable to do abstract thinking, why not show them a practical application? For joinery, it’s knowing your angles, and the properties of materials. Any joiner will want to measure up a job, know how to apply a reasonable margin of error, and tell the client a precise cost of materials. And indeed, which woods are suitable and why. Electrician? They need to be able to grasp the maximum safe load, and how much juice the mains provide, and how to divvy that up amongst the rooms, based on likely consumption.

A very lucky few can do both. But for everyone else, the education system needs to provide. Otherwise you get bright kids that happen not to be academic get bored and switch off. And for peeps like me, you end up with an unchallenging curriculum that bores us and switches us off.

Education. One size doesn’t fit all. So let’s work on that.

While that is very true, you also need the flexibility to be able to deal with people who blossom late or whatever. At what age do you assess kids and send them down one path or the other?

In the UK the problem is we start to separate the children at age 7 -- which is before some countries start teaching reading! -- and there isn't a proper non-academic path to send them down.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In the UK the problem is we start to separate the children at age 7 -- which is before some countries start teaching reading! -- and there isn't a proper non-academic path to send them down.

One issue I think isn't just that we start separating kids into faster and slower learners/academic achievers, but that its very clearly communicated to the children. I think one thing that doesn't help is when kids who struggles are put into the "bottom" group or the "D team". Ergo its not just that you do badly in your subject, but you're also now in the bottom grade. In some subjects you can even end up in a group whereby you cannot achieve higher than a C grade in an examination.

Now the underlying concept is that those grouped in struggling groups should share more similar patterns and struggles than those in the upper and it means that you should be able to focus and improve on the lower students performance. The exam angle is that instead of giving them a harder test where they will score well below a C; you instead give/mark their paper such as that they should achieve a higher grade even though the maximum is lower. (ergo instead of sitting the normal and getting an E you sit the modified and get a C).

However moving up is very rare and I think that it sets a subtle tone and mental thinking in those students that they are failing; esp if they are in the bottom set for a lot of subjects (many kids will vary, they might be in the top in english but bottom in maths etc...). The principles are sound,but I think open to subtle miss-interpretation. As much as students have to have their basic skills and learning built on they also need confidence in themselves and in the system.


I also agree it really needs some practical focus, I think a lot of students would respond differently if they were getting even a most modest wage and given work for a few days a week; with on site skill training and a real world application. Heck these days they already make a lot of students do a work placement, which was never there when i went through school. I think its a very sound idea and should be far more pushed for as a more regular thing. It's very possible to go through school and uni and tick all the right boxes and come out with all the bits of paper but no real world understanding of what job(s) you can do or where you are going. Not everyone has a 5 year plan and a 10 year business target in life (in fact I'd say the majority don't)

 Overread wrote:
It's very possible to go through school and uni and tick all the right boxes and come out with all the bits of paper but no real world understanding of what job(s) you can do or where you are going. Not everyone has a 5 year plan and a 10 year business target in life (in fact I'd say the majority don't)

Absolutely. I had no real idea what I was going to do when my original career intention fell through. (Long story short, I was going to be a dentist but didn't *quite* get the A Levels.) I did a degree in Biology, but by the time I finished I'd pretty much had enough of it - plus, having chosen modules based on what I was interested in with no real career in mind, I then got to the end of my degree with knowledge that didn't really point to a career.

I more or less fell into IT and got my first job based on the knowledge I'd built up from getting games to run in the bad old days of DOS / Windows 3.1 / Windows 95. Still doing IT nearly 20 years later. Still no idea what I want to be 'when I grow up'...

Crispy78 wrote:

 Overread wrote:
It's very possible to go through school and uni and tick all the right boxes and come out with all the bits of paper but no real world understanding of what job(s) you can do or where you are going. Not everyone has a 5 year plan and a 10 year business target in life (in fact I'd say the majority don't)

Absolutely. I had no real idea what I was going to do when my original career intention fell through. (Long story short, I was going to be a dentist but didn't *quite* get the A Levels.) I did a degree in Biology, but by the time I finished I'd pretty much had enough of it - plus, having chosen modules based on what I was interested in with no real career in mind, I then got to the end of my degree with knowledge that didn't really point to a career.

I more or less fell into IT and got my first job based on the knowledge I'd built up from getting games to run in the bad old days of DOS / Windows 3.1 / Windows 95. Still doing IT nearly 20 years later. Still no idea what I want to be 'when I grow up'...

Yeah its very easy to have a single career path fall to one side or end up mostly doing a uni course either because its interesting or because its a subject you did well on in school. I recall one of the geography lecturers I had way back who was really annoyed that they were teaching us lots of theory on the course, but little real world practical application of the theory - nor really showing and introducing students to what they could do. His view was that uni had changed in its nature and approach, but that many lecturers and course structures (and even the whole examination end) hadn't changed with it. His view was it needed to step away from academic focus and move toward more vocational.

The answer to academic studies at university learning to no obvious career path (e.g. English Literature degree) are that university level study equips you with skills for research, studying, analyzing texts, formulating ideas and arguments and supporting them in well argued terms.

All of which are general skills for any kind of job which doesn't immediately required specialised knowledge or technical skills. (Any science based degree will also equip you with some useful mathematical skills.)

If you look up UK ambassadors, a suprising number of them have English degrees. It's probably because you don't go and go a degree in engineering with the idea of getting into the diplomatic service, but that said, all countries need diplomats as well as engineers.

Oh very true, but I think the key element isn't just learning how to research or analyse and such, but also where you can actually use those skills in a real job that isn't teaching/research/lecturing. Ergo in fields outside of the university setting. It's about bridging the gap and realising that for many university is no longer what it once was and that its function has changed to the point where its become almost a default part of most work setups (many employers don't even look at CVs if they don't have a degree listed, no matter the degree and even if the work has nothing to do with research or writing essays).

I am a History major and I have never failed to be able to translate my non-STEM skills into jobs, even ones heavier in IT and Statistics.

The challenge is employers do not want to actually give any training to anyone as that costs money. They just want someone to jump in and run from day 1. Therefore, the specific degrees are short-hand for 0 or no training needed for what you are hiring for.

How often do you hear business leaders whine about not having workers with the right skills? That is code for "We don't want to actual pay to build those skills, we want the government to do it via education"

Therefore, we can blame capitalism for our reduced IQ score...... okay, that was a stretch to try to stay on topic. You caught me!

 Overread wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In the UK the problem is we start to separate the children at age 7 -- which is before some countries start teaching reading! -- and there isn't a proper non-academic path to send them down.

One issue I think isn't just that we start separating kids into faster and slower learners/academic achievers, but that its very clearly communicated to the children. I think one thing that doesn't help is when kids who struggles are put into the "bottom" group or the "D team". Ergo its not just that you do badly in your subject, but you're also now in the bottom grade. In some subjects you can even end up in a group whereby you cannot achieve higher than a C grade in an examination.

Now the underlying concept is that those grouped in struggling groups should share more similar patterns and struggles than those in the upper and it means that you should be able to focus and improve on the lower students performance. The exam angle is that instead of giving them a harder test where they will score well below a C; you instead give/mark their paper such as that they should achieve a higher grade even though the maximum is lower. (ergo instead of sitting the normal and getting an E you sit the modified and get a C).

However moving up is very rare and I think that it sets a subtle tone and mental thinking in those students that they are failing; esp if they are in the bottom set for a lot of subjects (many kids will vary, they might be in the top in english but bottom in maths etc...). The principles are sound,but I think open to subtle miss-interpretation. As much as students have to have their basic skills and learning built on they also need confidence in themselves and in the system.


I also agree it really needs some practical focus, I think a lot of students would respond differently if they were getting even a most modest wage and given work for a few days a week; with on site skill training and a real world application. Heck these days they already make a lot of students do a work placement, which was never there when i went through school. I think its a very sound idea and should be far more pushed for as a more regular thing. It's very possible to go through school and uni and tick all the right boxes and come out with all the bits of paper but no real world understanding of what job(s) you can do or where you are going. Not everyone has a 5 year plan and a 10 year business target in life (in fact I'd say the majority don't)

The 'bottom' or 'stupid' class thing is a TERRIBLE idea. Even slow kids aren't completely stupid. Once they realize they've been classified as stupid, they stop trying to become smart... or even educated.

The more of us there are, the larger the percentage of us that you're going to encounter are insufferable morons.

It's simple math...unless you are one of those morons, and then it's probably pretty tough.

 Peregrine wrote:
IQ is junk science. I am extremely skeptical of any study involving it.

I disagree, on the grounds that I like any "study" that tell me that me and my generation are smarter than the "average" person. I like a reason to feel smug, and to tell myself that my generation is the pinnacle of human achievement, and the Kids These Days represent a terminal decline.

Clearly smart people (you and me) need to be in charge. Some sort of breeding program where smart people (you and me) get to have lots of sex would also be a good idea. All for noble reasons, of course.

Its because we don’t have to think as much. We have equipment to think for us. I used to have a near flawless gift for spelling and was excellent at most math (except calculus); I struggle with both now, because I don’t need to use them anymore; I have programs that fix stuff for me. I can accept the idea that Idiocracy is going to happen.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Its because we don’t have to think as much. We have equipment to think for us. I used to have a near flawless gift for spelling and was excellent at most math (except calculus); I struggle with both now, because I don’t need to use them anymore; I have programs that fix stuff for me. I can accept the idea that Idiocracy is going to happen.

That isn't stupidity that's just normal behaviour.
It's the same for most people. If you don't use a skill then you lose the skill. Same in any field or craft. You aren't any more or less stupid than you were before, you just don't readily use a set of skills regularly enough to remember to do them. You can easily train yourself back to spelling well and would likely recover the skill fairly quickly.

It's the same for things like Pythagoras - most of us can do it, but if we've had no reason to find the length of one side of a triangle since our exams (which could be 10-20-30 or more years ago) then sure we are going to forget those bits of skill.

It's why most workplaces will have retraining and refresher courses for staff using specific equipment. They'll remind people how to do certain things; check that they've not fallen into doing bad practice or shortcuts that might endanger them or others; ensure that they are kept up to date with recent changes in machine, method and legalities etc.... It's not that the operators are stupid, its simply shoring up the natural effect of the brain dumping things it doesn't use or need regularly.



Of course this effect varies, some people retain very very good information retrieval and appear never to forget anything; others are far more in the moment and will forget things very rapidly. It's also a skill set that you can learn and thus also unlearn - ergo if you've been selling clothes for 20 years chances are you'l lbe really rusty at learning and revising for an exam.

 Elemental wrote:
(you and me) get to have lots of sex

Awww. <3 <3 <3 <3


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Its because we don’t have to think as much. We have equipment to think for us. I used to have a near flawless gift for spelling and was excellent at most math (except calculus); I struggle with both now, because I don’t need to use them anymore; I have programs that fix stuff for me. I can accept the idea that Idiocracy is going to happen.

But does it really matter if we move those tasks to labor-saving devices? From an external point of view I don't care if you solve a math problem entirely in your head or by pulling out your phone, all I care about is that I get an answer to it. We'll probably end up more dependent on certain technology, but that's the story of human history. Should we have been terrified of "idiocracy" because this new farming invention is replacing the skill of going out into the wilderness and finding plants? Did it ruin our society when we invented the ability to write instead of having to use the skill of memorizing all information? Of course not.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Elemental wrote:
(you and me) get to have lots of sex

Awww. <3 <3 <3 <3

Innuendo not actually intended. But there is often an odd eugencist undercurrent to this argument, at least when it moves into "the underclasses are reproducing more than the educated smart people!"

 Easy E wrote:
https://slate.com/technology/2018/09/iq-scores-going-down-research-flynn-effect.html

It starts with a London-based researcher, Edward Dutton, who has documented decades-long declines in average IQs across several Western countries, including France and Germany. “We are becoming stupider,” announces Dutton at the program’s start. “This is happening. It’s not going to go away, and we have to try to think about what we’re going to do about it.”

It’s wrong to hint that scores on tests of memory and abstract thinking have been falling everywhere, and in a simple way. But at least in certain countries—notably in Northern Europe—the IQ drops seem very real. Using data from Finland, for example, where men are almost always drafted into military service, whereupon they’re tested for intelligence, Dutton showed that scores began to slide in 1997, a trend that has continued ever since. Similar trends have been documented using data from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. At some point in the mid-1990s, IQ scores in these countries tipped into decay, losing roughly one-fifth to one-quarter of a point per year. While there isn’t any sign of this effect on U.S. test results (a fact that surely bears on our indifference to the topic), researchers have found hints of something similar in Australia, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

Edit: I won;t speak for anyone else, but I know i have been getting dumber since 1997. Once I left College, it has been all downhill!

IQ is generally BS is it not?

Case in point, my IQ was 123 in High School. After a decade in College that same test now tells me I have an IQ of 141, as I would expect working in a science field.

But, I don't doubt that the ability of the public to critically think and analyze has taken a large hit. Just survey the current landscape in the US and what do you see?

Hollywood Types and Rappers tell young people that getting money and bitches are all that matters. It's a very dehumanizing view of the world that boils away all emotion and leaves nothing but a pile of materials in its wake.
Increased pushing for legalizing drugs in the US. "Alcohol is legal, so why not pot." That sort of mindset. Drugs and Alcohol are destructive, moderation, etc, argument, blah blah. Bottom line, I've never seen these things help someone, I've only ever in my life seen them cause suffering on levels I never wanted to imagine.
Children aren't really raised by their parents anymore and are instead raised by their computers. Unfiltered online content being beamed into their eye sockets all day every day.
The Media and the major american political parties are all in bed together with the banks and other business and wealthy elite pushing narratives, race wars, and generally keeping people focused on social issues such as gay marriage and abortion rather than record breaking deficits, governmental corruption and ethics.

In short, researching, learning, reading, questioning, and investigating topics in any and all fields is not encouraged anymore. These days we're all just supposed to "listen and believe" everything we're told from a comfortable position of authority.

 Elemental wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Elemental wrote:
(you and me) get to have lots of sex

Awww. <3 <3 <3 <3

Innuendo not actually intended. But there is often an odd eugencist undercurrent to this argument, at least when it moves into "the underclasses are reproducing more than the educated smart people!"

Wait. So stupid people get have more sex? Aw damn it. Why did I have to be so smart? It gets me nothing but trouble.
I guess the Hávamál said it already:
You should be only a little wise, never too wise.
A wise man's heart is seldom glad if he is truly wise.

And to be perfectly honest I'd rather be happy than wise.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Elemental wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Elemental wrote:
(you and me) get to have lots of sex

Awww. <3 <3 <3 <3

Innuendo not actually intended. But there is often an odd eugencist undercurrent to this argument, at least when it moves into "the underclasses are reproducing more than the educated smart people!"

Wait. So stupid people get have more sex? Aw damn it. Why did I have to be so smart? It gets me nothing but trouble.
I guess the Hávamál said it already:
You should be only a little wise, never too wise.
A wise man's heart is seldom glad if he is truly wise.

And to be perfectly honest I'd rather be happy than wise.

Live with Stupid College Roommates for a while and you'll see that they may get laid more often, but the rest of their life is often consumed from the resulting drama. "Well yeah I screwed X, but Y wasn't supposed to find out and now Z has slashed my tires and W is accusing me of sexual assault and V stole my wallet!"

I swear the most blessed person is the one guy in college who is the last to start drinking/taking drugs. A couple months of watching the results can quickly cure a person of wanting to get 'blasted'.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Elemental wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Elemental wrote:
(you and me) get to have lots of sex

Awww. <3 <3 <3 <3

Innuendo not actually intended. But there is often an odd eugencist undercurrent to this argument, at least when it moves into "the underclasses are reproducing more than the educated smart people!"

Wait. So stupid people get have more sex? Aw damn it. Why did I have to be so smart? It gets me nothing but trouble.
I guess the Hávamál said it already:
You should be only a little wise, never too wise.
A wise man's heart is seldom glad if he is truly wise.

And to be perfectly honest I'd rather be happy than wise.

It's not that dumb or uneducated people have more sex. It's that dumb or uneducated people either never learn to take precautions, or don't bother to take precautions. Everything else follows from that.

I've seen far too many book smart people with little to no common sense. A good example of this was when I was asked to help some med students at Tulane move an upright piano.
I got to their house and they loaded it up into the back of my truck, and without tying it down or securing it, said they were ready to go.
I asked how they expected to be safe with a loose piano when I went around corners and was told by one of them that weighed, maybe 140, that he would hold it.
Luckily for them I had a bunch of rope behind my seat and we tied the thing down, but I halfway wanted to let them try it their way just to see the education they would have gotten and how many corners I would have taken before they asked for a rope.

Relapse wrote:
I've seen far too many book smart people with little to no common sense. A good example of this was when I was asked to help some med students at Tulane move an upright piano.
I got to their house and they loaded it up into the back of my truck, and without tying it down or securing it, said they were ready to go.
I asked how they expected to be safe with a loose piano when I went around corners and was told by one of them that weighed, maybe 140, that he would hold it.
Luckily for them I had a bunch of rope behind my seat and we tied the thing down, but I halfway wanted to let them try it their way just to see the education they would have gotten and how many corners I would have taken before they asked for a rope.

Here you are confusing 'intelligence' with 'experience'. You can't expect someone to know everything and the outcomes if they've never experienced that circumstance (in this case physical laws).

Intelligence isn't just about knowing something that someone elses deems obvious because they have experienced it before. It's more about learning from an experience (i.e. not repeating the same thing over and over) and then being able to idenitfy and apply that knowledge effectively to other scenarios.

Intelligence (as defined in cognitive psychology) is very much about abstract thinking.

There are all sorts of logic problems to test intelligence.

The common mistakes people make with these problems arise because people tend to approach the situation from the angle of real world experience, which doesn't fit the abstract problem because real world experience tends to develop intuitive solutions to problems.

Here are some examples:

https://www.cambridgebrainsciences.com/more/articles/try-this-3-question-test-of-cognitive-ability

Gotta say those fethed with me. I knew the first one wasn’t the most immediate thought I had but was too lazy to do math (ew). The second one is simple but the third one stumped me for all of a minutes because I knew the first thought wasn’t right but I kept overcomicating it in my head until I went ‘duh.’ That last one is almost cruel in its simplicity.

And is that really a statement about my cognitive skill or my recognition that an abstract question is always worded in a way that brings up misleading answers XD

i'm not qualified to judge you and this isn't a complete intelligence test. It's just an indication of the kind of abstract problem for which a higher rate of correct solutions correlates with higher IQ.

We could say that's a self-fulfilling prophecy, since the tests are designed to "catch out" people. But that's the point, They look like pretty straightforward real world problems, but the obvious intuitive solution is wrong and they need to be analysed logically.

A alternative example is the "nine dot problem", which is an abstract puzzle.