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IQ Scores Are Falling in "Worrying" Reversal of 20th Century Intelligence Boom. Are we getting dumber?


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2018 Jun 20, 12:14pm   5,775 views  28 comments

by RWSGFY   ➕follow (4)   💰tip   ignore  

A defining trend in human intelligence tests that saw people steadily obtaining higher IQ scores through the 20th century has abruptly ended, a new study shows.

The Flynn effect – named after the work of Kiwi intelligence researcher James Flynn – observed rapid rises in intelligence quotient at a rate of about 3 IQ points per decade in the 20th century, but new research suggests these heady boom days are long gone.

An analysis of some 730,000 IQ test results by researchers from the Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research in Norway reveals the Flynn effect hit its peak for people born during the mid-1970s, and has significantly declined ever since.

"This is the most convincing evidence yet of a reversal of the Flynn effect," psychologist Stuart Ritchie from the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the study, told The Times.

"If you assume their model is correct, the results are impressive, and pretty worrying."

The researchers sourced their data from the IQ test scores of 18- to 19-year-old Norwegian men who took the tests as part of their national, compulsory military service.

Between the years 1970 to 2009, three decades of these young men (born between 1962 to 1991) were conscripted, resulting in over 730,000 IQ test results.

What the results show is that a turning point for the Flynn effect occurred for the post-1975 birth cohorts, equivalent to 7 fewer IQ score points per generation.

It's not the first time we've seen this kind of dip. Research by Flynn himself that looked at the IQs of British teenagers almost a decade ago observed a similar fall in test scores.

"It looks like there is something screwy among British teenagers," Flynn told The Telegraph at the time.

"While we have enriched the cognitive environment of children before their teenage years, the cognitive environment of the teenagers has not been enriched."

Although that kind of environmental attribution remains hypothetical, it's a possibility that's supported by the latest research – which, it's worth emphasising, comes from just one Norwegian sample (albeit a particularly huge one).

In the new study, the researchers observed IQ drops occurring within actual families, between brothers and sons – meaning the effect likely isn't due to shifting demographic factors as some have suggested, such as the dysgenic accumulation of disadvantageous genes across areas of society.

Instead, it suggests changes in lifestyle could be what's behind these lower IQs, perhaps due to the way children are educated, the way they're brought up, and the things they spend time doing more and less (the types of play they engage in, whether they read books, and so on).

Another possibility is that IQ tests haven't adapted to accurately quantify an estimate of modern people's intelligence – favouring forms of formally taught reasoning that may be less emphasised in contemporary education and young people's lifestyles.

"Intelligence researchers make a distinction between fluid and crystallised intelligence," one of the study's authors, research economist Ole Rogeberg explained to The Times.

"Crystallised intelligence is stuff you have been taught and trained in, and fluid intelligence is your ability to see new patterns and use logic to solve novel problems."

The implication here is that it's not us that is at fault: it's IQ tests.

But until scientists exploit some of their fluid intelligence to make a major breakthrough in what's really going on here, we – and our lower IQs – may never know for sure.

The findings are reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-reversal-20th-century-intelligence-boom-flynn-effect-intelligence

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1   Heraclitusstudent   2018 Jun 20, 3:40pm  

Hassan_Rouhani says
In the new study, the researchers observed IQ drops occurring within actual families, between brothers and sons – meaning the effect likely isn't due to shifting demographic factors as some have suggested, such as the dysgenic accumulation of disadvantageous genes across areas of society.


- People laugh at "organic food" but:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121202113712.htm
"Scientists have found that low-level exposure to organophosphates produces lasting decrements in neurological and cognitive function. Memory and information processing speed are affected to a greater degree than other cognitive functions such as language. "

- https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141204141017.htm
Endocrine disruptors alter thyroid levels in pregnancy, may affect fetal brain development

- Fluoride affect the brain:
http://fluoridealert.org/issues/health/brain/
Over 300 studies have found that fluoride is a neurotoxin (a chemical that can damage the brain).

Luckily if you are a republican, you are immune to the chemicals you are exposed to - and a few points of IQ won't make a big difference.
2   Tenpoundbass   2018 Jun 20, 4:38pm  

I could personally raise the IQ score of every millennial in America by just doling the Ass Beating they never got as kids.
What do you expect the average IQ to be with the unfettered horse shit our education system fed to them, and a media that has more Zombie format shows than Family value programming and fostering and environment that promoted emotional well being so they could have learned.
3   Heraclitusstudent   2018 Jun 20, 4:50pm  

TBP grew up watching "Six Million Dollar Man" and "Starsky and Hutch" on TV.
That boosted his IQ to extraordinary heights that just can't be matched by millenials typing on phones.
4   justme   2018 Jun 20, 4:52pm  

Heraclitusstudent says
TBP grew up watching "Six Million Dollar Man" and "Starsky and Hutch" on TV.
That boosted his IQ to extraordinary heights that just can't be matched by millenials typing on phones.


Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Damn, people are so funny today.
5   mell   2018 Jun 20, 5:00pm  

I would say to a lesser degree technology and to a higher degree leftoid "everybody gets a trophy and a degree" marching orders. There are some very bright techie kids if you just challenge them, similar to other brain skills. If you tell them they are victims and deserver good feelz from their intellectual "oppressors" they will never ever foster their IQs and work that brain hard.
6   Patrick   2018 Jun 20, 5:01pm  

Hassan_Rouhani says
Instead, it suggests changes in lifestyle could be what's behind these lower IQs, perhaps due to the way children are educated, the way they're brought up, and the things they spend time doing more and less (the types of play they engage in, whether they read books, and so on).


It's the phones.

They provide continuous distraction, training young brains not to concentrate on anything for very long. This lowers the ability to do anything mentally taxing, like taking an IQ test.
7   mell   2018 Jun 20, 5:04pm  

Patrick says
Hassan_Rouhani says
Instead, it suggests changes in lifestyle could be what's behind these lower IQs, perhaps due to the way children are educated, the way they're brought up, and the things they spend time doing more and less (the types of play they engage in, whether they read books, and so on).


It's the phones.

They provide continuous distraction, training young brains not to concentrate on anything for very long. This lowers the ability to do anything mentally taxing, like taking IQ test.


There's the theory and some verified data that the context-switch and multi-tasking on phones causes the brain to lose the ability to focus. Also everything is memorized for you. But still, you could also use your phone to play more chess-matches and analysis per day than you could ever do before, anywhere and anytime. But of course they are used for social media mainly ;)
8   MisterLefty   2018 Jun 20, 5:10pm  

Hassan_Rouhani says
Are we getting dumber?


9   Heraclitusstudent   2018 Jun 20, 5:11pm  

These are results until 2009.
I don't think phones would have had a large influence by that time.
10   RWSGFY   2018 Jun 20, 5:17pm  

Heraclitusstudent says
These are results until 2009.
I don't think phones would have had a large influence by that time.


True. But computers and multitasking were already in full swing.
11   Heraclitusstudent   2018 Jun 20, 5:18pm  

We have increasing levels of neurotoxins: lead in water, mercury in fish, pesticides, ...
The effects are cumulative.
That and endocrine disruptors affecting brain development.
12   RWSGFY   2018 Jun 20, 5:36pm  

Heraclitusstudent says
We have increasing levels of neurotoxins: lead in water, mercury in fish, pesticides, ...
The effects are cumulative.
That and endocrine disruptors affecting brain development.


Not sure about lead: shouldn't the levels of it in the environment decline compared to the days of leaded gasoline and lead-based paint being common?
13   FortWayne   2018 Jun 20, 5:38pm  

Unionized education
No border security... who comes across the border? Not geniuses.
Cheap labor from China and India... yep not exactly high IQ.
14   HeadSet   2018 Jun 20, 6:33pm  

Heraclitusstudent says
We have increasing levels of neurotoxins: lead in water, mercury in fish, pesticides, ...
The effects are cumulative.
That and endocrine disruptors affecting brain development.


How about the increase in the use of pot over that period?
15   HowdyThere   2018 Jun 20, 6:45pm  

Smart people aren't breeding a lot. Stupid people are breeding alot. Mystery solved.
16   Reality   2018 Jun 20, 6:57pm  

The demographic reason should be quite obvious: dumber women are enabled to have more surviving children than they would have had otherwise thanks to welfare, whereas smarter women have been having fewer children than they would have had in the absence of distraction by academic/professional opportunities during their young most fertile child-bearing years (and the brainwashing of prioritizing tax-slavery / wage-slavery in monopoly industries over motherhood).

The decline among brothers born to the same parents is likely due to the mother's aging eggs, as the mothers now start late (on the declining side of the slope) to begin with. The decline between father and son is of course the result of different mothers: in the earlier generation the smarter women (mother candidates) were less distracted and less brain-washed into delaying or not having children, so proportionally more smart women were available for becoming mothers.

IQ score is by definition not a result of education, but genetic factors (and to a lesser degree nutrition, when young).

Early 70's was exactly the time when welfare state mushroomed and women's liberation (ditching the family so they can eventually become cat women on psychotropic pills after being squeezed dry by tax-slavery and wage-slavery) started to take big strides.
17   Reality   2018 Jun 20, 7:13pm  

Also keep in mind, lead paint and leaded gas (which turned into lead smog in air after combustion) were outlawed in the 1970's! That change on itself should have improved the IQ of the population. Yet welfare-state and luring smart women away from reproducing early have counteracted in a way that have swamped the improvement that should have been expected from reducing lead exposure.
18   Tenpoundbass   2018 Jun 20, 7:41pm  

justme says
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Damn, people are so funny today.


That's funny for someone that has me on ignore.
19   RWSGFY   2018 Jun 20, 7:50pm  

HowdyThere says
Smart people aren't breeding a lot. Stupid people are breeding alot. Mystery solved.


Obligatory:
www.youtube.com/embed/XZde5VDAA8U
20   MrMagic   2018 Jun 20, 8:38pm  

mell says
There's the theory and some verified data that the context-switch and multi-tasking on phones causes the brain to lose the ability to focus.


21   MisdemeanorRebel   2018 Jun 20, 9:07pm  

Hassan_Rouhani says
Obligatory:


Welfare makes it possible. Stop the Cleavons and Cleavettes by making sterilization after the 2nd child on AFDC mandatory to continue benefits.
23   Ceffer   2018 Jun 21, 9:35am  

It's society's self imposed hyperbreeding senility. Shelters, encourages and feeds the stoopids so they can fuck and squat barely cerebrate children more. Liberal righteousness has become genetic.
24   RC2006   2018 Jun 21, 9:42am  

You really see this going on more in the west where the weak thrive, while in the east its more sink or swim.
25   zzyzzx   2018 Jun 21, 9:46am  

It's easy enough to see why IQ scores are dropping:
26   Bd6r   2018 Jun 21, 9:56am  

Patrick says
It's the phones.

They provide continuous distraction, training young brains not to concentrate on anything for very long. This lowers the ability to do anything mentally taxing, like taking an IQ test.

That is what I see in my teaching. Students have shorter attention spans compared to even 10 yrs ago. They can not read three lines of email sent to them or a few sentences in exam.

My colleagues have said that they now text to class because emails are "too long" and half of class will not read them.
28   NuttBoxer   2018 Jun 21, 10:53am  

Hassan_Rouhani says
Are we getting dumber?


Yes. It started with TV in the 50's. Especially sad given how cheap paperbacks are. I just finished Walden. Great read, guy was a minimalist railing against too many distractions in the 1800's. Imagine what he'd say now!

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