Western IQ's plummeting - Why?

namloc1980

namloc1980 wrote: »

Laziness and having someone else to solve problems for you..... . Degrees coming out their eyeballs but couldn't figure their way out of a wet paper bag.

^^^^^^This. They milk the bejayzuz out of relating their degree.

Outkast_IRE

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

Were there IQ tests in victorian times ?

Slightly Later there were the "Binet's Test"

I did not do one.

Dropped around 1970 due to being too selective.

suicide_circus

reduction in educational standards

people in third level being taught what to think rather than how to think

technology making mental calculation and memory obsolete

completedit

Maybe more people having access to education means that we have a more accurate reflection of average IQ's? Maybe Victorian era IQ test results were skewed.

But clearly a huge modern phenomenon is that increasingly our lives are very passive from a young age. IQ is genetic though isn't it. Like actual habits won't make someone smarter. So a kid with a low IQ could read all the books he or she wants and it would have as negligible impact on their IQ

FVP3

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

Were there IQ tests in victorian times ?

It would be remiss no to mention that for most of history lads were just rounded up off the street to conscription , prisoners were conscripted etc. so some enforced natural selection was taking place . Which the richer more highly educated people were at no risk, they would be officers etc.

Its all based on reaction tests which are supposed to be related to IQ ( or rather both are related to G, the intelligence we are trying to measure).

OscarMIlde

splashuum wrote: »

There's been many articles published recently suggesting that IQ's in the west are dropping at an alarming rate. According to a study published by the University of Amsterdam, westerners have lost 14 IQ points on average since the Victorian
age.

NBC highlighted some of the potential reasons as mentioned below:

"it was suggested that average intelligence is being pulled down because lower-IQ families are having more children. Alternatively, widening immigration might be bringing less-intelligent newcomers to societies"

Previous research has also found that women of higher intelligence are having fewer children, meaning women of lower intelligence are driving population growth.

How can we counter the "Dumbening" ?

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/iq-rates-are-dropping-many-developed-countries-doesn-t-bode-ncna1008576

https://www.dailysabah.com/science/2018/06/14/dramatic-drop-in-peoples-iq-levels-since-1975-study-reveals

How on earth would anyone be able to measure what the average IQ level of people was in Victorian times?

FVP3

completedit wrote: »

Maybe more people having access to education means that we have a more accurate reflection of average IQ's? Maybe Victorian era IQ test results were skewed.

But clearly a huge modern phenomenon is that increasingly our lives are very passive from a young age. IQ is genetic though isn't it. Like actual habits won't make someone smarter. So a kid with a low IQ could read all the books he or she wants and it would have as negligible impact on their IQ

Measured IQ rose from the first IQ test until about 1995, at a fairly strong rate, and then declined at an equally strong rate ( in Norway and other countries).

So it has to be environmental as well as genetic, because that is too fast.

Like height differences, thats genetic and environmental. You need the genes to be tall but you also need to eat right, which is why societies got taller over the 20C. Height is also in decline.

Mr. Karate

Is it really shocking? Look at the state of school systems. They're indoctrination Centres. Kids are being taught that there's 100 something Genders [Maybe more by now] and even greetings as "Hi, How are you?" is offensive because it could be a "microaggression".

quokula

So this article is based on one study that was limited to Norway, which showed a rise through the 20th century which peaked among people born in the late 70s (i.e. people around 40 today) before starting to tail off since then. Given that the data came from Norway and only Norway it could very easily be due to specific issues there around the school curriculum or whatever. It's a major extrapolation to assume it's the same in the rest of the world.

The second source, a University of Amsterdam study from about a decade ago, compared reaction times in Victorian times (based on pre-existing data obviously) with those today, and assumes reaction times correlate directly with Intelligence, due to the fact that it's a really simplistic measure of how quickly your brain can process data. It is a bit of a stretch to conclude that this definitively proves intelligence though. The methodology of the reaction time test through the ages is unlikely to have been the same either, or the selection of candidates and how representative they were of the general population at the time.

So mainly I'd say this is just clickbait, which is clearly working judging by some of the replies keen to blame it on immigrants, diversity quotas, or kids who aren't transphobic :rolleyes:

Eric Cartman

kowloon wrote: »

The immigrants are simultaneously stupid and stealing all the jobs?

id actually love to see the last time somebody genuinely posted on this site that the immigrants were taking all the jobs. Its an argument you often hear lampooned but in 13 years I can't recall ever actually seeing somebody seriously suggest that they were in fact 'taking all our jobs'

FVP3

quokula wrote: »

So this article is based on one study that was limited to Norway, which showed a rise through the 20th century which peaked among people born in the late 70s (i.e. people around 40 today) before starting to tail off since then. Given that the data came from Norway and only Norway it could very easily be due to specific issues there around the school curriculum or whatever. It's a major extrapolation to assume it's the same in the rest of the world.

The second source, a University of Amsterdam study from about a decade ago, compared reaction times in Victorian times (based on pre-existing data obviously) with those today, and assumes reaction times correlate directly with Intelligence, due to the fact that it's a really simplistic measure of how quickly your brain can process data. It is a bit of a stretch to conclude that this definitively proves intelligence though. The methodology of the reaction time test through the ages is unlikely to have been the same either, or the selection of candidates and how representative they were of the general population at the time.

It's more than one country though. I think 5, or 6 in the records I saw. I agree with you about the Victorian measurements.

So mainly I'd say this is just clickbait, which is clearly working judging by some of the replies keen to blame it on immigrants, diversity quotas, or kids who aren't transphobic :rolleyes:

I think you have made up most of those arguments your self. Most people who have opined, suggest environmental factors.

EDIT:

Oops. My bad. Missed page 2.

For me its largely environmental factors. Similar issues with stagnation in height.

FVP3

you can all test your reaction time here. To the left of the curve is better, the opposite of IQ.

https://humanbenchmark.com/dashboard/reactiontime

Eric Cartman

id say the simple fact is the wrong people are having kids.

upper and middle class people are delaying, not having or having 2 children while working class and lifelong welfare dependants often have larger families. That coupled with usually uneducated / lowly educated migrants having more children doesn't bode well for the future.

converting child benefit completely to a tax credit and making long lasting contraception like the injection/bar freely available to lifelong unemployed / working class people would be the start of a solution.

we have decades of policies which are wiping out the children with the best chance to succeed.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Easy enough... social media and the convenience of the Internet.

Few people bother to work out problems themselves anymore. Instead, they jump on to google or ask a friend online.

Lazy brains.

In a way I'd agree that we've changed the way people process information, but I'd disagree that it's laziness.

We don't NEED rote learned information like we used to. It's far more valuable to be tech-savvy, to adapt to new processes/systems well, and to know where to go for information.

IQ tests probably aren't appropriately designed to measure the intelligence required in our workforce anymore. People (rightly) utilise the internet much more and where we do store information in our heads, it's much more likely to be niche rather than general knowledge.

Still waters

Theres a difference between laziness and being thick

Young Johnny and Mary see and hear where they can buy that cool bling and those unmissable events:

Amazon and Ticket Master.

No need to shop other places.

In a few years, Johnny is thinking of setting up his own eBay account to sell his own "stuff" on.

No need for Johnny and Mary to learn any more about marketing or business, in their own mindset.

true-or-false

true-or-false wrote: »

In a way I'd agree that we've changed the way people process information, but I'd disagree that it's laziness.

We don't NEED rote learned information like we used to. It's far more valuable to be tech-savvy, to adapt to new processes/systems well, and to know where to go for information.

IQ tests probably aren't appropriately designed to measure the intelligence required in our workforce anymore. People (rightly) utilise the internet much more and where we do store information in our heads, it's much more likely to be niche rather than general knowledge.

It's not about rote learning though. I see this every day in lectures. Critical thinking, or at least defining their own centers of logic has dropped considerably. Instead, students rely far too much on articles taken from the internet, so much that they're unable to form their own arguments. Instead, they're arguing the authors points but don't have the authors insights (research, statistics, etc) into the topic.

The problem is that without people taking apart questions and doing their own research, there is a very shallow awareness of any situation. That extends to so many aspects of life because they rely on articles to explain everything to them.

As for storing information, I'd disagree again, simply because the Internet is always in reach (through their phones) there's less need for them to remember information. Instead, they bookmark pages, and refer back to the pages to support their opinions. Sure, it's going into their short term memory, but they're not really investing any effort in understanding the information, and so the info, doesn't stick in their long term memory.

The last part is about instant gratification. The internet provides everything reasonably quickly, so there's very little slogging through books or material to find answers. The very convenience of it all, makes them lazy in regards to appreciation of information.

I'm guessing I need to put in a disclaimer by saying that I'm not talking about everyone...

Black Swan

There are so many problems that pertain to the validity and reliability of IQ testing that to claim that "Western IQ's plummeting" was problematic at best, or spurious at worst. For years there has been an ongoing debate as to what IQ tests measure (i.e., questions the validity of measurement), as well as the reliability over time of such testing.

For example, there are many IQ tests today. If they were all valid and reliable, and they were all called IQ tests, would it be safe to assume that they are measuring the same thing, and that the scores between one frequently used IQ test would be almost identical to the IQ scores obtained on another frequently used IQ test for the same persons? Taking only seconds to google between sips of coffee I found a 2009 study that reported:

Stanford-Binet and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) IQs were compared for a group of 74 adults with intellectual disability (ID). In every case, WAIS Full Scale IQ was higher than the Stanford-Binet Composite IQ, with a mean difference of 16.7 points.

Now leaping to one of the OP's quoted articles:

splashuum wrote: »

According to a study published by the University of Amsterdam, westerners have lost 14 IQ points on average since the Victorian age.

Gosh, to find a double-digit difference in IQ we did not have to wait from 20 June 1837 to present to find a "14 IQ points" difference, we could find a greater "16.7 points" difference in one day between two very highly used IQ tests. And before you pounce on me for making several logical errors in this comparison (which there are), go back and ask if the IQ tests were both valid and reliable in terms of what they measure. And to add to this, did the "Victorian Age" test or tests measure the same thing (validity in measurement) as today? I could go on and on, and if I put time into this answer rather than just spouting off superficially, I could find several peer-reviewed articles with citations that would greatly challenge the 2 links given in the OP.

Fred Cryton

In Charles Darwins time 10 kids born into a middle class family would have been common. The poor would be lucky to have 2 kids surviving to adulthood.

Now it's reversed of course - as we know the middle class are lucky to have 1 child...and that 1 child ,as a higher rate taxpayer - subsidizes the 10 kids on welfare in poor families.

it is interesting to project this in to the future...if 2 middle class people continue to have only 1.2 kids.....within a 100 years all welfare may be unaffordable.

Eric Cartman

Fred Cryton wrote: »

In Charles Darwins time 10 kids born into a middle class family would have been common. The poor would be lucky to have 2 kids surviving to adulthood.

Now it's reversed of course - as we know the middle class are lucky to have 1 child...and that 1 child ,as a higher rate taxpayer - subsidizes the 10 kids on welfare in poor families.

it is interesting to project this in to the future...if 2 middle class people continue to have only 1.2 kids.....within a 100 years all welfare may be unaffordable.

welfare is unaffordable now.

BattleCorp

I'm going to blame

Love Island
The Batchelor
Real Housewives of .................fcukin everywhere
Too Hot to Handle
The Kardashians
Big Brother

Fcukin IQ plummets when watching any of those sh1e shows.

Beasty

cgcsb wrote: »

How do we know what average IQs were in victorian times?

If you knew that you would have passed the test....

More seriously, when I was a kid we were taught how to solve problems the "hard" way, with pen and paper or maybe just in our heads. Then calculators came along, and after that computers. Then we had the internet age. There is a lot less thought required when solving problems nowadays. You don't have to work it out yourself - you can look at a Youtube video

Think back then to what they had in the Victorian era. Very little in the way of help to do what would be considered quite mundane tasks nowadays. They had to work in ounces, lbs, stones, hundredweight. Pounds, shillings, pence, crowns, ha'penny, farthings and guineas. inches, feet, yards, chains, furlongs and miles. Working out the cost of things required applied logic - exactly the sort of thing measured by IQ

skooterblue2

BattleCorp wrote: »

I'm going to blame

Love Island
The Batchelor
Real Housewives of .................fcukin everywhere
Too Hot to Handle
The Kardashians
Big Brother

Fcukin IQ plummets when watching any of those sh1e shows.

You look at Sunday night (family time) TV 30 years ago Murphys Micro Quizem and where in the world?.
You look at Sunday night TV 20 years ago: Who wants to be a millionaire?
You look at Sunday night TV 10 years ago: Xfactor and Britains got talent?

You can see the IQ falling through the floor.

Bobblehats

skooterblue2 wrote: »

You can see the IQ falling through the floor.

That’s a nerd trying to let his hair down. Probs an IQ of 138 or some sh!t I mean come on, he’s asian.

James Brown

KiKi III wrote: »

Weird that you chose to quote that paragraph on immigration but not this one which immediately follows it:

“However, a 2018 study of Norway has punctured these theories by showing that IQs are dropping not just across societies but within families. In other words, the issue is not that educated Norwegians are increasingly outnumbered by lower-IQ immigrants or the children of less-educated citizens. Even children born to high-IQ parents are slipping down the IQ ladder.”

'You hush up dingus' you're spoiling the narrative

Bandana boy

Again a fundamental misunderstanding of how IQ tests work

IQ tests put you in the range of intelligence of a population that took this test
With 100 being exact mean
70 being 2.5 standard deviations below and 130 2.5 sd above

So the whole population can not drop as if people were more stupid the mean would just move and an IQ test would not catch this .
You can though measure sub populations averages in the whole population over time , and if the west is dropping it is just as easily if not more likely explained by the east and sub continents getting better and catching up with the west.

I would argue by any real means of measuring Intelligence across generations , it is most certainly going up over time.

kowloon

Eric Cartman wrote: »

id actually love to see the last time somebody genuinely posted on this site that the immigrants were taking all the jobs. Its an argument you often hear lampooned but in 13 years I can't recall ever actually seeing somebody seriously suggest that they were in fact 'taking all our jobs'

So the immigrants coming here for employment aren't displacing natives, they're just filling vacancies? So immigration is good for the economy?

kowloon

kowloon wrote: »

So the immigrants coming here for employment aren't displacing natives, they're just filling vacancies? So immigration is good for the economy?

Depends on the type of immigration. Highly skilled migrants who arrive to work, are a boom to the economy. Migrants who need support for years before they're ready to work are a drain.

It's too simple to say that "immigration" itself is good or bad for an economy. In any case, at all levels, it's healthy for an economy to have some jobs unfulfilled since it increases the overall value of employees.

suicide_circus

Bandana boy wrote: »

Again a fundamental misunderstanding of how IQ tests work

IQ tests put you in the range of intelligence of a population that took this test
With 100 being exact mean
70 being 2.5 standard deviations below and 130 2.5 sd above

So the whole population can not drop as if people were more stupid the mean would just move and an IQ test would not catch this .
You can though measure sub populations averages in the whole population over time , and if the west is dropping it is just as easily if not more likely explained by the east and sub continents getting better and catching up with the west.

I would argue by any real means of measuring Intelligence across generations , it is most certainly going up over time.

Interesting.

So it possible to get an average IQ from group A and an average IQ from group B and compare the two averages if both groups are contemporaneous?

FVP3

Bandana boy wrote: »

Again a fundamental misunderstanding of how IQ tests work

IQ tests put you in the range of intelligence of a population that took this test
With 100 being exact mean
70 being 2.5 standard deviations below and 130 2.5 sd above

So the whole population can not drop as if people were more stupid the mean would just move and an IQ test would not catch this .

They can test differences with the past, if they compare it to the past. Even if they decided to normalise the present days tests to 100, the past would be higher.

You can though measure sub populations averages in the whole population over time , and if the west is dropping it is just as easily if not more likely explained by the east and sub continents getting better and catching up with the west.

These tests were internal to specific European countries.

I would argue by any real means of measuring Intelligence across generations , it is most certainly going up over time.

Thats a non-sequitor.

That said the tests were going up every decade until the 90s, and most of that is probably environmental, as is most of the fall off.