Debating Brexit has revealed to me the surprising fact that MOST people in this country are stupid. Now I know why.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d...gent-80k3bl83v
Full text for those not bright enough to read the article for free below
"The IQ scores of young people have begun to fall after rising steadily since the Second World War, according to the first authoritative study of the phenomenon.
The decline, which is equivalent to at least seven points per generation, is thought to have started with the cohort born in 1975, who reached adulthood in the early Nineties.
Scientists say that the deterioration could be down to changes in the way maths and languages are taught, or to a shift from reading books to spending time on television and computers.
Yet it is also possible that the nature of intelligence is changing in the digital age and cannot be captured with traditional IQ tests. The turning point marks the end of a well-known but poorly understood trend known as the Flynn effect, in which average IQs have risen by about three points a decade for the past 60 or 70 years.
“This is the most convincing evidence yet of a reversal of the Flynn effect,” Stuart Ritchie, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh who was not involved in the research, said. “If you assume their model is correct, the results are impressive, and pretty worrying.”
There had been signs that IQ scores might have fallen since the turn of the millennium. Two British studies suggested that the decline was between 2.5 and 4.3 points per decade. This has not been widely accepted owing to the limited research to date. A study has now shown, however, that Norwegian men’s IQs are measurably lower today than the scores of their fathers at the same age.
Ole Rogeberg and Bernt Bratsberg, of the Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research in Oslo, analysed the scores from a standardised IQ test of more than 730,000 men who reported for national service between 1970 and 2009. The research appears in the journal PNAS.
The vast majority of young Norwegian men are required to perform national service and take a standardised IQ test when they join up.
The results, published in the journal PNAS, show that those born in 1991 scored about five points lower than those born in 1975, and three points lower than those born in 1962.
The reasons behind the Flynn effect and its apparent reversal are disputed. Scientists have put the rise in IQ down to better teaching, nutrition, healthcare and even artificial lighting.
Some academics suggest the recent fall could be down to genetics. Their argument is, crudely, that less intelligent people have more babies, and so over time the gains are cancelled out by the spread of genes linked to low-intelligence.
Yet this theory has been scotched by the Norwegian paper. Because the decline can be observed within the same families, it is unlikely to be the result of a demographic shift.
Dr Rogeberg said it was more plausible that the changes in the way children are educated or brought up – such as less time drilling pupils in reading and mathematics – were at play.
He stressed that the findings did not necessarily mean that today’s young people were any more stupid than their parents. Instead, it may be that definitions of intelligence have yet to catch up with the skillset needed to navigate the digital era.
“Intelligence researchers make a distinction between fluid and crystallised intelligence,” he said. “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.”
Classic IQ tests, with their emphasis on arithmetic and verbal reasoning, tend to favour the kind of crystallised intelligence that is fostered by a more traditional education. “If this is the underlying cause of the decline, this need not be overly worrying,” Dr Rogeberg said.
Robin Morris, professor of neuropsychology at King’s College London, said IQ scores probably had hit a ceiling in the west, but there was not yet any reason to be unduly concerned.
“I think the reverse Flynn effect is real but would urge caution about generalising based on one sample,” he said. “Probably the tailing off is a general effect in high income countries in which the contributor factors generally stabilise.”
Analysis
Since the earliest literature of the Iron Age, it has been the fond prerogative of each generation to imagine that its successor is a rabble of idiots.
Thanks to a phenomenon known as the Flynn effect, though, this assumption has been categorically wrong for most of the 20th century. Western populations actually became measurably better at IQ tests as time went by, picking up about three points a decade.
Now that march of progress appears be going backwards. The IQ scores of young Britons born after 1975 are declining roughly as quickly as they used to rise. Why?
One reason can be ruled out for starters: this probably has little to do with race or genetics. Some academics used to think that high fertility rates in ethnic minority populations might be dragging the average down through a “dysgenic” effect (think eugenics, but in reverse).
This theory is pretty much dispelled by the Norwegian study, which shows quite clearly that children are getting lower scores than their parents.
That means we have to look to the environment for an explanation. Is it that children are spending too much time on Instagram and not enough on Moliere? Is it that a deterioration in diet or exercise has had a subtle impact on their mental faculties?
Or is it just that the digital age demands from young people a new kind of intelligence that IQ tests designed half a century ago are not very good at capturing? Nobody knows. This is only the beginning of what will be a vicious and protracted debate.
"
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d...gent-80k3bl83v
Full text for those not bright enough to read the article for free below
"The IQ scores of young people have begun to fall after rising steadily since the Second World War, according to the first authoritative study of the phenomenon.
The decline, which is equivalent to at least seven points per generation, is thought to have started with the cohort born in 1975, who reached adulthood in the early Nineties.
Scientists say that the deterioration could be down to changes in the way maths and languages are taught, or to a shift from reading books to spending time on television and computers.
Yet it is also possible that the nature of intelligence is changing in the digital age and cannot be captured with traditional IQ tests. The turning point marks the end of a well-known but poorly understood trend known as the Flynn effect, in which average IQs have risen by about three points a decade for the past 60 or 70 years.
“This is the most convincing evidence yet of a reversal of the Flynn effect,” Stuart Ritchie, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh who was not involved in the research, said. “If you assume their model is correct, the results are impressive, and pretty worrying.”
There had been signs that IQ scores might have fallen since the turn of the millennium. Two British studies suggested that the decline was between 2.5 and 4.3 points per decade. This has not been widely accepted owing to the limited research to date. A study has now shown, however, that Norwegian men’s IQs are measurably lower today than the scores of their fathers at the same age.
Ole Rogeberg and Bernt Bratsberg, of the Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research in Oslo, analysed the scores from a standardised IQ test of more than 730,000 men who reported for national service between 1970 and 2009. The research appears in the journal PNAS.
The vast majority of young Norwegian men are required to perform national service and take a standardised IQ test when they join up.
The results, published in the journal PNAS, show that those born in 1991 scored about five points lower than those born in 1975, and three points lower than those born in 1962.
The reasons behind the Flynn effect and its apparent reversal are disputed. Scientists have put the rise in IQ down to better teaching, nutrition, healthcare and even artificial lighting.
Some academics suggest the recent fall could be down to genetics. Their argument is, crudely, that less intelligent people have more babies, and so over time the gains are cancelled out by the spread of genes linked to low-intelligence.
Yet this theory has been scotched by the Norwegian paper. Because the decline can be observed within the same families, it is unlikely to be the result of a demographic shift.
Dr Rogeberg said it was more plausible that the changes in the way children are educated or brought up – such as less time drilling pupils in reading and mathematics – were at play.
He stressed that the findings did not necessarily mean that today’s young people were any more stupid than their parents. Instead, it may be that definitions of intelligence have yet to catch up with the skillset needed to navigate the digital era.
“Intelligence researchers make a distinction between fluid and crystallised intelligence,” he said. “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.”
Classic IQ tests, with their emphasis on arithmetic and verbal reasoning, tend to favour the kind of crystallised intelligence that is fostered by a more traditional education. “If this is the underlying cause of the decline, this need not be overly worrying,” Dr Rogeberg said.
Robin Morris, professor of neuropsychology at King’s College London, said IQ scores probably had hit a ceiling in the west, but there was not yet any reason to be unduly concerned.
“I think the reverse Flynn effect is real but would urge caution about generalising based on one sample,” he said. “Probably the tailing off is a general effect in high income countries in which the contributor factors generally stabilise.”
Analysis
Since the earliest literature of the Iron Age, it has been the fond prerogative of each generation to imagine that its successor is a rabble of idiots.
Thanks to a phenomenon known as the Flynn effect, though, this assumption has been categorically wrong for most of the 20th century. Western populations actually became measurably better at IQ tests as time went by, picking up about three points a decade.
Now that march of progress appears be going backwards. The IQ scores of young Britons born after 1975 are declining roughly as quickly as they used to rise. Why?
One reason can be ruled out for starters: this probably has little to do with race or genetics. Some academics used to think that high fertility rates in ethnic minority populations might be dragging the average down through a “dysgenic” effect (think eugenics, but in reverse).
This theory is pretty much dispelled by the Norwegian study, which shows quite clearly that children are getting lower scores than their parents.
That means we have to look to the environment for an explanation. Is it that children are spending too much time on Instagram and not enough on Moliere? Is it that a deterioration in diet or exercise has had a subtle impact on their mental faculties?
Or is it just that the digital age demands from young people a new kind of intelligence that IQ tests designed half a century ago are not very good at capturing? Nobody knows. This is only the beginning of what will be a vicious and protracted debate.
"
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