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damnedifIknow

(3,183 posts)
Sun Aug 31, 2014, 11:16 PM Aug 2014

Are we becoming more STUPID? IQ scores are decreasing



Westerns have lost 14 IQ points on average since the Victorian age, according to a study published by the University of Amsterdam last yea

Dr Woodley and others think humans will gradually become less and less intelligent.

But Dr Flynn says if the decline in IQ scores is the end of the Flynn effect, scores should stabilise.

He thinks that even if humans do become more stupid, better healthcare and technology will mean that all people will have fewer children and the ‘problem’ will regulate itself."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2730791/Are-STUPID-Britons-people-IQ-decline.html

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Are we becoming more STUPID? IQ scores are decreasing (Original Post) damnedifIknow Aug 2014 OP
So Idiocracy will one day be seen as a documentary madville Aug 2014 #1
LOL- my thoughts exactly :) Marrah_G Aug 2014 #3
At this point in time damnedifIknow Aug 2014 #9
One day? hobbit709 Sep 2014 #36
more or less coincide with the advent of processed food drray23 Aug 2014 #2
Yep, coincides with that and about a billion other changes over those years. HERVEPA Aug 2014 #8
here is one from the british medical journal drray23 Aug 2014 #10
Thanks for the citation. (and there was no maybe in your original post) HERVEPA Aug 2014 #11
for starts - shouldn't that be westerners rather than westerns? hollysmom Aug 2014 #4
Devolution? 3rdwaydem Aug 2014 #5
I assume it's Daily Fail science articles and bad graphs making everybody stupid. nt LeftyMom Aug 2014 #6
HA! Don't you find it so hypocritical a tabloid complaining about lower IQ's? nt alp227 Sep 2014 #13
I'm sure it would do wonders for their circulation! nt LeftyMom Sep 2014 #14
Fabulous. Cleita Aug 2014 #7
The angle of decline appears steeper until 2010................. wandy Sep 2014 #12
What about regression towards the mean??? Manifestor_of_Light Sep 2014 #15
I thought IQ wasn't hereditary. Marr Sep 2014 #16
Do you believe that intelligence is hereditary in dogs? Quantess Sep 2014 #24
I'm not sure. Marr Sep 2014 #39
So our suspicions are proven correct. Live and Learn Sep 2014 #17
I think people will opt for designer applegrove Sep 2014 #18
The illustrated head in the chart appears to be breathing through its mouth. betsuni Sep 2014 #19
Maybe we only have so much collective intelligence and ... LisaLynne Sep 2014 #20
I blame AMAR0113 Sep 2014 #21
My theory is daredtowork Sep 2014 #22
Just shy of 92 is... 3catwoman3 Sep 2014 #23
In America, we've had SPECIAL help Vine Gatherer Sep 2014 #25
+1 newfie11 Sep 2014 #26
'ow, my balls'. indeed. i collect old books. not just jane austin. pansypoo53219 Sep 2014 #27
Firstly, this is the Daily Mail. Reading it would reduce anyone's IQ LeftishBrit Sep 2014 #28
LOL. Very good point... Violet_Crumble Sep 2014 #29
The test was actually on visual reaction times; they claimed a correlation with IQ muriel_volestrangler Sep 2014 #31
Thanks - I'd been planning to investigate but hadn't got round to it yet; so thanks for the info! LeftishBrit Sep 2014 #34
There is other evidence of the decline in IQ. KurtNYC Sep 2014 #33
None of these provide very convincing evidence LeftishBrit Sep 2014 #41
I'd love to see a parallel graph with the rise of malaise Sep 2014 #30
It's not a graph, but this seals the argument for me... Violet_Crumble Sep 2014 #32
Love it malaise Sep 2014 #35
Is it because we're hiring more cops? rock Sep 2014 #37
Brawndo's got what plants crave! Tommy_Carcetti Sep 2014 #38
Television Eye Octafish Sep 2014 #40
One of the reasons I tend to agree with this article damnedifIknow Sep 2014 #42
The Powell Memorandum spelled it out. GOP started buying media Big Time... Octafish Sep 2014 #43
Evolution has no direction. Tierra_y_Libertad Sep 2014 #44
Lead, heavy metals, pesticides, toxic environment, less child mortality JCMach1 Sep 2014 #45

drray23

(7,587 posts)
2. more or less coincide with the advent of processed food
Sun Aug 31, 2014, 11:26 PM
Aug 2014

And other chemically altered crap. Add to that increased levels in pollution and maybe those are contributing factors. You can even see this trend empirically. If you compare high school exams from the 1950's or earlier to nowadays it is flagrant.

 

HERVEPA

(6,107 posts)
8. Yep, coincides with that and about a billion other changes over those years.
Sun Aug 31, 2014, 11:46 PM
Aug 2014

But nice try.
You have any peer-reviewed scientific studies linking the two?

drray23

(7,587 posts)
10. here is one from the british medical journal
Sun Aug 31, 2014, 11:53 PM
Aug 2014
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110207225943.htm

As i wrote in my post maybe it is a contributing factor. Whether or not it is the sole reason is not what I claimed. The effect of chemicals on human brain development is also well documented.

hollysmom

(5,946 posts)
4. for starts - shouldn't that be westerners rather than westerns?
Sun Aug 31, 2014, 11:42 PM
Aug 2014

makes me think that spaghetti westerns are getting dumber.

Every time I read a tea party story or hear a climate denier. Yes, I am surprised it is so little - and here is the worst part, I had an accident years ago and was out for 3 days and I know I am not as smart as I was, It is pretty much documented. And I still feel brighter than most people I meet.

wandy

(3,539 posts)
12. The angle of decline appears steeper until 2010.................
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 12:02 AM
Sep 2014

I wonder if this were plotted on log paper if 2010 would be the half power point, sometimes called -3db or best known as the rise of the Tea Party.

 

Manifestor_of_Light

(21,046 posts)
15. What about regression towards the mean???
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 12:13 AM
Sep 2014

I thought that IQs were supposed to regress to the mean.


So was Freddie Gauss wrong or what???????

 

Marr

(20,317 posts)
16. I thought IQ wasn't hereditary.
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 12:20 AM
Sep 2014

Unless we're prepared to accept the notion that smart people have smart children and dumb people have dumb children, I don't see how this projection could signify anything more than some change in the way IQ is measured, or an increase in some secondary factor that's related to lowered IQ scores, like poverty.

 

Marr

(20,317 posts)
39. I'm not sure.
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 10:53 AM
Sep 2014

Though, as I understand it, different breeds do have predictable personality traits (excitability, passivity, etc.), I've never heard anything about more intelligent dogs having more intelligent puppies.

Live and Learn

(12,769 posts)
17. So our suspicions are proven correct.
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 12:25 AM
Sep 2014

People really are getting dumber, hence the belief held by many that Fox News is actually bipartisan.

LisaLynne

(14,554 posts)
20. Maybe we only have so much collective intelligence and ...
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 01:02 AM
Sep 2014

it's getting spread thin as the population increases?

daredtowork

(3,732 posts)
22. My theory is
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 01:12 AM
Sep 2014

1) Education standards drifting out of line with what IQ tests focus on.

2) Lack of sleep.

I find it odd that the article alludes to "computer games" while repeatedly claiming "reaction time" as a criteria of intelligence. It seems to me that one of the (few) benefits of computer games is training reaction time. I just read an article where limited game play with a Wii accessory is even supposed to help with MS. So I would propose the issue is not the games themselves, but behavior issues around them, like shorting sleep.

pansypoo53219

(20,906 posts)
27. 'ow, my balls'. indeed. i collect old books. not just jane austin.
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 05:05 AM
Sep 2014

i have been reading a books of famous orations. a 1891 set of encyclopedia britannicas, i eventually will get to casanova's memoirs, but what i read was great. the decameron. realitee teevee + the gnewz channels AIN'T helping. i encounter SEMI-COLONS.

LeftishBrit

(41,190 posts)
28. Firstly, this is the Daily Mail. Reading it would reduce anyone's IQ
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 05:24 AM
Sep 2014

Most studies have shown the opposite: the 'Flynn effect' mentioned in the article, that every generation in developed countries has shown a higher IQ score than the previous one. Indeed, IQ tests have repeatedly needed to be re-standardized and made more difficult, because if people took the earlier forms of IQ tests, the average IQ would be well over 100.

I would not be surprised if this effect does out to be halted or reversed in the most recent data, as it was probably largely caused by economic, educational and health improvements over the years; and the recession and the austerity policies of recent years have sadly reversed this trend.

However, the idea that IQ has gone down steadily since Victorian times is contradicted by almost all other evidence.

Violet_Crumble

(35,954 posts)
29. LOL. Very good point...
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 06:27 AM
Sep 2014

I haven't really seen any other studies, but what you said about economic, educational, and health advances over the years would suggest to me people are more intelligent now than they were back in the Victorian era...

muriel_volestrangler

(101,150 posts)
31. The test was actually on visual reaction times; they claimed a correlation with IQ
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 06:52 AM
Sep 2014
Abstract

The Victorian era was marked by an explosion of innovation and genius, per capita rates of which appear to have declined subsequently. The presence of dysgenic fertility for IQ amongst Western nations, starting in the 19th century, suggests that these trends might be related to declining IQ. This is because high-IQ people are more productive and more creative. We tested the hypothesis that the Victorians were cleverer than modern populations, using high-quality instruments, namely measures of simple visual reaction time in a meta-analytic study. Simple reaction time measures correlate substantially with measures of general intelligence (g) and are considered elementary measures of cognition. In this study we used the data on the secular slowing of simple reaction time described in a meta-analysis of 14 age-matched studies from Western countries conducted between 1889 and 2004 to estimate the decline in g that may have resulted from the presence of dysgenic fertility. Using psychometric meta-analysis we computed the true correlation between simple reaction time and g, yielding a decline of ? 1.16 IQ points per decade or ? 13.35 IQ points since Victorian times. These findings strongly indicate that with respect to g the Victorians were substantially cleverer than modern Western populations.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613000470

We discussed it before: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022886269
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022898368
We've even discussed a previous Mail article on this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023989419

It seems a pretty tenuous claim, to me.

The 'University of Hartford' graph is taken from here: http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/BRBAKER/ . As you might guess from the unprofessionalism of that, it was just a student at that university - Brendan Baker - and a pretty dumb one at that, if their Google+ page is anything to go by: https://plus.google.com/104626052685346120424/posts . He said he took the figures from "Global IQ 1950-2050", which appears to be this: https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/IQ/1950-2050/ , which took the figures from the infamous "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen.

Richard Lynn
Date of Birth:
1930
Groups:
Pioneer Fund
Ideology:
White Nationalist

For 50 years, Richard Lynn has been at the forefront of scientific racism. An unapologetic eugenicist, Lynn uses his authority as professor (emeritus) of psychology at the University of Ulster to argue for the genetic inferiority of non-white people. Lynn believes that IQ tests can be used to determine the worth of groups of people, especially racial groups and nations. The wealth and power of nations, according to Lynn, is due to their racial intelligence and “homogeneity” (or “purity”). He argues that the nations with the highest IQs must subjugate or eliminate the lower-IQ groups within their borders in order to preserve their dominance.

In his own words:
“I am deeply pessimistic about the future of the European peoples because mass immigration of third world peoples will lead to these becoming majorities in the United States and westernmost Europe during the present century. I think this will mean the destruction of European civilization in these countries.”
—Interview with neo-Nazi Alex Kurtagic, 2011

"I think the only solution lies in the breakup of the United States. Blacks and Hispanics are concentrated in the Southwest, the Southeast and the East, but the Northwest and the far Northeast, Maine, Vermont and upstate New York have a large predominance of whites. I believe these predominantly white states should declare independence and secede from the Union. They would then enforce strict border controls and provide minimum welfare, which would be limited to citizens. If this were done, white civilisation would survive within this handful of states.”
—Undated interview with fascist magazine Right NOW!

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/profiles/Richard-Lynn

In 2004, the Ombudsman of Minorities Mikko Puumalainen wished that the police would start an investigation on Vanhanen's interview with a Helsingin Sanomat magazine Kuukausiliite, in which he stated that "Whereas the average IQ of Finns is 97, in Africa it is between 60 and 70. Differences in intelligence are the most significant factor in explaining poverty".[2] The Finnish National Bureau of Investigations was considering to launch a preliminary investigation on Vanhanen's speech but later decided not to, not finding a reason to see he would have incited hatred against an ethnic group or committed any other crime.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatu_Vanhanen

The Mail is repackaging white nationalist bollocks, via a dumb US student.

LeftishBrit

(41,190 posts)
34. Thanks - I'd been planning to investigate but hadn't got round to it yet; so thanks for the info!
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 07:25 AM
Sep 2014

I am gobsmacked that this paper ever got through peer review; there are so many holes in it.

Yes, there is some correlation between visual reaction time and IQ but it is far from a perfect one, and anyway, as the authors should know, correlation does not equal causation! Reaction time is commonly used in cognitive psychology as an indication of which tasks are easier than others: if you find a task easy you will generally do it more quickly. As people with high IQs generally find many tasks easier than those with lower IQs, they are likely on the whole to show faster reaction times. But that doesn't mean that reaction time is the basis for IQ, or that slower visual reaction time will necessarily indicate lower IQ. For example, while people with severe visual impairments are likely to be identified and excluded from such studies, people with more subtle visual difficulties (a significant proportion of the population) may take part and show slower reaction times.

As for Richard Lynn, he is a racist who brings his biases into his research, and really brings psychology into disrepute. I remember that 'IQ and the Wealth of Nations' paper; it is an awful example of how NOT to do science.

'The Mail is repackaging white nationalist bollocks, via a dumb US student.'

Yes, that describes it. The Mail loves ANYTHING that will demonstrate that everything's got worse since the days of Good Queen Victoria, and especially if it can put a racist slant on it.

KurtNYC

(14,549 posts)
33. There is other evidence of the decline in IQ.
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 07:13 AM
Sep 2014

SAT scores are falling.

Ulster University data and analysis on IQ declines worldwide.

Brain size in humans has been declining for 10,000 years. - Cambridge University

LeftishBrit

(41,190 posts)
41. None of these provide very convincing evidence
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 02:06 PM
Sep 2014

(1) SAT scores are falling.

This is, however, not replicated in the exam results from other countries and systems. In the UK, GCSE and A level results have generally improved over the years. International Baccalaureate results have been pretty stable over the years.


(2) Ulster University data and analysis on IQ declines worldwide.


That is not 'other evidence'; it is the same very dodgy evidence, by Richard Lynn, that this paper cites. Lynn considers that white people are genetically much more intelligent than black people; that Chinese and Japanese people are more intelligent than either; and that this can explain national differences in health and wealth/poverty (i.e. poverty in developing countries is all because the citizens of these countries are genetically unintelligent). He also considers that men are genetically more intelligent than women. And he tends to twist the evidence to get these conclusions (see my earlier post, and that of Muriel_Volestrangler).



(3) Brain size in humans has been declining for 10,000 years. - Cambridge University

Brain size as such is not what is crucial to intelligence. It depends on which areas of the brain are larger/ smaller, and on the level and type of connections between different areas.

Violet_Crumble

(35,954 posts)
32. It's not a graph, but this seals the argument for me...
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 07:04 AM
Sep 2014

Sorry, I had to do something to wipe the horrifically crap music someone else was repeatedly posting in another thread I was in...

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
40. Television Eye
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 10:57 AM
Sep 2014

"...before you got me hooked, I used to read."



Words to a great song by a great man, John Mayall:

Television Eye

Television Eye,
hypnotizing me in my bed.
I’ve got no time to sleep,
my eyes are turning bloodshot red.
You’ve got me in your eye,
staring at your many channeled head.

Television Eye,
before you got me hooked,
I used to read.
Now you’re by my bedside,
shining empty lights on me.
‘Round the clock commercials,
Trying to sell me things I’ll never need.

It’s hard to turn you on,
even though you’ve never turned me on.
Trying to slow my thinking,
I feel my mind is nearly gone.
Television Eye,
You’ve had me in your power too long.

I’ve got to be crazy or something.
It’s just ridiculous.
Why am I wasting time watching you?
I’ve got better things to do.
I’ve got to leave…

-- John Mayall



Now, IMFO:

If you can control what people think about, you can control what they do.

This is the essence of public relations, marketing and psyops.

And it is why the Bushies and the satanic turds they serve spend so much time and money “catapaulting the propaganda,” to borrow a phrase from an incurious monkey.



The nation's Founders mention only one business by name in the Constitution -- a Free Press. They knew, for a democracy to survive -- for our Republic to succeed -- required an informed citizenry.

(That was in 1776 -- before radio or photography, "General" Alberto Gonzales.)

Frank Capra explained it perfectly: “A free press means a free people.”

Meaning, the more the People know -- the more Truth -- the better the government.

And that is why the Press is no longer free. It is owned and operated by the BFEE.

So many people don't hear the facts about Bush lying America into war. Or about his family and cronies profiting from war. Or about torture being employed on a mass scale. Or about spying on Americans... It's also why public education and the arts are de-funded and ignored.

You see, an educated populace is harder to mis-lead. That makes the enlightened enemies of the fascist state.

OP from 2007

damnedifIknow

(3,183 posts)
42. One of the reasons I tend to agree with this article
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 02:26 PM
Sep 2014

It still boggles the mind how anyone could buy the load of bull Bush was selling.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
43. The Powell Memorandum spelled it out. GOP started buying media Big Time...
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 02:48 PM
Sep 2014
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/the-lewis-powell-memo-corporate-blueprint-to-/blog/36466/

Whether in the shared experience called the cosmos or in humanity's monde intérieur, nothing's been the same since.

JCMach1

(27,544 posts)
45. Lead, heavy metals, pesticides, toxic environment, less child mortality
Mon Sep 1, 2014, 04:25 PM
Sep 2014

any number of things could be a factor in this...

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