IQs on the Decline

The intelligence to accomplish any task remains constant. As machines become smarter, people become stupider to compensate. Without exercise, the brain atrophies. People can't calculate without calculators, spell without spellcheck, or even figure out a problem without "googling" for the answer.

I believe you are describing the immutable law of "Conservation of Stupidity." It states that stupidity cannot be created or destroyed, but is conserved in a closed system. As the common rock becomes a silicon wafer and eventually an IPhone, human intelligence devolves towards the water bear and eventually into a Kardasian.

It took 66 years to go from man's first flight to man first landing on the moon.

Since man's first landing on the moon computing power has increased exponentially.

I don't see any lack of intelligence with those and similar achievements.

If you scrape the bottom of the barrel you'll find all the gunge.

You mean Grunge, don't you ?

I think you are confusing intellect with general knowledge....Another trend that may be relevant is the population shift from rural to urban, this brings with it working in a system rather than on your own, and results in specialization...Living in a city you only have to be good at one thing to make it....Maybe the IQ measurement is becoming less important and the ability to work with computers more important....The whole focus of civilization has been to make life easier and the quality of life higher....This involves the struggle to be free and independent, which requires technological superiority, this has always been so...The personal acquisition of knowledge is driven by the need to have answers to questions that result in pursuit of this goal....If we build a machine that has all the answers, and is at our side at all times to answer these questions, surely this is a shortcut that will be taken....The need for the knowledge is still there, it's just the method of acquisition that has changed...Take somebody with an average IQ from 50 years ago, and plop him down in today's society.....how would he fare?

Too many Darwin Candidates diluting the gene pool?

That's why they don't use a Bell Curve to determine the Intelligence Quotient.

When IQ tests were invented, most calculations were done mentally, or manually on paper...and with imperial measurements.

Now we have the metric system and calculations are checked, or made, using machines. As most of us do not use that part of our brain, several questions in the IQ test become more difficult for most, thus skewing the figures.

I guess that most practical engineers would still do well. It is the rest of them who are holding us back / making us look good.

Yes you are right! Why!
Because today more people rely on smart phones etc to work out stuff for them, the internet to give them instant answers to research rather than actually working it out themselves.

So the brain becomes lazy, followed by the person becoming lazy and they breed!

I think I've made my point!

"So the brain becomes lazy, followed by the person becoming lazy and they breed!"

...and I believe it has been well established that more educated people (which may or may not coincide with higher intelligence) have on average fewer offspring. Assuming that intelligence is at least partially genetic, it then becomes statistically obvious that the average intelligence will indeed drop over time.

you said..

Assuming that intelligence is at least partially genetic

I'm not..... a lazy person who breeds begots another lazy person, and so the cycle of stupid continues!

DK, it appears that brich is trying to show a correlation between lazy people having lazy offspring and non lazy people having non lazy offspring ( although he hasn't presented data to support this claim )

I didn't know that motivation or the lack thereof was genetic (!)

Right. ...and I have no idea (data) on whether there is any correlation, direct or inverse, between motivation and intelligence.

<...they breed...> is that because the <...lazy...> have ****-all else to keep them occupied?

only if the tele is bust!

Lyn, it's highly doubtful that the USA has the market cornered in lying politicians. Unless you can provide some contrary data.

Would you like real facts, or alternative facts?

Clearly, you must have a clue, since my comment was marked OT.

Lyn, I didn't mark you ot, your contribution,,is necessary, more than that, oh, my sister is calling, sometimes I think you and her were cut from the same piece of cloth and I would never hang up on her.

Thanks, I think.

I didn't specifically call you out for marking my comment OT, any more than I'd call anyone out for marking 3 GA's from weeks ago OT in the last couple of days. That's life.

I doubt that your sister would be very happy to be compared to an old man, though.

Events of the last year have lead many to question the intelligence/honesty of our leaders here in this country, more than anywhere else in the free world.

That may have nothing to do with IQ. Maybe it's just like the saying goes, "If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh*t."

I have to agree with M-ReeD that our decline may well be related to "this dead-eyed, valley-girl speaking collection of morons," one of whom seems to hold a considerable amount of sway with the current POTUS.

The first three,,the last three, I will ask my sister.

Thank you, your a good teacher.

I haven't figured out how that works.

I'll ask her.

I will probably get marked ot,

"I will probably get marked ot"

No, that has only been for me here.

Some facts are born facts. They are called facts.

Some facts aspire to factuality. These are called rhetoric.

Some facts are not facts, but wear the trappings of factuality. These are called pseudofacts.

Some facts are made facts by pure hard and redundant work. This is called consensus.

And then there's the rest of the facts. This is called the media.

It is not unknown in other developing countries, either.

Proof positive on CR4. Many threads start out with intelligent responses and slowly lose intelligence as the thread continues.

The fact that the decline is worldwide is likely significant.

When was still in short pants I read a story by C. M. Kornbuth called "The Marching Morons" which is germane to this thread.

Very funny !

And lets not forget information overload. With the invention of the computer and the internet an enormous and at times bewildering (and often false or contradictory) amount of information is now available at our fingertips.

In some ways it is easier to get an answer but in other ways it is easier to get the wrong answer and believe it is the right answer.

Vast numbers of internet sites via to get and hold our attention giving us spoon-fulls of satisfaction and stimulating our addiction to them, is it any wonder there is a decline in IQ when we spend so much time on twitter and facebook feeling a sense of accomplishment while really accomplishing nothing!

Actually, this is easy to explain: There are finite amount of IQ points allowed on any one planet; and since the population is increasing, the individual average goes down.

I like the Scott Adams observation that everyone is an idiot about something. It's likely that we just have more things to be idiotic about.

If anything, not knowing the metrics that are used in the tests to Quantify Intelligence from 100 years ago or even 50 years ago, could be different from today just from the type of environment we now have and experienced from 50 years ago.

And knowing how to google should not count for many points on the Intelligence Quotient.

Perhaps they have all become obsessed with selling rvxadryl and keto: it would correlate with what one reads these days.