Americans' IQ Declining for First Time in Almost a Century, Study Finds

This is not good.

These days it appears when kids go to school they’re not taught how to think but what to think. Dumbing down the requirements to pass a class or graduate only encourages kids not to try as hard as they would if the requirements weren’t dumbed down.

As many of us have worked at jobs all our lives, I’m sure we’re all familiar with how companies keep raising the bar when it comes to performance, but not so in our schools where everyone gets a trophy just for showing up.

Teaching kids that men can get pregnant or that some of them are victims of what happened over a century ago and others are guilty of causing it does not advance the knowledge or intelligence of kids. And then there are the drag queen story hours which never happened in any school I know of until recently.

These kids are the future of our country, we need to get woke liberal ideology out of the classroom and replace it with the core subjects of reading, math and science.

 

stupid people tend to breed earlier and at higher numbers than high achievers. People going to Stanford Medical school or Cornell engineering graduate school don't tend to be having kids at that time

 

People don't have the attention span for IQ tests anymore.

 

Adversity creates strong humans.
Strong humans create prosperity.
Prosperity creates weak humans.
Weak humans create adversity.

And thus goes, and has always gone, the cycle of civilization. We're just stuck in the shitty part of it right now.

 

IQ is (meant to be) a measure of fundamental capability and so wouldn't be directly affected by education. The problem is that measuring IQ typically requires some kind of formal test and test-taking skills can be influenced by education. That isn't a function of IQ though, it's a limitation if the testing, especially self-administered IQ tests. It could even be one factor in the Flynn Effect (the steady rise in IQ scores in the western world over through much of the 20th Century).

This isn't the first study suggesting the possibility of a reverse Flynn Effect in more recent years (it even refers to a couple of them) and significantly, they're not limited to the US. Regardless, it isn't entirely clear what is actually happening or what the root cause(s) might be, not surprising given the difficulties in consistently testing IQ in general.

So, I don't think this is anything close to evidence for some failure of the US education system. It is certainly possible that how education operates these days may have changed how well students deal with formal testing but even if that were the case, that in itself wouldn't automatically mean the education is worse overall. Teaching kids how to pass tests rather than how to actually learn is typically a problem in education.

That isn't to say US education (or indeed western education more generally) doesn't have problems or isn't objectively worse than in the past, only that this study doesn't support the hypothesis anything like as strongly as you'd suggest.

 

That explains a lot.

 

You can't teach high IQ's. IQs are a measure of someones mental ability not a measurement of what they have learned. So to equate IQ to learning is fallacy.

 

I'm not surprised and expected it. First came to my mind that we were losing our wits when writing in cursive ceased to be taught. Then...when I realized how much I depended on my phones navigation.

Reading maps and writing script are only a couple of examples of using and building the brain power that our kids don't do.. we have multiple ways for devices to do our thinking for us.

 

IQ test are problem-solving exercises. Today's kids are into video games, 2-liter Cokes, hanging out, walking the mall, and TV. Yesterday's kids were into delivering paper routes, earning Boy Scout merit badges, building tree houses, working on bicycles, building hot rods, camping out, working odd jobs. There is your reason IQ's are lower.

 

High IQ is determined typically in individuals with more active white matter in their brains. It isn’t really something that is measured by educational attainment in the traditional sense.

It’s odd that your study would attempt to link two unrelated events.

If we really are seeing a decline in IQ it is likely due to how humans live today — I would wager the foods we ingest have more of a play than students being taught to be aware of what’s going on around them (aka woke for the partisans).

 

Americans' IQ Declining for First Time in Almost a Century, Study Finds​

~ Did we really need a study ... ?

 

You don't make any case, as to how the supposed "Woke liberal ideology" could even possibly have affected this. You see that the group who fared worst, is college age-- 18 to 22-- which means it is foolish to think that some recent development, in the schools, would have so quickly lowered IQs of kids who were at the end of their highschool years, or the beginning of their college years, when they were first exposed to "Wokeness?"

What seems interesting to me, is that this downturn in clarity of thought, coincides with the rise in our society, of the popularity of conspiracy theories, which was probably kicked off by 9/11/2001, but has grown over time, into the Qanon followers, and "election fraud" believers, we have today. I would not be surprised, if people's shifting, to getting more of their "news," through internet social media (& unreliable, pandering, Right wing sources, like FOX News), has something to do with this.

 

That's not correct. Education, lack thereof, or the quality of it, can affect IQ.

 

I think it has been proven that the election was rigged. Democrats count on stupid people to vote for them; that's their growing constituency: one in six Americans would not have voted for Biden had then known about his scandals. We have many people in this country who are more braindead than the senile fool currently occupying the Oval Office. That's one in six Americans who couldn't take the effort to learn about the people for whom they were voting. It was far easier for them to vote, especially by mail, the least amount of effort, than to actually educate themselves about the issues. Democrats love that we are getting dumber. It's means more votes for them.

 

One can teach algebra all day every day with a person who has an IQ of 80 and one gets a person with an IQ of 80 that knows a little about algebra.

How can someone teach a person to be smarter, they can however teach a person to know more.

 

Sure. But, in your example, the person who was taught algebra may not have started at 80. Education may have had an effect. Heed the OP: the point is that our IQ is declining. The OP, correctly, argued that our poor education, such as dumbing down the standards--that would include affirmative action, which is not just stupid, but racist--and teaching outright hogwash is more than likely a factor, given the effect that education has on IQ.

 

So your theory is our kids are listening to right wing radio and fox more than they used to?

LOL. Stop demonstrating the OPs point. Jesus

 

So eager to self-aggrandized and belittle others.

https://www.spectrumnews.org › news › link-parental-age-autism-explained
The link between parental age and autism, explained

'Older men and women are more likely than young ones to have a child with autism, according to multiple studies published in the past decade. Especially when it comes to fathers, this parental-age effect is one of the most consistent findings in the epidemiology of autism.'

 

Several things:

• I don't doubt that the schools could do better.
• It's hard for me to believe that young people who spent their youth walking up here from Latin America are as prepared for school as native speaking children who attended pre-k and early elementary school. I doubt this normalizes for the influx of ESL.
• And what about the explosion of Autism Spectrum disorder? 30-35 years ago Autism was maybe 1/10,000. Now it's 1/44.

Don't you think that this is also pressing down overall IQ scores?

 

I think that’s the idea of an IQ test, it’s just not completely accurate. Using your mind makes you better at thinking. I notice it depending upon my own activities. Now, sure, somebody who scores 80 isn’t going to score 162 just based upon challenging their mind more, getting educated, practicing test taking, and getting more sleep. But a standard deviation or, at most two, variation in a person over time is plausible. Maybe it could go down more with brain damage I guess, lol

 

I’d sooner blame increased mindless entertainment and, to a lesser extent, moving away from major test-taking like the SAT (now optional/excluded in many places).

Maybe fewer smart people having kids is another factor

 

I am soooo trying toe resist typing “well that explains the recent GOP wins!” But honestly when people vote for the likes of EmpTy Greene, Granny Boebert and paul “killmonger” Gosar

 

related thread: "Not Sending Their Best": World Map of IQ Drop Due to Immigration

 

Interesting article, but I don't know how big a role it plays in this particular story. According to the article, itself, men having children, later in life, is not even the explanation for the increasing prevalence of autism, much less for lowered IQ scores:

<Snip>
Does the trend toward having children later in life explain the increase in autism prevalence?
Probably not. Independent calculations suggest that the trend toward later parenthood accounts for only about 1 to 5 percent of the increase in autism prevalence. But investigating the link between parental age and autism could provide clues to the biology underlying the condition.

Cite this article: https://doi.org/10.53053/FQNS6772
<End Snip>

It should be noted that the various studies, mentioned in your article, give numbers that are all over the map. But even if the number in the quote, above, were accurate, it would be impossible to even speculate on how a 5%, let's say, increase in autism, would affect national IQ test averages. I would actually guess, there's a good chance that people with autism would (for the most part) not be included in the IQ study. Also, unfortunately, the OP article is rather superficial, not even mentioning how much, IQ scores had declined, nor mentioning if there were any age groups that saw no decline, nor if there were any discernable pattern, such as the decline being generally less in older people, and increasingly greater, the younger the demographic. We do not even know if that 18 to 22 year old group was the youngest one used, of if the data includes younger ages.

Lastly, I'll note the interesting fact (not in your article) that the gene involved in autism, is the same one, when it has been mutated in a different manner, that has been associated with great scientists, and others of high achievement. This is the origin, I believe, of the expression, being "on the (autism) spectrum." When the gene is altered one way, or only to a certain degree, it produces the kind of OCD focus, of say a scientist, or an innovator, who will stay locked on some idea, pursuing it tirelessly, and in intricate detail, for decades, until they make their breakthrough discovery. But alter it slightly more, or in a different way, and you produce conditions that can make it difficult for the person to function, in our world.



EDIT:
I just checked the other, linked article, from the OP, which was better, giveng more of the researchers' rationale, for believing that education is responsible for this drop:

<Snip>
The professors who authored the study theorize that the quality of education could play a role in reversing the IQ gains enjoyed by previous generations.

The study, published in a spring 2023 edition of Intelligence, measures IQ test results among 18- to 60-year-olds to examine the phenomenon first observed by philosopher James Flynn.

Professors from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and the University of Oregon in Eugene explain the Flynn effect: starting in 1932, average IQ scores increased roughly three to five points per decade. In other words, “younger generations are expected to have higher IQ scores than the previous cohort.”

Data from the sample of U.S. adults, however, imply that there is a reverse Flynn effect. From 2006 to 2018, the age groups measured generally saw declines in the IQ test used by the study, the International Cognitive Ability Resource (ICAR).

Overall declines held true across age groups after controlling for educational attainment and gender, but the study shows that the loss in cognitive abilities is steeper for younger participants. “[T]he greatest differences in annual scores were observed for 18- to 22-year-olds,” the authors write.

[RELATED: Universities are lowering expectations for pandemic-era students]

Exposure to education, including through obtaining a four-year degree, generally lessened the blow to IQ points. The study suggests, however, that this is less so for younger participants. “[E]xposure to education may only be protective for certain age groups,” according to the authors.

They continue to theorize that “a change of quality or content of education and test-taking skills” could explain the difference education makes in the IQ of younger versus older Americans.

Millennials–the main age group completing their K-12 and college education during the study–have experienced vast changes in the education system. These include students learning to read from an influential but defective curriculum and students receiving inflated grades from their professors. Grade inflation, as Campus Reform noted, is a possible response to the idea that all students–no matter their ability or preparedness–must attend college.

The study also implies differences in younger Americans’ skill set, an observation made by Higher Education Fellow Nicholas Giordano.

[RELATED: ANALYSIS: Academia is adrift in a sea of low standards]

The authors say that “scores were lower for more recent participants across all levels of education.”

“[T]his might suggest,” they continue, “that either the caliber of education has decreased across this study's sample and/or that there has been a shift in the perceived value of certain cognitive skills.”

 

By Covid conspiracy nuts, do you mean all the people that believed what the government lied to them about?