In November, the European TV channel Arte aired an hourlong documentary, Demain, tous crétins?—Tomorrow, everyone’s an idiot?—on a topic that would seem to be of great importance. It starts with a London-based researcher, Edward Dutton, who has documented decades-long declines in average IQs across several Western countries, including France and Germany. “We are becoming stupider,” announces Dutton at the program’s start. “This is happening. It’s not going to go away, and we have to try to think about what we’re going to do about it.”
[...] It’s wrong to hint that scores on tests of memory and abstract thinking have been falling everywhere, and in a simple way. But at least in certain countries—notably in Northern Europe—the IQ drops seem very real. Using data from Finland, for example, where men are almost always drafted into military service, whereupon they’re tested for intelligence, Dutton showed that scores began to slide in 1997, a trend that has continued ever since. Similar trends have been documented using data from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. At some point in the mid-1990s, IQ scores in these countries tipped into decay, losing roughly one-fifth to one-quarter of a point per year. While there isn’t any sign of this effect on U.S. test results (a fact that surely bears on our indifference to the topic), researchers have found hints of something similar in Australia, France, Germany and the Netherlands.
Are we becoming dumber, as in losing cognitive function, or merely less-well read?
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:29PM (3 children)
That's the nature of our economy, isn't it? Perhaps it is the nature of our bodies and minds as well. No wonder the US tries to poke Russia and China, but unfortunately they are not biting; not yet anyway.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:42PM (2 children)
US? No, just an idiotic orange clown.
Seems they aren't affected by the dumbage syndrome, right?
No longer. We are already in a "we've met the enemy and they are us" case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:19PM (1 child)
"Orange clown"? Come on. It was liberal morons that kept pressing Russia. It was somewhat OK, but Nazi powered revolt they did in Ukraine finally broke the straw. See, the US will never be Russian friend; not for two-three generations at least. Russians remember Nazi too well. This is done and gone - we are enemies.
Russia and China will behave exactly like England did while competing with Netherlands for wool. They will wait until the US is at the weakest point and then hit it in the back. See, they are both capitalists now and they will use capitalists methods.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:30PM
You're fired.