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A Norwegian study published Monday found a seven-point dip in IQ test scores per generation among men born from 1962 to 1991. The results suggest a reversal in the Flynn effect, an observed increase in IQ scores throughout the 20th century in developed countries.
Coverage from The Week adds:
The reasons for 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," says The Times.
But "it is also possible that the nature of intelligence is changing in the digital age and cannot be captured with traditional IQ tests", adds the newspaper.
"Take 14-year-olds in Britain. What 25% could do back in 1994, now only 5% can do," Shayer added, citing maths and science tests.
More from The Daily Mail:
Two British studies suggested that the fall was between 2.5 and 4.3 points every ten years.
But due to limited research, their results were not widely accepted.
In the latest study Ole Rogeburg and Bernt Bratsberg, of the Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research in Oslo, found that Norwegian men's IQs are lower than the scores of their fathers when they were the same age.
The pair analysed the scores from a standard IQ test of over 730,000 men – who reported for national service between 1970 and 2009.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @08:54AM (55 children)
Literally correcting autocomplete.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:09AM (52 children)
Are you implying that IQ tests are affected by cultural differences? So, they don't necessarily measure intelligence, but one culture's idea of what intelligence is?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:23AM (44 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:31AM (20 children)
Which mean that the IQ test doesn't test your intelligence, but rather your ability to employ critical and/or analytical thinking. Which certainly is one aspect of intelligence, but not the only one. Indeed, it is exactly the other aspects of intelligence that make AI a hard problem.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:13AM (4 children)
It's the important one if you want a job, want to go to Mars, build a bridge, feed more people with fewer resources or design a nano particle based high efficiency carbon sink.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:36AM (3 children)
Wanting to go to Mars today? And you reckon that's a proof of critical thinking?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:12PM (2 children)
Not only are we going to Mars today (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InSight [wikipedia.org]), but we're already there (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_(rover) [wikipedia.org]).
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:32PM (1 child)
What's this "we" shit? Are you claiming to be a remote controlled robot? "We", humanity, has never stepped foot on Mars, so "we" ain't there. You and the rest of the robotic species have a couple representatives there? Well, good on you. Don't worry though. "We" will be along sooner or later to upset any apple carts you may be considering. "We" will pollute the shit out of Mars, exploit it for resources, and set up some mobile home parks to really screw things up. It's just a matter of time.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday June 14 2018, @05:55PM
You say this like it's necessarily a bad thing.
Evidence indicates that in the past, Mars was much warmer and may have had things like usable atmosphere and running water. There may have been life, or more plentiful life is there remains life still. But now Mars is generally a cold, frozen wasteland...
...that needs Anthropocentric Global Warming to return to its natural temperature and state! Long live nature and mother
EarthMars!---
This post is tongue-in-cheek. I do not think we should pollute Mars, even if it would make it comfortably warmer.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:04PM (14 children)
Seems to be the only aspect.
There's a list of wishful thinking at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_human_intelligence [wikipedia.org]
But that is hard to take seriously when it contains "cultural yes man" measures like "Moral intelligence" or "Spiritual intelligence". Even worse when you research stuff that doesn't sound too ridiculous, like spatial intelligence, google found me a study (Swanson '96) along the lines of below 100 IQ people, verbal IQ and spatial IQ are essentially uncorrelated.
Something like electromagnetic field theory is one "thing" with a couple aspects. You can't move an electric charge without making a magnetic field and you can't wiggle a magnetic field without inducing an electric field and so forth. However, no matter how sexy you paint the experimental apparatus in purple polka dots, the E+M fields shouldn't change (other than at the wavelength of violet light, LOL). Likewise it seems intelligence IS reasoning, no matter how much some folks would like to include spiritualism or sophistry.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:45PM (12 children)
are a critical component for success in the world (culture)... in the old days if you couldn't toe the line the consequences were severe, including death.
Before you can conquer the natural universe, you must first successfully navigate the human one from which you come.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:15PM (11 children)
This is redefinition of intelligence as success... obviously a critical component for success for women in a beauty pageant is nice curves, but its hard to claim "intelligence is fitness for success" and "success at a beauty pageant is nice rack" therefore nice rack equals intelligence. I'm not complaining when it happens to coincide, nor claiming there's an anti-correlation effect, but am claiming there's not much correlation beyond simple random chance.
Race car driver would be another analogy, great reflexes and high risk tolerance don't usually correlate with anything most would consider intelligence.
I'd stick with the opposite cause effect relationship where success requires intelligence but not every required component of success is intelligence.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 14 2018, @03:18PM (5 children)
What world are you living in?
In mine, success requires an IQ score of perhaps 70, and a myriad of other factors that an IQ score of 170 won't substitute for.
Agreed, however, that: intelligence.NE.success
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by curunir_wolf on Thursday June 14 2018, @07:56PM (4 children)
Actually, IQ is an excellent predictor of success ON AVERAGE. Extremely well correlated. There are always outliers.
84, according to the military. That's the minimum they will accept, because over the years they have determined that anyone with less basically cannot be trained for any job.
And that's pretty scary. Probably the scariest statistic of our time. It comes out to about 10% of the people are below 84 IQ, and they cannot do any job in the modern world. The menial tasks they have been able to do are by large measure going away.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @08:27PM (2 children)
Menial jobs don't have to go away. Just because we can automate doesn't mean we should. Human beings need to feel useful, so there are some jobs that should be kept around. We've let economic efficiency and "profits" override what is good for our civilization.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday June 14 2018, @10:36PM (1 child)
Menial service labor as opposed to skilled labor. The best bartender is probably a fifty cent bottle cap opener, but people like having bartenders around, so we have a lot of bartenders.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday June 15 2018, @11:32AM
I would agree with the GP with regards to those jobs not having to go away. A manufacturing company I used to work for many years ago was next door to a sheltered workshop - basically somewhere to house intellectally challenged people while finding them something to do.
We would occasionally have some simple repetitive task that needed to be done thousands of times, and they would get the job. One carer would come in with them. We would explain to him/her the job, and he/she would explain it to them, and supervise while they did it. They were the happiest, most diligent and enthusiastic people I ever worked with. They loved feeling useful, even if it was just assembling boxes.
As a society we have lost sight of that. It should not be just about if a robot can do it better and faster, but what is better for people.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @08:30PM
Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder costs the US 6 trillion (yes trillion) dollars over a lifespan. Four percent of pregnant women meet the clinical definition of alcoholic.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @04:23PM (4 children)
Research has shown that average IQ of race drivers is 130-135. Other research has shown that the primary burden on a race driver is the enormous flow of information they have to process. I assume from this that IQ does correlate with mental bandwidth, hence the high IQs.
So, "race driver" isn't the example you want - I would suggest "Fashion Model" or "Ditch Digger" where intelligence isn't really required.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @04:36PM (1 child)
or POTUS
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 14 2018, @06:21PM
He already said Fashion Model.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @06:23PM
You need an IQ of 130 or greater to figure out how to get people to pay you millions for turning left for a living.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday June 14 2018, @10:32PM
Thats probably the pro sports effect where its not hard to drive fast and dangerous but since almost anyone could qualify, being one in a million who gets to do it selects for people very skilled at rising to the top of the pack. See also, pop star music.
General construction labor, perhaps.... not smart or sober enough to learn a profitable trade, but can carry heavy objects until body breaks down...
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:17PM
Check out the Aharonov–Bohm effect
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:38AM (3 children)
accident would be lack of opportunity, design would be deliberately clinging to bronze age attitudes that do not encourage thinking because you think they're superior.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 14 2018, @06:26PM (2 children)
In contrast to the Icahn frat boy theory [businessinsider.com] of dumb leadership:
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday June 15 2018, @07:19AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 15 2018, @11:39AM
Not only does it have a long history, it also has widespread practice, and it's more insidious than the Peter principle [wikipedia.org]. Put the two together and you see why Dilbert is so popular, because it is so true in so many people's real lives.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:27PM (12 children)
What kool-aid have you been drinking? IQ test are notoriously sensitive to cultural differences.
(Score: 2, Informative) by ChrisMaple on Thursday June 14 2018, @05:48PM (10 children)
The makers of IQ tests have been sensitive to the charges of cultural bias for decades, and have done a lot of work to make the tests culture-neutral (within the limits imposed by using a single language.) Your claim is obsolete.
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 14 2018, @06:29PM (9 children)
Sensitive to and capable of actually addressing are not the same thing.
Just as have done a lot of work is no guarantee of positive progress.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by curunir_wolf on Thursday June 14 2018, @08:04PM (8 children)
I am a crackpot
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @08:35PM
But in the postmodern world, feelings and personal perspective are more important than numbers which are culturally and sexually defined.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @08:46PM (2 children)
That might speak more to the brutally competitive nature of human society. There are many negative feedback loops that widen the gap between someone with 100 IQ and someone with 120. It begins in the school system where if a student falls behind in 2nd grade and does not receive remedial help then that trend will often get worse and their future prospects will go along with it. That doesn't mean the person isn't capable of holding a normal job and be a successful contributing member of society.
This entire thread is so full of blind assumptions based on how society IS that most people can't imagine what society COULD be.
Once we automate away all the menial jobs we'll get a society with the rich smart people on top and the dumb people on some sort of nightmarish welfare which will lead to revolution. That is with our current system anyway.
Even if you went the eugenics route that so many users on here obviously dream of you will likely cause other problems. Smart people tend to be more prone to mental disorders and delusions of grandeur (eugenics) which could lead us into mass sterility or even worse genetically engineered problems. Hell, even without those you'd end up in some cutthroat society where the best aspects of humanity such as compassion and courage get trampled into dust.
The self-styled bigoted geniuses around here are too smart for their own good. They hide behind logic, reason, and numbers; but forget that the numbers are the result of a complex system that no human can completely understand. Not to Godwin, but the Nazis tried to go down the route of superior genetics and that is regarded as one of the worst atrocities in human history. You sure following "the numbers" is a good idea?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @02:51AM
If you have high IQ you can do piss all till you are 14, then spend a summer studying for GED. You will probably be smarter at that point than most of your peers. My IQ is not that high, because I only figured this out when I wan well into my late 20s. I wasted so many years "learning" like all the other lemmings.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:03PM
It's not human society, it's all of nature. The distribution you're describing, where small differences in ability, first-mover status, resource access or pure luck lead to huge differences in productivity was first discovered in pea plants. I believe it's referred to as the pareto principle or pareto distribution. Human society actually strives to mitigate those effects of nature, NOT to exacerbate it.
Your premise is false. These are natural outcomes. Of course we want to create a society that works for everyone, and helps those that are weak or vulnerable. But, in western society at least, we also want to ensure that people that are more capable and productive are rewarded more for their efforts. That's fair and helps everyone. We don't make rock stars out of people with no musical talent (usually), and we don't want people that can't do simple math writing computer software we rely on for critical tasks. Sure, there's corruption that harms those outcomes that we value, and corruption is something we should fight against. But for the most part we want the most capable people to be the most valued.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:18PM (1 child)
Means very little, other than you can do what the instructors want you to do to get the best scores - which (at the highest levels) is as much a social skill as it is correlated with mastery of the subject of the class/course. What I'm saying here is that teachers/professors are human, and while _on average_ they tend to correlate grades with mastery of the subject, there is a great deal of human noise (prejudices, personalities, randomness) in the score - and that shows up heavily when you hit the top of the scale.
I have found that depends almost entirely upon the career pursued. Again, in the middle, on average, drones being processed through HR departments for placement in the average job pool, yes... IQ has a strong correlation, but even more than school, there's tremendous human noise in the process - luck/timing of placements, who you happened to get as a boss, what your group/department/company/industry experienced in the broader market, all have a very strong bearing on success. Then there are entire fields (Sales, especially Real Estate Sales for one) where intelligence seems to be a neutral if not negative asset due to the social aspects of the jobs.
If you're calling the top and bottom ~10% the "far edges," and 20% the "tiny minority" for highly successful low IQs and lowly successful high IQs, then, maybe we're in agreement.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:24PM
No. You forget that the average school is abysmal. On average, they tend to correlate grades with one's ability to rote memorize information about the subject and spew it back on tests and homework assignments.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:22PM
And what does that have to do with intelligence? Stop relying on faulty social 'science'; it rots your brain.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Immerman on Friday June 15 2018, @01:15PM
>IQ, as measured by IQ tests, is the single best predictor of success ever developed.
No. You're thinking of parent's wealth.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday June 15 2018, @07:05AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @05:20PM
Citation please
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday June 14 2018, @05:38PM (2 children)
Which IQ tests? They aren't all the same, and they don't all measure the same thing (though there normally is a quite strong correlation). It's also quite clear that the extent to which they are culturally indifferent is limited...though again it's different for different IQ tests. To take an extreme case, the early IQ tests were given to people who didn't understand English, and they made truly wretched scores for quite understandable reasons. But the *tests* were the same ones that were standardized at Stanford. Now one could say that this example was laughably extreme, but the results were used to justify laws, so some people were taking them seriously, if not honestly (and that can't be proven). And it implies that one can expect the same effects to a lesser extent in cases that are less extreme. If you don't think that does apply, I'd like to hear why not.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 14 2018, @06:32PM (1 child)
I've been thinking that there's a catch 22 at work here: the tests in the 1970s sucked, so... if you continue to use them today, you're using sucky tests.
However, if you use the improved tests today, then you're changing your testing method and comparing apples to oranges.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @08:49PM
BEGONE!
Millenials are obviously retarded, STOP MESSING WITH THE NARRATIVE!
Oh, and obviously its also tied to all the colored folk mixing their genes in after the whole Civil Rights bullshit.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:20PM (1 child)
Which is a social science filled with absolute garbage. IQ is correlated with several things that people commonly deem significant, but it's never been rigorously proven that it actually measures intelligence. We don't even truly understand intelligence, so good luck measuring it as of yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @11:40AM
Well that's easily fixed. You simply define intelligence as that which is measured by IQ tests.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:25AM (6 children)
I'm don't know if the parent is implying it, but they indeed are. [sciencedaily.com]
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:44AM
Also hereditary [sciencedirect.com] but you already knew that [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by choose another one on Thursday June 14 2018, @10:51AM (4 children)
If genetics affects "intelligence" (as indeed it has been found to: https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg.2017.104 [nature.com] ) then this would be entirely expected since cultural differences are often correlated with gene pool differences. In fact any test that _doesn't_ show differences between gene pools is probably a poor test of intelligence.
Your study took people originating from different cultures, different languages, different geographical areas, different backgrounds (immigrant and native - it makes a difference to the way you think if you have to be bilingual, requiring one language at home and another outside it) and different gene pools - too many variables.
To determine whether IQ is affected by culture you'd have to test people from the same local gene pools with different cultures - which is tricky because cultures that are very different often don't intermix and therefore the gene pools will differentiate, alternatively, if there is a enough intermixing there is probably not a whole lot of cultural difference. You may be able to get a decent result by looking at places where there has been (recent, in generational terms) large scale religious conversion of only part of the population, for instance.
The (initially) more interesting result in the study you cite was that there was little difference in socioeconomic status between the groups, implying that the system doesn't reward IQ, alone (may also reward something else that immigrants may have/do more of, say, hard work...) - but then they blow that one out of the water with "but most of them were students"... sigh.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:22AM (3 children)
And if culture is affected by IQ.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Reziac on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:44PM (1 child)
Culture is selected for *by* IQ. Funny thing, you can pretty much correlate IQ with invention of the wheel.
Also, there is so much data that any cultural skew on IQ tests is long since swamped out.
As to the "Flynn effect" ... friend and I (both with IQs in the 160 range, mine by actual test) were discussing the IQ thing and noted something interesting: we both have ZERO patience with the current standard test, Raven's Progressive Matrices. Get to the third item and we're both about ready to throw darts. This despite being generally good and tenacious problem-solvers. We also both tend to solve problems without the tedium of "show your work". I thereby hypothesized what's creating the "Flynn effect" is that Raven's is selecting for people who will plod through the test no matter what, which probably tends to flatten the curve toward the right side. I'd like to see a chart of IQ scores vs adoption of Raven's; I'd bet there's a correlation.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @05:33PM
Hey everybody, Doctor Nick here.
Now slow down sir, you're going to give yourself SKULL failure. Ok, the symptoms you describe point to brainus eruptus where the brain tries to leap out the mouth and escape the body. Our one chance is transdental IQ transplanticide!
After the operation there are maaany options for compulsive narcissism. This therapeutic backpack carries two car batteries we hook up to your temples, and anytime you feel like bragging it will give you a teeny little shock.
If your symptoms do not get better in two weeks we will have to increase the voltage which may have just a leetle brain damaging effects.
Good bye everybody!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @01:43AM
> And if culture is affected by IQ.
They are interrelated because both are hereditary. In biology a related term is called inclusive fitness but that's as far as the top biologists are willing to state publicly. Off the record, there is a growing consensus that populations have an overall fitness themselves, which means that objectively some cultures are more fit than others. That's something that cannot be published in today's academic climate.
The article mentions Norway, and the elephant in the room there is Islam. Islam afflicts close to 6% of the Norwegian populus [pewresearch.org] and that volume is expected to more than triple by 2050 if left untreated. There is a correlation between the spread of Islam and the drop in IQ. It is not that Islam itself causes the drop in IQ but that the reproducing individuals that carry it are of lower IQ.
Sweden and the UK in similar situations. The UK has already long since passed 6% occupation and in Sweden it is well ove 8%. The IQ is dropping rapidly in both and no politician or scientist is willing or able to look at the cause. Yet by 2050 a third of Sweden will be occupied by moslems [pewforum.org]. Overall, Europe will hit 14% by 2050 which is enough for internecine fighting to become pervasive and eventually dominant on top of the IQ drop. Society is fully dependent on excessively complex technologies and workflows that the IQ drop by itself will prevent long term survival of the overall population.
(Score: 2) by datapharmer on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:40AM
That site doesn't appear like they even looked at their own data.
China is #6 for IQ ahead of 19 of the top 20 countries by income and Mongolia isn't even in "the table above", but from the IQ listed on the map it ranks on par with the United States. Further, of the top 20 income countries only 3 are in the top 10 for IQ which is proportionally just average, so I'm not really clear on how they are drawing these conclusions. I will give them that many low income countries also rank poorly, but that's simple correlation and means almost nothing. It seems obvious that if you are malnourished or in a war torn country without regular access to education you won't test as well. I suspect the same would be true if I gave you a million dollar salary under the condition you aren't allowed to buy and food and people will shoot at you randomly.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:30PM
That list is missing Antarctica. I bet the IQ there is higher than any other country and the temperature is the lowest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford