IQ rates are dropping in many developed countries ( Scandinavia, Britain, Germany, France and Australia). Around the turn of the 21st century, many of the most economically advanced nations began experiencing some kind of decline in IQ.<p>We can rule out some explanations:<p>- US only explanations don't work.<p>- Not genetics. It's not immigrants or low IQ people having more children. Norwegian studies show that children of high-IQ parents are also having lower IQ.Flynn effect and its reversal are both
environmentally caused <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/26/6674.full.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/26/6674.full.pdf</a><p>So its environment somehow. Nutrition, exercise, education, activities, pollution, ...
Incredibly, one of the study's authors chooses to single out STEM as a possible cause. STEM -- when there are so many other issues that could be contributing. For example:<p>- Less physical activity, more obesity. Both have known effects on memory and cognition.<p>- Childhood screen time, which has been linked to poor sleep, worse communication skills, and developmental delays.<p>- Easy, anonymous access to infinite novel pornography, which may affect the development of gray matter and the functioning of the prefrontal cortex.<p>- The decline of community and communal spaces and the detrimental mental effects of
isolation.<p>Getting people suspicious that more science education will decrease IQ is about the last thing we need. (And I wasn't a STEM major, for the record.)
It's always frustrating when a headline says exactly the opposite of what the article itself does:<p>Headline:<p>> American IQ Scores Have Rapidly Dropped<p>Article:<p>> Dworak, a research assistant professor at Northwestern University and one of the authors on the study, is very clear that these results don't necessarily mean Americans are getting less intelligent. "It doesn't mean their mental ability is lower or higher; it's just a difference in scores that are favoring older or newer samples," she said in a press release. "It could just be that they’re getting worse at taking tests or specifically worse at taking these kinds of tests."
Humans are naturally curious about the world about them. But I think there is a difference between going and finding out, versus having it spoon fed. The latter increases knowledge but I don't think it exercises the brain.