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Researchers find IQ scores dropping since the 1970s

141 点作者 danielam将近 7 年前

36 条评论

commandlinefan将近 7 年前
I can't tell if it's because I'm just getting older or because I'm surrounded by distractions (both electronic and caused by this open office nightmare trend), but my ability to _concentrate_ seems to go down every year. When I was in my 20's, I could focus on a math problem for hours at a time. Now, I need to take a break and look at something else every 10 minutes. Is the world changing to make it harder to accumulate knowledge and improve intelligence?
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disgruntledphd2将近 7 年前
This is an interesting study.<p>It is worth noting that the recent meta-analysis (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pubmed&#x2F;24979188" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pubmed&#x2F;24979188</a>) showed no such effect across a wide variety of scales and countries.<p>However, the really interesting question here (which is possible to answer because of the size and sampling of the Norwegian data) is what is happening in Norway, for this effect to be occurring in what appears like a consistent fashion?<p>In other words, we should in general rely on meta-analyses rather than individual studies when looking at results like these.
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sambe将近 7 年前
The article:<p>&quot;The researchers also found some differences between family groups, suggesting that some of the decline might be due to environmental factors. But they also suggest that lifestyle changes could account for some of the decline, as well, such as changes in the education system and children reading less and playing video games more. Sadly, other researchers have found similar results.&quot;<p>The paper:<p>&quot;we show that the observed Flynn effect, its turning point, and subsequent decline can all be fully recovered from within-family variation. The analysis controls for all factors shared by siblings and finds no evidence for prominent causal hypotheses of the decline implicating genes and environmental factors that vary between, but not within, families.&quot;<p>Is this bad reporting or am I mis-understanding the conclusion of the authors?<p>EDIT: I think I was misunderstanding the conclusion of the authors. They believe they have shown that environmental factors are the main cause (from skimming the full paper&#x27;s discussion).
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yasp将近 7 年前
I&#x27;m sure I&#x27;ll be downvoted into oblivion for making the observation but surely this isn&#x27;t surprising given that people with lower IQs tend to have more babies and have babies earlier in life than do people with higher IQs. [0]<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Fertility_and_intelligence" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Fertility_and_intelligence</a>
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catwell将近 7 年前
I wondered if it was related to breastfeeding, since it is known to have a positive correlation. It turns out breastfeeding in Norway followed the exact opposite trend: falling from the end of WWI to 1970, and picking up since then ( source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.semanticscholar.org&#x2F;paper&#x2F;Donor-milk-banking-and-breastfeeding-in-Norway.-Grøvslien-Grønn&#x2F;b7e9fe381364dcd8d118cfb5f7988ca60a56f7b8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.semanticscholar.org&#x2F;paper&#x2F;Donor-milk-banking-and...</a> )
danielam将近 7 年前
I am reminded of a quotation from the first chapter [0] of McLuhan&#x27;s &quot;Understanding Media&quot;:<p>&quot;It is in our I.Q. testing that we have produced the greatest flood of misbegotten standards. Unaware of our typographic cultural bias, our testers assume that uniform and continuous habits are a sign of intelligence, thus eliminating the ear man and the tactile man.&quot;<p>If IQ tests make tacit assumptions of this kind, could the shift in the dominant media forms be playing a role?<p>[0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.mit.edu&#x2F;allanmc&#x2F;www&#x2F;mcluhan.mediummessage.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.mit.edu&#x2F;allanmc&#x2F;www&#x2F;mcluhan.mediummessage.pdf</a>
eruci将近 7 年前
I feel much dumber now in my 40s as opposed to my 20s. I pretty much stopped reading books after high school and am no longer able to solve certain math problems. Instead, I read stuff like this article.
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SCAQTony将近 7 年前
Perhaps the most logical explanation is that people don&#x27;t have to be as smart as they were when computers, the internet and DIY &quot;recipes&quot; are so readily available. Even using a paper map is obsolete when a smart phone can verbally direct you. How many people do math by hand now?<p>Example: California native Americans (Chumash) did not have to be smart. Every day was a great day, food and water were everywhere from the ocean to the valleys whereas in south America things were more difficult. Spaniards were stunned by the Aztec capital being larger and more advanced than anything in Europe. The Aztecs had astronomy, math, and domesticated turkeys for food. They created all that because they had too.<p>Food in Mesoamerica: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tlmorganfield.com&#x2F;food-mesoamerica-domesticated-food-animals&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tlmorganfield.com&#x2F;food-mesoamerica-domesticated-food-...</a><p>Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.livescience.com&#x2F;34660-tenochtitlan.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.livescience.com&#x2F;34660-tenochtitlan.html</a>
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classicsnoot将近 7 年前
Why is every post asking questions WRT the effects of gender and migration being caveated so dramatically? It would appear people are afraid to even ask about what seem to be obvious relevant factors. There are noticable differences in the IQ averages between gender groups as well as origin, but the plasticity of IQ has also been established. The fear of reprisal and condemnation for wrongthink is starting to resemble Puritan New England. I sincerely hope we don&#x27;t start burning witches...
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mendelsd将近 7 年前
Related: &quot;... data ... from the UK Biobank... suggests genetic contributions to intelligence and educational achievement are currently disfavoured by natural selection&quot;. [1]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.economist.com&#x2F;science-and-technology&#x2F;2017&#x2F;12&#x2F;19&#x2F;data-from-half-a-million-people-show-that-natural-selection-has-not-stopped" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.economist.com&#x2F;science-and-technology&#x2F;2017&#x2F;12&#x2F;19&#x2F;...</a>
bedane将近 7 年前
Some french scientist makes a compelling case for correlating this drop with the generalization of TV presence in homes. Found him : Michel Desmurget <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dailymotion.com&#x2F;video&#x2F;xpjec4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dailymotion.com&#x2F;video&#x2F;xpjec4</a>
bitcharmer将近 7 年前
I know a quite prominent MENSA member and according to him IQ tests are a fundamentally flawed way of measuring intelligence.<p>Not only are there different types of intelligence but more importantly, the current methodology is actually a test of one&#x27;s ability to solve a very narrow type of puzzles. This can be practised effectively increasing your score significantly.<p>Does becoming good at puzzles mean I got any wiser?
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learc83将近 7 年前
This test was done for people being examined for military service. It looks like Norway doesn&#x27;t force military service, but does force people to be examined.<p>Perhaps people just take a mandatory military exam less seriously than they did during the cold war.<p>Also the culture of Norway is much less homogeneous than it was in the 70s and it&#x27;s impossible to completely remove cultural biases from IQ tests--not to mention far more people who don&#x27;t speak the language natively.
bloak将近 7 年前
Rather than claim that &quot;IQ&quot; has fallen they should give some examples of the particular questions which people have got worse at answering correctly, because &quot;IQ&quot; doesn&#x27;t really exist; all that exists is the normalised score from a particular questionnaire.<p>I took an IQ test once. One of the questions that I couldn&#x27;t answer was to spot what was missing in a picture. It was the hat band. I can&#x27;t tell you exactly what kind of hat it was, but it was worn by a man and looked like something I might perhaps see in an old film. One of the questions that I could answer was to spot the odd one out in a list that looked something like: spondee, dactyl, trochee, ... If people have got worse at answering those two questions then I am not surprised.
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jeffreyrogers将近 7 年前
The most important part of the abstract is this:<p>&gt; The analysis controls for all factors shared by siblings and finds no evidence for prominent causal hypotheses of the decline implicating genes and environmental factors that vary between, but not within, families.<p>My first thought was the decline might be due to rising number of immigrants, but this suggests that is not true. Instead it appears the decline is due to some broader environmental factor that is common across all families. It also suggests that this is likely occurring in the rest of the developed world as well, since I can&#x27;t think of anything obvious that&#x27;s occurring in Norway that isn&#x27;t also occurring in the rest of the developed world.
lainon将近 7 年前
Didn&#x27;t read the article, but isn&#x27;t IQ always steady?<p>100 the average, 130 top 2% etc.<p>Sure intelligence can change, but wouldn&#x27;t IQ scores adjust to that?
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JoeAltmaier将近 7 年前
An oblique comment in the article about changing childhood behaviors - more video games and less book reading - was quite telling.<p>Is the population simply culturally drifting &#x27;out from under&#x27; the norm for the test? Perhaps they could ask more video-game-related questions, and renormalize. &quot;Which NPC is likely to give you a quest?&quot; kind of thing.
josephdviviano将近 7 年前
Is it possible that the kinds of people military entering service has changed over the years in Norway?<p>I haven&#x27;t searched very hard, but it isn&#x27;t clear how the conscription&#x2F;selection criteria has evolved over the years. These would be very hard variables to properly control for.
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swebs将近 7 年前
The same results were also observed in Denmark in 2007.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.iapsych.com&#x2F;iqmr&#x2F;fe&#x2F;LinkedDocuments&#x2F;teasdale2008.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.iapsych.com&#x2F;iqmr&#x2F;fe&#x2F;LinkedDocuments&#x2F;teasdale2008....</a>
jibjib将近 7 年前
First time comment here; felt compelled after reading some of the comments.<p>Please make sure you all pay attention to your physical state while trying to concentrate etc (for the people who’ve been seeing dips in performance and&#x2F;or getting “in zone”).<p>Only yesterday I noticed that I had somehow formed the habit of holding my breath when reading&#x2F;learning&#x2F;absorbing anything complex.<p>Seems pretty ridiculous but I went from having a hard time understanding some high mathematics to - when regulating breath appropriately - breezing through.
swoongoonz将近 7 年前
I distinctly remember a professor in college saying that he felt like the caliber of students enrolling every year declines. I was kind of offended, but hey maybe we was right.
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pfschell将近 7 年前
Looks like they ignored the national origin of the people tested. Norwegian IQs didn&#x27;t drop. The average population of people living in Norway dropped.<p>The first chart in this link shows why: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ssb.no&#x2F;en&#x2F;befolkning&#x2F;statistikker&#x2F;innvbef&#x2F;arkiv&#x2F;2010-04-29" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ssb.no&#x2F;en&#x2F;befolkning&#x2F;statistikker&#x2F;innvbef&#x2F;arkiv&#x2F;...</a>
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Symmetry将近 7 年前
When I read this one obvious explanation would be that as parents gets older their gametes accumulate more mutations, especially men, and the children they have later on in life suffer a bit. But that effect should be very small compared to the effect sizes reported here.<p>The bit about fish eating makes me think this might relate to omega-3&#x2F;omega-6 fat balances in our diets?
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murph-almighty将近 7 年前
This is mostly irrelevant- I feel as though the phrase IQ has become so diluted by jackasses on social media who feel a need to brag about their IQ. Usually they got the results from some snake-oily trivia site. Because of this, that whenever I see a study that mentions IQ I immediately doubt it. What is a standard IQ test? What does it test for?
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known将近 7 年前
The more testosterone a man has, the less likely he is to hang around to help bring up baby<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.economist.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;science-and-technology&#x2F;21679772-changes-mans-testosterone-level-show-kind-parent-he-will-be-pot-luck" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.economist.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;science-and-technology&#x2F;2167977...</a>
marojejian将近 7 年前
The original article, btw: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sci-hub.tw&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pnas.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;early&#x2F;2018&#x2F;06&#x2F;05&#x2F;1718793115" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sci-hub.tw&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pnas.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;early&#x2F;2018&#x2F;06...</a>
fejfieji将近 7 年前
This is logically impossible for the population as a whole, because IQ is defined as a relative metric. I.e. an IQ of 100 is (ideally) equal to whatever the current median intelligence is.<p>It sounds like Norway&#x27;s national service is just getting dumber by comparison.
ujal将近 7 年前
I will probably never understand IQ and its purpose for real life problems. It is either me who doesn&#x27;t get it or all the people out there who lack introspection to understand what exactly it was that enabled them to grasp some new concept.
teilo将近 7 年前
Could this also explain why Mensa&#x27;s admission standards have been watered down in recent years? I mean, on paper, they are still the same, but in practice - not so much.
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jeandejean将近 7 年前
It&#x27;s hard to believe, I&#x27;ve read rather the opposite for quite a while, especially recently with Enlightement Now from Steven Pinker. I should get those references!
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cerealbad将近 7 年前
the internet is quite addictive, the trick is to be a high functioning addict. you&#x27;ll be dumber, but all the richer for it.
axilmar将近 7 年前
How do these results correlate with the increase&#x2F;decrease of wages and social services in said country, I wonder.
lawlessone将近 7 年前
Couldn&#x27;t have anything to do with all the extra carbon dioxide in the air could it?
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startupdiscuss将近 7 年前
Check the amount of sleep they get!
rossdavidh将近 7 年前
So, technically, it&#x27;s only the Norwegians who are getting dumber.
bthrm将近 7 年前
I don’t know about Norway, but here in Spain the % of people who sign up to the military who are immigrants has been steadily increasing these decades, so a drop in IQ does not surprise me at all.
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