This explains a lot
 

I hope this doesn't end up in PARF but I suppose it will.

People Getting Dumber? Human Intelligence Has Declined Since Victorian Era, Research Suggests

One would say deevolution especially in the last 5 years..

Idiocracy.

It's about the entitlement people feel... They government owes them something, a living, a job.

Old school stuff... You need to get out there and do it for yourself. Being hungry for success makes you sharp. I truly believe that hardworking, disciplined people make good choices in life.

How to realy harm someone? Give them everything on a silver platter and take the struggle out of their life.

As the author makes clear in the last paragraph, the study is talking about innate intelligence, not the kind that results from environmental factors. Factoring in the social environment, intelligence has risen since the 1940s.

Back to the subject, I think there are three factors:

High IQ women tend to have fewer children

Modern medicine keeps low intelligence people alive longer and gives them more opportunities to reproduce

Society treats mental retardation differently. Low intelligence people aren't kept behind closed doors by their families anymore, they are out in the population breeding.

and yet we no longer feel the need to utilize Merkins as they did back then.......

"This put a strange Whim in his Head; which was, to get the hairy circle of her Merkin …*This he dry'd well and comb'd out, and then return'd to the Cardinal, telling him, he had brought Saint Peter's Beard."

I will go counter to the gloom and doom theme of this thread.

First, if there is a science fair in your city go to it (we have one every year here at work) it will boggle you mind what young people are doing nowadays.

Second, my niece and step daughter graduated from high school a year or two ago... they studied calculus, Latin, The list of books they had to read was daunting, and most high schools require 'X' hours of community service to graduate.

Miles above what high school was like when I went in the 70's.

I am not afraid of the future.

SmileWavy

"The brain is the new appendix. You just don't need your brain anymore." --Dennis Miller

I seem to recall seeing a movie where in the future, the idiots had bred the smart people out of existence.........

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1369324681.jpg

i always sit down when i hear things like this and wonder ... how can you measure intelligence?

IQ is pretty much bull ****, if you gave Abe Lincoln an IQ test he would have measured mentally retarded. knowledge tests test ... well knowledge .... how can you measure intelligence? what is intelligence?

Actually, I've read that Lincoln's IQ was estimated at 115 - bright normal. That probably underestimates his mental capabilities. In the last 20 years or so archivists have found old court records from cases he handled as a lawyer. They show unusually complex and successful legal arguments, often on behalf of railroad companies. Railroads were the big business of the day and could pay for the top legal talent. Rather than being a stumbling poor country lawyer, he was probably a very sharp and shrewd person. Now he was probably mentally ill, and his wife certainly was, but he was a smart guy.

Contrast him to FDR who even his advisors considered stupid. One of his people called him a second rate intellect with a first rate demeanor. Meaning that you can be great at what you do without a high IQ, as long as you have the social skills necessary to harness the horsepower you do have. Kind of like low-power/lightweight racecars being competitive with big horsepower brutes.

That's why I think IQ "studies" like this are useless at best and misleading at worst. Intelligence is three dimensional and IQ tests measure one dimension of intelligence. Besides, there is no long-term correlation between intelligence and genetics. Over time everyone's decedents regress to the mean. Smart people have dull children, geniuses are born in slums. Intelligence, like rain, falls on the just and unjust, rich and poor, equally.

Abe Lincoln, hmm, not sure why you brought his name up, as he was considered very smart by many. Do you have any documentation to back up your claim?
I fould one site that estimates his IQ at 128, which is well above the retarded stage IIRC.
Famous People IQ

Here's another that suggests Age was "mentally gifted" and had an IQ as high as 150.
Abraham Lincoln - A Gifted Man



While you're digging that up let's look at some of hte stuff he was NOT remembered for, shall we? Kinda makes ya think, many folks would have given up after so many failures and bad luck but he stuck with it.

1832 Lost job
Defeated for state legislature

1833 Failed in business

1835 Girlfriend died of typhoid fever at age 22

1836 Had nervous breakdown

1838 Defeated for Speaker

1843 Defeated for nomination for Congress

1848 Lost renomination (Chose not to run for Congress, abiding by rule of rotation among Whigs.)

1849 Rejected for land officer
Declined appointment as secretary and then as governor of Oregon Territory

1850 Oldest son dies

1854 Defeated for U.S. Senate Elected to Illinois state legislature (but declined seat to run for U.S. Senate)

1856 Defeated for nomination for Vice President

1858 Again defeated for U.S. Senate

1862 second son dies

1871 fourth son dies

I thought it was a documentary.SmileWavy

It IS now.

have you guys ever seen a real IQ test? they are filled with cultural references, basic knowledge, all sorts of things that we easily and quickly understand today, but in 1860, no one would understand.

the point is the metric is based on todays culture, education, and background, whenever you then try to use such a test outside of that area, it will fail to achieve an accurate result.

this is why IQ tests arn't really testing ones intelligence.

I'd beg to differ about the quality of today's education (public). When I was in school, tests were not open book, and they were not multiple choice. It was a mixture of fill in the blank and essay questions. We were NOT allowed to use calculators. Fast forward to today. My step-son is a Freshman in high school. His finals are this week. Every test he's had is multiple choice, and only multiple choice (even English). Calculators were a REQUIREMENT that he had to bring to school from day one. I will say they've had him read some pretty decent books, though. Furthermore, he's had actual homework maybe twice all year. Most classes, he doesn't even have an assigned book that he can bring home to study from; they share books among the classes. So...I'd say education has gotten pretty damn crappy.

Schools are treated as if they were sausage factories: just keep the targeted graduation percentage and get funded. Schoolbooks are political footballs, with zealots advocating for what they feel should be included or excluded. Somehow, many school systems consist of more administrators than teachers. And to top it off, most parents have no involvement until their child fails a test or a grade, and then (in instances I've heard of) they demand a correction -- often accompanied by an attorney.

The result can be seen (I hate to say it) here on this forum every day in the quality of grammar and spelling, which can be abysmal. So the problem is not new.

lots of loosers here. If we lernt to speel better we coulda been secretaries.

BTW, Why do race cars speed up when they hit the grass on the run-off area? ;)

I have been saying this for at least 25 years

I do have considerable experience with IQ testing. The issue with cultural references and basic knowledge are from old-style tests. For the last twenty years or so IQ tests have moved away from knowledge-based questions, especially cultural questions, because they introduced significant test bias in favor of people who were exposed to the wider world. That's why wealthier kids did better in standardized testing in the 50s and 60s. Current IQ testing focuses on things that measure spacial perception, memory, and anlaytical skills. These things measure IQ more accurately and apply equally across cultures and levels of education.

I think your point was that test bias would flunk Lincoln out of a modern IQ test because he's not familiar with our cultural references; not that he had sub-normal intelligence. If so, I agree but your point didn't come across well. Even so, the modern testing is supposed to come closer to eliminating test bias and giving an accurate evaluation of intelligence.

Duh, lsee fictron to slwo dem donw.

You forgot vampire killer. :)

Funny, but there is an answer. Usually the camera angle at a corner (or in the case of the grass in a tri oval) has to pan faster to keep the car in the shot. And, they always pull in tight once they get the car. Of course, if you see an off track excursion in person, the car is slowing as it slides on the grass. The rate of slowing could be influenced by the angle of attack. Full on, the down force areo is still working to cause a lot of drag. Change that and I think the driver might even say it seemed to start going faster. Impossible, but perceivable.

How does reaction time to visual stimulation indicate overall intelligence? That is the most disconnected study I've ever seen. But, the the author proves his own point.

IQ testing is a very rough guide to intelligence - even worse are the historical tests, and even much more worser is them thar guesses about all o' thoem hystoricacal figures like mistar lincon

exactly what i was saying. that the metric being used (IQ testing) is not a very good measure for intelligence, outside a very narrow band of people and experiences. maybe its ok for comparing people who live in a first world nation in the information, but its a terrible idea for applying through hundreds of years, across increasing cultural and knowledge boundaries. it becomes meaningless.

Try having 8 - 10 employees for 34 yrs., you'll know it to be so. Sheese!

According to the article "Each study gauged participants' so-called visual reaction times -- how long it took them to press a button in response to seeing a stimulus. Reaction time reflects a person's mental processing speed, and so is considered an indication of general intelligence."

Visual acuity reaction time is not a test of intelligence. Despite arguments against traditional intelligence tests I think we could agree that this is not a measure of intelligence. In the spirit or transparency though, the faster you complete most IQ tests, the better you do, but NOT visual acuity.

As a psychologists trained in IQ tests, there are very few cultural references in standard IQ tests like the Wechsler and the Standford-Binet. In the 60s there were unfair references that caused culture biases (like the use of the word "regatta" which few kids in the hood would know about), however, all have been eliminated.

There are a number of subtests on IQ tests like this that are comprehensive. It includes things like matching a pattern on blocks, memory tests, verbal tests, symbol matching, etc. It gets updated every few years. There are a number of other IQ tests that are NOT particularly culture free, but not every IQ test is a real IQ test. There are a number of tests that approximate IQ for the purpose of speed and cost, but when talking about patterns since the 1800s, let's stick to the accepted IQ tests.

It is a well established fact that people of today are significantly more intelligent than people 100 years ago. Flynn effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Our access to information over the last 100 years through TV (yes TV, Told ya mom!) and the internet has caused us to increase our general intelligence, problem solving ability and logic overtime.

Simply put, the author is a dip***t.

So what is today's definition of intelligence?
.
Last I heard it was the ability to solve complex problems.
I always thought that it was simply knowing where to go to get the info to solve complex problems.
Or maybe the wherewithall to fetch the info.............

The study of intelligence is really fascinating. The problem with the definition is it keeps changing over time. Unfortunately, there is a political and social connotation that has caused us to change it from time to time.

While this has been done with different human cultures, (ie in history calling blacks savages), while this has happily largely gone away, most recently, it has been with comparisons to animals. Many wish to see animals as consequentially different from humans. They do this by saying animals are not intelligent. For instance, animals cannot communicate, therefore they are not intelligent. However, there are quite a number of references of animal communication that we have either discovered or trained animals to do.

Here bees communicate with a dance
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-7ijI-g4jHg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

And most pet owns can testify to a certain understanding of their humans (ex. "want to go outside?")

Here is Kanzi communicating in sign.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2Dhc2zePJFE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

However, uncomfortable with animals showing "intelligence", we needed to discount the "communication" as merely strict behaviorism, no different than teaching a rat to press a lever when they want a food pellet.

That is, there is no comprehension. In fact, in the video above, you can see kanzi coming up with unique phrases of words that shows an understanding.

In fact, Alex (a bird) was able to do this as well, so it is not limited to primates.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VZ2j1jOwAYU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This caused us to change the definition of intelligence to include logic or using tools.

However, we have seen several examples of various animals using tools. Primates to birds.

Here is a bird making a tool.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TtmLVP0HvDg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Currently, anytime we come up with a good way to measure intelligence or a good way of measuring it some group gets hurt so we have to redefine it. They use examples of savants showing incredible memory or incredible abilities to figure stuff out in Asberger's kids. So now they have added "emotional intelligence" to bring in the social aspect of intelligence.

Personally, I think comprehension, logic and a decent memory account for intelligence...mostly traditionally WAIS and Binet tests. While I recognize the importance to social intelligence it is not what is commonly thought of in the general population as what defines "intelligent".

That was a documentary? He was even cooler than I thought:eek:

That's just a matter of not caring. You don't have to know anything about grammar and spelling on a computer, you can have the machine check it for you.

hmmmm...the highly educated back then were more educated than the highly educated now...if you consider the resources and information available

I remember our Guidance Counsellor in high school in '71 telling us about the elimination of cultural references to eliminate that kind of skew.

I also can attest to the time factor affecting the results.

On the day we took our tests I realized as we were filing into the room that I really should have headed to the bathroom before coming to class. I thought we would have a regular class and I would take care of that in 40 minutes. No big problem.

Wrong. It was announced we would be doing our IQ tests over the next two hours.
I realized my only option was to race through the tests, so with bladder near bursting, that's what I did. My reading comprehension was good and basic mathematical relationships make sense to me and, I must admit, my attention was focussed.

40 minutes later, I asked again to be excused and was told I could not leave unless I had completed the two hour test. I remember the look on Mr. S's face when I handed him the test. He marked the time on it and I left.

A few weeks later, he advised me of the score. It was good for a laugh, but I don't think I really merited a mark that high. It was just the fact I cared more about getting out of that room than I did about 'doing well'

Best
Les

Oh, I think you did, Rabbit, I think you did.

This Thread has ADD as it is all over the place, as it can not stick to one subject.

1. Ther are at least two dimensions to IQ

A. How quickly one can grasp and be able to abstract information. The US military has an IQ test that has been proven to be adequate over the decades as it has tested how many 100's of millions of Americans? Math and figuring out how the little blocks fit together does not seem to be prone to a "cultural bias."

B. The 2ND dimension of IQ is an EMOTIONAL IQ, in other words how well does one do in REAL TIME complex situations. How successful is one at negioating the schoals of a life adventure.

Here Lincoln was considered by his cousin John Hanks to be a rather dull lad who was "somewhat dull and not a brilliant boy but worked his way by toil " However his stepmother Sarah Bush Lincoln saw it differently, " He must understand everything..even to the smallest thing...minutely and exactly." This is from LINCOLN by David Donald pg 29.

This indicates that Lincoln knew process and mechanism and was able to construct and deconstruct situations and events at will. Further much of Lincolns life was filled with loss (death of loved ones and friends), disapointment and defeat. With each of these events (that so called "nervous breakdown" aka grief in 1836 after the death of his "sweet heart." Again on the backing out on the eve of his marriage to Mary Todd) Lincoln was able to think and emotionally feel things to a resolution in which he came to understand himself and human nature. This is the foundation of why Lincoln is considered to be the GREATEST of American presidents according to multiple polls over the decades of historians, and in ones opinion is in the pantheon of greatest leaders in human history.

Are U bragging or complaining?

Hmmmm..one thinks that if you keep taking the test over and over annnd over again sooner or later one will pass it.

From this diatribe one is to gather that the world is full of the worst kind of idiot..."fking idiots"

So is this your excuse for being an idiot?