An important project of the Left for a long time now has been to discredit the idea that intelligence is genetic and therefore heritable. In order to maintain the blank slate, they have to argue against genetics and evolution. Anytime someone can produce a study showing that environment alters life outcomes, progressives rush to the internet to trumpet the study as if it was holy writ. That has been the response to this Norwegian study on intelligence, that claims to observe a reverse in the Flynn Effect.
There is confusion in the commentary, because there is confusion about the meaning of the Flynn Effect. The Left likes to claim that the Flynn Effect shows that better schools and ideological indoctrination make people smarter. What the Flynn Effect observes is that populations get smarter as environmental conditions improve. People also get taller when environmental conditions improve. In other words, an improving physical environment means more people able to reach their genetic potential.
On the other hand, the other side often leaps to the conclusion that immigration and fertility rates exclusively drive IQ. This is true in the aggregate. Import large numbers of Africans into Iceland and the average intelligence of Iceland will decline. That does not mean the native Icelander got dumber, although the decision to import Africans could be proof of that claim. The Flynn Effect observes that children will be smarter than their parents, when environmental conditions improve. A better life means better kids.
This Norwegian study is causing blank slate believers to hyperventilate because it claims to show a decline in IQ within families. Specifically, the children are dumber than their parents and younger brothers are dumber than older brothers. Children born in the 1960’s had an average IQ a little over 99, while children born in the 1970’s had an average IQ of 102. Since then, IQ’s have declined to the 1960’s level. Because this was measured within families, it rules out genetics, dysgenics and immigration as causes.
Now, the first thing to note is that blank slate people employ the same tactic we used to see with the intelligent design people. The ID’ers would hunt around for anything they could hold up discrediting Darwin or natural selection, no matter how trivial or tangential, so they could claim evolution was not science. This was supposed to “prove” that intelligent design was therefore a valid theory. Blank slate people play the same game by trying to poke holes in genetics.
There’s a word for this sort of argument. It is called sophistry. Just because natural selection cannot solve every puzzle in the fossil record, that does not mean magic is the default explanation for the fossil record. Similarly, just because IQ’s appear to be declining within Norwegian families does not mean IQ is not heritable. It has always been known that intelligence varies within families. The question posed by this study is what is causing the change.
Further, it has been observed for a long time that average intelligence within Western societies have been declining since the 1970’s. Overall IQ appears to have peaked in the 1970’s and been in decline ever since. Immigration is one cause. Another is the habit of smart successful people having fewer children. The opening scene to Idiocracy is not entirely wrong, even though fertility among the poor has declined. Smart people used to have big families, because they could.
Again, this Norwegian study is not reporting this sort of result. Instead, they are picking up a decline within families. The one potential flaw is that it measures only male intelligence, which means sons are dumber than fathers and younger brothers are dumber than older brothers. The Flynn Effect observes increases in IQ within families due to improved environmental conditions. Therefore, a decline would logically be linked to some unknown environmental changes.
Of course, the changes are quite small, so it could simply be the Breeder’s Equation at work. The uptick in the sample population used in this study could have been driven by a bit of environmental luck. The decline is simply a reversion to the mean. The recent uptick you see in the above graph could also indicate a natural variance between a maximum and minimum for this group. The observable difference between a 99 and 102 IQ is so small it has no impact.
All that said, there are two things we know are true about human intelligence. One is the population with low-IQ’s are breeding like bunnies. Simple math says mankind is getting dumber on average. The other thing we know is that the load the smart fraction can carry is finite. Pile in enough stupid people in a population and eventually they overwhelm the efforts of the smart people. The puzzle is in figuring out the tipping point and the goal is to make sure to avoid it.
Thought experiment:
Choice 1: You have a well-formed 7″ dick, and a 105 IQ.
Choice 2: You have a 5″ dick, and a 135 IQ,
Your choice (a) personally, and (b) as a pregenitor concerned about the future.
Big brain or a big manhood?
A big **** means confidence for life.
Schools in the usa have shifted from teaching to indoctrinating. We only have ourselves to blame as we vote in the same folks on the school boards year in year out. Stem classes? Not important. Being a good socialist? Oh yeah
How about we only have ourselves to blame if we keep our kids in government communist schools…
Perhaps people are getting less intelligent because they don’t have to be. The advances in technology over the last 50 years have all but eliminated the average person needing to actually have to think about anything, because everything takes care of itself. Most machinery everyday people make use of is almost completely antonymous.
Just as SSA’s environment didn’t require them to have to be any more intelligent than they were or are, the 1st world environment doesn’t require its inhabitants to be all that resourceful of innovative in order to survive. We revert to the minimum necessary intellect in order to survive in our environment. Similar to how astronauts who spend prolonged periods of time in zero gravity lose significant bone density, because their environment does not require it therefor their bodies adapt.
Seen on twitter:
“Race is not a social construct.
Society is a racial construct.”
Also, isn’t it odd that the West, including Japan, has a declining population- while the Third World, eating the food we provide, has a burgeoning population. Our pops have declined and our disabilities increased ever since mandatory widespread vaccination began post WWII. Can’t be related though, since all vaccination is guaranteed wonderful, right?
(Are there any other programs that could account for this?)
(Later) I answer myself-
Delaying participation far past puberty-
Young people should be working and marrying (pregnancy) during puberty, 14-17 years old, with part-time, practical skills schooling.
As our parents did, the ones who built dams and fought wars.
As far as I know, the flynn effect is observed in children and/or young adults. However IQ will only approach its inherent genetical level later in life. I.e. it is possible for environmental factors to decrease the measured IQ (especially in children and young adults) from the genetical IQ.
Arguably children have had the best possible environment in the 60’s/70’s after that single mom households became ever more prevalent, and the social indoctrination was on the rise.
Most of the ardent progressives I know have high IQ’s. Since it takes a ‘high IQ’ to become a college professor or a lawyer, (very left-wing professions), what does that say about IQ as a measure of competence? High IQ people are some of the most incompetent and infantile people around. Morality and wisdom are not measured by IQ.
Eat your heart out, Tex. Hi IQ doesn’t preclude morality and wisdom either.
I’ll refer you to “Intellectuals and Society” by Thomas Sowell.
Those kind of high IQ people are rarely responsible for specific outcomes.
The smart elements within a distribution are breeding less than before because we can accomplish with a single child – take care of the elderly parents and learn their insights – than the stupid elements can accomplish with ten children. Quality of life for the smart elements improves with a reduction in headcount, quality of life for the stupid elements suffers marginal reduction with greater headcount and can only improve if one in ten or so can help support the others.
It isn’t Flynn that is responsible. We should be shrinking the earth’s human population but weighted to eliminate the stupid breeders.
Most people who shout about lowering the population really mean only fewer white people. My sadly deluded sister would celebrate 1 trillion Africans while viscerally hating a white family with three kids.
One of the huge problems with this field is that the left wing liars are going by the “Narrative” that they want to be true and ignoring all evidence and logic. So the field has trouble progressing.
Another problem is that we are not allowed to even discuss the findings of real science in various fields. I am a teacher with over four decades of experience. I am told by educrats and other so-called experts that if we just teach with “best practices” that we can teach anyone any subject. I have an 8th grader next year with a 77 IQ. Guess how well he will do at Algebra. Go ahead take a guess.
That kid is a really nice boy by the way. He could make a great plumber or carpenter. He could make good money and have a good life. But NO, we have to get him ready for college. God Damn fools running the system don’t really care about the boy at all. They just want their numbers to look good.
When I graduated high school in 1970 there were two high schools that would be joined together the following year due to desegregation. One was 10 percent black and the other was 100 percent black. The 100 percent black school was doing well due to the black teachers, administrators, staff and the fact no one had an excuse. In that county the blacks have never done as well since ’70 as before. You guess why.
Just because natural selection cannot solve every puzzle in the fossil record, that does not mean magic is the default explanation for the fossil record.”
That was below your level. It’s not an argument but a rhetorical dismissal. ID is not magic (it does not even imply a God or a spiritual agent). And you can’t rule explanations beforehand because they don’t fit with your metaphysical assumptions.
A better approach is that you should go where the evidence leads, whether you like the metaphysical assumptions or not.
I don’t have any metaphysical qualms against evolution (which may very well be true). But pointing out the holes in the theory (with have the size of Texas: it’s not only the fossil record) is a good way to 1) Refine the theory or 2) Choose a better theory or 3) Accept our ignorance and don’t try to shoehorn a theory because our metaphysical opinions depend on that theory.
This is understood in any field of science. Only in darwinism, people get deffensive and start talking of magic of an old man with a beard in the sky. Or try to hide the problems with the theory to the public. Or saying “the future will prove us right” (this is not a valid argument. Everybody can say that) This is evidence that you have touched a nerve, the same way the inheritance of intelligence touches a nerve with liberals.
Question: since IQ denotes the relative placement of an individual within a statistical spectrum with “100” being the mean, wouldn’t the “average” IQ always be 100?
“The observable difference between a 99 and 102 IQ is zero outside of a testing environment…”
Speaking of environmental factors, I’ve taken aptitude tests in classroom test environments so god-damned cold my nutz got sucked up into my abdomen and I couldn’t think straight.
“The other thing we know is that the load the smart fraction can carry is finite. Pile in enough stupid people in a population and eventually they overwhelm the efforts of the smart people. The puzzle is in figuring out the tipping point and the goal is to make sure your country avoids reaching that tipping point.”
I give you: “THE MARCHING MORONS” by C.M. Kornbluth
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51233/51233-h/51233-h.htm
Did it occur to you to turn up the thermostat?
An administrator in the school district (IQ 125) arranged that all thermostats be centrally controlled in the state capitol.
“The ID’ers would hunt around for anything they could hold up discrediting Darwin or natural selection, no matter how trivial or tangential, so they could claim evolution was not science.
…
Just because natural selection cannot solve every puzzle in the fossil record, that does not mean magic is the default explanation for the fossil record.”
———————
Indeed. I’ve often wondered why the blank slate/radical environmentalism is the default or null hypothesis, and genetic proponents are force to “prove”, to ever increasing detail, that average racial intelligence is genetic, when the Law of Parsimony and Occam’s razor all point to obvious genetic cause for similar results for the same groups all over the world. When somebody blames environmentalism for racial differences you should ASK THEM what studies they have that shows this.
Find some genes for intelligence?
Intelligence is vastly polygenic! Not relevant!
Find some more genes for intelligence, that are not evenly distributed between groups?
This study ONLY shows that these genes are correlated with higher intelligence in Japanese people. We don’t know how they work in other races (and oh, by the way, race doesn’t exist!)
I am reminded of a sci fi novelette written in the 50’s: The Marching Morons. I highly recommend reading it.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51233
Well I will dispute one thing about evolution v science.
1) Science is based on observation/test–theory–prediction model. For something to be a scientific fact the prediction model has to be able to project real world events. ex. gravitational theory model can predict the behavior of two bodies in a given space.
2) Climate ‘science’ can’t predict the weather a year from now or 100 years from now. The same is true of evolution. It cannot predict that a given mutation will advantage a given bird species in the existing biota. Hence it like climate remain theories.
Theories are not science fact. Darwin’s observations stand on a firm foundation but lacking the predicative capacity required his conclusions will, at least in my lifetime, remain just a theory.
It’s how one defines prediction. On observing a particular flower with a long funnel, Darwin “predicted” that there would be a moth with a probosis that would pollinate it. He was right. There are multiple other examples of this type of reasoning in biological science.
Other examples of scientific concepts and ideas that will always remain in the realm of theory or general principle would be plate tectonics and the Big Bang. A certain type of science, that which exists on enormous scale in space and time, will always defy laboratory confirmation.
The main reason that very stupid people are having many children is that very intelligent people are arranging to fund them. As Derb once posited, both groups should be excluded from making decisions about public policy.
I think other forms of degeneracy are going to take us down long before low IQ starts having a big impact. Our social/political drivers are now selecting for hive behavior, dependency, and maximum whining. This leads to a sense of personal worthlessness and fuels obesity, alcohol/drug addiction, and declining robustness. Stupid will get you dead quickly in an environment of routine lethal risk, but in our current age of extreme affluence, the cancer killing us is very slow acting.
“The puzzle is in figuring out the tipping point and the goal is to make sure your country avoids reaching that tipping point.”
Realistically, we are likely past the point of no return in the west. With the current demographic trends, within 50 years, just about every white country will be majority-minority, except maybe Hungary or Poland but history has never been kind to those countries either.
South African demographers in 1948 did not predict the Green Revolution in agriculture, and the subsequent skyrocketing in the black African populations. They also didn’t predict that contraception pills would be invented and decrease white fertility rates. Whites were about 20% of the population then, and the National Party actually restricted white immigration because the immigrants would be Anglophone. Decades earlier the Boers resisted the British importation of Chinese to work in the mines, thinking Blacks were easier to control.
What I am saying is that the trends are not guaranteed to continue indefinitely. I think a nationalist electoral breakthrough in Germany or France would be a seismic shift, leading to a domino effect across Europe. Netanyahu has increased Jewish fertility and curbed Arab fertility.
Israel was in a worse geopolitical situation in 1948 than the Afrikaners were, but one survived while the other didn’t. Automation/AI could be this century’s Green Revolution, removing the need for large amounts of foreign labor.
I’m a biologist so I worry about dysgenic breeding alot. I’m not sure that humane policies that encourage low IQ people to have less babies would be completely politically unfeasible. How to incentivize high IQ to have more babies is harder. Maybe make large families a status symbol? Anyhoo.. probably stupid to worry about it as a big pandemic or war will bring nature into alignment again and being clever will become an advantage, reproductively speaking, again.
Bill Johnson, a white advocate lawyer from SoCal, said that we should create some sort of beautiful gown that can only be worn by women who produce a certain number of white children. Harness the desire of women to receive attention for beauty.
There are many practical problems with this idea (how to enforce?) but the core insight is quite good.
One of the elements that changed the birthrate for higher IQ types was women entering the workforce and being convinced that they too could have a “meaningful career” which often meant them sacrificing their prime reproductive years to work in a cube. They are lucky to push out one two babies before their expiration.
That is if they can even find a man. Face it by the time a lot of them get serious, eligible men can find younger and more attractive women to date than some corporate drone/work-aholic. at the end of her ropes.
And it gets worse for women who end up making a nice salary. Since women are social climbers they won’t marry down. IOW she will only take a mate who makes more than her. And the higher up you go, the fewer available men. So these ones end up alone.
In short the higher IQ women are taking themselves out of the gene pool by obeying contemporary cultural norms. Despite these norms being suicidal to those following it.
Speaking of tipping point, who was that black congressman who thought some island would tip over when overpopulated? Dumb ass, you spread out the people uniformly over the island to avoid that.
Is that what you were referring to?
It was congressman, Hank Johnson that thought that the Guam Island could tip over due to too many soldiers on the island. He is quite funny. There is several videos with him on youtube.
Another example of this stupidity is the recent work that “shows” how the U.S. population is becoming shorter, apparently indicating we are past peak conditions for development and therefore need government control of food and medicine, or something. See: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/the-shocking.
Maybe, just maybe, the decline in height is related to the import of a lot of short people and their short offspring.
That certainly plays a part, but I also attribute it to the fact that we are sedentary and eat crap instead of real organic food like our ancestors did.
Anecdotal, but interesting.
From 1977 to 1989, we lived in a Vermont college town as lefty as it is possible to be. Most of the residents were associated with the college or professionals of some sort or another. Among our acquaintances were two high-powered couples each of whom had three kids of their own and then at about the same time, adopted a black baby. In one case, a little girl and the other, a little boy.
Nurture was going to proved the winner over nature.
Unfortunately, in both cases the poor adoptees weren’t the top brains their siblings were. The young boy was affable and progressed well in the middle of his class, but the young girl was rebellious and at age 16 was “remanded” back to the state as being incorrigible.
People who can’t put reality before their fantasies have been in charge for decades and through either a miracle or space alien manipulation, we have in place someone who might be able to turn us around to sanity.
Let’s stop carping and give him a chance to succeed by sending him good wishes of support and even, for those of you who believe in it, praying that he succeeds. Go Trump.
The Flynn effect was confined to tests using the Raven Matrices, which are eye-straining diagrams without language or math, and Flynn himself thought improving scores in the 3d world were a product of test familiarization. There is good evidence that IQs have been declining in the west since 1900, and SAT scores have been declining since the 1960s…
I don’t know how you could say this about the sat because they have changed it multiple times, each time making it less psychometric, most notably in the late 90s. My sat score makes be eligible for Mensa, but the modern one is not accepted. They are dumbing it down for you-know-who of course.
A hypothesis why the Sats could have been dropping prior to that would be that more people starting taking it, and by and large the original population was mostly smart northeastern whites and Jews
I have though facebook run into a lot a right-wing christians who are in way black slate utopians. They are almost leftist utopians with a bible. They see the problem with muslims migration but whats to change them with christianity and invade them to conversion. If Stalin, Mao and Pol-Pot had tried to realised their utopia as christians and made a regime with bible training camps to the Gulag. They have been “true christians”.The problem with communism was not the “new human” but the “new human” was not a born again christian. I was on messenger with one of them and explained the differences in IQ between whites and africans, they huge differences in evolution between us and in diseases differences. He replied that he thought that africans and the middel east would get a normal IQ when they urbanised. So, moving environment should change their genetics.He world not understand. I replied that we have seen that development in the US with blacks migration form farming areas in the south to the industrial north and those cites had been completely destroyed. Several programs to raise IQ/cognition had failed the last 50.years. He haven’t replied but he will without a doubt have a solution to overcome nature in the “name of God”. They are “black-slaters” too with a bible. They are a in reality to the left. We also have seen these right-wing born again christians as the utopians they are in Tony Blair and George Bushs bringing democracy to the tribal middel east.
It’s a drip. Each drip causes a little erosion. After a while, maybe the erosion will break the dam of understanding and the knowledge will flow freely for him.
I agree. Christianity IS socialism/marxism/communism personified. Jesus was the first communist. And yet most Christians refuse to acknowledge the very things Jesus commanded them to do: sell everything they own, buy a sword, and follow him. Hold everything in common. Prosperity gospel my @$$. THAT’s not in the bible! That’s pure pre-Christian Germanic values in action, not anything from the bible.
It’s generally believed by secular scholars that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet who thought that the world was coming to an end and that God would establish his kingdom on Earth. John the Baptist and Paul, at least at first, were also apocalyptic prophets. It was a widespread belief in 1st Century Palestine.
So, Jesus’ teachings about turning the other check, sell everything you own, etc., make sense if God was going to right all wrongs in a short time.
“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
Matthew 24:36.
I don’t think Christ taught that the end of the world was imminent. He told us to be ready whenever it came. The link below discusses the relevant passages in Matthew and Luke.
https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/668-what-is-the-meaning-of-matthew-10-23
Nope, Christianity is not socialism/Marxism/communism personified.
http://www.equip.org/article/was-the-early-church-communist/
and
http://albionawakening.blogspot.com/2017/10/or-so-we-are-sometimes-told.html
I regret my formalisation and it was related to that I yesterday had a chat with a strong christian that couldn’t accept that IQ was biological and there most be something that could be done to fix it. I am friend with a catholic priest from Argentina and he strongly against muslims immigration and thinks like many priest in Argentina that the pope has a mental disorder and a “disaster”. But, he thinks that humanity can become one family, that africans if they are Christians should come into Europe. I have said to him that humans have a nature and that is the “original sin” and there is limitation to how long family values can be extended because we are born with a bias towards familiarity- it cannot not be humanity and political ideologies and religion that believes that is utopian. Christianity becomes a utopian religion when it rejects the “original sin”/human nature and becomes utopian in the belief humanity can become “one family”. He should be formerly on the right but he is a utopian in some ways. Another FB friend has been on Stefan Molelyneux twice. She is against muslim immigration, loves Vladimir Putin. She is for african immigration to the west if they are Christians. If I say that the US is highly segregated between christian groups with different ethnicities and races they will not lisen. It is like taking to a leftist utopian. They think human nature and its differences can be overcome if we just all are Christians. The “original sin”/human nature is not there, it is gone because we all have become one family. That is to me a form of progressivism and utopiasm.
Yes, Christianity teaches we are all one human family and also that “It is quite legitimate for nations to treat those differences [the distinctions between ethnic nationalities] as a sacred inheritance and guard them at all costs. The Church aims at unity, a unity determined and kept alive by that supernatural love which should be actuating everybody; she does not aim at a uniformity which would only be external in its effects and would cramp the natural tendencies of the nations concerned. Every nation has its own genius, its own qualities, springing from the hidden roots of its being. The wise development, the encouragement within limits, of that genius, those qualities, does no harm; and if a nation cares to take precautions, to lay down rules, for that end, it has the Church’s approval.”
Pope John XXIII
https://www.eurocanadian.ca/2018/04/refuting-anti-christian-animus-on-the-alt-right.html
Rejecting original sin is not orthodox Christianity.
All that being said, I would rather have Cardinal Sarah of Guinea as Pope than Jorge Bergoglio, given my druthers.
Jesus was a profound mental hygienist, before it was popular. Still not popular, come to think about it.
Regressive liberals and school unions have succeeded in dumbing down the average IQ of this country on their own accord, environment be damned. When you have common core math telling kids that if they come up with 2+2=5 that they are still correct because they used problem solving skills rather than resorting to rote math, that is a problem.
We don’t teach civics and barely teach the 3 R’s anymore, now its cultural diversity and that its okay for boys to explore the gay side of themselves. Kids being kids today get sent to the doctor for a prescription of Ritalin or whatever the flavor of the month is for the liberals trying to destroy masculinity in per-pubescent kids. Take your kids to gay pride parade in San Francisco because nothing says destroying childhood innocence like watching 50 year old tubs of lard dancing around in their ass chaps.
Remember, its very important not to teach about the worlds religions in schools except Islam and pledging yourself to Allah. Columbus was a mass murderer boys and girls, your parents will tell you different, but that’s because they grew up in a time when showing your bigotry was a badge of honor. However since we are a more tolerant society, we will teach you the correct way to think.
When we have idiots making up bullshit like gender fluidity and telling people they will be fined or jailed if we don’t use the proper gender title when addressing a person, that is a problem. Better memorize the word “Zhe” to be safe cause that guy walking into the ladies room in Target identifies himself that day as a 12 year old girl. Zhe won’t take kindly when you say “Hey Mister” as zhe says zhe is going in to compare boob sizes with other 12 year old girls in there.
We don’t need to teach cursive writing, you are not going to be signing checks or documents in the future. Also don’t forget to sing the “We Love Obama” song before class starts but don’t say the Pledge because it is a racist pledge made up by White bigots. God is a myth, the Ten Commandments are not to be taught because they discriminate against non-whites. The United States invented slavery and it ran until Democrat Abe Lincoln ended it.
Then once they graduate, go to college and get their daily injections of Marxist propaganda for 4 years, then they graduate into the world proclaiming their moral superiority over you because they graduated with a BS (aka Bull Shit) degree in Black Women Studies while you managed a pathetic degree in Mechanical Engineering. So that the injections don’t wear off, that is where CNN, MSNBC and the whole battery of liberal media outlets use their verbal injections of daily non-sense to keep everybody in a lull. Now if we can just get weed legal in all 50 states, we’re in good shape.
The United States didn’t just invent slavery – it invented evil. Whenever we saw a hungry child or a homeless person of color, we made sure that we stepped on them, and laughed as we did so. We are the ‘war pigs’ of Black Sabbath’s vengeance fantasy, “begging mercy for our sins / Satan laughing spreads his wings” – except Satan doesn’t exist in the Leftist liturgy.
They haven’t worked it out. Back in the Bush years I asked one of my acquaintances, who had already deemed Bush ‘worse than Hitler’, if Bush was in fact worse than Satan. Her answer was that Satan isn’t real, so there is no point asking that. I pressed on: OK, can you imagine someone more evil than Bush? Honest injun, she said, well, maybe Hitler: This was moments after she had told me that Bush was worse than Hitler…
That was like fifteen years ago. I stopped asking anyone about anything, because I don’t like making people seem foolish. when I like them as people. Debate is one thing; psychotherapy isn’t my game, so, I learned “ironic distance” from my fellow man, even some family members.
As you age, just as you give up road rage, you give up on those who have been “lost in the cosmos”, as Walker Percy said.
Interesting. From my understanding, the Flynn/Lynn Effect refers simply to the fact that people are doing better on IQ tests all across the globe, not positing the explanation that actual IQs are getting higher. People have been reaching their genetic potential since the 19th century. I believe the cause of the Effect is simply that pencil and paper tests are more a part of our lives in the 20th century managerial state. Taking abstract tests is to some degree a learned skill. Environment and nutrition could play a small role too, but properly it’s going too far to say the Flynn effect says that specifically.
Of greater interest, I had an idea that might explain this affect the Norwegian society. I was watching the movie secretariat, and they comment how horsebreeders have noted that an older mare seldom drops a prize-winning foal. Secretariat itself was sort of a freak in that the mare was really old. I thought it interesting and wondered if it probably applies to humans to. There is been a folk wisdom I’ve noted that older mothers tend to have dumber kids. You see, all of the eggs that a mother will ever have are terminally differentiated at birth. The eggs are sitting there and decaying according to the second love thermodynamics from the time of birth. They are subject to environmental toxins, stress, and heat which mutates the DNA and causes a falling off from perfection. The egg cells are terminally differentiated, and most DNA repair mechanisms act during replication. Hence the actual genotype of those children, older mothers, will be inferior. What is worse, that decay is actually IN the germ-line, ie it will be passed to the offspring, and could be cumulative over generations. What do we see in our modern society, everyone, but more intelligent parents in particular having kids later and later, as in Idiocracy. Are the genotypes of our smartest people actually decaying? Look at the data, that would explain everything why sons are dumber than fathers and younger brothers are lower than older brothers.
I would also add this concept, that the further out on the bell curve that you are in trait which is multifactorial and difficult to achieve such as intelligence, or speed in a race horse, the smaller effects can be very detrimental to its acquisition. In other words it is much harder to create an individual with an IQ of 180 than 110 for example. You see this in the race horses analogy. It’s very very hard to create a prize-winning horse, and very small effects, such as this affect with the age of the parent, can have a defining impact.
I would tend to agree with you. I live in a mostly rural area with two University’s that dominate the population. I have seen the gray haired parents and there offspring (usually one) most of these kids have developmental problems or outright autism.
It depends on how you measure intelligence.
What’s more intelligent? Being able to solve complex mathematical equations in your head, or knowing how to build a house?
The survival of our tribe depends on our ability to DO things.
IQ tests sometimes ignore the facets of natural intelligence, i.e. knowing how to do things that keep us at the top of the food chain such as tracking game, caring for livestock, growing food etc.
IQ tests have been refined for more than a century. General Intelligence g is a reliable indicator of all types of intelligence and has tremendous predictive value. Savants and other people who are extremely intelligent in one “area” of intelligence are lacking in others are pretty rare. If you have a high general intelligence, you’re going to be potentially pretty good at doing math equations in your head, building houses and caring for livestock.
There are reliable IQ tests that don’t rely on being able to read, do complex math or have specific cultural knowledge.
“a high general intelligence, you’re going to be potentially pretty good at doing math equations in your head, building houses and caring for livestock”
I disagree. If by “high IQ” you mean greater than 80-85, then yes. But the people who shift the curve —125 and up— generally have problems building houses, raising cattle, wiring lights and motors, plumbing, fixing cars, etc.
No, you’re wrong. Please provide evidence. There’s a big difference between not having the capacity to do something and having higher-value ways of spending your time.
Exactly right and people seem to miss that point all to often…If I can make X doing this while I pay someone less to do that then why wouldn’t I do that…
Askenazi Jews have the highest average IQ, but low spatial intelligence. So they would be great at architecture, engineering, etc, but not at physically building the things they design. Both are necessary, but the design of structures that don’t collapse is more valuable than hands-on construction, which is a more available skill set in given populations.
They don’t have “low” spatial intelligence, just not as high as their verbal intelligence. High g floats all IQ boats. They’re probably above-average as builders. If you have some contradictory evidence, please share.
Here’s some Jewish woodcarving work (just first thing I happened across) that seems to indicate good hand-eye coordination and spatial intelligence.
BTW, have your read Vox Day’s recent debunking of the 115 Ashkenazi Jew average IQ? That number apparently is oft repeated but from a very old, very limited study. His estimate based on other measures is more like 105 or so.
Don’t know if his argument holds water, just passing it on.
That’s interesting, thanks. I was being very anecdotal in my assumptions. Note that over 20% of Nobel prizes have been won by Jews, but there are very few successful Jewish athletes. Perhaps though their lack of athleticism does not mean they cannot work with their hands.
Nonsense. A high IQ is closely related to all-round competence.
Best example is Frank Morris. The guy who orchestrated the escape from Alcatraz. His upbringing was mostly in foster homes, his crimes were mostly armed robbery. Yet he had an IQ in the 130’s I believe. He managed to figure out how to get out of one of the toughest prisons in the world.
“I disagree. If by “high IQ” you mean greater than 80-85, then yes. But the people who shift the curve —125 and up— generally have problems building houses, raising cattle, wiring lights and motors, plumbing, fixing cars, etc.”
A former boss had this to say — “Its easier to train a IT person to be a manager than a businessman to be an IT person.” Its the difference between skill vs intelligence. I have a tested IQ of 120 and yet I can wire a house (done three), plumb, replace a chevy vega head gasket in < 1 hour, raise chickens, rabbits, garden, manage a fortune 10 desktop environment, Linux HPC's, etc. Obviously not all at once but the fact is I have the skills.
A low IQ person builds houses, wires, plumbs because it is what they are best suited to. A high IQ person can do all those things too if they are exposed to how to do it. Probably quicker than the low IQ person as well. The trade, is plumbing a house the best ROI for the high IQ person? I would hazard to say it is not. Each person based on capacity has reached their highest ROI doing what they are maximally able to perform at a skillful level.
I work in high-tech manufacturing. Our company is divided mostly into engineers (120-plus IQ) and semi-skilled to skilled production staff (maybe 90-120, give or take). I’m confident that any of our engineers could do the production people’s jobs better, and with far less training time. What’s more, they’d also continually come up with ideas for improving production processes and design for manufacturability. Our production manager once lamented to me that his people just wanted to do their jobs and go home, and had no interest in displaying initiative for improvements. They don’t care if the design sucks, is hard to build, or whatever.
Of course, if you had engineers doing production work all day, they’d be bored out of their skulls. Lower-IQ people are happy to perform repetitive tasks (like assembling one component onto a toaster on a production line, as I saw in one of my earlier jobs) for their entire careers. That’s the tradeoff of hiring low IQ people: they can happily do the job forever, but you won’t get anything else out of them.
How has your company avoided outsourcing the manufacturing jobs? Isn’t that greatly incentivized?
You are thinking a bit too high of yourself about the iq of workers. Even lower iq people get bored with mundane work. Unless you are talking of borderline retarded.
From what I recall of the Vega and aluminum block/iron head problems, the head gasket competency may simply be due to repetition….
I think you’re right to a certain extent, but I know several PhD’s that couldn’t change a flat tire.
All the IQ tests I’ve taken, since the 70’s, have lacked what I would term “natural intelligence” problems to solve. Among many examples would be finding your way home using the sun’s position, diagnosing a sick goat and curing it or repairing a chain saw.
While academically accomplished people might be able to figure most of these problems out, they will certainly not do it as quickly as some that have no three letter suffix to their name.
I have a saying I torment my engineer friends with:
“engineers; providing complex solutions for simple problems since the beginning of time”
Diagnosing a sick goat, solar navigation and repairing a chainsaw are not “natural intelligence.” They’re applications of learned knowledge.
I have a 145 IQ. I work from home as a consulting engineer for a major tech company. I live on a 90-acre ranch. I can, in fact, diagnose a sick goat.
I can do small engine repair, but, as you might expect, as my income has increased, I spend less time doing it. I used to rebuild the carburetor on my tractor, overhaul the hydraulics, most basic jobs that needed to be done. Now I earn a lot more than I did 20 years ago and sometimes grubbing around in the dirt covered in grease isn’t what I choose to do with my time, so I pay someone to do it.
I built my own house, hiring a contractor to do the exterior framing, then I did the roof, interior framing, sub-floor, drywall and most of the early electrical and plumbing. Later parts I hired crews to do — again, value of my time.
I can rope, mug and castrate a bull calf, bale hay and set a fence post, but I know an awful lot of farmhands and mechanics who aren’t capable of doing my day job.
I took orienteering with my dad as a kid, so I can navigate by the sun or a compass halfway well, too.
I have a pretty serious collection of additional unrelated skills. I pick things up faster than normal, achieve journeyman level competency faster and can self-teach myself just about anything.
I do, however, in some circumstances, have a little of the “absent-minded professor” about me. I’m bored to tears with time-consuming repetitive tasks. I’m not the guy you want to hire to lay those tiny little hexagon tiles one-by-one in a big bathroom (they come in mesh-backed sheets nowadays, thank God, but still too boring), or work an assembly line all day. I find work like that incredibly frustrating because it’s so monotonous.
When you meet one of those “nuclear physicists who can’t change a tire” types, what’s probably going on isn’t a lack of aptitude for tire-changing, it’s that he just doesn’t give a good Goddamn about stuff like that. His brain is off on much more rewarding pathways. We live in a highly advanced, civilized society that lets him get away with that. In a more primitive society, he’d be more likely to be a Leonardo Da Vinci or Ben Franklin who both knew and could do a tremendous range of tasks well, unless he was a monk or had a wealthy patron to allow him to pursue his interests.
You are very proud of your IQ, much as some guys I know are proud of the size of their dicks. You “have” a 145 IQ. Well, good for you. I await your cure for cancer.
With a high iq, a humble demeanor is typical.
This reminds me of a long ago acquaintance. He was a computer nerd when such was rare (late 60s), MENSA member, but he rewired his Harley (60s Harleys had simple electrics) and the engine died when the headlight was turned on.
I am more concerned how they measure IQ tests in sub-saharan Africa seeing that more than half the population are illiterate. Who actually does these measurements? Can someone point me to where these tests are done?
OT: I feel really sorry for this girl. One mistake and the jackals have descended to tear apart her life:
https://www.inquisitr.com/4939017/tabitha-tabbie-duncan-donald-trump-air-force-video-racist/
ETA: Ya know, maybe it’s for the best. With her “career prospects” destroyed, maybe she’ll marry some guy, settle down and start having pretty babies like she ought to.
“In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.” ~ C.S. Lewis
“The puzzle is in figuring out the tipping point and the goal is to make sure your country avoids reaching that tipping point.”
How?
Even if we close the door there are enough low IQ morons already here and they have plenty of spare time without the impediment of conscience or religion giving them pause.
That leaves us with war, disease, or the SMOD.
Well, that’s the thing. Are there enough (too many) low IQ morons here, or is the situation salvagable, if drastic measures were taken: say immigration moratorium, deporture of illegals, refusal to renew existing temporary visas?
Zman makes the mistakes in thinking the tipping point has not been reached. It has.
Our ruling and political class make no pretense to do as they please and make a mockery of the rule of law. We had bpth Clintons who openly committed treason without so much as a peep of protest from the system. We have a president who fought for a Chinese company and Chinese jobs over Americans. Who can’t even be bothered to stop the Chinese flooding the Mid-West with Fentanyl and Meth.
We got the Chinese using Ebay and Amazon for money laundering.. The Sackler family iis allowed to flood towns across the country with Oxy with impunity.
How’s that for a tipping point? it’s staring right at us. T
Many of us have a lot to lose, but revolutions are started with those who feel they have nothing left to lose. The Arab Spring started because a broke merchant committed suicide in public.
A country of this size generates several “lone nuts” every year. Last year one of them almost decapitated the GOP in Congress. A few years back one of them crashed a plane into an IRS building.
We aren’t suffering enough yet, there are still Trump voters buying Starbucks coffee and watching sportsball.
It’s not the miserable peasants that start revolutions. It’s ambitious upper classmen.
I would look deeper into that Arab Spring movement had the hand of the globalist all over it…And your right there just isn’t enough pain yet for people to get up off their apathetic asses and do anything about what needs to be done…You know my solution and the only question is will it happen before it’s to late…