My dad said something rather outragious at the weekend and I thought to myself, hmmm, mumsnet would love that!

[heQet]

He said that we were going to, in another generation or so, run into serious problems because...

The intelligent, articulate, well educated (good?) people are not replacing themselves and adding to their numbers (only having 1 or 2 children) while the (to cut a long story short) jeremy kyle society genes are proliferating, with their 6 or 7 kids each.

He fears for the future of mankind.

He's right to fear for the future.

the very richest have as many children as the sub-poor - it is the imbetweenies that have few children - actually one of the poorest groups (single mums) are also those most likely to stick at one (for the obvious reason, that, well, they are single..)

Tax credits? That's an "on the day" help.

They need help that will last. A decent education.

Apparently these days half of all children have below average intelligence.

I'm sure in my day it was much, much higher.

Why don't you point out to your dad that people have been worrying about this exact issue and predicting that society is going to the dogs for hundreds of years. Literally.

We can moan all we want about broken Britain, but I think I would say that IN GENERAL conditions in western countries have been improving over the centuries, not the reverse.

They have been improving, it's amazing, but are they still?

Don't think so. Clever people survive (and by clever I don't necessarily mean academically etc).

The world itself is still quite a dangerous place and takes care of a few of the dummies quite regularly (hence the Darwin awards).

If we reach a point where there are not enough clever types about to maintain our current level of progress then things are going to go backwards and the people who can survive are going to do so.

Though I will admit to sometimes watching carcrash TV and thinking "This is what happens when you take the predators out of the equation".

Average IQ is rising decade by decade - it's called the Flynn effect. Intelligent parents do tend to have intelligent children but that is at least partly explained by the nurturing they receive (Mandarin lessons and Suzuki violin ) because stretching children mentally actually makes them more intelligent.(Big families make this level of nurturing harder too!) Studies have shown you can raise the IQ test scores of very underprivileged children through intensive intervention (way beyond what SureStart offers) but that their scores tend to slide back once the interventions stop and normal home life resumes. Very depressing.

Inequality of opportunity is just as inheritable as IQ imo. It will take serious interventions and money and effort and more to change this. Sad thing is, I don't believe any Party can really touch this in the current economic climate.

Agree older but I think a lot can be done by political will alone. Have a look at this. Telegraph but Labour party member.

here

Isnt that a bit like saying that tall parents will breed taller children and they will end up 7 foot tall in years to come!

""This is what happens when you take the predators out of the equation". "

Roffle, Morloth!

claw3 - I guess that whilst there are physical limits to how tall someone can become, no-one can say what the limits are on IQ. If there is a ceiling on IQ then it probably has not been reached yet. Technology seems to nudge IQ upwards, giving us new ways of thinking and problem solving, which helps to raise intelligence. So as technology advances, so does IQ. But who knows what the celing is. I think the highest IQ score is claimed by a woman - she scored 285? someone on MN may know more.

probono - Yes. Good Head Teacher= Good results. Fancy that!

Older, intelligent parents usually have intelligent children, but on average their IQ is usually lower than their parents.

Whereas unintelligent parents,their childrens IQ is on average higher than their parents. Its called 'regression to the mean'.

Works in a similar way to height.

So my point being unintelligent + unintelligent doesnt always = more unintelligent.

I suppose in the olden days, some sort of plague used to kill off most of the Jeremy Kyle class (being malnourished, uneducated, living in squalor etc...) but these days we have the NHS and so, it isn't survival of the fittest really.

I blame it on the supermarket loyalty points.

oh, funny, it seems you are saying that our world is being run by really smart people currently and indeed historically! that is such a good ironic joke. ha haahahahaaaaaaaaaa

claw3 - this is making my brain hurt! I didn't say unintelligent parents have children more unintelligent than themselves. The Flynn effects applies across the board, every generation is smarter than the previous one on certain IQ measures. And Flynn believes this is down to technology working our brains in new ways.

There's always a Mean value for IQ (and height) but over generations this value has shifted upwards. But statistics is not my strong point .

Older, ha ha! my first comment was to the OP, i should have made it clearer who i was replying to

Although Flynn theory would not account for 'the regression of means' theory!

Claw 3. point taken. I am now going to leave the regression-to-mean debate as I can't think straight about it any more!

rubyreturns - I can think of half a dozen families, parents Oxbridge educated, with children heading that way too. But, interestingly, in the same families, there are children with quite severe problems like dyslexia. So it's not straightforward at all.

"Rise of The Plebs" sounds like a good Terminator film.

Older, so many theories and not enough time!

But it's a balance isn't it? Surely we don't want a world populated by astrophysicists and brain surgeons, but nobody to do the other very necessary but less intellectual jobs?

Makes me think of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, where they deliberately reduced the IQ of many of the babies, so they would be happier in the roles afforded to them, and not be frustrated!

A world run entirely by boffins, all convinced they knew best would be as much a nightmare as one run by people who can't count to ten, IMO! Vive le difference!