IQs have been falling since the mid-1970s due to environmental factors

[user1499173618]

www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-reversal-20th-century-intelligence-boom-flynn-effect-intelligence

How should society react to this?

IQ tests are just a poor measure, they are not unteachable for, and it almost certainly says more about the change in school teaching in Norway over the period.

Society should react to it by paying even less attention to IQ tests, something that has been happening more and more over recent times, indeed I suspect it's likely that the decline in performance is correlated with the decline in interest.

You are unconcerned?

Wow...

Tis a worry, Idiocracy here we come.

We need urgently to reconnect with scientific reality.

Various things that would be required to make me concerned.

Firstly, you'd need to convince me that IQ tests are a valid measure of intelligence, I don't think it's particularly controversial to suggest that they only measure a subset of intelligence and that test familiarity increases the score.

Secondly, you'd need to convince me that the groups taking the tests were equivalent, one thing we know about IQ tests is they tend to show white northern Europeans doing better, so I think I'd need to be convinced that the change in immigration of Norway over that time didn't impact it.

Thirdly, you'd need to convince me that the tests were equivalent, IQ tests change, and the raw scores need to be ever higher to get the same IQ score. If the tests are now testing different things, or the standardisation has changed so as the average Norwegian (who is not the average human) is disadvantaged in the testing.

Fourthly, you'd need to convince me that it was a genuine drop in intelligence, and not just a change in priority on what is learnt, IQ is a poor predictor of success because it only measures part of intelligence. What you need to be successful now is quite different intelligence to what you needed even thirty years ago, so perhaps the teaching has now focused on other things.

Fifthly, IQ tests are much more out of fashion now than they were, I don't know in Norway, but I can believe it's the same, so with no familiarity, people will score less.

So, no, I'm not worried that some Norwegian draftees are scoring less in an IQ test.

As the parent of a child on the 97th perce tile for IQ. IQ is a long way from being the only importent life metric. DS1 at 14 can't cross a road, he can't use school toilets, walk down a school corridor when it's class change time, reliably use a phone - even when there's an emergency and the house is literally burning down. Nor does he reliably wipe his backside.

Oh the joys of parenting an autistic child. IQ is but one measure of a person.

The implication here is that it's not us that is at fault: it's IQ tests

This is from the article you linked.

Agreed. Iq is a very poor measure of success.

I have a very high Iq (tested in top 5% in school) but I am utterly useless at life in general.

I have no sense of time, terrible organisational skills, no sense of direction or danger, no depth perception (and so a significant number of bruises on a permanent basis), had dreadful social skills as a teen, nearly been run over crossing the road god knows how many times etc.

But I'm really really good at solving equations, packing enormous amounts of stuff into suitcases neatly and doing those wooden 3d puzzle cube type things.

I'd rather have a lower Iq and actually be able to do adult stuff without having to write endless meticulous lists because otherwise I'll fuck it up.

Ripple - I feel for you and your child and I realise you have many struggles, past, present and future. Good luck

This issue, however, is about population averages and not about individuals. Both issues are entirely valid and merit (separate) discussion.

It is a matter for debate as to whether it is the IQ tests or the environment at stake.

Whether IQ tests are the best way to measure overall intelligence can be debated but the fact is the same test has been used and the scores are decreasing.

That explains Love Island.

Vitalogy you do know that the same tests have not been used, IQ tests change?

Did the article not say they'd been using the same test in that particular study. Sorry if I missed that.

www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-reversal-20th-century-intelligence-boom-flynn-effect-intelligence

Sorry to be boring but the Flynn effect formed a part of my PGCE dissertation argument more than a decade ago, before social media became huge with young people. At the time, I concluded that it had raised general intelligence, because people generally had become comfortable with following multi-stranded, multi-threaded narratives.

I don't think I would draw the same conclusions now, because the sting in the tail has shown itself. The downside is the preoccupation with the instant Like, and that seems a goal in its own right.

And, to extend my thinking a bit, the explosion of social media and television aimed at toddlers which no Mnetter would countenance obviously it's easy to pacify (sedate) challenging children with bright colours and fast moving images rather than engage with the endless questions and relentless demands for stimulation.

And nutrition has been a signficant issue too. Fast foods' ubiquity has ruined some lower income families' diet. The calories are on the plate, but perhaps not the nutritional value. A thought, only.

I am concerned generally with the various impacts on neurodevelopment and neurodevelopmental disorders - environment, prenatal diet (lack of iodine in low dairy diets, processed foods lacking core nutrients), stress on the foetus, poor sleep in mothers and then in teenagers at another crucial time for brain development and whatever the hell else is going on. And also with the lack of diagnosis of learning disability in schools - professionally finding even moderate learning disability (not just mild) is being missed and not diagnosed for these struggling teens until the cusp of adulthood. This situation will not improve with the cuts to educational psychology and schools.