You Aren't Imagining It: People Are Getting Dumber

From the Daily Mail, 21Aug:

Are we becoming more STUPID? IQ scores are decreasing - and some experts argue it's because humans have reached their intellectual peak

Dumb and dumber? Evidence suggests the IQs of people in the UK, Denmark and Australia have declined in the last decade. A study by the University of Hartford claims the larger the global population becomes, the less intelligent we will be, dropping by around eight IQ points by the year 2110 - and other estimates are even more pessimistic

Technology may be getting smarter, but humans are getting dumber, scientists have warned.

Evidence suggests that the IQs of people in the UK, Denmark and Australia have declined in the last decade.

Opinion is divided as to whether the trend is long-term, but some researchers believe that humans have already reached intellectual peak.

An IQ test used to determine whether Danish men are fit to serve in the military has revealed scores have fallen by 1.5 points since 1998. 

And standard tests issued in the UK and Australia echo the results, according to journalist Bob Holmes, writing in New Scientist. 

The most pessimistic explanation as to why humans seem to be becoming less intelligent is that we have effectively reached our intellectual peak. 

Between the 1930s and 1980s, the average IQ score in the US rose by three points and in post-war Japan and Denmark, test scores also increased significantly - a trend known as the ‘Flynn effect’.

This increase in intelligence was due to improved nutrition and living conditions - as well as better education - says James Flynn of the University of Otago, after whom the effect is named....MORE

Previously on the stupid channel:

"Were the Victorians cleverer than us? The decline in general intelligence estimated from a meta-analysis of the slowing of simple reaction time"

 

Climateer Line of the Day: Mental Entropy Edition

 

Thanks, I think, to a reader.

"I would be willing to wager that if an average citizen from Athens of 1000 BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions. We would be surprised by our time-visitor’s memory, broad range of ideas and clear-sighted view of important issues. I would also guess that he or she would be among the most emotionally stable of our friends and colleagues."...

...MORE