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Modern Life Is Making Us Dumber
Humanity Is Getting Dumber
Scientists say that we have much smaller brains than our ancestors had 20,000 years ago … and we might have gotten stupider since agriculture became widespread.
Indeed, Huffington Post reports that we’ve probably gotten dumber than even our Victorian ancestors:
A provocative new study suggests human intelligence is on the decline. In fact, it indicates that Westerners have lost 14 I.Q. points on average since the Victorian Era.
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As for Dr. te Nijenhuis and colleagues, they analyzed the results of 14 intelligence studies conducted between 1884 to 2004, including one by Sir Francis Galton, an English anthropologist and a cousin of Charles Darwin. 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.
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In the late 19th Century, visual reaction times averaged around 194 milliseconds, the analysis showed. In 2004 that time had grown to 275 milliseconds. Even though the machine gauging reaction time in the late 19th Century was less sophisticated than that used in recent years, Dr. te Nijenhuis told The Huffington Post that the old data is directly comparable to modern data.
Other research has suggested an apparent rise in I.Q. scores since the 1940s, a phenomenon known as the Flynn Effect. But Dr. te Nijenhuis suggested the Flynn Effect reflects the influence of environmental factors — such as better education, hygiene and nutrition — and may mask the true decline in genetically inherited intelligence in the Western world.
This new research was published in the April 13 issue of Intelligence.
There are several theories for why we are getting dumber, including the following (the first 2 come from the HuffPost article):
(1) Dr. Jan te Nijenhuis points to the fact that women of high intelligence tend to have fewer children than do women of lower intelligence. This negative association between I.Q. and fertility has been demonstrated time and again in research over the last century.
(2) “The reduction in human intelligence … would have begun at the time that genetic selection became more relaxed,” Dr. Gerald Crabtree, professor of pathology and developmental biology at Stanford University, told The Huffington Post in an email. “I projected this occurred as our ancestors began to live in more supportive high density societies (cities) and had access to a steady supply of food. Both of these might have resulted from the invention of agriculture, which occurred about 5,000 to 12,000 years ago.”
(3) Humans evolved to eat a lot of Omega 3s:
Wild game animals have much higher levels of essential Omega 3 fatty acids than domesticated animals. Indeed, leading nutritionists say that humans evolved to consume a lot of Omega 3 fatty acids in the wild game and fish which they ate (more), and that a low Omega 3 diet is a very new trend within the last 100 years or so.
In other words, while omega 3s have just now been discovered by modern science, we evolved to get a lot of omega 3s … and if we just eat a modern, fast food diet without getting enough omega 3s, it can cause all sorts of health problems.
So something just discovered by science can be a central fuel which our bodies evolved to use.
Omega 3s – in turn – boosts intelligence and help prevent cognitive decline.
(4) Exercise boosts intelligence … and our ancestors got a lot more exercise than we do!
In addition, high levels of cortisol – the chemical released by the body when one is under continuous, unrelenting stress – and poverty can physically impair the brain and people’s ability to learn.
On the other hand, relaxing activities like meditation and prayer have been shown to increase brain mass and connectivity in certain areas of the brain.
Hunter-gatherers had more leisure time – and a more playful attitude – than we do today.
(5) Toxic chemicals in the environment can reduce intelligence. Examples include flame retardant, lead (found in many lipsticks), certain pesticides (and see this and this), and fluoride.
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What is intelligence worth,if its not known,how to use it,for the wellbeing of mankind,but only to prop up oneself.
Nothing but a measurement to show,I am more bright than you,i make more money than you,and that brought us how far?This far!
It should be:I saved millions of starving people(should never have come to this point,if intelligence was sain and sound),i helped an old person passing savely the street,and not,i droned some poor Pakistanis,some Yemens,some,Afghanis, Afrikans,found some unknown WMD in nowhereland,under a Bush named Colin!
Sure the machines are getting cleaver,due to stupid people!
intelligence has little to do with success, US leaders who graduated from ivy league colleges, Kerry, Bush, Gore were C students (they end up hiring those A students to work for them) Greenspan and Bernanke use Keynes philosophy to run a printing press economy, which any monkey could do. their true skill is in courtly intrigue, achieving a high level of appointment in the royal court. Read about how Greenspan hung around the white house parties trying to curry favor with Nixon, that most of his fellow economists thought he was lickspittle for doing that. solving diffential equations has roughly the same economic value as flipping burgers. India is full of engineering grads. vision is of course rare, and once you share that vision the jackals are there to rip apart the carcass. (this is the subtext of Marathon Man) if you really know something, its best to keep it to yourself.
"A-students work for the C-students, while B-students work for the government." --Robert Kyosaki
"The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office."- Robert Frost
Critical reading is a must; unfortunately, it is a rare skill...
http://www.criticalreading.com/
Wanda: "You think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?"
Otto: "Apes don't read philosophy"
Wanda: "Yes they do, Otto, but they don't understand it."
Society has become more dependent upon government which in turn has made for a lazier population. If someone gave you something to eat every day (aka Food Stamps) then the tendency would be to be less creative, less energized to find sustenance, and more dependent. I know of families that have been on the government dole for generations. It's a way of life. Are their IQ's imparied? You bet! They don't have to think to use their brain...someone is thinking for them. It's not that people are dumb...they simply refuse to use their God given intelligence. With 47 Million on Food Stamps...the issue becomes hugely problematic as time goes on as fewer and fewer will see the need to move beyond that station.
"Idiocracy": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpxAypwVF6M
So many unsupported assumptions stated as fact! Ergo, junk. Junk thinking leads to junk writing and the positing of junk conclusions. That's where junk science and junk logic takes you to wrong answers and even worse questions. An essay on the wasted energy of farts would be more intelligent and entertaining.
Intelligence is adaptive. How do you compare the intelligence of someone swimming in a sewer to someone livng in paradise? An organism living under chronic threat develops more intelligence than one living in safety and comfort because intelligence is the premium tool of survival.
Maybe its better to gauge intelligence by comparing similar species living in similar environments to each other.
Intelligence remains stable, it's what you do with it that matters.
Otherwise smart people's heads are being filled with circular theorom's and idiom's, and trash.
Garbage in = Garbage out.
A common misconception is that people are more intelligent now than they were say in ancient Greece or China; not true.
The gains are not in intelligence but in the accumulated knowledge garnered through successful successive generations - and which is becoming a house of cards dependent upon cheap energy and burning through resources that will demand a population reset.
We are indeed heirs to the great thinkers. Now we must show what we know by doing.
Choose well my friends.
"After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I’ve concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious: Let them manage themselves." --John Taylor Gatto
Dumbing Us Down is one of the finest non fiction books in years.
The problem is not people getting dumber. People in the historical past were often totally ignorant because they did not have any information available. They often did not even eat meat regularly (zero O3 input). Healthy diet that the article describes was more prevalent in prehistoric times.
Today the big problem is the amount of information available is too much. Most of this information is deliberate distraction and propaganda. This is a product of the last 100 years.
The whole thing equating a bigger brain to higher intelligence may be just more crap. What if the smaller brain was 5X as efficient?
Excellent point-Neanderthal brains were about 20% larger than sapiens sapiens. Of course they may have had a terrific oral culture.
Brain size is not the only measurement.
For a real eye-opener about the difference of a generation or two, compare a math or English exam from public schools 75 or 100 years ago to one today. A grade 6 test then is more difficult than university entrance exams of today.
Further, knowledge does not equate to wisdom. Kids today are not taught how to synthesize the knowledge (such as it is) that they are given from whatever source.
We not getting stoopider. Wes all gettin to be jeannouses! Now did I lay down my bag of Cheetohs??
Yes....SAT scores have been going down since the 70's.
Today's SATs are too easy they are almost meaningless.
hero
We probably have more intelligent people on this planet than ever before.
The problem is that we have EVEN MORE dumber people, and they keep on breeding and are supported by the massive flow of fossil fuels.
In fact, if you consider that it requires a certain amount of intelligence to actually be able to use birth control, to plan, to defer gratification, etc., and that it requires no intelligence to screw and pop out babies, I would say that yes, in general the dumber people keep on producing more dumb people and are starting to overwhelm the system.
At least that's what I see in America. It might be different in functioning countries.
I'll drink a Brawndo to that!
It's got ELECTROLYTES!
The real problem is greed. So called "Smart" people in the health care industry have a financial interest in stupid people breeding. Just as the "smart" people in correctional institutions / law enforcement have a financial interest in stupid people screwing up.
Message to stupid people.. Be good, and pull out..
It is called the service based economy
Met with a long time client last night over dinner. Love her - but dumber than a box of dirt.
She thinks Obama is for the little guy.....the "working man". I read her the UM Consumer Cofidence report just printed;
"The early May rebound in consumer confidence was primarily due to a surge in optimism among upper income households.
Among households with incomes in the top third of the distribution, the Sentiment Index jumped 20.6 Index points compared with a gain of 2.3 Index points among the bottom two-thirds. The early May Sentiment Index among households in the top third reached the highest level since July 2007. High income households posted strong gains in every Index component as well as extraordinary gains in the value of their stock portfolios.
Consumers reported a more favorable assessment of their personal financial situations in early May than anytime since 2007, with the largest gains reported by households in the upper third of the income distribution. Whereas the bottom two-thirds of the income distribution reported recent net income declines, the top income group reported widespread net income increases."
...she was distracted by a cat throughout my reading this to her, and asked what it meant.....
Gets her news from NBC...
Has and is adding to her savings account at her TBTF bank (Smells Fartgo)...
I spent the evening with her talking about her love of Dancing with the Stars...and how gays are mistreated...
THIS...is the "New America"....lousy with ignorant, un-informed dunderheads....
Average IQ is primarily a matter of genetics, environmental conditions and biases have already been falsified as a significant factor. Still, go ahead and argue with the MRI volume data, transracial adoption studies, racial admixture studies, and regression to the mean. Egalitarians, the left's religious cult.
http://www.realnewsreporter.com/?p=10948
http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf
Sounds right to me. I've always assumed that when the aliens land they won't be giant brainiacs but a bunch of thick-as-shit couch potatoes, like in Wall-E.
I've spent the last 20 years of my life focused on fighting (1) above. With my genious wife now pregnant with identical twin boys, and 2 of 3 of my kids excelling, I feel like I can I go to my fathers, in whose mighty company I shall not now feel ashamed.
Nah! Your Fathers still think you are stupid, and your post proves them right; When people know you crave their approval they will never give it to you! Human nature in action.
genious? That's fucking brillyent.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2329519/Has-world-gone-crackers-How-THREE-police-officers-went-grandmothers-farm-just-warn-make-massive-Double-Gloucester-annual-cheese-rolling-event.html
If you are the smartest in the room, the government is still skull fking you.
ZH posters are getting dumber.
We ain't dummer....... [proper englesh]
We are not dummer...........
... and psychopaths such as Mao and Stalin (amongst others) try to slaughter all of the smart people within reach so that their poor little psychopathic egos are not threatened.'
We seem to have already entered into the world of idiocracy ... especially with the psychopaths ruling the world.
Brawndo - It's got what plants crave! It's got electrolytes!
+1 for Idiocracy reference
As a self described smart guy I felt it my duty to reproduce.
Actually I just enjoy the kids and the missus is crazy about kids so it works out well.
Neanderthals had bigger brains if of different proportions. I think the extra brain isn't needed so much anymore because you can make some major screw ups and still survive to reproduce. It you're also lazy you don't even have to aquire the resources to keep your brood alive. Encourage dumbasses to have more kids while folks who work have trouble supporting their own (along with the dumbasses kids). Such is life.
Or we choose not to reproduce, given the state of the world which you so aptly describe. That's the boat the missus and I are in.
I'm very suspicious of this article, GW. Intelligence is getting more and more a political thing, in the US political discourse. it's used in several ways
- from the side that is afraid of low intelligence immigrating
- from the sides battling about the IQ of blacks, etc.
- from the side that argues that civilized life makes people dumber (as your article goes)
- in the "Great American Food Fight" between consumers and agro-biz
seldom mentioned
- the shock that Ivy League universities gave to the US elites when they stopped shopping for kids of influential WASP leaders and started to use SAT scores - opening carreers previously impossible to high-IQ people with great dedication to studies (yes, many of them are Jews)
- the fact that the growing industries of the last decades in the US are what is called the "Knowledge Industries" - giving a premium for intelligence and creativity
yet there is one little nexus of facts that all this "drive for intelligence" forgets:
yes, being very, very smart opens you to the world of high-class diplomas and great carreers, with plenty of income, mansions in the right zip-codes etc.
but there are industries where putting too smart people is toxic. I'm talking about finance and it's ancillary industries of accounting, financial services, central banking, etc
we-as-a-world would be much, much better served if all those smart guys currently populating the Masters Of The Universe suites would be half as smart as they think they are an a quarter as smart as they actually are - and conscious of NOT "knowing all"
and if they weren't the firsts out of their families to ever achieve such heady heights, convincing them to do "God's Business"
but instead of innovating products and real services they are busy like bees concocting new financial innovations, new accounting tricks etc. etc.
because you see: intelligence can somehow be measured in advance. wisdom can only be discussed in hindsight
and all in all we are having overactive, overintelligent and overindustrious people at the helm where their hand is trembling, shifting and over-controlling instead of steady
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to this, a little anectode: General Rommel used to say (from memory from a conversation I had with one of his younger aides):
"I can use both intelligence and drive from officers under my command"
"to the intelligent and lazy, I give the command of units"
"to the intelligent and industrious, I give them a place in the general (i.e. planning) staff"
"for the stupid: the battlefront has an immense appetite for them - I can't have enough of them"
note that for him it was clear: industriousness has to be harnessed and tightly watched... by the lazy
The intellectual engines of the world are all in demographic decline and on genetic and cultural suicide watch. They're to busy livin their vida loca to bother with changing diapers and saving for more than one college education. When I see the gorgeous art depicting Japanese women that WB7 posts now and then, I can't help but be sad that their beauty and intellect is fading from this world. When I see the steely-eyed viciously playfull fraulines in German porn, I am sad for all the technological advances the children they never had will not bring us.
Really, one needs to theorize?
Can we say "regression to the mean?" Or is that too much for our shrivelled brains?
The bell curve tolls for thee...
I forget who said this, so I'll just paraphrase:
Stupidity must confer some sort of evolutionary advantage or there wouldn't be so much of it.
Along the same lines:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2012/06/quick-study-satoshi-kana...
You trying to tell me ... modern humans have slower reaction times after spending their whole froggin lives on an xBox? Get outta here.
The Chinese, on the other hand, are actively attempting to hook up their best and brightest for the purpose of increasing the average intelligence of the country. Additionally, they are agressively moving into Africa in order to secure a steady supply of resources. In both instances, they are not constrained by political correctness to do whatever they see as advantageous for their people.
That is why they will bury us.
I also wonder if the reason for the IQ difference has anything to do with the US population being over 90% white until the disastrous 1965 immigration law changes. NOw, we are only about 65% of the population of the US, and dropping fast.
Ha ha ha ... The Chinese are just making rookie mistakes in Africa, pumping in a lot of money that will just be nationalized and confiscated in time. Do you think it's mere conicidence that the US and Europe had vast militarized imperial apparatus? That was to protect commodity-stripping investments in far away places. The Chinese think they can do it on the cheap -- they will learn otherwise.
No, we are not getting dumber.
But the modern condition ruthlessly exposes our limitations and failings.
humans hit peak intelligence in 4000 B.C.
look it up
Of course we humans are getting dumber,
but our MACHINES are getting smarter,
so it evens out.
Don't worry, be happy.
Dumber? Like Facebook, Instagram, Dancing with the Stars, Rhianna, Britney Bitch et al?