Researchers Say Western Iqs Dropped 14 Points Over Last Century

[Boo Radley]

U R so rite dude.

 

Yes, I am.

 

...Tetraethyllead (common name tetraethyl lead), abbreviated TEL, is an organolead compound with the formula (CH3CH2)4Pb. It was mixed with gasoline (petrol) beginning in the 1920s as an inexpensive octane booster which allowed engine compression to be raised substantially, which in turn increased vehicle performance and fuel economy...

...[tetraethyl]Lead is a toxic metal that accumulates in the body and is associated with subtle and insidious neurotoxic effects especially at low exposure levels, such as low IQ and antisocial behavior...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead

 

...childhood exposure to lead... Intelligence was affected, too: a blood lead level of even 5 µ/dl was enough to damage the infant brain, and with permanent effect...

... In America, since the ban of [lead in] 1996, researchers estimate that IQ scores have risen by several points...

http://www.economist...ed-petrol-toxin

[The_Munchmaster]

Judging by the morons I now see around Bangkok I'd say the 14 point drop has taken place in the last 25 years!

[Dumsoda]

 

... In America, since the ban of [lead in] 1996, researchers estimate that IQ scores have risen by several points...

http://www.economist...ed-petrol-toxin

 

..Does that mean that sometime in the next Century....they may hit positive numbers??

[Flashermac]

World map of National IQ Scores by Country

 

 

http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=2812

[BelgianBoy]

World map of National IQ Scores by Country

 

 

http://www.targetmap...x?reportId=2812

what ? Italy ? 555555555555

[JaiRai]

Snipped from Boston Review. http://bostonreview....getting-smarter

 

"Psychologists often use puzzles to test intelligence. So, puzzle this: on the one hand, many psychologists tell

us that intelligence is an enduring individual trait, pretty much hard-wired by a person’s DNA and by cell

development in the fetus’s brain. On the other hand, testing shows that there have been huge increases

around the world in IQ scores over the last two or three generations—so large that most Western adults a

century ago would be considered dimwits by today’s standards.

 

This puzzle emerged a couple of decades ago from psychologist James Flynn’s discovery of what is now

labeled the Flynn Effect. He found that, in the United States, for instance, IQ scores rose about fifteen

points between roughly 1950 and 2000. They are still rising. The ascent in scores can be quite rapid—a

half-point per year for young eastern German men in the 1990s. Fragments of earlier American data and

more complete testing in other Western nations suggest that the surge in scores began early in the last

century. IQ scores may now be leveling off in northern European nations even as they are jumping in

developing nations.

 

For about twenty years, psychologists have repeatedly confirmed this finding and argued about its

meaning...

 

---

One might suspect that the tests have gotten easier. They haven’t. In fact, the tests have gotten harder in

order to keep the average IQ at one hundred. By reversing that process, Flynn showed the long-term rise in

real performance."

[Coss]

It's that the modern world is now more about us understanding technology, rather than nature. Technology is designed, primarily by those with high IQs and thereto will be structured to be understood more easily by those, who now learn the structure and method of technology.

 

A long time ago tech thinking was not of much use, understanding if the crops might fail, if the lion might charge, if the fish returned each year after the frosts, those thought processes, are quite different to the logic and structure of technology of today.