Low intelligence among top heart health risks (this is not your average U.K. satire)....

U.K. Reuters ^ | 02/10/10 | Kate Kelland

[heartwood]

Poin is that intelligence is anti-selective in our present culture. When a quarter of the women with bachelor’s degrees don’t have children at all, compared to only a tenth of women without, and the women with degrees aren’t having babies at replacement rate, that trait (high intelligence with college degree as proxy) won’t long endure.

And since the men with degrees marry women with degrees for the most part it holds for them too, probably to a lesser degree.

[heartwood]

Re: your article. Who is having the babies? Who is replacing themselves? The big jump in child-bearing among 20-24 y.o.s - how is that demographic different than it was ten years ago?

[socialismisinsidious]

"Public health campaigns should focus on early life factors that have been shown to influence IQ levels and tackle social inequalities," she said in a comment on the study.

"At the same time, the public health messages for known risk factors such as diet may need to be simplified."

Oh boy. Another feather to further the loony left agenda.

[ladyjane]

IQ is correlated with cigarette smoking, income, weight, eating and drinking habits, access to health care, physical activity and health risk behaviors - to name just some of the correlates. Basically it’s lifestyle choices, not IQ per se.

Just as dropping out of school, pregnancy and drugs are correlated with race, it’s not skin color causing the problem, it’s lifestyle choices.

[101voodoo]

If it means to survive as a species we need to be dumb, then the government schools are actually doing us a favor?

Whoda thunk it?

[Bigg Red]

Thanks for that link, but I would like to see more demographic info with that data, as I wonder how many illegals have bumped those numbers.

[DrC]

“Who is having the babies? Who is replacing themselves? “

I don’t know the answer, but the article says:
“We do know that birthrates ticked up quite a bit among the most affluent,” says Stephanie Coontz, director of research and public education at the Council on Contemporary Families. “Kids are luxury goods, and some of this uptick may be stay-at-home moms.”

Thus, I don’t get the impression that the surge is among the least educated/intelligent in society. If the most educated were not replacing themselves, while the least educated were, then average education levels would be declining in the U.S. That is certainly not the case. You may argue that we send way too many people to college, but on average, the share of adults with college educations has risen steadily over time while the fraction with high school only educations has declined. These are encouraging trends from a Darwinian perspective.