Researchers say Western IQs dropped 14 points over last century

Yahoo! News ^ | May 24, 2013 | Eric Pfeiffer

[Slings and Arrows]

A new study from researchers in Europe claims that the average IQ in Western nations dropped by a staggering 14.1 points over the past century.

"We tested the hypothesis that the Victorians were cleverer than modern populations using high-quality instruments, namely measures of simple visual reaction time in a meta-analytic study," the researchers wrote in the study, which was published online in the journal Intelligence on Thursday. "Simple reaction time measures correlate substantially with measures of general intelligence and are considered elementary measures of cognition."

-snip-

The results were measured using data from 1889 to 2004 and were analyzed by Michael A. Woodley of Vrije Universiteit in Brussels, Jan te Nijenhuis of the University of Amsterdam and Raegan Murphy of the University College Cork in Ireland.

So why has there been such a steady drop? As UPI notes, previous research studies have found that women of higher intelligence tend to have fewer children on average, meaning that population growth may be driven by those with a lower IQ. And over time, the abundance of less intelligent offspring would affect the overall IQ average.

On average, the general intelligence of those populations measured dropped by 1.23 points per decade.

"These findings strongly indicate that with respect to general intelligence the Victorians were substantially cleverer than modern Western populations," the study says.

[Slings and Arrows]

Man, who put all these elephants in the living room...oh sorry, was I not supposed to mention that?

[PetroniusMaximus]

Let’s not bring up immigration...

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The welfare state has eliminated natural selection.

The people who used to die as a result of their stupidity now collect government checks and make more babies than the people who fund those government checks.

[jiggyboy]

“research studies have found that women of higher intelligence tend to have fewer children on average, meaning that population growth may be driven by those with a lower IQ.”

That’s the premise of the movie “Idiocracy”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icmRCixQrx8

[Revolting cat!]

I know I was smarter a hunred years ago.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Touche!

[Revolting cat!]

They must have studied the religious and disaster forecasting/prepping threads here! /ducking/

[bigheadfred]

yer a witch theyll burn yaaaa

[Slings and Arrows]

You mean that you get more of what you subsidize and less of what you tax? Who knew?

[ecomcon]

That’s funny.

[ConorMacNessa]

Look at what the Hell is directing our destiny in this Nation now! I wasn't born a hundred years ago, but I'm smart enough not to vote for that Marxist maggot!



"Riamh nár dhruid ó sbairn lann!"

Genuflectimus non ad principem sed ad Principem Pacis!

Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. (Isaiah 49:1 KJV)

[Slings and Arrows]

Let’s not bring up immigration...

No elephant here...down Simba! Down boy!

[Sherman Logan]

This conflicts rather dramatically with the records of actual IQ tests, which have been increasing steadily in what is called the Flynn Effect.

[23 Everest]

What deep seeded thinking was involved here?

[cardinal4]

“How do you know she is a witch?”

[Zakeet]

Idiots breed... and they vote ... and look what they gave us!

[bigheadfred]

oh this is something a little inbreeding wont cure

[Slings and Arrows]

*shrug* GIGO?

[UCANSEE2]

Let’s go back even further.

Those guys who built the pyramids were pretty clever.