4 ms·
Sure but the Flynn effect is just something measured and could well just be a 'low hanging fruit' environmental gains that will/already have run out.
by lsd5you 8y ago
Sure but the Flynn effect is just something measured and could well just be a 'low hanging fruit' environmental gains that will/already have run out.
- Apocryphon 8y agoWhat mythical better times are Idiocracy theory proponents even mourning? When have literacy rates and educational attainment for the masses ever been better than the present? As a species, we still have a long way to go before the low hanging fruit gains are realized.
- antisthenes 8y agoTo suggest that basic literacy and educational attainment are somehow indicative of above average intelligence or the ability to understand complex and abstract ideas is a bit of a stretch. With grade inflation and babysitting modern age students, what are the realistic requirements to attain a university degree in a low-difficulty major at a mediocre school? 80 IQ? 85? The literacy argument is trivially refuted in a similar manner. Reading by itself is not indicative of higher cognitive function above an elementary school child. Also, proportions are what matter here. I doubt the proportion of people with high fluid/crystallized intelligence is higher now, than it was, say in 1850. The only difference is that now a higher proportion of the general population have degrees.
- Apocryphon 8y agoWhat IQ level is optimal? And what is the role of IQ from a societal standpoint, if you are to presuppose that mass literacy and contemporary education is meaningless? What is the benefit of literacy from your perspective, for that matter
- anon2775 8y agoGCU with bought exams and homework, any rich dufus out partying and shagging babes all the time can easily graduate without learning anything... I mean, how do you think GWB made it through Yale and Harvard while being a pot-smoking F-102 pilot?
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoYou're dodging the question. When, exactly, was the peak of American intellectual achievement that we're now coasting downhill from? Name a decade.
- antisthenes 8y agoSure, 1970s
- Apocryphon 8y agoDo you have a single fact to back that up?
- Judgmentality 8y agoWhat made the 70's better than the 60's? In the span of a decade we went from idea (we will put a man on the moon) to execution (Apollo 11) for arguably the greatest scientific feat of mankind. I realize we're talking about humanity as a whole, but I don't see the appeal of the 70's.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoAll right, now we're getting somewhere. Why?