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So two hypotheses: Generation X was a generation of unparalleled genius effortlessly surpassing their idiot ancestors before who merely built the modern world a

So two hypotheses: Generation X was a generation of unparalleled genius effortlessly surpassing their idiot ancestors before who merely built the modern world and their children who merely consumed and produced vastly more written content than ever before whilst playing with increasingly complex abstractions on computers, or IQ test comparisons between dissimilar populations don't really mean very much, because the "quotient" is a ranking mechanism for solving a certain type of paper puzzle, not an actual thing.

jakobnissen 5y ago
Luckily, we can easily test how much IQ matters by looking at the relationship between IQ and health, wealth, educational achievement and so on. And it turns out that IQ mean quite a lot, no matter which way you believe the causality goes.
- notahacker 5y ago
  The apparent peak IQ generation consistently scores lower than later generations on age-adjusted measures of health, wealth, educational achievement etc though. The fact that IQ test scores are somewhat useful as a ranking mechanism amongst a cohort is completely consistent with it being just being a collection of standardised tests calibrated to score in a particular way, not an actual "thing" where apparent subtle generational changes might represent genuine changes to our physiology or intellectual potential and not just inconsequential differences in our preparedness to solve paper puzzles.
istinetz 5y ago
>the "quotient" is a ranking mechanism for solving a certain type of paper puzzle, not an actual thing. Sure, except it strongly correlates with pretty much every single measure of fluid intelligence you can think of. And with a billion real life outcomes, besides. It just so happens that the best statistical distillation of intelligence measures happens to take the form of "paper puzzles". We can, I guess, do a 12 hour barrage of 50 different intelligence tests, but what's the point, when one does the job. >So two hypotheses There are plenty of other hypotheses.
- notahacker 5y ago
  > Sure, except it strongly correlates with pretty much every single measure of fluid intelligence you can think of. And with a billion real life outcomes, besides Sure, test scores correlate with other test scores (surprisingly badly) which correlate with other proxy measures of intelligence. Quelle surprise! There's a massive difference between acknowledging a test is somewhat useful in ranking peers and agonising over whether one cohort getting scores in a particular test a couple of points lower than another cohort from a completely different background represents some real world shortcoming of the latter cohort in anything other than that particular set of puzzles. The research establishing a lack of support for supposed "dysgenic" trends (though absence of evidence isn't necessarily evidence of absence) because the drop happens within families might be superficially interesting, but we're looking at tiny points of difference in a noisy series. There's typically more variation between Weschler and Raven tests adminstered to the same individuals than the measured generational "IQ decline" the headline is encouraging us to agonise over. When all the points of data other than IQ tests suggest that subsequent generations haven't struggled intellectually compared with their forebears, there's not much reason to suspect the trends in paper puzzle scores are a signal and not just noise.
qzbend 5y ago

jakobnissen 5y ago

Luckily, we can easily test how much IQ matters by looking at the relationship between IQ and health, wealth, educational achievement and so on. And it turns out that IQ mean quite a lot, no matter which way you believe the causality goes.

notahacker 5y ago
The apparent peak IQ generation consistently scores lower than later generations on age-adjusted measures of health, wealth, educational achievement etc though. The fact that IQ test scores are somewhat useful as a ranking mechanism amongst a cohort is completely consistent with it being just being a collection of standardised tests calibrated to score in a particular way, not an actual "thing" where apparent subtle generational changes might represent genuine changes to our physiology or intellectual potential and not just inconsequential differences in our preparedness to solve paper puzzles.

istinetz 5y ago

>the "quotient" is a ranking mechanism for solving a certain type of paper puzzle, not an actual thing. Sure, except it strongly correlates with pretty much every single measure of fluid intelligence you can think of. And with a billion real life outcomes, besides. It just so happens that the best statistical distillation of intelligence measures happens to take the form of "paper puzzles". We can, I guess, do a 12 hour barrage of 50 different intelligence tests, but what's the point, when one does the job. >So two hypotheses There are plenty of other hypotheses.

notahacker 5y ago
> Sure, except it strongly correlates with pretty much every single measure of fluid intelligence you can think of. And with a billion real life outcomes, besides Sure, test scores correlate with other test scores (surprisingly badly) which correlate with other proxy measures of intelligence. Quelle surprise! There's a massive difference between acknowledging a test is somewhat useful in ranking peers and agonising over whether one cohort getting scores in a particular test a couple of points lower than another cohort from a completely different background represents some real world shortcoming of the latter cohort in anything other than that particular set of puzzles. The research establishing a lack of support for supposed "dysgenic" trends (though absence of evidence isn't necessarily evidence of absence) because the drop happens within families might be superficially interesting, but we're looking at tiny points of difference in a noisy series. There's typically more variation between Weschler and Raven tests adminstered to the same individuals than the measured generational "IQ decline" the headline is encouraging us to agonise over. When all the points of data other than IQ tests suggest that subsequent generations haven't struggled intellectually compared with their forebears, there's not much reason to suspect the trends in paper puzzle scores are a signal and not just noise.

qzbend 5y ago