3 ms·

At the time of writing, much of this thread is centered around (a) dismissing the study based on considerations that were ruled out within the article, and (b)

by dcx 4y ago

At the time of writing, much of this thread is centered around (a) dismissing the study based on considerations that were ruled out within the article, and (b) dismissing the format and value of IQ tests. Let's set these aside and discuss the open question: > What specific environmental factors cause changes in intelligence remains relatively unexplored. What might these factors possibly be? Some candidates I am aware of, that are known to affect IQ: heavy metals in infant formula [1], increases in baseline CO2 levels [2], stress [3], deficiencies caused by soil depletion [4]. Leaded gasoline seems to have been ruled out by timing. It's interesting to me that this started in 1975 and is observed across Europe. Do we know of any major changes in habits or industrial practices that started around that year? [1] https://www.legalexaminer.com/home-family/baby-food-lawsuits/why-is-there-a-baby-formula-shortage/ https://www.legalexaminer.com/home-family/baby-food-lawsuits... [2] https://medium.com/wedonthavetime/co2-affects-our-thinking-93c016bcc74d https://medium.com/wedonthavetime/co2-affects-our-thinking-9... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/31/science/study-ties-iq-scores-to-stress.html https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/31/science/study-ties-iq-sco... [4] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an...

themodelplumber 4y ago
Plastics off-gassing in the home, car, and at work comes to mind. It would kind of bridge the gap between habit (shopping) and industrial practice. Though I'm not sure about health or IQ implications specifically.
jmclnx 4y ago
I cannot speak about Europe, but in the US, mid-seventies is when one US Political Party started its war on Education, and that accelerated in the 80s and still on going. So I agree it is lack of quality of free education in the early years of childhood development. Too bad the study did not also look at IQ differences between private/public schools over the same period. By private, I mean the schools that only the very rich can send their children too. Also, I did read somewhere else, a study was also done on increased CO2 and intelligence and found higher CO2 could lower peoples intelligence level.
- jdminhbg 4y ago
  Spending (inflation-adjusted) per pupil in the US is up 50% since 1990 alone: https://www.statista.com/statistics/203118/expenditures-per-pupil-in-public-schools-in-the-us-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/203118/expenditures-per-...
  - swasheck 4y ago
    do they have more granular says that allows for nutrition programs, teacher salaries, physical plant, materials, transportation, admin overhead (it infrastructure, elearning platforms, superintendent salary, etc)? that breakdown would go more to help understand the educational endeavor over against the political or developmental endeavors
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Attacking education has been bipartisan. It was absurd to attack Amway princess DeVos for pushing the same dismantling of public education that was accelerated by Arne Duncan under Obama. Democratic Party darling and shooting-concealer Rahm Emanuel closed down half of Chicago's public schools, whose entire white enrollment had already left with their vouchers to charters and privates so it didn't affect anyone who mattered. Hell, you could sell the buildings to the charters. edit: Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan endorses Kerr for state schools superintendent https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/04/03/arne-duncan-endorses-deb-kerr-wisconsin-schools-superintendent/7076612002/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/... GOP-backed candidate for schools chief says she’s a Democrat https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-wisconsin-elections-deborah-kerr-campaigns-dd766054703b92cf1d6b500cc0c50114 https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-wisconsin-elections-deb...
- mdp2021 4y ago
  I am afraid also Europe has seen debilitating attacks in more Countries. Parts of the attacks have been public - some intentional, some collateral - or exposed; results can be evident and documented. Nonetheless: scholarization is surely impactive but not necessitant on Intelligence.
ParetoOptimal 4y ago
> (b) dismissing the format and value of IQ tests. Let's set these aside and discuss the open question: >> What specific environmental factors cause changes in intelligence remains relatively unexplored. If IQ tests don't accurately measure intelligence, what's the worth of discussing those environmental factors?
- isitmadeofglass 4y ago
  Let’s imagine for a second that they hand not used IQ tests but instead evaluated peoples ability to catch a baseball with their left hand. That obviously doesn’t correlate to intelligence in any traditional sense. But then imagine that we had countless studies that correlated the result of that test with the ability to perform successfully a wide range of other tasks, and with a ton of positive things in peoples lives. Does it matter that the test didn’t correlate to what we think of as intelligence? No, it’s not the point of the study, it’s just showing the tendencies of a measure that has scientific interest. The reason the measure has scientific interest is because of those correlations. People get so insecure around the whole IQ test range. Imagine if someone had released a study showing humans were getting shorter over time and that environmental factors were to blame, and all the comments were from people arguing that “being short doesn’t make you less attractive! Being short doesn’t mean you can’t reach the top shelves, because you can just use a ladder! Height tests are bogus, I scored 5’3” in one, but I’m really good at basketball!” It’s silly and overshadows the really interesting scientific investigations that are possible because we have this great measure.
  - ParetoOptimal 4y ago
    > People get so insecure around the whole IQ test range. Imagine if someone had released a study showing humans were getting shorter over time and that environmental factors were to blame, and all the comments were from people arguing that “being short doesn’t make you less attractive! Being short doesn’t mean you can’t reach the top shelves, because you can just use a ladder! Height tests are bogus, I scored 5’3” in one, but I’m really good at basketball!” It’s silly and overshadows the really interesting scientific investigations that are possible because we have this great measure. I'm not saying that. I'm saying if you don't know what IQ tests measure, you don't know what the external factors are causing.
hcarvalhoalves 4y ago
Is IQ connected to genetics somehow? That could maybe indicate that lower percentile IQ are just as - or more – successful at leaving descendants nowadays than before. If we consider the world spent half the century in large scale conflict, maybe that was an IQ “filter” (since, for example, academics wouldn’t be drafted to the front lines), but now humanity doesn’t face the same pressure?
- dcx 4y ago
  Paragraph 6 of TFA: > "It's not that dumb people are having more kids than smart people, to put it crudely. It's something to do with the environment, because we're seeing the same differences within families," he said.
isitmadeofglass 4y ago
The timing of the start of the drop to me also seems to correlate with the period when PBC was used extensively in building materials. But if that was to blame then we would likely already start seeing a recovery as it’s been banned everywhere.

by dcx 4y ago

themodelplumber 4y ago

Plastics off-gassing in the home, car, and at work comes to mind. It would kind of bridge the gap between habit (shopping) and industrial practice. Though I'm not sure about health or IQ implications specifically.

jmclnx 4y ago

I cannot speak about Europe, but in the US, mid-seventies is when one US Political Party started its war on Education, and that accelerated in the 80s and still on going. So I agree it is lack of quality of free education in the early years of childhood development. Too bad the study did not also look at IQ differences between private/public schools over the same period. By private, I mean the schools that only the very rich can send their children too. Also, I did read somewhere else, a study was also done on increased CO2 and intelligence and found higher CO2 could lower peoples intelligence level.

jdminhbg 4y ago
Spending (inflation-adjusted) per pupil in the US is up 50% since 1990 alone: https://www.statista.com/statistics/203118/expenditures-per-pupil-in-public-schools-in-the-us-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/203118/expenditures-per-...
- swasheck 4y ago
  do they have more granular says that allows for nutrition programs, teacher salaries, physical plant, materials, transportation, admin overhead (it infrastructure, elearning platforms, superintendent salary, etc)? that breakdown would go more to help understand the educational endeavor over against the political or developmental endeavors
pessimizer 4y ago
Attacking education has been bipartisan. It was absurd to attack Amway princess DeVos for pushing the same dismantling of public education that was accelerated by Arne Duncan under Obama. Democratic Party darling and shooting-concealer Rahm Emanuel closed down half of Chicago's public schools, whose entire white enrollment had already left with their vouchers to charters and privates so it didn't affect anyone who mattered. Hell, you could sell the buildings to the charters. edit: Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan endorses Kerr for state schools superintendent https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/04/03/arne-duncan-endorses-deb-kerr-wisconsin-schools-superintendent/7076612002/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/... GOP-backed candidate for schools chief says she’s a Democrat https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-wisconsin-elections-deborah-kerr-campaigns-dd766054703b92cf1d6b500cc0c50114 https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-wisconsin-elections-deb...
mdp2021 4y ago
I am afraid also Europe has seen debilitating attacks in more Countries. Parts of the attacks have been public - some intentional, some collateral - or exposed; results can be evident and documented. Nonetheless: scholarization is surely impactive but not necessitant on Intelligence.

ParetoOptimal 4y ago

> (b) dismissing the format and value of IQ tests. Let's set these aside and discuss the open question: >> What specific environmental factors cause changes in intelligence remains relatively unexplored. If IQ tests don't accurately measure intelligence, what's the worth of discussing those environmental factors?

isitmadeofglass 4y ago
Let’s imagine for a second that they hand not used IQ tests but instead evaluated peoples ability to catch a baseball with their left hand. That obviously doesn’t correlate to intelligence in any traditional sense. But then imagine that we had countless studies that correlated the result of that test with the ability to perform successfully a wide range of other tasks, and with a ton of positive things in peoples lives. Does it matter that the test didn’t correlate to what we think of as intelligence? No, it’s not the point of the study, it’s just showing the tendencies of a measure that has scientific interest. The reason the measure has scientific interest is because of those correlations. People get so insecure around the whole IQ test range. Imagine if someone had released a study showing humans were getting shorter over time and that environmental factors were to blame, and all the comments were from people arguing that “being short doesn’t make you less attractive! Being short doesn’t mean you can’t reach the top shelves, because you can just use a ladder! Height tests are bogus, I scored 5’3” in one, but I’m really good at basketball!” It’s silly and overshadows the really interesting scientific investigations that are possible because we have this great measure.
- ParetoOptimal 4y ago
  > People get so insecure around the whole IQ test range. Imagine if someone had released a study showing humans were getting shorter over time and that environmental factors were to blame, and all the comments were from people arguing that “being short doesn’t make you less attractive! Being short doesn’t mean you can’t reach the top shelves, because you can just use a ladder! Height tests are bogus, I scored 5’3” in one, but I’m really good at basketball!” It’s silly and overshadows the really interesting scientific investigations that are possible because we have this great measure. I'm not saying that. I'm saying if you don't know what IQ tests measure, you don't know what the external factors are causing.

hcarvalhoalves 4y ago

Is IQ connected to genetics somehow? That could maybe indicate that lower percentile IQ are just as - or more – successful at leaving descendants nowadays than before. If we consider the world spent half the century in large scale conflict, maybe that was an IQ “filter” (since, for example, academics wouldn’t be drafted to the front lines), but now humanity doesn’t face the same pressure?

dcx 4y ago
Paragraph 6 of TFA: > "It's not that dumb people are having more kids than smart people, to put it crudely. It's something to do with the environment, because we're seeing the same differences within families," he said.

isitmadeofglass 4y ago

The timing of the start of the drop to me also seems to correlate with the period when PBC was used extensively in building materials. But if that was to blame then we would likely already start seeing a recovery as it’s been banned everywhere.