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> ever increasing dumbness that has been going on for decades. Do you have evidence that it's increasing? Maybe there have just always been dumb people. Of cou

> ever increasing dumbness that has been going on for decades. Do you have evidence that it's increasing? Maybe there have just always been dumb people. Of course you can point to amazing discoveries or great literature from the past, but that only represents a tiny slice of the population. And we're still doing science, still writing books, etc.

coldtea 13y ago
>Do you have evidence that it's increasing? (...) And we're still doing science, still writing books, etc. For those kind of things they is no hard evidence. One either sees that happening through historical changes, or does not. But there are lot of secondary indications. For example the books we're writing don't compare at all favorably to past works. Including the most cherished books of our era. Whereas literature, poerty, etc was constantly replenishing it's stock for centuries, there has been nothing like what we had even 50 years ago. Same for the fine arts -- there have been no great new art movements since pop art (which even that was a lame immitation of older ideas). Same (and worse) for philosophy. As for science, after the low hanging fruit (which demanded huge breakthroughs, like Newton's, Darwin's, Maxwell's, Einstein's, Cantor's, Turing's etc) have been picked, there's mostly boring incremental work -- we might as well have had stopped doing science. It's mostly engineering these days.
- takluyver 13y ago
  Literature and art are very subjective things. I don't think you can really judge them against other periods until you've got a century or so of hindsight. So I'm afraid that your assertion that they're not like they used to be sounds like it's prejudiced by your belief that people are getting stupider. I bet in a hundred years, there will be classics from our time as much as any other. Science is an interesting one. Perhaps we have already made most of the big leaps in understanding the natural world. But that doesn't imply that scientists now are less intelligent than scientists 'back then'. I'd argue that it takes more knowledge and work to make even seemingly 'minor' discoveries. Besides anything else, we have to understand all that past work before we can build on it.
richardjordan 13y ago
So in the US it might be harder to see as you don't have a proper examination system at the high-school level. But in the UK we've had examinations first at 16 (previously called O levels then GCSEs) and 18 (A levels). You can objectively see that the requirements to get an A are lower in terms of knowledge of facts and methods than they were, say, 30 years ago.
- takluyver 13y ago
  And more students get an A than they did 30 years ago (I'm from the UK as well). So unless you can find evidence that the rate at which it's getting easier is greater than the rate at which grades increase, it doesn't show that people are getting stupider. Perhaps it shows that they're learning less at school, but I'm not convinced that the sort of rote learning that comprised traditional education was that valuable. I'm somewhat playing Devil's advocate here - I don't like the idea that exams are getting less rigorous either. But it's important not to overstate the problem.
  - richardjordan 13y ago
    Grade inflation is a sign of the same problem though. The fact they had to introduce an A* because so many people were getting A is a sign that the exams have broken down. The thing is when it's possible for tons of people to put in perfect papers you aren't really testing the depth of knowledge out there. You're measuring things like mistakes and compliance. You need to have more challenge in papers to really learn what people know or don't know. When it becomes almost pass/fail easy then more As doesn't really suggest people are getting smarter, just they are fitting the process of the exam better. I remember when 65% was the A mark. This was because they were hard. Nobody was expected to get a perfect score or near perfect score. The thing is people attack each leg of the stool in isolation: don't overstate grade inflation; exams are just as hard they test different things; anecdotal evidence from hiring managers of the lack of skills of those entering the workforce; comparative league tables of international school age people (where we're backsliding); and just the general interaction with people over years and seeing less and less knowledge in graduating classes (anecdotal)... sure you can attack each for different reasons. But at some point the weight of evidence becomes compelling to reasonable people. The education system and other things in society that contribute to kids' pre-adulthood learning (family, tv, etc.) are clearly showing a decline in their ability to deliver young adults with solid education and skills in large numbers, over the decades. Sure there are outliers and this board is full of them. But the complacency on this topic we all show by throwing out invalid arguments like "people have always complained about declining standards" is disturbing because once you pass a certain threshold it's damn hard to fix the problem.

coldtea 13y ago

>Do you have evidence that it's increasing? (...) And we're still doing science, still writing books, etc. For those kind of things they is no hard evidence. One either sees that happening through historical changes, or does not. But there are lot of secondary indications. For example the books we're writing don't compare at all favorably to past works. Including the most cherished books of our era. Whereas literature, poerty, etc was constantly replenishing it's stock for centuries, there has been nothing like what we had even 50 years ago. Same for the fine arts -- there have been no great new art movements since pop art (which even that was a lame immitation of older ideas). Same (and worse) for philosophy. As for science, after the low hanging fruit (which demanded huge breakthroughs, like Newton's, Darwin's, Maxwell's, Einstein's, Cantor's, Turing's etc) have been picked, there's mostly boring incremental work -- we might as well have had stopped doing science. It's mostly engineering these days.

takluyver 13y ago
Literature and art are very subjective things. I don't think you can really judge them against other periods until you've got a century or so of hindsight. So I'm afraid that your assertion that they're not like they used to be sounds like it's prejudiced by your belief that people are getting stupider. I bet in a hundred years, there will be classics from our time as much as any other. Science is an interesting one. Perhaps we have already made most of the big leaps in understanding the natural world. But that doesn't imply that scientists now are less intelligent than scientists 'back then'. I'd argue that it takes more knowledge and work to make even seemingly 'minor' discoveries. Besides anything else, we have to understand all that past work before we can build on it.

richardjordan 13y ago

So in the US it might be harder to see as you don't have a proper examination system at the high-school level. But in the UK we've had examinations first at 16 (previously called O levels then GCSEs) and 18 (A levels). You can objectively see that the requirements to get an A are lower in terms of knowledge of facts and methods than they were, say, 30 years ago.

takluyver 13y ago
And more students get an A than they did 30 years ago (I'm from the UK as well). So unless you can find evidence that the rate at which it's getting easier is greater than the rate at which grades increase, it doesn't show that people are getting stupider. Perhaps it shows that they're learning less at school, but I'm not convinced that the sort of rote learning that comprised traditional education was that valuable. I'm somewhat playing Devil's advocate here - I don't like the idea that exams are getting less rigorous either. But it's important not to overstate the problem.
- richardjordan 13y ago
  Grade inflation is a sign of the same problem though. The fact they had to introduce an A* because so many people were getting A is a sign that the exams have broken down. The thing is when it's possible for tons of people to put in perfect papers you aren't really testing the depth of knowledge out there. You're measuring things like mistakes and compliance. You need to have more challenge in papers to really learn what people know or don't know. When it becomes almost pass/fail easy then more As doesn't really suggest people are getting smarter, just they are fitting the process of the exam better. I remember when 65% was the A mark. This was because they were hard. Nobody was expected to get a perfect score or near perfect score. The thing is people attack each leg of the stool in isolation: don't overstate grade inflation; exams are just as hard they test different things; anecdotal evidence from hiring managers of the lack of skills of those entering the workforce; comparative league tables of international school age people (where we're backsliding); and just the general interaction with people over years and seeing less and less knowledge in graduating classes (anecdotal)... sure you can attack each for different reasons. But at some point the weight of evidence becomes compelling to reasonable people. The education system and other things in society that contribute to kids' pre-adulthood learning (family, tv, etc.) are clearly showing a decline in their ability to deliver young adults with solid education and skills in large numbers, over the decades. Sure there are outliers and this board is full of them. But the complacency on this topic we all show by throwing out invalid arguments like "people have always complained about declining standards" is disturbing because once you pass a certain threshold it's damn hard to fix the problem.