A pair of researchers with the Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research in Norway has found that IQ test scores have been slowly dropping over the past several decades. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Bernt Bratsberg and Ole Rogeberg describe their study and the results they found. They also offer some possible explanations for their findings.



Prior studies have shown that people grew smarter over the first part of last century, as measured by the intelligence quotient—a trend that was dubbed the Flynn effect. Various theories have been proposed to explain this apparent brightening of the human mind, such as better nutrition, health care, education, etc, all factors that might help people grow into smarter adults than they would have otherwise. But, now, according to the researchers in Norway, that trend has ended. Instead of getting smarter, humans have started getting dumber.



The study by the team consisted of analyzing IQ test results from young men entering Norway's national service (compulsory military duty) during the years 1970 to 2009. In all, 730,000 test results were accounted for. In studying the data, the researchers found that scores declined by an average of seven points per generation, a clear reversal of test results going back approximately 70 years.

It's such a mystery as to why average IQs have been falling precipitously across the West:There are other factors, of course, particularly the dysgenic effects of female education. One has to wonder what the point of educating women is supposed to be when the next generation of women are going to be considerably less intelligent because so few of the highly intelligent, highly educated manage to replace themselves.But the sheer magnitude of the movement of peoples is the more significant factor. This is why the infrastructure in the USA is never going to return to the state it was in previous decades. The society simply isn't intelligent enough on average to maintain it any longer.Remember, that's not just seven points, that's seven points PER GENERATION. Idiocracy is not just a movie about the dystopian future, it's a satire on the dystopian present. Welcome to Costco....

Labels: decline and fall, science