Is the average IQ going up?

[iNow]

Antimatter (and others): It may be useful to familiarize yourself with the "Criticisms and Views" section of this page (and the rest, too, if you're a true academic!):

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ

 

 

[Kyrisch]

That's not necessarily true. I am not referring to lack of comprehension, I'm referring to different rates of comprehension that will affect timing of tasks among other things which are all used in the computation of the actual score.

[antimatter]

Ok, so while we're sitting here pointing out the obvious flaws in one of the only tests of intelligence we have, can you think of any better way to measure intelligence?

 

Antimatter (and others): It may be useful to familiarize yourself with the "Criticisms and Views" section of this page (and the rest, too, if you're a true academic!):

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ

 

 

 

Ah iNow, I completely missed your post!

It's interesting to read, but I still don't think there's any method that's more effective than the current IQ test.

[Kyrisch]

I doubt it too, I just don't like how people put so much faith in the one we have when it is so ridiculously flawed.

[iNow]

I understand your point antimatter, but the test which we DO have is quite problematic.

 

I think the deeper issue is that we're missing a consistent and multi-contextual definition of intelligence itself.

 

I mean, how doth one test something they cannot even adequately define?

[antimatter]

This is either very clever, or very shameful, but I'll put it out there now:

 

I guess intelligence is an idea that just isn't easily defined with the knowledge we have now.

Or to put it in better words:

<Stupid writing deleted>

 

Ok...reading it over I realize that was a rather stupid thing to write...apologies to those who read it...I deleted it out of shame...

Edited June 7, 2008 by antimatter
multiple post merged

[talitha00cumi]

Why are standards in schools being lowered? Why is the bar lowered for college entrance exams? Have you seen school books from the colonial period in the US? What grade schoolers read back then, high schoolers would cry over today.

 

We're devolving, dude.

[Vlad007]

That would be hilarious if people's IQ was constantly going up with each new generation.

 

"Hi, my IQ is 7,000, what's yours?"

"Only 5,000."

"Wow, you must be a moron then"

 

hilarious, right? This world would be even more screwed up than it is now, which is kind of hard to believe.

 

Why are standards in schools being lowered? Why is the bar lowered for college entrance exams? Have you seen school books from the colonial period in the US? What grade schoolers read back then, high schoolers would cry over today.

 

We're devolving, dude.

 

Well, i have one thing to say to that. how can we be devolving...? All you have to do to read a book is speak English/whatever language it's in... how can we be losing the ability to speak, cause that's what your saying...

[antimatter]

I think he means we're devolving in the sense of our education.

School is getting more and more easy, which I can't agree with at all.

[iNow]

But what do you have to compare it to? You didn't attend school at your current level in the past.

[antimatter]

My point exactly. Well, sort of.

[MrSandman]

My view on this is....People are stupid, bottom line!

[antimatter]

Er...that's awfully blunt, and not a very 'smart' thing to say on a science forums...which leads me to wonder, why are you here if you think people are stupid?

[doG]

A recent article relevant to the discussion.....

[Vlad007]

People aren't stupid. in case you didn't notice, we are, so far as we know, the most sophisticated species in existence. we are just too curious... We experiment, and we screw things up. Trial and error. that's what humans do.

[antimatter]

People aren't stupid. in case you didn't notice, we are, so far as we know, the most sophisticated species in existence.

 

Sophisticated doesn't necessarily mean intelligent, but I know what you mean.

[Vlad007]

but you get my point "antimatter"

[antimatter]

but you get my point "antimatter"

 

 

 

Apparently...

 

but I know what you mean.

[doG]

My view on this is....People are stupid, bottom line!

 

Speak for yourself....

[Phi for All]

My view on this is....People are stupid, bottom line!

Generalizations are stupid. People aren't stupid, not if they're alive and functioning in today's society. People just say stupid things, like "People are stupid, bottom line".

 

Speak for yourself....

I think he was!

 

 

 

I'm not sure about the IQ thang, but many of you are just talking about behavior. I think perceptions are influenced by many factors these days, the least of which is the prevalence of the entertainment media highlighting stupid antics. YouTube shows several million videos of skateboarders trying to shred a metal handrail down some steps, and they always slip up and destroy themselves. Conclusions: all skateboarders are vandals and idiots.

 

But they're not.

 

Similarly, the Fundamental Attribution Error is at work here. You see someone doing something questionable and because you don't know the context, you assume they're stupid. We forget that we ourselves have done seemingly stupid things for very good reasons. I saw a guy buy an ice cream cone from a street vendor once. He took a couple of licks as he walked away and suddenly flicked the whole thing out into the street. I thought he was pretty stupid until I caught up with him at the crosswalk and heard him explaining to his friend about the last time he had to go to the hospital because a bee stung him. I never saw the bee so I didn't know the context that would cause him to do such a weird thing.

[thedarkshade]

Well there are lots of IQ tests out there which are formed based on different criteria and one has to ask "what kind of IQ are you talking about?". I've done IQ's that are 15 pages long but I've also done IQ's which actually contain no more than 30 questions. And the difficulty level of the questions differs dramatically. Where I come from, there is no standardized IQ test, and until IQ is not standardized then one cannot say anything ,at least evidence based, whether the average IQ is increasing or decreasing.

[Mr Skeptic]

I suspect that average IQ would be going up for the same reason that kids are getting taller.

 

Oh, and if we manage to intentionally increase intelligence, we will get a technological singularity.

[omnimutant]

This might be a Stupid Question.

Would it not make sense that the highest possible score one could expect to achieve on an IQ test is limited by the IQ of the test creator?

 

Furthermore Many of the IQ tests I've seen have been heavily Knowledge Based, which confuses me to some extent. I thought IQ and Knowledge were supposed to be two completely different things? Of course, sense it was mentioned that no one can seem to accurately determine a true definition of what IQ is, then what the heck are we testing anyway?

 

To the OP's question, I'm of the Opinion that the average IQ of the Human Being has probably never changed since we became Modern Humans. Expanding on current technology does not really mean we are any "smarter" then before, it just means we have more stimuli to work with now.