Use it, or lose it?

Published by Tom

February 8, 2009

British teenagers have lower IQs than their counterparts did 30 years ago – Telegraph.

Had the results of this study shown that Intelligence Quotients had risen over the same period, I have no doubt that our educators would have claimed the credit. Indeed they did claim the credit for the previous steady rise in IQ scores. However, they seem to think this reported fall is nothing to do with them. It is all down to bad parenting and video games, apparently. I doubt Britain has a monopoly on those.

Perhaps neither explanation is right? It seems reasonable to theorise that IQ could be influenced by the regular exercise of independent thought. After all, if you fail to exercise any attribute, it will atrophy.

The nanny state; the concomitant move from education to propaganda; the switch from free expression to stock "right on" words and phrases and the indoctrination of all but the most unsophisticated to avoid "bad" words that reveal "inappropriate" attitudes have all arisen in the same period that IQs have fallen. We must beware of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy of course, but could it be the infantilisation of the British population has caused this interesting effect? If all wisdom is received and beyond challenge, where is the need for analysis? In such an environment, is it so surprising IQs should fall?

Sadly, if true, the effect might well be self-perpetuating.

8 responses to “Use it, or lose it?”

Peter Harley

February 8, 2009

http://home.iprimus.com.au/burgess1/weyl.html
This site has some interesting comments to make regarding intelligence and the ‘brain drain’,that I have not heard spoken of in England for at least the last 20 years,but was a matter of concern as far back as the 1950’s if not earlier.
Simply put,the intelligent members of the UK population have been driven to emigrate by Socialist policies that favour the base ,the lazy,the stupid,the malicious and the envious.As a result the genes conferring intelligence have gradually drained out of the UK gene pool leaving a population composed mainly of moral and intellectual dross.

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RenegadeParent

February 8, 2009

Awash with “experts”, we are absolutely not encouraged to think for ourselves – of what point would be the experts then? Critical thought is an absolute threat to their existence. Rather than realising that the individual has the power, if only they choose to learn (and when has it ever been easier than now?), the majority of people are happy to accept that teachers, examiners, employers, parenting experts, and Dr Alan Maryon Davis know better than they could ever hope to. It’s made us dependent, lazy and too eager to blame someone else.
Now, state education not only sets out its dubious intention to give every (individual! unique!) child exactly the same package of (questionable) knowledge in the form of the national curriculum to digest and regurgitate whole, it also seeks to ensure their health and social welfare, on the basis that parents are absolutely incapable of parenting, whatever the circumstances. This will lead to more intervention, as policy makers seek to rectify the problems they have generated by intervening to the degree they do in the first instance.
I am absolutely sure that this also will filter down to schools – where we will see even more of an increase in standardisation – controls, norms, tests, exams, levels of attainment, etc. – none of which allows for autonomy of thought or self-directed learning. Sure, people will have a perfectly documented education. They will have been taught by the book. But they will have learned nothing – and measures such as the IQ will continue to demonstrate this. The 21st century economy will demand far more than exam results from our children.

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Moggsy

February 9, 2009

I don’t think the brain drain can have had so much of an impact yet.
I figure you are right with the use it or loose it theory. If you don’t exercise your mind…
It worries me that you can hardly call what kids are offered these days a proper education, just training to pass certain simple tests and some indoctrination.

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Jeremy Jacobs

February 10, 2009

Doesn’t surprise me in the least. Probably explains things like “hache” for “aitch”, “them people” and a reliance on sat-navs.

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jmb

February 11, 2009

I can imagine the IQ results levelling out over the years, unless they change the test drastically but it does seem hard to imagine that it would go down in this day and age of knowledge being so easily accessible to everyone.
I have to say that I was a pretty uneducated teenager when I graduated from high school and came into my own at university, albeit on the humanities side I would have to say I was self educated by voracious reading.
You are Friday’s blogger at DTB today with this post.

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welshcakes limoncello

February 11, 2009

I agree with what you say about independent thought. Sadly, if, as a teacher, you suggest that this should be applied to a task you are looked at in horror. And I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve watched college students “cutting and pasting” for the “cheat’s charter” coursework, right under my nose in the library! When challenged, they reacted as if I were mad, even though I pointed out that I would have to bring it to the attention of the exam board. In my own subject, modern languages, it is fairly easy to tell as the coursework standard is often very different from the work done under exam conditions or from what the oral exam tells you about a particular student. I’m not sure this is so in all subjects. I’ve even watched some lecturers taking no notice of unattributed “cut and paste” unless 2 students have used the same source!! It makes me very angry and also very sad.

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Heather Yaxley

February 11, 2009

Much as I hate to spoil a good opportunity for a nice British rant, I recall from my child psychology lectures some 25 years ago that IQ testing is absolute nonsense and had been criticised decades ago as derived from eugenics and an elitist perspective on intelligence.
An ability to complete a series of monkey tests does not define anyone as intelligent – certainly not in any way that might be useful in this world. I wonder how many bankers have high IQs – or politicians come to that!
I’ve with journalist Walter Lippman who in the early 1920s said IQ tests were just a stunt or in this case an excuse for some dodgy academics and the Telegraph to have a good old moan about the “youth of today”…

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John East

February 13, 2009

Heather, Your view that, “Much as I hate to spoil a good opportunity for a nice British rant, I recall from my child psychology lectures some 25 years ago that IQ testing is absolute nonsense and had been criticised decades ago as derived from eugenics and an elitist perspective on intelligence.” assumes that child psychology lecturers in the 1980’s were correct in the promotion of their new ideology. This ideology denied earlier peer reviewed research, embraced counterintuitive theories such as the denial of race, the assumption that we are all equal (i.e. identical), and that we are all “blank slates” needing only a vast socialist bureaucracy to guide us to the promised land.
I won’t try and disabuse you of your faith as I suspect it is firmly entrenched. However, I suggest you read more widely and reach your own conclusions rather than cling to those of a 1980’s psychology lecturer.

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