People lower in intelligence tend to have the most children, which conveys something of a temporary evolutionary advantage, until the Darwin effect kicks in. I recommend watching the film "Idiocracy."

We the American people are not becoming more intelligent.
I submit as proof: the two-term presidency of The One.

Anyone wish there was a test for "Common Sense"?

The whole standardized testing process makes me impatient and crazy. First, it's like a photograph - how this person answers these questions on this day.
Secondly - and more importantly - that that the further scores, or people are from the norm, the less reliable the tests are. The might say "you're smart', but when you get up in the 170's, 180's, exact measurements become more difficult. The Four-Sigma Society [assuming they still exist] tested for the top 2% of those generally labeled "gifted" - the 135 spot. The test is very interesting and one of the least "culturally biased" I've seen. I at least managed to understand the questions - I couldn't answer them, but I understood them!

Are people getting 'smarter' (higher IQ's) or are we just expecting them to spit back more facts because More Information Is Available now than whenever back in time???

Lower Intelligence people are more likely to Darwin themselves out of the gene pool because of Accidents?!

Hell, in the major countries, most risks and dangers have been legislated or engineered out of existence! OSHA and Auto Safety Features being two good measures of that...

So, on average, we're being 'protected' down to dumbness is as likely as any claim that something is driving us to become 'smarter.'

I think there are definitions and measurements that are completely lacking in articles like those... which, for me, is yet another indication that 'we're' NOT getting 'smarter.'

ps... "Galt."

(Aside: I avoid the term IQ because it is discredited. IQ started out as "mental age / chronological age" and was part of a theory that said everyone's mind develops in the same way, but at different speeds. That theory was published in the 19-teens and was kaput in about six months.)

There is nothing magic about intelligence that makes humans immune to evolution, but there are certainly lots of ways humans can modify our environment that will result in humans evolving in ways we might not expect or might not want.

Right now 30% of all US births are to welfare mothers with no father in the home. They breed because we are paying them to breed, and most of the resulting children have no prospects in life other than to stay on welfare like their mothers. If this situation were to continue for enough centuries, we could very well breed enough Marching Morons to destroy civilization. It seems to me that the rise of Obama shows we are well down this path already.

As a physician I have noticed a steep decline in the quality of patients' It's. It definitely feels like we are reversing survival of the fittest. One example was a a guy who kept getting drunk at a topless bar, and turning left into oncoming traffic. Darwin would have had him die the first time, but we patched him up and he did it twice more, the last time taking out an upstanding citizen. Net decline in IQ.

I have for the better part of 3 decades been for removing all warming tags and signs and allowing the problem to sort itself out.

They might be getting more intelligent, but if so they are also becoming more irrational. Thanks, but I'll take rational people any day to those who ignore their own intelligence in favor of their glands or emotions.

Nice feel good story, but what does it mean? IQ "scores" have not been rising, by definition, so the headline is false.
Is there correlation between getting more correct answers on IQ tests and productivity, inventiveness, looting, laziness ?
I think if this was done on the US testing only from 1960 to date the answer would be considerably different.
As I understand it, standardized testing has been made less challenging in the US pretty steadily since the mid 60s. It probably doesn't matter for those at the ends of the bell curve, but for the mass in the middle this relaxation of standards and test scores does matter.
I think the reports of this 'study' gives the impression that average ability to think rationally and to reason has improved when the truth is it has declined.
And it's G-A-L-T.

I like IQ tests and encourage their use, in spit of the fact that they only test a certain type of intelligence and underrate individuals who do not test well. I want to have more objective metrics, not less. IQ tests have not been made simpler, they have been made more complex over the years - to keep everyone from scoring in the genius range (from a 1900's test).

Let me start by saying that I am quite fond of Darwinian evolutionary parameters - I say this because what I will say next will seem anti-Darwinian, but you must understand that my underlying premise is that we inherit our capacity for IQ.

Three points on IQ increase:

Firstly, while we inherit our IQ potential, we know that the ability to develop that intelligence is related to nutrition. If a brain lacks protein or vitamins whilst it is growing, the IQ of the individual will be lowered. And, while we complain about eating habits in the US, there are very few children who now do not get enough protein and vitamins in their diet. (This is a personal advantage that can be derived from 'feeding the world'. If we want warp drive, we will get it faster if all the children are well fed.)

Next is the environment in which we are raised. An interesting study posed this question (example - one of many) to people around the world: "All animals that inhabit polar regions have white fur. What color would a bear be if it lived in a polar region?" In existing primitive cultures, the people answered "I would have to see the bear." These were not dumb people (many were the chieftains of their tribes) - these were people who had never been trained in the logic of classes. We live in a world the complexity of which requires us to think in set theory (whether or not we are explicitly trained in it). Our ancestors, even our recent ones, were able to look at the world as series of individual events much more than we are; we find rules and paradigms for just about everything.

Lastly, the volume of information is incredibly different. I have read that 'the amount of information in a single Sunday edition of the NYTimes' approximates the amount of information that a 15th C farmer would have had access to in his Entire Lifetime. Our brains have become little data processing centers - it is not surprising that this shows up on tests.

So, I believe that these are the reasons the IQ is steadily increasing. These reasons do imply that there is a natural limit that will be reached. I personally suspect that by the time that is true, we will have chip augmentation and our capacity will be extended further.

Jan

On the other side of the ledger from succumbing to accidents are the higher birth rates in lower IQ populations (as already noted) plus the fact that the existence of the many safety net programs keep many people going for a lot longer than they otherwise might.

Given that there are now an abundance of perverse incentives to do the wrong things, you can't automatically assume that IQ is going to increase, unless it's a biological process independent of behavior or selection. There are not enough bodies in the street to see "accidents" as a significant factor. In fact, it looks like technology is helping to improve intelligence by automating the mundane aspects of data manipulation, especially for those who understand the basics.

Meanwhile, an ongoing longitudinal study from the University of Michigan suggests that people's empathy has been decreasing over the years:

http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/7724-em...

Beware of short summations of results. "Science Daily" called the results "hollow". Note they did not give a country by country breakdown. The prediction for the future is that the results, which are reset at 100 on a bell curve over the years, are actually showing less gain and have likely peaked. The "Daily Mail" says the European and Western (US) scores have actually dropped apx. 10 points. This would agree with studies I have read that shows the average IQ for a US teacher is now lower than several years ago. This goes for doctors as well. The "Science Daily" article credited preparing for test taking and narrow focus of the test as the reason for the general world so-called increase. In any case, the US has reason to jump for joy.

If IQ's are rising, it sure isnt obvious here in Las Vegas. Perhaps they are rising, but people just dont use their brains as much.

As IQs rise, couldn't that also mean that the numbers no longer reflect the same intelligence quotient as they did in, say, 1970?

If this were true why do we have so many school dropouts in this country and looney tunes people in the muslim world; that counts for a billion people. Just wait and see the number of cars burned in the event the cleveland cavaliers with the nba title. That will show the authors of the article how intelligent the weathiest country of the world has gotten to be.

This is confusing. We often hear about how America is dropping in the education of our people. However this article claims we are constantly getting smarter. Which one is it?

Did you know that those considered geniuses by their accomplishments don't necessarily score in the "genius" range? The floor for proven geniuses is a score of *116*! That's not even what doctors usually score at - 125! IQ does not test working intelligence, i.e. how do you use intelligence in your life, or creativity.

Also, I'm very doubtful it's as culture and knowledge free as is claimed. So that would have a big effect on the scores.