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American IQ scores have rapidly dropped, proving the 'Reverse Flynn effect'

(www.popularmechanics.com)
256 points hirundo | 1 comments | 10 Apr 23 13:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.204s | source
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globalreset ◴[10 Apr 23 16:49 UTC] No.35514334[source]▶
Honest question that keeps bothering me.

In the absence of reasonably strong natural selection pressure to select for IQ, how could IQ not be falling over time?

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Havoc ◴[10 Apr 23 16:53 UTC] No.35514381[source]▶
Why would it fall? Steady seems just as fair an expectation in absence of pressure either way
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1. globalreset ◴[10 Apr 23 17:53 UTC] No.35515136[source]▶
Because the chance of random mutation to increase an IQ (or improve anything whatsoever) is far smaller than to lower it (or degrade anything).

Change randomly a random line of code in any source code, and tell me how often it happens to work better than before.