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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: 0s | source
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rahimnathwani ◴[10 Apr 23 16:58 UTC] No.35514446[source]▶
This blog post asserts that IQ scores didn't drop for the population as a whole, and that the drop for each individual group is due to changing composition of that group:

https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2023/03/new-study-didnt-really-...

For example, if the % of people who do a postgraduate degree goes doubles, it's no longer such a select group, so you'd expect the average IQ of postgraduate degree holders to go down. This doesn't mean IQ scores are going down for the population as a whole.

One more thing: why do so many papers that present charts that show how a mean or median changes over time, without also presenting charts that show how the distribution has changed over time?

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tptacek ◴[10 Apr 23 21:42 UTC] No.35517739[source]▶
It's worth looking up whose blog this is before trusting any of its analysis.
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1. PeterisP ◴[10 Apr 23 23:30 UTC] No.35518709[source]▶
You should distrust every analyst and trust their analysis iff the argument is sound and you reach the same conclusion by doing the same analysis process based on data you trust.

Faked data is a big problem as that pretty much requires at least some trust; but the analysis part of any decent paper should be something which should be convincing even to a "hostile" reader who doesn't want to believe the author.