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

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?

It is not. IQ doesn’t measure a kind of intelligence which inherits, and is subject to natural selection (there is even a debate whether such intelligence exists; or at least is of any significant between individuals).

IQ at best measures something that correlates with SAT. And with better education, less exposure to damaging pollutants, etc. it should always be on the rise (as demonstrated by the Flynn effect; an effect which this poor paper desperately tries to refute).

IQ research has always been about proving the superiority of one race over others, this superiority doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t stop these pseudo-scientist from trying. They bend the definition of “intelligence” and device test batteries (and in this case, interpret test battery) in skewed and bias ways to manipulate results like these. Regrettably media outlets like the Popular Mechanics and lifestyle journalists like Tim Newcomb take these researchers at their words and publish their results, despite their results pretty much being lies.

The heritability of IQ is very well established, usually estimated in the 50-80% range. You are fighting an uphill battle here because even if people haven’t seen the scientific evidence this effect is so strong that virtually everybody has seen anecdotal evidence of high IQ parents having high IQ children, but just seem to assert a very heterodox and counter-intuitive position without further elaboration.

It is incredibly arguable if during an obesity crisis if population wide health is actually improving and if population wide health isn’t improving that could certainly contribute to lower IQ. We’re also seeing population wide declines of health in other ways like sperm count. Food is becoming less nutritious as soil depletes. Our fish stocks being about to collapse is going to be another hit against brain health as omega 3s will become rarer in the diet.

I’m not fighting an uphill battle. Ever since The Bell Curve came out, there has been a slow but steady distancing of both psychological research and policy makers from the whole field of IQ research. Modern psychology couldn’t care less about on the heritability factor of IQ, and most policy makers don’t want to touch it with a 10 foot pole. Heck the SAT has even been renamed as they don’t want to be affiliated with anything resembling IQ any more.

The heritability of IQ is only well established within true believers of a pseudo-science tightly linked with the eugenics movement. Most psychologists today believe that the supposed heritability was observed because of bias within the research. And given the people who were doing these research in the 1970s and the 1980s, and their motivation for doing those, there is no question on what these biases were. Some of the researchers went so went quite far in bending the data such that it would fit their narrow—and racist—world view. They tried really hard to define intelligence such that it would make rich white people smarter, they were regrettably successful for far to long, but ultimately failed.

Your anecdotal evidence of high IQ parents (ugh!) having high IQ children is the same anecdotal evidence that sociologists have been describing for decades that high SES parents have high SES children, and is the main reason for why parents with high SAT scores are likely to have children with high SAT scores.

What IQ researchers discovered was basically the same thing that Marx described in 1867, class, however the eugenics were no communists, and instead of providing the simpler explanation, that society rewards the ruling elite, and wealth inherits, the eugenics went all conspiratorial and blamed other races for their perceived decline in society.

The following is my opinion, based on my research:

* IQ is real, measurable and heritable. The evidence for this is overwhelming.

* Nobody argues about the broad heritability of other human traits such as hair/eye color, height, athletic ability and the like.

* The argument over IQ is a consequence of terrible historical experiences with eugenics and racial discrimination. Many have adopted the quasi-religious viewpoint that IQ is not heritable to sidestep the discussion.

* As a consequence, social policy resembles the cycles and epicycles of Ptolemy's cosmology. Namely, all manner of social, economic and historical outcomes which are explained parsimoniously by understanding IQ as heritable are instead attributed to a Rube-Goldberg machine of racism, class warfare and the like.

* Accepting IQ as heritable does not, in an enlightened society, require acceptance of racism or classism, any more than people are forced to discriminate against those who, say, are genetically weaker athletes due to low relative VO2 levels.

* Social policy could be enhanced and better targeted by targeting those at the lower end of the IQ curve with subsidies such as basic income.

* Accepting IQ as real, heritable and measurable represents one of the only paths out of the present morass of corrupt political patronage programs around specific groups, just as rejection of Ptolemy's worldview enabled turning away from the demon-haunted world of religion.

People say IQ is "heritable" all the time, but it's easy to say that without giving any evidence that one understands what heritability means. Lots of things are heritable and not genetically determined, and there are things that are absolutely genetically determined that aren't really heritable.

If you're going to build a whole chain of logic, one that attempts to solve racism somewhere in the middle and ends with the "demon-haunted world of religion", it's useful to clearly define your terms first.

I was using "heritable" as a synonym for "genetically determined." Thanks for the clarification. To be a bit more specific, it is obviously possible to environmentally lower someone's IQ from their genetic potential. Examples include lead poisoning and denial of basic nutrition. Similarly, you can environmentally prevent someone from being able to run as fast as they might genetically have been able to by injuring their legs in various ways in childhood.

in both of those cases, as in all things genetic, expanding the ceiling is a far different matter. There is no known treatment I could have been given to enable me to run a 2 hour marathon. Similarly, there is no known way to cause a 100-IQ person to reliably test at a 140 IQ.

That said, progress is being made on artificial intelligence and genetics, so that could all change.

Now that we agree on what you mean by heritable, can you clarify what you mean by intelligence?

In traditional psychometrics intelligence is usually operationally defined in terms of the tests them selves. These tests correlate broadly with SAT scores and we can probably agree that disabilities and environments exists which gives people obvious disadvantage when taking the SATs, and that those people should be accommodated accordingly.

Given that you accept the operationally defined term for intelligence, how should we treat group difference in IQ any differently than how we treat (or aspire to treat) group difference in SATs? In other words, why should we care about IQ at all?

Good questions.

I believe it is worth studying and debating the definition of intelligence. I believe modern IQ tests do a reasonable job of crystallizing a value which is both meaningful and useful. In general, the goal is to quantify an individual's mental potential, which might be understood as their processor speed, amount of RAM in their brain, pre-programmed learning algorithm, and so forth. As with any concept in social sciences it's difficult to define it perfectly, but I believe it's worth the effort.

As for why we should care?

1. Western societies spend incredible amounts of resources on programs to equalize opportunity for people. Large fractions of this money in most western nations are allocated based on what I view to be a misunderstanding of what enables a person to prosper financially or otherwise. Examples include universal preschool and the like. Accepting the reality of IQ would assist in eliminating ineffective programs and allocating capital more effectively.

2. The quasi-religious doctrine of universal racism is an existential risk to modern liberal democracy, and it is built fundamentally on the false premise that IQ is environmental or doesn't exist. Eliminating that premise would allow consideration of other explanations for differential outcomes between groups that don't rely on accusations of hatred and bigotry.

3. Major research institutions across America and abroad, as well as large corporations, risk decreasing the rate of technological and economic progress by implementing programs built on a quasi-religious premise that people are treated vastly unequally for reasons having nothing to do with their capability. Accepting IQ as a valid science and explanation would not only de-taboo important potential areas of research, it would eliminate costly and wasteful efforts which will never bear fruit, as they seek to address problems which don't even exist.

4. An incorrect understanding of the causes behind achievement gaps provides onramps to corrupt political participants who take advantage of the basic logical fallacy that "false statements can imply anything" to redirect funding and attention away from pressing issues. Concretely, this results in death and violence resulting from failure to properly apply the law and failure to differentiate between what is true and what is false. "Without vision, a people perish."

5. Acceptance of IQ enables creation of tiered magnet schools, trade schools and other opportunities which benefit all of society, particularly those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder but who test high. Instead, at least in America, the trend is toward the elimination of all magnet programs because they are "racist." The harms here are obvious, and they all stem from an unwillingness to even consider that IQ exists and might be genetic.

6. Refusal to discuss IQ leads to it being something that is whispered about behind closed doors, but cannot be discussed openly. This directly harms those who are often (and often wrongly) associated with groups that might be thought to have lower IQs. Bringing the reality of IQ into the open enables a real conversation about it, and it allows confronting racists on much more solid ground, since the debate is no longer undergirded with taboos and untruths.

7. Acceptance of IQ allows targeting social programs toward the truly needy, accounting for the reality that in modern human life, IQ is the variable that best correlates with material success. This would eliminate injustices like affirmative action programs going to wealthy immigrants from other nations instead of those truly in need. It levels the playing field and could serve as a basis for rational policy such as targeted universal basic income.

8. AI research will ultimately force us to accept IQ as largely genetic. Accepting IQ now will avoid some sort of schism in the coming decades over this question, and allow a more rational discourse over AI's role in our lives and how to best harness it and avoid its risks.

Is that sufficient?