←back to thread

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

(www.popularmechanics.com)
256 points hirundo | 2 comments | 10 Apr 23 13:00 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
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?

replies(6): >>35514708 #>>35515280 #>>35517739 #>>35518020 #>>35518556 #>>35519141 #
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.
replies(7): >>35517869 #>>35517966 #>>35518072 #>>35518112 #>>35518249 #>>35518570 #>>35518709 #
ZeroGravitas ◴[10 Apr 23 21:56 UTC] No.35517869[source]▶
A summary:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Emil_O._W._Kirkegaard

replies(3): >>35518284 #>>35519092 #>>35523758 #
joenot443 ◴[11 Apr 23 00:19 UTC] No.35519092[source]▶
This site isn’t really any above EncyclopediaDramatica in its proximity to reality. It’s a meme pit for teenagers, not really somewhere to be taken seriously.
replies(2): >>35520607 #>>35521803 #
KingMachiavelli ◴[11 Apr 23 03:53 UTC] No.35520607[source]▶
Really? I've checked a range of topics and the Rational Wiki seemed spot on. Do you know of any topics it's completely wrong or unfair on?

It of course takes side on some issues like Atheism, Religion but nothing unexpected for a site to be unapologetically rational/empirical.

replies(2): >>35520869 #>>35525450 #
1. joenot443 ◴[11 Apr 23 14:13 UTC] No.35525450{3}[source]▶
> Tesla Motors is a car company figure-headed by Elon Musk. It is famous for being the only company with a commercially available car floating in space. It makes electric cars, which made the news for catching fire.[133][134] As it turns out, though, while Teslas caught fire, they did so at a much lower rate than the cars relying on controlled explosions of flammable material.

>Despite being a rock star of scientific progress and innovation, a busy professional with a million things to do and a good understanding of the essential importance of good communication, Elon still finds time to tweet stupid shit every now and then. He apparently loves Tweeting so much, he bought 9.2% of Twitter, making him the single largest shareholder of the company.

Is that worth defending? I donno, it's not even up to date. I'm no Musk fan at all, but I think it's a pretty good example of what kind of intellectual position the authors are acting from. Maybe we have different standards for where we get our information, but I just can't read stuff like that and pretend the authors are people operating with even on iota of good faith.

Perhaps the comparison to ED is a bit harsh. In my opinion, ED is 4chan-based satire for immature and ideologically minded teenagers. RW is a series of stale reddit dunks for immature and ideologically driven teenagers.

replies(1): >>35561511 #
2. KingMachiavelli ◴[13 Apr 23 20:18 UTC] No.35561511[source]▶
> RW is a series of stale reddit dunks for immature and ideologically driven teenagers.

Yea it's certainly a bit immature and yea it doesn't have the ruthless update frequency Wikipedia has but it's almost never plain wrong. I think most reasonable people would agree Elon tweets too much and it often gets him in trouble.