Irony?



Pick any thread in GD and read the responses to see how many people read even 2 paragraphs of the first block of text.

We've supplanted focused reading with superficial parsing and emotional reaction. This isn't isolated to GD.

People seem to only read titles now.

You can see evidence for that in what people react to and when they make obvious mistakes that are easily spotted by anyone that's read the articles / posts.

Then he popped a flex and put some dumbass kid who was going to turn out that way into a spladle.

People skim to see if it is worth reading.

TLDR started not long after Gutenberg’s machine was invented.

When everyone goes to university, by definition university students will be average.  It’s just math.

There is good news hidden in this report.

Invest in crayon manufacturers for guaranteed future profits.

I’d be willing to wager that grad students are as dumb if not dumber than most undergrads.

This is pretty common knowledge.

Not counting Ag Colleges, Teacher colleges, let alone preacher schools, -

Your traditional College/University in 1940 was not graduating anyone with an IQ below around 115.  Only about 15% of the population is at 115 or above.  And the average was around 127 or so.  Only about 5% of the population is at 125 or above.Only 5% of adults had a 4 year degree or higher.  Less than that for women.  More than that for men.

A few key points about this.  There are more dumbass men than there are dumbass women.  There are more “bright women than there are “bright” men.  They have a more centered bell shaped curve than men.  This intersects on the right at maybe an IQ of 112 or so.  Higher than that, there are a shitload more brilliant men than there are brilliant women.
Also, populations of distinct historical geographic origins have different means.  Some populations will be under presented and some over represented.

Forty years later, around 20% of the population had a degree.  And the mean IQ of a grad was down to about 120.
A full 15% of grads were below 115.

About a decade ago, around 1/3 had a degree.  (It’s almost 40% now)
The average IQ was down to about 115.
Over 40% were below that.

Yes, a classic liberal arts education-
Whether is was a B.S. in Physics, B.A. in English, B.A. in History, B.A. in Chemistry, B.S. in Chemistry, etc. had serious work and requirements.

The below was written by Robert A. Heinlein I believe in the late 60s.  I had first read it in the 1980s and again in the early 90s and understood it better.  I had a professor that had heard him speak on the topic- and the basic premise is post WWII there was a 50% increase in college enrollment and a lot a new little colleges formed to lap up .gov money- and that the intent of getting more good people meant for college that couldn’t afford it was overshadowed by a lot of sub par institutions and students and the democratization of education.  And that by the time the kids born in the 40s got to college and flood of enrollment- and demand for degrees without having to work hard or be smart or do hard classes, and impact of compulsory secondary education ,etc. had already been changing even more reputable institutions that were - while still full of hard courses and majors and bright students, were developing a growing sub population of “non college material students with horrible elementary and secondary educations learning nothing to get a worthless degree.”  And obviously the trend hads grown and evolved into what we have now.

Please buy Expanded Universe.  This is included in it.


Decline of Education
My father never went to college. He attended high school in a southern Missouri town of 3000+, then attended a private 2-year academy roughly analogous to junior college today, except that it was very small—had to be; a day school, and Missouri had no paved roads. Here are some of the subjects he studied in back-country 19th century schools: Latin, Greek, physics (natural philosophy), French, geometry, algebra, 1st year calculus, bookkeeping, American history, World history, chemistry, geology.

Twenty-eight years later I attended a much larger city high school. I took Latin and French but Greek was not offered; I took physics and chemistry but geology was not offered. I took geometry and algebra but calculus was not offered. I took American history and ancient history but no comprehensive history course was offered. Anyone wishing comprehensive history could take (each a one-year 5-hrs/wk course) ancient history, medieval history, modem European history, and American history—and note that the available courses ignored all of Asia, all of South America, all of Africa except ancient Egypt, and touched Canada and Mexico solely with respect to our wars with each. I’ve had to repair what I missed with a combination of travel and private study … and must admit that I did not tackle Chinese history in depth until this year. My training in history was so spotty that it was not until I went to the Naval Academy and saw captured battle flags that I learned that we fought Korea some eighty years earlier than the mess we are still trying to clean up. From my father’s textbook I know that the world history course he studied was not detailed (how could it be?) but at least it treated the world as round; it did not ignore three fourths of our planet. Now, let me report what I’ve seen, heard, looked up, clipped out of newspapers and elsewhere, and read in books such as Why Johnny Can’t Read, The Blackboard Jungle, etc. Colorado Springs, our home until 1965, in 1960 offered first-year Latin—but that was all. Caesar, Cicero, Virgil—Who dat? Latin is not taught in the high schools of Santa Cruz County. From oral reports and clippings I note that it is not taught in most high schools across the country. “Why this emphasis on Latin? It’s a dead language!”

Brother, as with jazz, in the words of a great artist, “If you have to ask, you ain’t never goin’ to find out.” A person who knows only his own language does not even know his own language; epistemology necessitates knowing more than one human language. Besides that sharp edge, Latin is a giant help in all the sciences—and so is Greek, so I studied it on my own. A friend of mine, now a dean in a state university, was a tenured professor of history—but got riffed when history was eliminated from the required subjects for a bachelor’s degree. His courses (American history) are still offered but the one or two who sign up, he tutors; the overhead of a classroom cannot be justified. A recent Wall Street Journal story described the bloodthirsty job hunting that goes on at the annual meeting of the Modern Languages Association; modern languages—even English—are being deemphasized right across the country; there are more professors in MLA than there are jobs.

I mentioned elsewhere the straight-A student on a scholarship who did not know the relations between weeks, months, and years. This is not uncommon; high school and college students in this country usually can’t do simple arithmetic without using a pocket calculator. (I mean with pencil on paper; to ask one to do mental arithmetic causes jaws to drop—say 17 x 34, done mentally. How? Answer: Chuck away the 34 but remember it. (10 + 7)2 is 289, obviously. Double it: 2(300 - 11), or 578. But my father would have given the answer at once, as his country grammar school a century ago required perfect memorizing of multiplication tables through 20 x 20 = 400 … so his ciphering the above would have been merely the doubling of a number already known (289)—or 578. He might have done it again by another route to check it: (68 + 510)—but his hesitation would not have been noticeable. Was my father a mathematician? Not at all. Am I? Hell, no!

This is the simplest sort of kitchen arithmetic, the sort that high school students can no longer do—at least in Santa Cruz. If they don’t study math and languages and history, what do they study? (Nota Bene! Any student can learn the truly tough subjects on almost any campus if he/she wishes—the professors and books and labs are there. But the student must want to.) But if that student does not want to learn anything requiring brain sweat, most U.S. campuses will babysit him 4 years, then hand him a baccalaureate for not burning down the library. That girl in Colorado Springs who studied Latin—but no classic Latin—got a “general” bachelor’s degree at the University of Colorado in 1964. I attended her graduation, asked what she had majored in. No major. What had she studied? Nothing, really, it turned out—and, sure enough, she’s as ignorant today as she was in high school. Santa Cruz has an enormous, lavish 2-year college and also a campus of the University of California, degree granting through Ph.D. level. But, since math and languages and history are not required, let’s see how they fill the other classrooms.

The University of California (all campuses) is classed as a “tough school.” It is paralleled by a State University system with lower entrance requirements, and this is paralleled by local junior colleges (never called “junior”) that accept any warm body. UCSC was planned as an elite school (“The Oxford of the West”) but falling enrollment made it necessary to accept any applicant who can qualify for the University of California as a whole; therefore UCSC now typifies the “statewide campus.” Entrance can be by examination (usually College Entrance Examination Boards) or by high school certificate. Either way, admission requires a certain spread—2 years of math, 2 of a modern language, 1 of a natural science, 1 of American history, 3 years of English—and a level of performance that translates as B+. There are two additional requirements: English composition, and American History and Institutions. The second requirement acknowledges that some high schools do not require American history; UCSC permits an otherwise acceptable applicant to make up this deficiency (with credit) after admission. The first additional requirement, English composition, can be met by written examination such as CEEB, or by transferring college credits considered equivalent, or, lacking either of these, by passing an examination given at UCSC at the start of each quarter. The above looks middlin’ good on the surface. College requirements from high school have been watered down somewhat (or more than somewhat) but that B+ average as a requirement looks good … if high schools are teaching what they taught two and three generations ago. The rules limit admission to the upper 8% of California high school graduates (out-of-state applicants must meet slightly higher requirements). 8%—So 92% fall by the wayside. These 8% are the intellectual elite of young adults of the biggest, richest, and most lavishly educated state in the Union. Those examinations for the English-composition requirement: How can anyone fail who has had 3 years of high school English and averages B+ across the board? If he fails to qualify, he may enter but must take at once (no credit) “Subject A”—better known as “Bonehead English.” “Bonehead English” must be repeated, if necessary, until passed. To be forced to take this no-credit course does not mean that the victim splits an occasional infinitive, sometimes has a dangling modifier, or a failure in agreement or case—he can even get away with such atrocities, as “—like I say—.” It means that he has reached the Groves of Academe unable to express himself by writing in the English language.

It means that his command of his native language does not equal that of a 12-year-old country grammar school graduate of ninety years ago. It means that he verges on subliterate but that his record is such in other ways that the University will tutor him (no credit and for a fee) rather than turn him away. But, since these students are the upper 8% and each has had not less than three years of high school English, it follows that only the exceptionally unfortunate student needs “Bonehead English.” That’s right, isn’t it? Each one is eighteen years old, old enough to vote, old enough to contract or to marry without consulting parents, old enough to hang for murder, old enough to have children (and some do); all have had 12 years of schooling including 11 years of English, 3 of them in high school. (Stipulated: California has special cases to whom English is not native language. But such a person who winds up in that upper 8% is usually—I’m tempted to say “always”—fully literate in English.) So here we have the cream of California’s young adults; each has learned to read and write and spell and has been taught the basics of English during eight years in grammar school, and has polished this by not less than three years of English in high school—and also has had at least two years of a second language, a drill that vastly illuminates the subject of grammar even though grasp of the second language may be imperfect. It stands to reason that very few applicants need “Bonehead English.” Yes? No! I have just checked. The new class at UCSC is “about 50%” in Bonehead English—and this is normal—normal right across California—and California is no worse than most of the states. 8% off the top— Half of this elite 8% must take “Bonehead English.”

The prosecution rests.  This scandal must be charged to grammar and high school teachers … many of whom are not themselves literate (I know!)—but are not personally to blame, as we are now in the second generation of illiteracy. The blind lead the blind. But what happens after this child (sorry—young adult citizen) enters UCSC? I TELL YOU THREE TIMES I TELL YOU THREE TIMES I TELL YOU THREE TIMES: A student who wants an education can get one at UCSC in a number of very difficult subjects, plus a broad general education. I ask you never to forget this while we see how one can slide through, never do any real work, never learn anything solid, and still receive a bachelor of arts degree from the prestigious University of California. Although I offer examples from the campus I know best, I assume conclusively that this can be done throughout the state, as it is one statewide university operating under one set of rules. Some guidelines apply to any campus: Don’t pick a medical school or an engineering school. Don’t pick a natural science that requires difficult mathematics. (A subject called “science” that does not require difficult mathematics usually is “science” in the sense that “Christian Science” is science—in its widest sense “science” simply means “knowledge” and anyone may use the word for any subject … but shun the subjects that can’t be understood without mind-stretching math.) Try to get a stupid but good-natured adviser. There are plenty around, especially in subjects in which to get a no-sweat degree; Sturgeon’s Law applies to professors as well as to other categories. For a bachelor’s degree:

1) You must spend the equivalent of one academic year in acquiring “breadth”—but wait till you see the goodies!

2) You must take the equivalent of one full academic year in your major subject in upper division courses, plus prerequisite lower division courses. Your 4-year program you must rationalize to your adviser as making sense for your major (“Doctor, I picked that course because it is so far from my major—for perspective. I was getting too narrow.” He’ll beam approvingly … or you had better look for a stupider adviser).

3) Quite a lot of time will be spent off campus but counted toward your degree. This should be fun, but it can range from hard labor at sea, to counting noses and asking snoopy questions of “ethnics” (excuse, please!), to time in Europe or Hong Kong, et al., where you are in danger of learning something new and useful even if you don’t try.

4) You will be encouraged to take interdisciplinary majors and are invited (urged) to invent and justify unheard-of new lines of study. For this you need the talent of a used-car salesman as any aggregation of courses can be sold as a logical pattern if your “new” subject considers the many complex relationships between three or four or more old and orthodox fields. Careful here! If you are smart enough to put this over, you may find yourself not only earning a baccalaureate but in fact, doing original work worthy of a Ph.D. (You won’t get it.)

5) You must have at least one upper-division seminar. Pick one in which the staff leader likes your body odor and you like his. (“I do not like thee, Dr. Fell; the reason why I cannot tell—”) But you’ve at least two years in which to learn which professors in your subject are simpatico, and which ones to avoid at any cost.

6) You must write a 10,000 word thesis on your chosen nonsubject and may have to defend it orally. If you can’t write 10,000 words of bull on a bull subject, you’ve made a mistake—you may have to work for a living.

The rules above allow plenty of elbowroom; at least three out of four courses can be elective and the remainder elective in part, from a long menu. We are still talking solely about nonmathematical subjects. If you are after a Ph.D. in astronomy, UCSC is a wonderful place to get one … but you will start by getting a degree in physics including the toughest of mathematics, and will study also chemistry, geology, technical photography, computer science—and will resent any time not leading toward the ultra-interdisciplinary subject lumped under the deceptively simple word “astronomy.” Breadth—the humanities, natural science, and social science—1/3 in each, total 3/3 or one academic year, but spread as suits you over the years. Classically “the humanities” are defined as literature, philosophy, and art—but history has been added since it stopped being required in college and became “social studies” in secondary schools. “Natural science” does not necessarily mean what it says—it can be a “nonalcoholic gin”; see below.

“Social science” means that grab bag of studies in which answers are matters of opinion. Courses satisfying “breadth” requirements Humanities Literature and Politics—political & moral choices in literature Philosophy of the Self Philosophy of History in the Prose and Poetry of W B. Yeats Art and the Perceptual Process The Fortunes of Faust Science and the American Culture (satisfies both the Humanities requirement and the American History and Institutions requirement without teaching any science or any basic American History. A companion course, Science and Pressure Politics, satisfies both the Social Sciences requirement and the American History and Institutions requirement while teaching still less; it concentrates on the post-World-War-II period and concerns scientists as lobbyists and their own interactions [rows] with Congress and the President. Highly recommended as a way to avoid learning American history or very much social “science.”) American Country Music—Whee! You don’t play it, you listen. Man and the Cosmos—philosophy, sorta. Not science. Science Fiction (I refrain from comment.) The Visual Arts—“What, if any, are the critical and artistic foundations for judgment in the visual arts?”—exact quotation from catalog. Mysticism—that’s what it says. (The above list is incomplete.) Natural Science requirement General Astronomy—no mathematics required Marine Biology—no mathematics required Sound, Music, and Tonal Properties of Musical Instruments—neither math nor music required for this one! Seminar: Darwin’s Explanation Mathematical Ideas—for nonmathematicians; requires only that high school math you must have to enter. The Phenomenon of Man—“—examine the question of whether there remains any meaning to human values.” (Oh, the pity of it all!) Physical Geography: Climate The Social “Sciences” requirement Any course in Anthropology—many have no pre-req. Introduction to Art Education—You don’t have to make art; you study how to teach it. Music and the Enlightenment—no technical knowledge of music required. This is a discussion of the effect of music on philosophical, religious, and social ideas, late 18th-early 19th centuries. That is what it says—and it counts as “social science.” The Novel of Adultery—and this, too, counts as “social science.” I don’t mind anyone studying this subject or teaching it—but I object to its being done on my (your, our) tax money.


(P.S. The same bloke teaches science fiction. He doesn’t write science fiction; I don’t know what his qualifications are in this other field.) Human Sexuality Cultural Roots for Verbal and Visual Expression—a fancy name of still another “creative writing” class with frills—the students are taught how to draw out “other culture” pupils. So it says. All the 30-odd “Community Studies” courses qualify as “social science,” but I found myself awed by these two: Politics and Violence, which studies, among other things, “political assassination as sacrifice” and Leisure and Recreation in the Urban Community (“Bread and Circuses”). Again, listing must remain incomplete; I picked those below as intriguing: Seminar: Evil and the Devil in the Hindu Tradition. Science and Pressure Politics—already mentioned on page 237 (Volume II) as the course that qualifies both as social “science” and as American History and Institutions while teaching an utter minimum about each. The blind man now has hold of the elephant’s tail. The Political Socialization of La Raza—another double header, social “science” and American History and Institutions. It covers greater time span (from 1900 rather than from 1945) but it’s like comparing cheese and chalk to guess which one is narrower in scope in either category.


The name of this game is to plan a course involving minimum effort and minimum learning while “earning” a degree under the rules of the nation’s largest and most prestigious state university. To take care of “breadth” and also the American history your high school did not require I recommend Science and Pressure Politics, The Phenomenon of Man, and American Country Music. These three get you home free without learning any math, history, or language that you did not already know … and without sullying your mind with science. You must pick a major … but it must not involve mathematics, history, or actually being able to read a second language. This rules out all natural sciences (this campus’s greatest strength). Anthropology? You would learn something in spite of yourself; you’d get interested. Art? Better not major in it without major talent. Economics can be difficult, but also and worse, you may incline toward the Chicago or the Austrian school and not realize it until your (Keynesian or Marxist) instructor has failed you with a big black mark against your name. Philosophy? Easy and lots of fun and absolutely guaranteed not to teach you anything while loosening up your mind. In more than twenty-five centuries of effort not one basic problem of philosophy has ever been solved … but the efforts to solve them are most amusing. The same goes for comparative religion as a major: You won’t actually learn anything you can sink your teeth into … but you’ll be vastly entertained—if the Human Comedy entertains you. It does me. Psychology, Sociology, Politics, and Community Studies involve not only risk of learning something—not much, but something—and each is likely to involve real work, tedious and lengthy. To play this game and win, with the highest score, it’s Hobson’s choice: American literature. I assume that you did not have to take Bonehead English and that you can type. In a school that has no school of education (UCSC has none) majoring in English Literature is the obvious way to loaf through four years. It will be necessary to cater to the whims of professors who know no more than you do about anything that matters … but catering to your mentors is necessary in any subject not ruled by mathematics.

Have you noticed that professors of English and/or American Literature are not expected to be proficient in the art they profess to teach? Medicine is taught by M.D.’s on living patients, civil engineering is taught by men who in fact have built bridges that did not fall; law is taught by lawyers; music is taught by musicians; mathematics is taught by mathematicians—and so on. But is—for example—the American Novel taught by American novelists? Yes. Occasionally. But so seldom that the exceptions stand out. John Barth. John Erskine fifty years ago. Several science-fiction writers almost all of whom were selling writers long before they took the King’s Shilling. A corporal’s guard in our whole country out of battalions of English profs. For a Ph.D. in American/English literature a candidate is not expected to write literature; he is expected to criticize it. Can you imagine a man being awarded an M.D. for writing a criticism of some great physician without ever himself having learned to remove an appendix or to diagnose Herpes zoster? And for that dissertation then be hired to teach therapy to medical students? There is, of course, a reason for this nonsense. The rewards to a competent novelist are so much greater than the salaries of professors of English at even our top schools that once he/she learns this racket, teaching holds no charms. There are exceptions—successful storytellers who like to teach so well that they keep their jobs and write only during summers, vacations, evenings, weekends, sabbaticals. I know a few—emphasis on “few.” But most selling wordsmiths are lazy, contrary, and so opposed to any fixed regime that they will do anything—even meet a deadline—rather than accept a job. Most professors of English can’t write publishable novels … and many of them can’t write nonfiction prose very well—certainly not with the style and distinction and grace—and content—of Professor of Biology Thomas H. Huxley. Or Professor of Astronomy Sir Fred Hoyle. Or Professor of Physics John R. Pierce. Most Professors of English get published, when they do, by university presses or in professional quarterlies. But fight it out for cash against Playboy, and Travis McGee? They can’t and they don’t! But if you are careful not to rub their noses in this embarrassing fact and pay respectful attention to their opinions even about (ugh!) “creative writing,” they will help you slide through to a painless baccalaureate. You still have time for many electives and will need them for your required hours-units-courses; here are some fun-filled ones that will teach you almost nothing: The Fortunes of Faust Mysticism The Search for a New Life Style The American Dilemma—Are “all men equal”?

Enology—history, biology, and chemistry of wine-making and wine appreciation. This one will teach you something but it’s too good to miss. Western Occultism: Magic, Myth, and Heresy. There is an entire college organized for fun and games (“aesthetic enrichment”). It offers courses for credit but you’ll be able to afford noncredit activity as well in your lazyman’s course—and anything can be turned into credit by some sincere selling to your adviser and/or Academic Committee. I have already listed nine of its courses but must add: Popular Culture —plus clubs or “guilds” for gardening, photography, filmmedia, printing, pottery, silkscreening, orchestra, jazz, etc. Related are Theater Arts. These courses give credit, including: Films of Fantasy and Imagination—fantasy, horror, SF, etc. (!) Seminar on Films Filmmaking History and Aesthetics of Silent Cinema History and Aesthetics of Cinema since Sound Introduction to World Cinema Sitting and looking at movies can surely be justified for an English major. Movies and television use writers—as little as possible, it’s true. But somewhat; the linkage is there. Enjoy yourself while it lasts. These dinosaurs are on their way to extinction.

The 2-year “warm body” campus is even more lavish than UCSC. It is a good trade school for some things—e.g., dental assistant. But it offers a smorgasbord of fun—Symbolism of the Tarot, Intermediate Contract Bridge, Folk Guitar, Quilting, Horseshoeing, Chinese Cooking, Hearst Castle Tours, Modern Jazz, Taoism, Hatha Yoga Asanas, Aikido, Polarity Therapy, Mime, Raku, Bicycling, Belly Dancing, Shiatsu Massage, Armenian Cuisine, Revelation and Prophecy, Cake Art, Life Insurance Sales Techniques, Sexuality and Spirituality, Home Bread Baking, Ecuadorian Backstrap Weaving, The Tao of Physics, and lots, lots more! One of the newest courses is “The Anthropology of Science Fiction” and I’m still trying to figure that out. I have no objection to any of this … but why should this kindergarten be paid for by taxes? “Bread and Circuses.”

I first started noticing the decline of education through mail from readers. I have saved mail from readers for forty years. Shortly after World War Two I noticed that letters from the youngest were not written but hand-printed. By the middle fifties deterioration in handwriting and in spelling became very noticeable. By today a letter from a youngster in grammar school or in high school is usually difficult to read and sometimes illegible—penmanship atrocious (pencilmanship
—nine out of ten are in soft pencil, with well-smudged pages), spelling unique, grammar an arcane art. Most youngsters have not been taught how to fold 8½" x 11" paper for the two standard sizes of envelopes intended for that standard sheet. Then such defects began to show up among college students. Apparently “Bonehead English” (taught everywhere today so I hear) is not sufficient to repair the failure of grammar and high school teachers who themselves in most cases were not adequately taught. I saw sharply this progressive deterioration because part of my mail comes from abroad, especially Canada, the United Kingdom, the Scandinavian countries, and Japan. A letter from any part of the Commonwealth is invariably neat, legible, grammatical, correct in spelling, and polite. The same applies to letters from Scandinavian countries. (Teenagers of Copenhagen usually speak and write English better than most teenagers of Santa Cruz.) Letters from Japan are invariably neat—but the syntax is sometimes odd. I have one young correspondent in Tokyo who has been writing steadily these past four years. The handwriting in the first letter was almost stylebook perfect but I could hardly understand the phrasing; now, four years later, the handwriting looks the same but command of grammar, syntax, and rhetoric is excellent, with only an occasional odd choice in wording giving an exotic flavor.

Our public schools no longer give good value. We remain strong in science and engineering but even students in those subjects are handicapped by failures of our primary and secondary schools and by cutback in funding of research both public and private. Our great decline in education is alone enough to destroy this country … but I offer no solutions because the only solutions I think would work are so drastic as to be incredible.

The GCT cognitive test has never been re-centered and is still in use.
Pretty much ever other IQ/cognitive test or proxy test/measure has undergone recentering, and often flat out attempts to revamp them to decrease the delta between dumbasses and smart people.  And failed to do so.  So the current move is to do away with them.

An IQ test can’t tell me if you’re  great at playing an instrument.  Or are a gifted sculptor.  It does not measure creativity.  Or stuff like empathy, etc.  or if you are prone to gambling, substance abuse, etc.
But, the basic screen of memory, working memory, processing speed, and pattern recognition, -
That we call IQ, even if it does not encompass all aspects of intelligence, or if you choose to feel “whose to say what intelligence is” have around a century of reproducible data with significant correlations to academic success, ability to complete certain training, education, etc., better income, better net worth, less getting shot, stabbed, or assaulted, less motor vehicle accidents, less emergency medical visits, less overdoses and toxic ingestions, less obesity, less medical complications, etc.

The actual evaluation of this repeatedly demonstrates stupid people and people not good at something overestimate themselves, while brilliant people more accurately estimate their abilities to the point even further out underestimate them.

The Flynn effect was not because people were getting smarter.

It was the average going up because of less people on the far/bottom left of the IQ scale.
Through environmental stuff like not letting your kids eat paint chips, recognizing congenital metabolic disorders, improved nutrition, vaccinations decreasing children born with defects because got the disease while pregnant with them, etc.

In the founding era and back to the early colonial era, IIRC, the students (possibly for seminary, maybe for all of them?) were not only required to take greek, they required them to master it well enough to be able to debate in it. You could not graduate if you were not able to do that.

Collectively we know a lot more "stuff" than they do, but individually we seem to be dunces compared to them.

"but no comprehensive history course was offered."
That hurts in my bones.

Amateur history podcasters have filled in that gap for me. It's a shame that comprehensive meta-narrative history is denied to students.  

This series on rome was great: http://historyofrome.wm.wizzard.tv/001_birth_of_a_nation

You do realize that you just said the flynn effect is not because people were getting smarter than you turned around and said that people are getting smarter at the bottom of the scale because of better living conditions.

I'm fact the stupidest people lack the capacity to understand that they are stupid.  see: The Dunning-Kruger Effect

More specifically, I said people were not getting smarter,
But infectious, nutritional, and environmental factors that damage people and decrease their intelligence have been lessened.  

On the plus side,  a college education isn't what it once was,  so Plato remains satisfied.

And they run the country today

Seriously?  On average, it’s average?


I’m just speechless

Dumb down to serve the modern student.

"I think intelligence has been pretty consistent over time" - Yeah, I'm gonna have to disagree. I bet people in the 40s and 50s knew what a woman was.

Average people vote. They elect representatives that are much like the population.

Those politicians then make it some everyone can get a federally guaranteed load to go to college.

People shocked that students are now overpaying for a substandard product do to demand from average people that shouldn't be there.

So people who get advanced degrees in things like medicine or engineering are smarter? Who saw that coming?

Post-WWII America produced a society wealthy enough for a universal 16-year education to be economic. Ike's education programs were national security priorities, we needed to lead the world and beat the Soviets at STEM.

We haven't done a great job of getting value out of those investments, at any level.

Part of the problem is that education is at the bottom of that SAT score by major distribution.

A good education, whether it's formal or not, has value beyond employment.

I feel pretty safe saying that whatever intelligence is, it's not knowledge of what's true or false.

There seem to be some things that are so obviously wrong that only the very intelligent fall for it - because they are the only ones capable of pulling off the mental gymnastics required to trick themselves into believing it.

Marxism seems to be one of those things.

Marxists have to be intelligent - you have to be just to deciper the utter gibberish they speak in - but almost everything they say is real or true ... isn't. The things they have to do to make their stupid system mentally work are really something to behold.

The basic 4 components of IQ, that we use as a measure of intelligence-
Ability to know and recall knowledge, capacity for active working memory, processing speed, and pattern recognition-
Have nothing to do with your belief system, weakness for bipolar gingers, fetish for big haired smoking 80s looking trashy chicks, inability to stop gambling, propensity for substance abuse, etc.

Smart people certainly do less stupid stuff and suffer less consequences as a result, but knowing something you really, really want to do is a bad idea isn’t always enough to stop from doing it.

Belief systems are also often ingrained early.  Not a lot of 35 year olds just up and decide to become a Mormon or decide to go all in on being Catholic.  Most 40 years don’t just say, hey, maybe I’ll start smoking.  Which is why progressives want in on our kids so bad and work so hard to hammer stuff in during the education years.

This is honestly not surprising at all....Freshman...have like 50-100 kids in Math 101
Sophmore....30-40 in like Calc
Junior 15-20 in QBA 200 and 300s
Senior 10 people in the Financial Statement analysis and Accounting 400s classes. LOL

Then you get to reconvene with your other fellow students in the business school for the capstone course.

You start to feel like king ding a ling because the Marketing, Gen Biz, HR, Biz Admin majors are all lost when it comes to the actual financials. The worst were the HR grads...completely useless. We just had them buy coffees

Do they even think about what they write?

“First, universities and professors need to realize that students are no longer extraordinary but merely average, and have to adjust curricula and academic standards. Second, employers can no longer rely on applicants with university degrees to be more capable or smarter than those without degrees. “

So instead of failing people to make a degree meaningful, we should lower standards. But that means employers can’t expect smarter people. Yeah, cuz you lowered the standards. Apparently they already lowered the standards, because this is passing as publishable work. FFS.

Yes.  There are way dumber people in college and with degrees than there used to be.

Now go to the other exit the contractors use and get some pictures.  There is no absence of fucktarded shit among the tradesmen either.

Thank you for typing that out. I hate when dumb people decry IQ tests without even a rudementary understanding of what IQ is let alone the testing and it’s coralations to real world potential conformations of capability.

Maybe he didn't want to carry whatever's there in the cart's shelf, after refusing a bag from the store due to environmental concerns.

Fuck colleges.

Pick a year, any year, you see the same arrogance. Really nothing new.

Not sure if that's true.  When I see a fat body I immediately subtract 15 points off my estimate of their intelligence and am rarely disappointed.  Today theyre everywhere and they are incapable of reading and projecting their lifestyle going forward to assess the risks, or they're just lazy which likely bleeds into other areas of learning and intelligence.   Add in all the junkies today versus the post WW2 era and I'd said your blowing smoke.  Environmental factors I can go along with.

You just quoted one.

(or maybe you knew that )

I didn't know, actually.

Suspected, but didn't know.

Millenials may never have heard the story of the wunder children and how they tried to run the war.

It’s objectively what happened and documented.

IQ is a factor totally separate from drive, ambition, discipline, etc.

Is every single person that is 6’8.7” tall a star power forward in the NBA?
Is every 7’ tall person a MVP center in the NBA?

Think of IQ in life as like height in the NBA.
It’s a fantastic gift, but not the sole factor.

Synopsis: School used to be harder and not everyone was given a trophy.

Most people do. Interestingly enough, the most intellectually humble people I've known were really, really, smart.

I've been to college. I'd say that most of those students are at least as dumb, if not dumber than the average idiot.

Hell, they let me in, after all...

Perhaps related

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2023/12/06/nearly-80-percent-grades-yale-were-last-year

Roughly 79 percent of the grades awarded at Yale University in the 2022–23 academic year were A’s or A-minuses, according to a new report by a Yale economics professor, published by The New York Times.

That’s more than a 20 percent increase since 2010–11, when just over 67 percent of all grades were A’s or A-minuses. But it’s still a decline from the peak pandemic years of 2020–21 and 2021–22, when the share of top grades was nearly 82 percent and 80 percent, respectively. (The 2019–20 academic year was not included in the study because most classes were offered pass-fail.)

During that same period, from 2010–11 to 2022–23, the share of B’s and lower fell from 17.4 percent to 11.3 percent.

The distribution of top grades differed by discipline; while 52.4 percent of economics grades and 55 percent of math grades were A’s or A-minuses, 80 percent of history and 81 percent of English grades were.

According to the report, the average GPA at Yale has also risen, from 3.6 in 2013–14 to 3.7 last year.

Yep, the study linked in the OP does indeed discuss the problem of grade inflation.

our man from denmark will no doubt concur.

as a TA/lab teacher, i was given a grade quota and told that if i didn't meet it, i would have to defend my grading.  this was 10-12 years ago - i can't imagine how bad it has gotten since.

Grade inflation is indeed a problem.

However comma


Let’s say your in a class with 20 people with the average IQ being 140 and nobody under 130,
Everyone in the room has been through a year plus of calc, a year of physics with Calc, a year of Gen chem, a hear or O Chem, and is in a brutal class only physics, chem, and CE majors would be in.

This isnt a bunch of recreation management majors taking a basic math class in college for their requirement at the middle school level or internet no math pre req/no GMTs mat required MBA students.

It’s not unlikely everyone will get an A.  Or everyone will get As and Bs.

Great! Now walk around with a senior high school math text from 1940 and asses pass fail.

Then do some backward analysis and tell me again that people are more intelligent than they used to be.

It rather depends on the course the prof is giving and how he grades things.

...

and if the managment he works under will let him do things the way he thinks best.

IMO grades are just a signal that you played the game the way it was intended first ... how good you are a far second from that. But that's just my very uninformed "Minute of barn" opinion.

I was just making the point that a couple of years into undergrad and beyond-
Especially in some majors/fields-
The grade system doesn’t really apply in the same way, shape, or form as it did in English or bio 101.
It’s like, say college is a gym and to pass everyone has to bench 225.  You get a C for 245, a B for 275, and an A for 315.
Anything over 315 is an A+.  
In a class where everyone can put up 405…

Let alone some social anthropology major gets the same credit/GPA from their “A” in “college algebra” while the physical anthropology major just got a B in Calc.