Human race is losing inteligence.

[Professor T]

Well, considering that "intelligence" is spelled incorrectly in the thread title (that's been up since Feb.)...no argument from me here.

Yeah, was picked up by Beany back in February..

I did that on purpose..

[stereologist]

I would like to suggest that the issue of intelligence has not change. What is being discussed is the willingness or maybe the need of individuals to learn. People are certainly learning different things as has been pointed out. Has the ability to learn changed? That is what the thread is really asking.

[Professor T]

Yeah, kind of.. good point..

Essentially though, as a collective, humanity is loosing cognitive ability..

technology sure has changed how we learn, but maybe not our ability to learn..

One needs a spark of inspiration to get off ones **** to go out and learn new things.. Call it Spiritual, call it incentive, call it whatever you like but whatever it is seems to be lacking in this day and age..

Would you be surprised to hear that the human race is slowly becoming dumber, and dumber? Despite our advancements over the last tens or even hundreds of years, some ‘experts’ believe that humans are losing cognitive capabilities and becoming more emotionally unstable. One Stanford University researcher and geneticist, Dr. Gerald Crabtree, believes that our intellectual decline as a race has much to do with adverse genetic mutations. But human intelligence is suffering for other reasons as well.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Professor T

[Lilly]

IMO one of the reasons humans are becoming dumber has to do with reproduction. Most intelligent people choose to limit the number of children they have, whereas less intelligent people seem far less inclined to do so. Now, there are exceptions to this, it's just a general tendency. Over time the genetics necessary for intelligence are present in fewer and fewer people. I think this is part of what's happening.

[Piney]

I think of it as "sensory retardation". Humans are losing the awareness of what's going on around them. They are no longer paying attention to sights, sounds and common sense. When I'm pointing something out in the woods or at a archeology site I see the sudden "oh wow! I wasn't thinking of that" look a lot.

[nec207]

Every time I have to fight some gawmless cross-eye'd subway caterer who has to be told three times what I want to on my foot-long I wonder if humanity is getting dumber..

Turns out we are...

http://naturalsociet.../#ixzz2LOpmcFPF

Edited to add: Personally I think there are many more reasons for this.. Much more than listed in the artical for sure..

So only one university thinks people are being dumber? With out more university doing studies that not really scientific. Also they may be misinterpreting education with IQ. In the old days you did not go to next grade to you prove you can go to next grade.Now days they just pass you from grade to grade .So you have people in high school that really should be in third rade.Now so many kids in high school can't read.

[XenoFish]

If you don't exercise your mind it will atrophy. So pick up a book and read. Even if your just reading stuff off the internet. Read. People have become lazy because technology can and does take some of the brain work out of life. Yet, it takes brain work to learn how to use and work with technology. Plus the quality of education in the U.S. sucks. My kids are home schooled now, and are further along than their friends who are in public school. Stuff that the public kids should be learning mine are. Public schools just push kids through instead of actually trying to teach them. Which is unfortunate for the kids.

[nec207]

If you don't exercise your mind it will atrophy. So pick up a book and read. Even if your just reading stuff off the internet. Read. People have become lazy because technology can and does take some of the brain work out of life. Yet, it takes brain work to learn how to use and work with technology. Plus the quality of education in the U.S. sucks. My kids are home schooled now, and are further along than their friends who are in public school. Stuff that the public kids should be learning mine are. Public schools just push kids through instead of actually trying to teach them. Which is unfortunate for the kids.

Well school are like that every where not just US these days.They don't wont to say sorry kid you cannot go to next grade you don't understand the work.So they pass you to next grade even though you don't understand the work.

[XenoFish]

Sad but true. The school's my kids attended spent their money on their sports teams, instead of newer books. That's just wrong.

[spud the mackem]

Some kids don't want to be taught subjects so they "switch off" no matter how hard the Teacher tries to educate them,I used to switch off during Music lessons but I excelled in Maths,English and Geography,nowadays in English schools you are allowed to drop subjects that you aren't interested in, but Maths and English are Mandatory.

[toast]

At a supermarket shopping last year I buyed some stuff including a fresh savoy cabbage. At the

cashpoint a 18-20yo nice young lady was on duty, she fingertipped the savoy cabbage and asked me:

"What kind of salad is that?"

I: "It´s a savoy cabbage, darling."

"Never saw one before. Hihihi."

No comment.

[JGirl]

and here i was thinking sort of the opposite recently.

i'm in my fifties but i interact at work and on certain forums online with people in their early twenties a lot of the time.

i'm amazed at the intelligence and maturity level of so many of these young adults and can't help remembering what the headspace of my generation was at that stage. we certainly weren't that intellectual or philosophical lol

[spud the mackem]

and here i was thinking sort of the opposite recently.

i'm in my fifties but i interact at work and on certain forums online with people in their early twenties a lot of the time.

i'm amazed at the intelligence and maturity level of so many of these young adults and can't help remembering what the headspace of my generation was at that stage. we certainly weren't that intellectual or philosophical lol

Ask any young adult to do Long Division or percentages in maths and they look at you blankly,because they have calculators to do this and these are now allowed in exams.

[Frank Merton]

With better nutrition people probably are smarter, just as they are taller and live longer.

[JGirl]

Ask any young adult to do Long Division or percentages in maths and they look at you blankly,because they have calculators to do this and these are now allowed in exams.

this is true, but it doesn't make them less intelligent. it just means they don't learn that particular skill.

[XenoFish]

That is a interesting question, what really is intelligence? I've had friends who were dumb as dirt but could rebuild a car engine like it was nothing. In my own case I was always a poor math student. Factions and converting factions to decimals was my strong point. Now I program CNC machines like it's nothing.

I would honestly say I'm above average in intelligence but not by much. Yet I can turn what I imagine into a reality though math, art, and heavy machinery. Maybe real intelligence is a combination of other skills, such a communication and mental/physical ability?

[Sir Smoke aLot]

Well stupidity rulez this days. Take 'selfie' for example. Not to mention other things.

[Professor T]

I had the pleasure of talking to a retired Industrial Chemist this weekend.. Our topic of conversation touched on everything from human intelligence to Robert Oppenheimer & Nuclear fission occurring naturally in the ancient past.. He was in his 80's.. Retired... He said something quite profound that has stuck..

"We only know a tiny fraction of a percent of what there is to know.. And even then, our knowledge is shrinking and what we think we know isn't necessarily the truth.."

That was pretty much the closest thing to truth I've heard this year.. And when you think about it, it's kind of scary to realize that.. When we are younger we think we know everything, and our world and what we know is built on firm foundations.. What we are taught is consumed and upheld like it is gospel. But when people get older, a little wiser, we come to realize that much of those foundations we've built our society upon are lies and ideas that only resemble truth or concrete knowledge.. The laws and bindings that hold civilization in place are flimsy and no longer serve our needs.. What we were taught as gospel wasn't the case. And the only thing that seems to be keeping us going now is a habitual need to ask questions and get answers, and survive.. If it weren't for that habit, I think we'd be heading back towards the stone age..

Intelligence IMO is only a reflection of the surface of our environment and what we need to know to survive.. It neither grows nor shrinks, it only adapts and evolves to it's environment as though it's algae in a pond. The trick to greater intelligence isn't therefore knowing as much as you can about one thing or another, it's knowing that you know only a tiny fraction of a percent of what there is to know about anything, and that if you stop asking questions and getting answers that you are dragging us all back to the stone age..

[Mikko-kun]

Intelligence needs to reform, yeah... can't have all those cobwebs. Seriously. People have a need to put things to words, for obvious reasons, but when you do that either words or thought are different from intended, you adapt your words or your thoughts unless your thoughts are already adapted to that mold. Language-thinking thing.

I think our use of intelligence is off balance. You focus too much on one thing, forget the other, is what it means to look with just one eye. I sometimes focus a good deal on weighting things out inside, letting thoughts mould out sort of. Too much deep pondering. You need an anchor with that kinda thinking, some kinda vantage point, realism. It doesn't have to be a life-long anchor but something you can rest on. Nothing is longer than life anyhow... sceptics need to believe in their favourite scientists and believers need to learn to read and do basic math so they can tell themselves there's sense in what they believe in. You need to put your own thinking pattern & thinking habit to test if you wanna be intelligent. Not school test but test whether you can handle the other kinds of thinking-ways than what you're used to.