
Originally Posted by
Naiad
This may be controversial, but I'm surprised that this hasn't been brought up on the other comment section either - is it possible that these numbers are also affected by immigration and increasing proportions of certain "minority" populations that tend to have lower test results?
I'm not suggesting that these populations are stupid, but iq tests were basically made for and by western/primarily white populations, at least that is one theory as to why many "minority" populations tend to score lower, because the tests are biased. It might not really translate well for people who come from certain backgrounds. Plus the fact that it only tests for certain types of intelligence, and the fact that a lot of these populations receive less education overall, or are not as encouraged to, have less exposure to, or in some cases unable to access certain types of resources due to a variety of complex socioeconomic and cultural factors.
But beyond that, I agree that there are other factors that play into this, such as intelligent people having less children. It could be argued that the women's rights movement and access to birth control has something to do with this (another controversial idea, I know...but bear with me). Like, back in the day women were basically expected to have children, and on top of that it was difficult to have much of a choice on the matter. So it all kind of equaled out between less intelligent and more intelligent women. Now, an intelligent woman would be discouraged by many of her peers to have children, and there's a lot more pressure to have a career and "make use of your intelligence/abilities" in other ways (and she may very well prefer this, too). Whereas the "less intelligent" women continue to have more children for a variety of reasons, and though she may have access to birth control as well, she may be less concerned about the implications of it in terms of her career, the "use of her abilities", how her peers will view it, etc. (Totally not trying to say that if you have kids at a young age you're less intelligent. There are plenty of very intelligent and gifted, thoughtful women with kids and it's an extremely important and immense task. But at the very least where I'm from, the social pressure to not have children could be enough to change the mind of someone who is on the fence).
I'm not really sure what the solution is to the above dilemma because I imagine that with the way we currently address it, less intelligent and educated people will probably always have more kids, on average, than women who are more intelligent. Touting the benefits of not having or waiting to have children will prob always seem more appealing and accessible to intelligent and ambitious women. But I'm not saying we all need to start pumping out babies. Maybe part of the solution is cultural, such as valuing intelligence more (both emotional and cognitive) and being less accepting of the garbage our society consumes via the media. Being less complacent. Having more resources for children and young adults who come from disadvantaged families and backgrounds, whether their family is just poor, or is supportive of poor life decisions, or is abusive, or they are facing discrimination, so then as adults they can break away from the cycle, whether they choose to have children or not.
And I agree that our environment and quality of our food, and other cultural factors, such as our use of technology, having lower standards (arguably, or perhaps it's more complex then that), and increased social isolation play a role as well.
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