Dan Hannan: Falling IQ scores may explain why politics has turned so nasty
"I’ve worked out why we loathe each other so much — why democracy throughout the West, and especially in the United States, has become so partisan, so adversarial, so angry.
It’s because we’re getting stupider.
Pundits have been writing for over a decade about increasing political polarization.
...The fall in IQ scores in the West is perhaps the most under-reported story of our era.
For most of the twentieth century, IQ rose by around three points per decade globally, probably because of better nutrition.
But that trend has recently gone into reverse in developed countries.
You hadn’t heard?
I’m not surprised.
Journalists and politicians won’t go near the subject and you can see why.
Consider the theories offered by neuroscientists for the decline.
Some argued it had to do with the rising age of motherhood, because the children of older mothers tend to have lower IQs, other things being equal.
No one likes to say this, because it can come across as “older moms have dumb kids,” which is not true.
...Other theories were even more explosive.
...But a new study from Norway, which examines IQ scores from 730,000 men (standardized tests are part of military service there) disproves all these ideas,
because it shows IQ dropping within the same families.
Men born in 1991 score, on average, five points lower than men born in 1975.
There must, in other words, be an environmental explanation, and the chronology throws up a clear suspect: the rise in screen-time.
Kids brought up with Facebook and Instagram are more politically bigoted, not because they don’t hear alternative opinions, but
because they don’t learn the concentration necessary to listen to opponents — a difficult and unnatural skill..."
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