People are getting stupider?

rE /ˈstjuːpɪd/ ; NAmE /ˈstuːpɪd/
(stupider, stupidest)
more stupid and most stupid are also common
OED
Sorry MargaretX, “stupider and stupidest “are correct.

luzdoh - I have just been looking at google maps to try to locate exactly where the plantation mentioned in the novel I am reading is located.
I'm getting rather cross because I know the area and keep thinking things like 'the heroine should have turned right, not left, there!'.
Then I have to tell myself 'Jalima - it's fiction'!

Talking about Satnavs, a few years back I was driving my grandson to Farmer Parrs, a petting farm near Fleetwood.
I could see it on my right hand side, but the Satnav said turn left!
So what did I do? Well to cut a long story short, I eventually arrived at our destination.
I am still fascinated how Fax machines operate.

A lot of what we refer to as General Knowledge is cultural, so an American's concept of what smart people know is different from a French person's. Similarly an older person's differs from a younger person's and a scientist's differs from a historian's. They all know lots of 'stuff', but it's different stuff. I'm sure some scientists are interested in history, so they cross the divide. Lots of school children know lots of things we don't - how to sort out the computer, Sky box or mobile being cases in point. My top set 11yr olds would have known how to work out the 6th row of Pascal's Triangle, alledgedly the hardest question ever in University Challenge, maybe pencil and paper would have helped, but they could have done it quickly, a couple maybe in their head.

I thought that IQ scores had been largely discredited.

But what is the alternative? Many of the figures we use to measure all kinds of things are flawed, for example BMI but in the absence of anything better, they are better than nothing.

I wonder how quizqueen is privy to Trump's IQ, or is she just going by his own statements about his genius?

GS1 who is 11 now wants to know exactly how Steven Hawkin worked out how the big bang happened. His mother (PhD in biochemistry) tried to get away with saying he used maths but he wanted to know exactly what formula he was working with. Hopefully he'll get interested in something else before he realises how little the rest of his family know about it!

I would not be surprised. Technology today makes people lazy. When I was at school we had to use our brains for things like maths and spelling, nowadays they use calculators and text speak. Common sense seems to be frowned on as well, kids are not allowed to 'think' for themselves, it's all about following the rules and NOT being allowed to take risks because of the infamous health and safety! Even a lot of 'sports days' are designed to win points for a particular class rather than an individual child, as children shouldn't have to experience what it is to come 2nd, 3rd or, god forbid, come last. Hmmmm, wonder how these kids cope when they join the 'real world'?

Deedaa f GS1 is interested in maths problems generally, Fermats Last Theorem by Simon Singh is a brilliant read.

The maths in it is explained extremely well and clearly - I am mathematically challenged but followed it easily - and the book itself is engrossing.

As for Hawking, if he’s asking the questions then he will follow A Brief History of Time itself without much trouble. The appendices will put him on the trail of more explanatory material - equations included!

M0nica but why do you think we need IQ tests? What useful purpose do you feel they serve?
I know a child who is currently having tutoring for non verbal reasoning ...... seems to defeat the purpose

he wanted to know exactly what formula he was working with.
well, we all know the one used for black holes .....

They provide a guide to a child's ability, very necessary when the child may have other problems. The state primary school my children attended dismissed a friend's child as 'just not very clever' because of his reading difficulties. An educational assessment, including IQ tests not only showed that he was actually dyslexic, but that far from being not very clever, he was actually very clever. Something anyone who knew him well was very aware of. But teachers do not listen to parents and their friends, but an IQ test convinces them.

Nor is his case, the only one, their use occurs regularly in court cases when it can be shown that a defendant was of limited intelligence and unable to fully foresee or understand the results of actions he took.

I used to work with gifted and talented children and several came our way when they had been referred for an educational assessment because it was thought they had learning difficulties. IT turned out that they were exceptionally bright and bored rigid at school so had just zoned out completely and completely dissociated themselves from everything going on in the classroom, giving an impression of learning difficulties. I could go one but I won't.

I think this obsession with IQ tests not being indicative of anything, not reliable etc etc. Is all part of the anti intellectualist slant of British Society. I have never heard any one make these criticisms of EQ or measures of creativity or that holiest of the holiet statistics, BMI, which are just as approximate as IQ.

IQ tests - I worked as an Ed. Psych for 26 years and must have administered at least 10,000 individual IQ tests to children.
Mostly WISC and Stanford Binet. Also Griffiths baby scales. Each test takes about one and a half hours to administer.
Those are at best a general indicator of a child's particular strengths and weaknesses in comparison with his/her peers - on that day and in that situation.
There have been several other IQ tests devised mostly aimed at adults which in my opinion are less thorough. And with adults more external factors to affect the results. eg cultural.
So I'm rather sceptical about the sweeping statement that people are getting stupider based on mass IQ figures.