I can’t believe I’m saying this to defend the people who most often used it to justify their racism but the IQ test is not an objective measure of intelligence and was designed by eugenicists.
Also, the difference between the countries with the highest average IQ and the US was 10 points, which is the same kind of increase you can get in IQ testing scores if you tell the tester that they’ll get $10 if they do well.
Or if they played Tetris regularly. (Although that might be correlational only).
Part of the test is pattern recognition. Playing Tetris trains that.
I don’t think it was designed by eugenicists. I think it was used by eugenicists and the original creator warned against it being used that way. Basically like Darwinism.
I’ve said this so many times. There’s not even only one kind of intelligence. I once made a music video for what would be the best country fiddle player you ever heard. He literally couldn’t write his own name when he signed the contract.
We can’t even come up with a test that transcends all cultural biases. If we could come up with an objective test, the smartest person in the world could turn out to be an indigenous Brazilian living a stone-age life in the middle of the Amazon.
And if the smartest person in the world was from Slovenia, they probably wouldn’t be able to do anywhere near as well in the Amazon as some of the stupidest members of communities who live there.
Only when you’re behind. Lol.
Totally. The history of intelligence has sadly also been the story of eugenics. Fortunately, there have been process-based theories and contextual theories that have defined intelligence in more humane and useful ways. In this view, IQ tests do not measure an underlying characteristic, but a set of mental skills. Seen this way, intelligence becomes something people can gain with nurturance. If you’re interested, check out Relational Frame Theory.
According to the chart, here are a few other countries where the average is “dumber than the average human”:
Australia
Belgium
Belize
Brazil
Canada
Chile
Czech Republic
Denmark
France
Finland
Germany
India
Israel
Italy
Mexico
I suppose dunking on those stupid Belgians isn’t as eye catching of a headline as good, old fashioned America Bad bait.
Do you think many Beliz…ians loudly proclaim themselves the greatest nation on earth, and act like it too? Has Chile squandered a good deal of the world’s productive output to produce a literally civilisation ending military capability and put it in the hands of morons?
A blind person on the bus is only a problem if they’re driving.
As an Estonian, I am glad to see Finland on the list.
I’m impressed you can do so well on the test while being estoned 24/7.
I wish weed was legal here. That would be amazing, but no we deal with horrific prices, horrific taxes and pretty bad pay. Atleast the country itself is beautiful (mostly).
You chose the worst example in the list, because Belgians are famously the butt of “haha they’re dumb” jokes, getting it from both their French and Dutch neighbours (maybe Germans too?).
I’d pick the Danes since they’re typically seen as a more evolved people.
For France, it just makes sense tbh.
Also the whole galaxy.
https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Belgium
“You stupid Ghent” - Ford Prefect
There’s also this.
Israel dumb woo!
Obviously. They think stealing from and murdering your neighbors brings peace. They dumb as hell.
I should be another one of those “dumber than the average human” folks (and yesterday Lemmy told me so because they are saying two different apps on my phone are the same app…?) but am pretty sure the thing with Israel went off the Hanlon’s razor long ago.
Miserable fat Belgian bastards!
would you watch it with the B word please
I have been to Czechia few times, the people there are definitely not dumb, lol.
Iirc the show “Where in the World is Carmon Sandiego?” was created by the government of the US because something like half of US Americans couldn’t identify the Pacific Ocean on a map.
Edit: it was 25%
The show was created partially in response to the results of a National Geographic survey indicating little knowledge of geography among some of the American populace, with one in four being unable to locate the Soviet Union or the Pacific Ocean.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_in_the_World_Is_Carmen_Sandiego%3F_(game_show)
They also couldn’t find the Soviet Union on the map (literally the biggest country in the world) in 1991.
Do not confuse a poor education with a lack of intelligence. This is because the American educational system is broken. It says nothing about the average American’s intelligence.
Is not “we have most if the world’s wealth, we’re aware that 25% of our populationvm can’t find the biggest ocean in the world in a map, and we also won’t allocate funds to schools to fix this” a sign of low intelligence?
No, it’s a sign of greedy people wanting to keep a population ignorant.
Ignorance is not the same as unintelligence. To use the example I gave elsewhere, an indigenous Amazonian couldn’t find the Pacific Ocean on a map either. That doesn’t mean they’re stupid, and they’re far more likely to survive long-term in the Amazon than people the West regard as geniuses.
Yes. We cannot measure intelligence. We can only measure culturally-relevant knowledge
Generally, its in the interest of a country to have knowledgeable people. Its an investment that pays back well in $$$
Qualitatively, I argue that a country that doesn’t allocate funds to make their population knowledgeable is not an intelligent country, regardless od what knowledge they try to teach (be it the three sisters or geography or mathematics or whatever)
I agree. Hence my comment about the American educational system being broken. It hasn’t been invested in for a long time.
But that doesn’t mean that Americans are, on average, less intelligent. It means that the system failed them.
OK, so I guess you’d agree that the people who control the US government are either unintelligent or very bad at their joba
As I said above:
No, it’s a sign of greedy people wanting to keep a population ignorant.
An ignorant population is a compliant population. That’s why so many other nations have ruined their education system and replaced it with propaganda.
True. Unfortunately, we don’t have a way to measure intelligence that isn’t inherently racist.
“Let’s make a TV show to teach kids instead of actually fixing our education system”
I’m not sure you understand how governments work. PBS decided to make this show. They can’t change the school funding.
Yeah, but it had an awesome theme song. Do it, Rockapella!
Nuh, africa is the biggest country!
Like, that’s the biggest ocean and biggest country in the world. I wonder how many in the 75% just randomly pointed at blue and got lucky at identifying the Pacific Ocean.
The actual number of people who didn’t know where is the Pacific Ocean must be higher, because of the ones who guessed and got lucky.
They only got the number to 75% after putting the labels back on the map
LPT. If you know any new parents, one of the best gifts is a world map for the baby’s room. Teach them colors and shapes when they are little; then numbers and letters; finally history and politics.
Thats a really good idea for a gift. I usually buy condoms.
It’s for parents with a new baby. Condoms would be quite early for the later and much too late for the former.
The purpose isn’t to change the past, but to prevent it from happening again
I think a globe, but sure
I mean…yeah. They COULDN’T find the soviet union in 1991. It disolved in 1990.
It dissolved in December 1991.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union
Wow what an incredibly xenophobic and hateful headline.
Also from the author himself:
The studies used to support these data, however, are controversial. This is in part because they may have considered only specific population groups or a small sample size per country.
What productive and enlightening kind of discussions were you expecting with that headline, OP?
Never underestimate the urge non Americans have to make fun of America.
It gets a bit annoying tbh. I’m born and raised in London, however spent a good number of years in America. Met amazing people, and forged lifelong friendships to boot. Over here people are given the impression that it’s overall a rather dangerous and hate filled place… There’s no winning arguments though, my former coworkers find the enthusiasm and general cheeriness of the Americans they met as a huge downside. I just don’t get it.
Britland is basically American but worse (which is kinda of a given), so it checks out
Also never underestimate American fragility.
US American*
Were pretty humble down here in Mexico.
Sour grapes Brit confirmed
Yeah I’m not American but it’s particularly egregious (shocking for you Americans 😉) as it states that the score for the USA was 98 and the global average was 100.
So OP is an ass for that title imo.
But that makes the title true?
Well I would say IQ tests don’t equate to actual intelligence. I also take issue with the adjective dumber.
OP could have worded it better, something like:
Americans score lower than average on IQ tests. USA: 98 VS Global: 100.
Not just you, but the creator of the IQ test himself, and most experts
Most people have an above average number of arms.
But pretty median number of them.
50% of americans are more intelligent than average american.
More intelligent than the median American.
Maybe not the mean American because the distribution is skewed as IQs can be higher than 200 but not negative.
Technically, yes.
In practice there are but a handful of people with an IQ at or above 200 (the rarity of that is less that 1 in 4 billion - source ).
Even if we do take in account that the bottom of the IQ in live humans is in fact a bit higher than zero, because the extremes are so incredibly rare, the deviation of the mean from the median is in practice minuscule.
1 in 4 billion
Your source was calculated using the NORMDIST function in Excel. Not from empirical data.
Here’s an actual list containing more than 2 people above 200
because the extremes are so incredibly rare, the deviation of the mean from the median is in practice minuscule
Opinion dressed up as fact. To give a counter example this study showed that there were substantial departures from normality in the distribution.
Yeah, the 1 in 4 billion seemed exaggerated on the low end when I read it. I went ahead with it anyway since, even if there are 1000 people with an IQ at or above 200, that by itself would not pull the curve upwards much (because it’s 1000 out of 8 billion people) and hence your original claim that the mean is not the same as the median “because the distribution is skewed as IQs can be higher than 200 but not negative” was bollocks.
My point stands untouched that the justification you originally gave backing your claim that the IQ mean not being the same as the median was mathematically unsupported or, as you so colourfully put it: “opinion dressed as fact”.
As for this paper you linked, it curiously doesn’t back your claim either. From the abstract, we get that whilst the mean is 100 and the mode is indeed 105, the statistical distribution of IQs is NOT a Normal Distribution but rather the sum of TWO Normal Distributions. This means that you can’t in fact make claims about the median from the mode (as you would be able to for a normal distribution, were mean = median = mode) because a sum of two normal distributions has TWO peaks so you can perfectly have one at 105 and another one below that which can yield a median which is equal to or even below the mean.
Again from the abstract those two distributions are “one reflecting normal variation in general intelligence and one refecting normal variation in effects of genetic and environmental conditions involving mental retardation”, which seems to imply that the second has a peak at an IQ value below the first.
That said, I don’t even disagree that your claim that the median is above the mean might be right. What I have yet to see from you so far is something other than “opinion dressed as fact” or quoting of papers which don’t mathematically back your point.
In before “MeDiAn iS A TyPe oF AveRAgE, huRRR”.
The rational person in me knows that IQ as a metric of intelligence has long since been proven to be bullshit pseudoscience.
But the anti-american in me is just going to turn that part of my brain off and chuckle for a few moments…
As an American, this article fits with my experience… but I honestly thought the gap would be larger.
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I found the comment I was gonna make.
Never have they smashed the down arrow quite as hard .😆
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not sure whether to up vote or downvoted this comment
If you’re not sure, you should do nothing…
I don’t know why you would downvote it. Does it spread hate or misinformation? If not, dont downvote
Oh look, all the stupid Africans. Jesus, how could anyone not question this?
I mashed the down arrow because it’s probably more strongly correlated with GDPPPP or access to free, high quality education than an inherent measure of intelligence. Crappy correlations to pseudomeasurements and concepts with racist results? What is this, the SATs?
Healthline is a shit tier source to be fair. Even wikipedia says it is a terrible source. They put it in the same category as the daily mail.
Looks like links to it are completely blacklisted, too. That’s rare to see.
Healthline is a medical resource that is substantially written by non-expert freelance writers and reviewed by non-expert advisors. The content is frequently incorrect misinformation, sometimes dangerously so. Due to the heightened requirements for biomedical and medical sources on Wikipedia, the consensus of editors … was to deprecate Healthline as an unusable source … and to blacklist Healthline as a hazard to readers. References to Healthline should be removed from Wikipedia.
Brutal. If Wikipedia don’t fuck with you just delete yourself off the internet.
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We probably need to put some national safeguards in place that keep the states from fucking their own educational systems over.
There should be a national minimum for educational standards that the states are not allowed to bypass.
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It’s nearly impossible to do anything good when you have a major conservative party set on doing bad.
You could have a position of “We should provide food to all children so they can learn without being distracted by hunger” and people would be like “that’s communism i’d rather those kids starve”
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I’m proud my state started giving out free breakfasts and lunches to all schoolchildren, regardless of income, year round, a full year before Walz did.
I don’t think there are many non-Americans in this thread who are surprised by this.
I’ve lived in the States. I’m not surprised either.
Yeah really. Step 2.54 cm beyond any metropolitan area and the US is deeply lacking in positive quality of life.
This is a well written article. I’m not sure how the OP came to their conclusion. The US ranks 24th on average IQ (with an IQ of 98) and is in good company with France, Denmark, Australia also at 98. For those curious, Canada, Finland and Germany were 99.
24th out of 102 should not be considered “dumber than average”. Additionally, as the article clearly states, the average has been going up, approximately 3 points per decade, and this is partly due to an increase in logical thinking.
East Asia is the outlier here, with many countries at 101 or higher (China at 105) though I find it curious that Hong Kong and Macau were singled out separately from China.
I wonder if these higher numbers have something to do with the homogeneity within these cultures, the average age of the county’s population, and/or, as another commenter mentioned, the way in which the higher IQ countries approach education.
IQ doesn’t measure intelligence.
Says you?
Says experts. This is why its illegal to use IQ tests for placements in many places. Because its racist. It does not measure intelligence.
What does the abbreviation stand for?
Per the Wikipedia definition:
An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardised tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence.
Believe it or not, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is not a democracy or a republic.
Do you mean to tell me that you are not actually a flying squid!?
Now you’re going too far.
What does DPRK stand for?
Just because something stands for something, doesn’t mean it is that thing
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24th out of 102 should not be considered “dumber than average”.
Isn’t, by definition, a score of 100 in the test supposed to be average…? If so, 98 would definitely be below average, though not by much.
Consider the numbers presented. If you can figure out the math on how to get the 24th ranked countries out of 102 rankings to be below 100, then I’ll reconsider.
The countries who rank higher than 100 only have about 1.5 billion people within them and their average is only slightly higher compared to the countries that have an average significantly lower. For example, India with its 1 billion people is on there at an average of 82.
The math doesn’t add up for an average global human. I think we need to know more about how the scores in the study are calculated.
These national tests are yeesh material tho. Subtle, or not so subtle, at least tangential to, eugenicist or nationalistic ideals.
So entire countries are, according to this article, functionally mentally disabled? I find that hard to believe given the bell curve of IQ results.
It’s almost like the test implicitly advantages people similar to the ones who made and maintain it, anr shouldn’t br used as an objective measure of intelligence.
