US adults are dumber than the average human

nypost.com...

Now don't get your undies in a wad. Read the article first and you may realize that it has a point.

Adults in Japan, Canada, Australia, Finland and multiple other countries scored significantly higher than the United States in all three areas on the test. Beyond basic reading and math, respondents were tested on activities such as calculating mileage reimbursement due to a salesman, sorting email and comparing food expiration dates on grocery store tags.

Ok...big deal, right? But wait! There's more.

Not only did Americans score poorly compared to many international competitors, the findings reinforced just how large the gap is between the nation’s high- and low-skilled workers and how hard it is to move ahead when your parents haven’t.

This is just common sense to me. Probably to you as well.

Allow me to generalize what I see in this article. Poverty breeds more of the same and the wealthy take care of their own. And a good education plays a role in breaking that cycle.

What say you ATS denizens?

TDawgRex

Allow me to generalize what I see in this article. Poverty breeds more of the same and the wealthy take care of their own.

Obviously. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer because the rich keep doing what made them rich and the poor keep doing what they've always done.

This is also the key to the rich becoming poor and the poor becoming rich.

good education

Even if you could get such a thing in the US that's only half the solution. A good education is worthless if the student won't learn or can't learn. The most money spent per student in the world is worthless. the highest paid teachers in the world are worthless, the most high-tech facilities in the world are useless if a student doesnt have an intrinsic desire and the inherent ability to learn.

Education is primary, school is secondary.

Neither of my parents went to college, and they be boss.

The poor stay poor because of a combination of pressures keeping them in check, and their inability to rise above.

We started from scratch. I remember poverty well. Now we're into the 1%, and nobody in our family is pushing a political agenda.

Either you're talented enough, else conscientious enough. If you don't make the grade, you will stay below.

Just remember that class correlates with socioeconomic status, but doesn't always go hand in hand.

Be classy, sleazy, do whatever just keep swimming!!

Maybe the other countries don't dumb down their citizens so much.

You shouldn't be making threads like this Tdog. Someone may think you are talking about yourself again.

TDawgRex

Allow me to generalize what I see in this article. Poverty breeds more of the same and the wealthy take care of their own. And a good education plays a role in breaking that cycle.

What say you ATS denizens?

Poverty has little bearing on intelligence IMO. The issue is whether or not children can get a decent education in the US. Your post obviously proves they can't, dumbed down schools equals dumb people.

There's a thread that directly relates to this issue.
ATS Thread - "Dumber than an 1895 8th Grader"

reply to post by TDawgRex


Great article thanks for posting it

A warning not just to the US but to all parents

Motivate your kids people, teach them to question and to strive for better. To be better than we are.

Just my 2 cents/pence

Cody

reply to post by TDawgRex


similar studies have been conducted everywhere .....and guess what? The native population is always the "dumb" one.

The fact is unless we Americans are made from different stock then the rest of the world, then this can not be possible.

We are all very uninteresting in our differences as a species.


This is more about social engineering and making people hate themselves as a people so as to make them more malleable towards fundamental change.

Like the myth of obesity ....suddenly every country is a leader in obesity ....right...

No. sorry. This is just dumb. You don't become a world super power by being full of dumb people.

Think about this logically. The UK isn't full of dumb people either. You don't get the standing the UK has by being full of dumb people.

Get real.

Bassago

Poverty has little bearing on intelligence IMO. The issue is whether or not children can get a decent education in the US. Your post obviously proves they can't, dumbed down schools equals dumb people.

I agree with this. Raw intelligence as I see it cannot be taught in school, and I dont think an accurate assessment of adults intelligence really took place here. What did take place is the level of standardized knowledge that each group has, which school can serve the purpose of giving an individual.

It is no doubt that Americans are some of the dumbest in regards to level of knowledge. The American education system currently is a massive fail, just like the vast majority of its other current systems.

reply to post by Bassago


I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again. I dropped out of high school and retired at the ripe old age of 48. But I am not Steve Jobs, nor Bill Gates, etc, etc. Just a schmo that found school boring and not challenging enough.

Hell, in the two years that I have retired I am finding myself being left behind in the tech world. The crap is changing faster than I can adapt to it. (No, I don't do FB or Tweet) I'm to busy living life to stay on top of things.

But when it comes to the test they gave, I'm sure I could pass with flying colors. But it does verify what I've thought about my countrymen.

also how did they sample a population in the MANY millions over a CONTINENT?

Its like saying some dinky company "sampled " the population of ASIA...LOL

Over exposure to propaganda is obviously bad for the old IQ. Who'd a thot it?

tadaman

No. sorry. This is just dumb. You don't become a world super power by being full of dumb people.

Think about this logically. The UK isn't full of dumb people either. You don't get the standing the UK has by being full of dumb people.

Get real.

Since when have the tiny few been indicative of the capabilities and capacity of the many?

You are using logical induction, looking at an isolated sample and applying the attributes of that isolated sample to the whole, which is almost always a mistake.

I wrote a thread about doing that, and how playing to ones natural tendency to logically induce is used to shape the masses perceptions in ways beneficial to TPTB. Got like 3 readers... no one was interested.

To the point: you get to be a superpower through a handful of book smart physicists and engineers, a psychopathic government that will pour trillions into R&D to better kill people, and a moronic public whose easily controlled and manipulated into thinking that what the government is doing is for the masses benefit, and in thinking such they dont rebel, and even volunteer themselves to be bullet cushions when that government needs pawns to advance their position.

reply to post by TDawgRex


Nuh-uhhh..

Secont line.

reply to post by CaticusMaximus


not really. no.

You obviously never ran a business. You could be a genius but without skilled labor....you are a poor genius.
Also Like I said

the task of accurately sampling a population in the hundreds of millions spread over a vast continent is daunting to say the least.

ALSO we are as varied and diverse as the landscape we occupy.

sorry no

reply to post by tadaman

not really. no.

sorry no

Saying "no" to something doesnt refute it.

You obviously never ran a business. You could be a genius but without skilled labor....you are a poor genius.

Learning a skill and becoming proficient at it does not imply high intelligence; it implies a high trainablility with only the intelligence required to perform the routine tasks that that laborer needs on a day to day basis, which is usually not a lot.

the task of accurately sampling a population in the hundreds of millions spread over a vast continent is daunting ro say the least.

Depends on the sampling method.

You could be accurate, or inaccurate depending on how the survey was conducted.

However, Im not basing my opinion on this survey. My opinion is based on a lifetime of observation, and in that lifetime of observation, I have seen comparatively few examples of intelligence, to an uncountable plethora of examples of stupidity.

ALSO we are as varied and diverse as the landscape we occupy.

"We" are not a randomly generated series of numbers or images or bodies. There are patterns that exist within systems (species, race, nation, geographical location, etc), patterns of appearance, intelligence, behavioral tendencies, etc. And in those patterns, differing slightly as they may be, is an average, and that average is what is being presented here.

ETA: Also, you didnt really address any point I made directly. Feel free to.

reply to post by CaticusMaximus


Since we are taking a step away from this "survey " and basing our arguments on our own opinions ...

Then I too will reflect my lifetime of observations. I have had the unique opportunity to live and travel to Europe all throughout.

I will tell you that people over there are uninterestingly identical to Americans.

Boring in their differences. The same crap.

You also inferred that a work force that is highly trainable isn't smart. Wow. Ever train a dumb person?

You can't get an entire industry to thrive amidst strong competition and diverging trends without highly talented and intelligent people behind you. In the US we have SEVERAL industries where we are the world leaders.

Other nations have their niche as well.

Like I said the same crap.

The real measure of intelligence is the ability to wade through the BS of social programming to the shores of real personality and the edge of cultural idiosyncrasy ....and in that strength as a people.
This is all crap.

Greetings,

I would imagine it has something to do with this...

Psychology & Indoctrination for the Destruction of Critical Thinking in:

www.youtube.com...

The EyeOpener- Education & "National Security"

www.youtube.com...

An Angry History of Modern Education

www.youtube.com...

The Pathological Methodology of Forced Schooling John Taylor

www.youtube.com...

Human Resources: Gatto explains the seedy origin of public education-indoctrination

www.youtube.com...

So you see, we are ALL crippled in this fashion and it's not a problem inherent to ONLY America, but this is just one mans opinion.

-Amitaba-

reply to post by tadaman


While every country should, in terms of intelligence quotient, be similar according to normative analysis, different variables can alter the functionality of that intelligence. The key variable for this difference would be education and that would result in the differences between the testing of foreigners v. US. There is a duality within the educational system here in the US. The majority of students go through schooling without learning basic concepts such as critical thinking, logic, and more. They are essentially given lessons to learn by rote and repetition. Makes for good and obedient workers.

The second aspect of the US educational system is for the intellectual elite. However, one of the interesting things about this program is that there has been persistent allegations that children of wealthy parents are basically put into these programs due to their parents' pressure. This second type of education begins with teaching subjects such as critical thinking (usually at the 3rd grade level), analysis, game theory, and more. Both of my children were in such programs (as was I). Just last week, one of my daughter's classmates asked the teacher what the difference was between their class and the other class of the same name (same teacher for both). Their teacher responded that in the other class, the students are simply asked to memorize information. In their class, however, they are asked to both memorize information and deal with it creatively.

Straight out of Bertrand Russell's Scientific Outlook:

Education in a scientific society may, I think, be best conceived after the analogy of the education provided by the Jesuits. The Jesuits provided one sort of education for the boys who were to become ordinary men of the world, and another for those who were to become members of the Society of Jesus. In like manner, the scientific rulers will provide one kind of education for ordinary men and women, and another for those who are to become holders of scientific power.

Two forms of education modeled after the Jesuits.

Ordinary men and women will be expected to be docile, industrious, punctual, thoughtless, and contented. Of these qualities probably contentment will be considered the most important. In order to produce it, all the researches of psycho-analysis, behaviourism, and biochemistry will be brought into play. Children will be educated from their earliest years in the manner which is found least likely to produce complexes. Almost all will be normal, happy, healthy boys or girls. Their diet will not be left to the caprices of parents, but will be such as the best biochemists recommend. They will spend much time in the open air, and will be given no more book-learning than is absolutely necessary. Upon the temperament so formed, docility will be imposed by the methods of the drill-sergeant, or perhaps by the softer methods employed upon Boy Scouts. All the boys and girls will learn from an early age to be what is called"co-operative," i.e. to do exactly what everybodyis doing. Initiative will be discouraged in these children, and insubordination, without being punished, will be scientifically trained out of them

Use of psycho-analysis in the schools--Educational psychology--check.
Use of biochemistry--Ritalin et al--check.
Diet not left to the caprices of parents--School lunch program (breakfast available, too!)--check.
Much time in the open air--Recess--check.
No more book learning than necessary--Minimum basic standards--check.
Methods of a drill sargeant but softer--authoritarian relationship between staff and student--check.
Cooperative work--school group projects--check.

The second form of education as per Russell, aka The Governing Class:

Those children, on the other hand, who are destined to become members of the governing class will have a very different education. They will be selected, some before birth, some during the first three years of life, and a few between the ages of three and six. All the best-known science will be applied to the simultaneous development of intelligence and will-power...The scientific outlook will be instilled from the moment that a child can talk, and throughout the early impressionable years the child will be carefully guarded from contact with the ignorant and unscientific. From infancy up to twenty-one, scientific knowledge will be poured into him, and at any rate from the age of twelve upwards he will specialize on those sciences for which he shows the most aptitude... From the age of twelve upwards he will be taught to organize children slightly younger than himself, and will suffer severe censure if groups of such children fail to follow his lead. A sense of his high destiny will be constantly set before him, and loyalty towards his order will be so axiomatic that it will never occur to him to question it. Every youth will thus be subjected to a threefold training: in intelligence, in self-command, and in command over others.

Early identification/selection from "governing class"--identification begins as early as kindergarten--check.
Scientific outlook instilled/Science poured in-- critical thinking, analysis and statistics, heavy emphasis on STEM subjects--check.
Guarded from contact with the ignorant and unscientific--segregated learning environment that fosters isolation from core school--check.
Specialization in sciences of most aptitutde--Individualized Education Plan with heavy focus on STEM--check.
Taught to organize children slightly younger--students are assigned younger children to be "buddy" to (not kidding), heavy emphasis on use of persuasion including written--check.
Sense of high destiny--The Hero's Journey--check.
Loyalty to his order--propaganda usage--check.
Continuation to age 21--in middle and high school, specialized magnet schools for exceptionally talented youth. At college level, I know I received an invitation to join a specialized peer group of similar individuals, which I declined.--check.

The Scientific Outlook by Bertrand Russell, page 235 in browser

Doesn't look so good. On a rather silly and related side note to hammer in this probability, when Bertrand Russell was 11 years old, he was introduced to the works of Euclid. Last year, my daughter and her peers learned all about Euclid's work including perfect numbers and Mersenne Primes at ages 10-11. Kind of a major coincidence there. Grade schoolers don't typically learn number theory.

Okay, where do us Americans on ATS sign up? We could easily change the results.

All you had to do was put a picture of George W on and that would be proof enough.