Are People Getting Dumber?(popsci.com)
popsci.com
Are People Getting Dumber?
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-11/are-people-getting-dumber-one-geneticist-thinks-so
2 comments
Link to the actual paper here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168952512...
I'm curious as to what HN thinks about this.
I'm curious as to what HN thinks about this.
I'm curious as to what HN thinks about this.
Since you asked, I'll say that Crabtree has certainly mastered the Science News Cycle
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174
by making a press release that has had uptake from dozens of news outlets. But none of those news outlets seem to have reporters on staff who are competent to judge the genetics issues involved, or who even know sources in the Behavior Genetics Association. (The article you have kindly submitted has better sourcing and analysis than most of the previous articles based on the same press release that I have seen, as the reporter took more care before rushing to print.) I have friends in the Behavior Genetics Association (I'm part of the Facebook group for the association), and I've already asked them about this. Gerald Crabtree has some interesting institutional affiliations and previous accomplishments,
http://www.hhmi.org/research/investigators/crabtree_bio.html but he is not leading researcher on the genetics of human intelligence--I have met most of those at a meeting of the International Society of Intelligence Research. If I saw more discussion of this idea in the actual science online sites rather than just in gee-whiz popular articles, I would think that there is more "there" here.
Have you seen reviews of James R. Flynn's new book Are We Getting Smarter? Flynn's book deals with much more recent times (just the last century) but has the advantage of being based on actual IQ tests.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1107609178
http://www.cambridge.org/us/knowledge/isbn/item6835805/Are%2...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044403240457800...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/sep/28/are-we-getting-s...
Flynn is very well respected among behavior geneticists for his careful research work.