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Monday, February 18, 2019

Vox Popoli: Cognitive catastrophe


A new book confirms and explains the cognitive collapse of the West:
Today we can confirm that hereditary intelligence has been declining. Dutton and Woodley summarize the evidence, which includes deterioration in simple reaction times, color discrimination, the use of “difficult” words, working memory, special perception, child developmental schedules and—most critically—frequency of macro-innovations. In 2017, an Icelandic study found the first direct genetic evidence that a set of alleles predictive of g has been declining in frequency in that country’s population. More such studies can be expected in the years ahead.

According to a 2015 meta-analysis of studies conducted since 1927, IQ in the USA and the UK appears to be declining at a rate of 0.39 points per decade. Declines are also reported in Russia and a number of non-Western countries.

The authors emphasize five reasons (besides improved public health) why this is happening: 1) naturally gifted people have a tendency to trade mating and parenting opportunities for the opportunity to develop their abilities, e. g., through higher education; 2) being forward-thinking, such people are likelier to use contraception; 3) the modern welfare state taxes the more successful in order to support single mothers, who can often increase their benefits by having more children; 4) the modern movement for sexual “equality” has encouraged the brightest women to pursue careers and postpone marriage, often until it is too late; 5) finally, and most unforgivably, Western elites are now deliberately sponsoring the colonization of our nations by vast numbers of low-IQ persons from Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Declining general intelligence has been masked during the Twentieth Century by the so-called Flynn effect, an improvement in specialized mental skills independent of g. This may be one factor which made possible the continued technological progress of the twentieth century. But there is good evidence that the Flynn effect has now done about all it can do, and lower genotypic intelligence will increasingly make itself felt.

I calculated this several years ago in Cuckservative. The effects of our cognitively-challenged societies are already beginning to make themselves felt. The Age of Progress is over.