The Decline of the World's IQ

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Recommended: Evidence of genetics affecting intelligence

What will end the world as we know it? It could be climate change, disease, famine, or global war. If none of those come to pass there is always the truth that we are breeding our IQ into the basement. It’s called dysgeneic fertilization, and it has been happening for as long as we’ve been recording intelligence. Although this decline can be seen across the board, not everyone is affected the same way or to the same extent. With each generation that passes a gap widens between those retaining intelligence and those hemorrhaging intelligence. Action must be taken to prevent the gap from widening in order to stem a social divide and dystopia from forming.
Declining intellect is a problem that has been of interest for over a century. Sir Francis Galton, English scientist, published works on the matter as early as 1869 with Hereditary Genius and followed by Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development in 1883. His two major works lay out the groundwork for future study of eugenics, dysgenics, and genetics. When it comes to the genetics of intelligence there are now two recognized types of intelligence, phenotypic and genotypic. Richard Lynn and John Harvey, geneticists, define these types as “phenotypic intelligence is measured intelligence,” and “genotypic intelligence is the genetic component of intelligence” (113). It is the genotypic intelligence that has been declining through dysgenics. James Flynn, emeritus professor at the University of Otago, was credited with the “Flynn Effect”. The “Flynn Effect” describes IQ changes in population over time (Graham). Flynn is commonly cited for the decline in the idea of dysgenics, which is a decline in IQ in a genetic pool over time by dysgenetic fertilization. Though Fly...

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... the beginning because you are moving and that is better than standing still. Be a part of the solution; improve yourself for you and the world for everyone.

Works Cited

Galton, Francis. Hereditary Genesis. London: Macmillan, 1869. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
---. Inquiries into Human Faculties and Its Development. London: Macmillan, 1883. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
Graham, Charles. "Human Intelligence: The Flynn Effect." Human Intelligence: The Flynn Effect. Ed. Jonathan Plucker. N.p., 07 Nov. 2013. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
Herrnstein, Richard J., and Charles A. Murray. The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. New York: Free, 1994. Print. 27 Mar. 2014
Lynn, Richard, and John Harvey. "The Decline of the World's IQ." Intelligence 36 (2008): 112- 120. Web. 10 Apr. 2014
Central Intelligence Agency. Central Intelligence Agency, 27 Mar. 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2014.

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