On Oct 29, 2007, at 5:10 PM, Carl Remick wrote:
> Thanks for the clarification, Miles! How obtuse of me not to see the
> flourishing state of US culture today, the vibrancy of our democracy
> and the strength of our economy, as -- generation by generation --
> those beloved standardized IQ-test scores of yours zoom upwards! But
> for novelty's sake, I'd suggest you stop scrutinizing the IQ stats for
> a while and actually contemplate the world around you without the
> anodyne intermediation of fanciful quantification. I suspect you
> won't like what you see from such an unaccustomed foray into
> "andecdotalism," those messy nonscientific factors that were formerly
> known as real life.
I hear things similar to what the article reported from a lot of veteran HS and college teachers - poor preparation, lack of interest, inability to read, write or think. When you hear the same thing over & over again from people with long experience, you should ask just what the IQ tests are measuring. That interview from Flynn that Michael Pollak posted was interesting - the rising test scores are mainly an artifact of changing modes of life and thought, and not a reflection of what Miles thinks they are.
Even at the high end things seem rather grim. My sister-in-law graduated from Harvard in June '06 and reports that her fellow students were an intellectually uninspiring bunch. They're hyper- coached, machined little achievement products, but not what you'd think of as an intellectual elite.
Doug