Is Your Country Making You Stupid?

Stupid is as stupid does together

There are smart people, and there are dumb people.

Some races are smart and others are not so smart.

People in some countries are smarter than others.

Or so we may assume.

The truth is far more complex than popular depictions of intelligence suppose.

In fact, the scary thing is that your country can make you retarded. Quite literally, as in the place where you live can retard your intelligence. No, this is not a thread of Irish jokes, Polish jokes, or other politically incorrect humour. Instead I am going to show you how your mind is literally belittled by the world you live in, and you probably don’t even know its happening.

First, in order to understand what I am saying, let’s take a look at what really makes people, smart – or stupid.

In his brilliant little book The Making of Intelligence, Ken Richardson completely decimates mainstream dominant models of intelligence, and especially the idea that people have an innate and unchangeable IQ which is controlled by genetic factors. In doing so, Richardson has developed his own five-tier model of intelligence. Richardson does find a place of genes, but he identifies another four important factors which influence intelligence. Here I am going to tell you what those five factors are. Yet even Richardson does not go far enough. Based on my own exploration of the mind at a first person level, and from my research into the subject, I am going to add another factor of my own.

Genetics

There is a genetic basis of intelligence. Nobody disputes that. Yet just how much of a role does it play? Most researchers put it at about 50%, but some put it at no more than 20%.

Genomic factors

We must also take into consideration what happens during the development of the individual. So, physical/environmental issues in the environment might come into play here, such as pollution, nutrition, and the quality of nurturing.

Epigenetic factors

Here Richardson refers to intra-generational change. It is well known that IQ scores go up at about the rate of 3% per generation.  This is known as the Flynn effect, and it is probably due to the fact that key concepts have been commonly accepted into society. Examples might include natural selection, the paradigm, and the idea of perspective itself.

Cognitive factors

The way people use their brains in the world affects their intelligence. If a person is a writer like me for example, they have to exercise their ability to think analytically and logically. It’s normally a ‘left-brained’ process, although, as I have written elsewhere, I deliberately incorporate the intuitive mind as I write and research.

Socio-cognitive factors

Here Richardson is referring to the way people work together to be smart as a group. Some forms of intelligence can be expressed within a group, or with the help of others. Cultures can also suppress intelligence where the society refuses permission for its expression.

It is interesting to note that “China” produced both the brilliance of the 2008 Olympics, and the insane tragedy of the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s, which led to about 45 millio0n deaths. There are reports of starving Chinese peasants in the far provinces praying towards Beijing and Chairman Mao to save them, tragically unaware that their ‘saviour’ was the one who had created their suffering. Same country, same gene pool; different policies/culture, different expressions of intelligence.

What will be the Next Big Idea?

People are getting smarter with every generation, according to IQ testing. In part, this is because of revolutionary concepts like "evolution", "falsifiable" and even "percentage". We are so used to these ideas that we don't realise that previous generations were barely aware of them. So, what will be the next big idea that makes us all smarter, and how can you leap frog everyone to be smarter first?

People are getting smarter, and that’s a scientific fact. Skeptics might protest that people can’t even get their cash from the ATM machine in less than ten minutes. They might point out that there is a privately sponsored museum in The USA which shows Jesus riding a dinosaur. And they might lament that you can’t have a conversation with anybody without their feeble attention being diverted by an incoming sms. But they are wrong – at least according to the Flynn effect.

He gets in His early morning ride before breakfast

As I pointed out in my review of David Shenk’s The Genius in All of Us, the Flynn effect is that curious feature which emerged from the history of intelligence testing, namely that IQ scores keep going up with each generation - about three points on average. Fascinatingly, ninety-eight percent of today’s population will score higher than their counterparts from 100 years ago. The Flynn effect is named after psychologist J.R. Flynn, who popularised the idea. 

One factor which Flynn (and David Shenk) suggests is behind the Flynn effect, is the much improved capacity for abstract thinking. All you have to do is look at a World War One propaganda poster, and you have to wonder how anybody could actually be influenced by the image and words. 

 J.R. Flynn

Flynn points to the way that science and philosophy have enhanced the language of educated people “by giving them words and phrases that greatly increase their critical acumen.” He thus sees the world as being divided into pre-scientific and post-scientific thinking, the latter being the more deeply critical approach to knowledge. The psychologist referred to these emerging concepts as “shorthand abstractions” (or SHAs).

So what are these SHA’s? Just below, I will list them. However, as you go through these, take a leaf out of Flynn’s book, and think about them critically.