Time to cut the American south loose.
The rational person in me knows that IQ as a metric of intelligence has long since been proven to be bullshit pseudoscience.
But the anti-american in me is just going to turn that part of my brain off and chuckle for a few moments…
Nicolas Cage, “You don’t say?”
Well…yeah I mean Q.E.D. right?
50% of americans are more intelligent than average american.
More intelligent than the median American.
Maybe not the mean American because the distribution is skewed as IQs can be higher than 200 but not negative.
Never have they smashed the down arrow quite as hard .😆
Am American and 100% agree. Our country is extremely stupid on average. I def hit upvote lol
not sure whether to up vote or downvoted this comment
Well they would, if they could read
Iirc the show “Where in the World is Carmon Sandiego?” was created by the government of the US because something like half of US Americans couldn’t identify the Pacific Ocean on a map.
Edit: it was 25%
The show was created partially in response to the results of a National Geographic survey indicating little knowledge of geography among some of the American populace, with one in four being unable to locate the Soviet Union or the Pacific Ocean.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_in_the_World_Is_Carmen_Sandiego%3F_(game_show)
They also couldn’t find the Soviet Union on the map (literally the biggest country in the world) in 1991.
Do not confuse a poor education with a lack of intelligence. This is because the American educational system is broken. It says nothing about the average American’s intelligence.
LPT. If you know any new parents, one of the best gifts is a world map for the baby’s room. Teach them colors and shapes when they are little; then numbers and letters; finally history and politics.
“Let’s make a TV show to teach kids instead of actually fixing our education system”
Yeah, but it had an awesome theme song. Do it, Rockapella!
I mean…yeah. They COULDN’T find the soviet union in 1991. It disolved in 1990.
It dissolved in December 1991.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union
Nuh, africa is the biggest country!
Like, that’s the biggest ocean and biggest country in the world. I wonder how many in the 75% just randomly pointed at blue and got lucky at identifying the Pacific Ocean.
The actual number of people who didn’t know where is the Pacific Ocean must be higher, because of the ones who guessed and got lucky.
They only got the number to 75% after putting the labels back on the map
Wow what an incredibly xenophobic and hateful headline.
Also from the author himself:
The studies used to support these data, however, are controversial. This is in part because they may have considered only specific population groups or a small sample size per country.
What productive and enlightening kind of discussions were you expecting with that headline, OP?
Never underestimate the urge non Americans have to make fun of America.
It gets a bit annoying tbh. I’m born and raised in London, however spent a good number of years in America. Met amazing people, and forged lifelong friendships to boot. Over here people are given the impression that it’s overall a rather dangerous and hate filled place… There’s no winning arguments though, my former coworkers find the enthusiasm and general cheeriness of the Americans they met as a huge downside. I just don’t get it.
Also never underestimate American fragility.
Yeah I’m not American but it’s particularly egregious (shocking for you Americans 😉) as it states that the score for the USA was 98 and the global average was 100.
So OP is an ass for that title imo.
But that makes the title true?
Well I would say IQ tests don’t equate to actual intelligence. I also take issue with the adjective dumber.
OP could have worded it better, something like:
Americans score lower than average on IQ tests. USA: 98 VS Global: 100.
Most people have an above average number of arms.
But pretty median number of them.
According to the chart, here are a few other countries where the average is “dumber than the average human”:
Australia
Belgium
Belize
Brazil
Canada
Chile
Czech Republic
Denmark
France
Finland
Germany
India
Israel
Italy
Mexico
I suppose dunking on those stupid Belgians isn’t as eye catching of a headline as good, old fashioned America Bad bait.
Do you think many Beliz…ians loudly proclaim themselves the greatest nation on earth, and act like it too? Has Chile squandered a good deal of the world’s productive output to produce a literally civilisation ending military capability and put it in the hands of morons?
A blind person on the bus is only a problem if they’re driving.
As an Estonian, I am glad to see Finland on the list.
You chose the worst example in the list, because Belgians are famously the butt of “haha they’re dumb” jokes, getting it from both their French and Dutch neighbours (maybe Germans too?).
I’d pick the Danes since they’re typically seen as a more evolved people.
For France, it just makes sense tbh.
Also the whole galaxy.
https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Belgium
“You stupid Ghent” - Ford Prefect
There’s also this.
Israel dumb woo!
Obviously. They think stealing from and murdering your neighbors brings peace. They dumb as hell.
I should be another one of those “dumber than the average human” folks (and yesterday Lemmy told me so because they are saying two different apps on my phone are the same app…?) but am pretty sure the thing with Israel went off the Hanlon’s razor long ago.
Miserable fat Belgian bastards!
I can’t believe I’m saying this to defend the people who most often used it to justify their racism but the IQ test is not an objective measure of intelligence and was designed by eugenicists.
I’ve said this so many times. There’s not even only one kind of intelligence. I once made a music video for what would be the best country fiddle player you ever heard. He literally couldn’t write his own name when he signed the contract.
We can’t even come up with a test that transcends all cultural biases. If we could come up with an objective test, the smartest person in the world could turn out to be an indigenous Brazilian living a stone-age life in the middle of the Amazon.
And if the smartest person in the world was from Slovenia, they probably wouldn’t be able to do anywhere near as well in the Amazon as some of the stupidest members of communities who live there.
I don’t think it was destined by eugenicists. I think it was used by eugenicists and the original creator warned against it being used that way. Basically like Darwinism.
Also, the difference between the countries with the highest average IQ and the US was 10 points, which is the same kind of increase you can get in IQ testing scores if you tell the tester that they’ll get $10 if they do well.
Or if they played Tetris regularly. (Although that might be correlational only).
Part of the test is pattern recognition. Playing Tetris trains that.
Only when you’re behind. Lol.
Totally. The history of intelligence has sadly also been the story of eugenics. Fortunately, there have been process-based theories and contextual theories that have defined intelligence in more humane and useful ways. In this view, IQ tests do not measure an underlying characteristic, but a set of mental skills. Seen this way, intelligence becomes something people can gain with nurturance. If you’re interested, check out Relational Frame Theory.
This is a well written article. I’m not sure how the OP came to their conclusion. The US ranks 24th on average IQ (with an IQ of 98) and is in good company with France, Denmark, Australia also at 98. For those curious, Canada, Finland and Germany were 99.
24th out of 102 should not be considered “dumber than average”. Additionally, as the article clearly states, the average has been going up, approximately 3 points per decade, and this is partly due to an increase in logical thinking.
East Asia is the outlier here, with many countries at 101 or higher (China at 105) though I find it curious that Hong Kong and Macau were singled out separately from China.
I wonder if these higher numbers have something to do with the homogeneity within these cultures, the average age of the county’s population, and/or, as another commenter mentioned, the way in which the higher IQ countries approach education.
IQ doesn’t measure intelligence.
What does the abbreviation stand for?
Per the Wikipedia definition:
An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardised tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence.
Believe it or not, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is not a democracy or a republic.
Do you mean to tell me that you are not actually a flying squid!?
Now you’re going too far.
Says you?
24th out of 102 should not be considered “dumber than average”.
Isn’t, by definition, a score of 100 in the test supposed to be average…? If so, 98 would definitely be below average, though not by much.
Consider the numbers presented. If you can figure out the math on how to get the 24th ranked countries out of 102 rankings to be below 100, then I’ll reconsider.
The countries who rank higher than 100 only have about 1.5 billion people within them and their average is only slightly higher compared to the countries that have an average significantly lower. For example, India with its 1 billion people is on there at an average of 82.
The math doesn’t add up for an average global human. I think we need to know more about how the scores in the study are calculated.
Can’t your read? It says American not English.
These national tests are yeesh material tho. Subtle, or not so subtle, at least tangential to, eugenicist or nationalistic ideals.
And 50% of them are stupider than that