• @delirious_owl
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    37
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    5 hours ago

    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.

  • cum
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    266 hours ago

    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?

  • SSTF
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    7 hours ago

    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.

    • The Octonaut
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      2 hours ago

      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.

    • @Obi@sopuli.xyz
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      105 hours ago

      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.

      • @delirious_owl
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        25 hours ago

        Obviously. They think stealing from and murdering your neighbors brings peace. They dumb as hell.

        • @m4m4m4m4@lemmy.world
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          24 hours ago

          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.

  • ComradeSharkfucker
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    989 hours ago

    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.

    • @delirious_owl
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      85 hours ago

      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.

    • @Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      459 hours ago

      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.

    • @snek_boi@lemmy.ml
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      15 hours ago

      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.

  • wildncrazyguy138
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    57 hours ago

    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.

      • wildncrazyguy138
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        01 hour ago

        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.

    • @leftzero@lemmynsfw.com
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      56 hours ago

      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.

      • wildncrazyguy138
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        21 hour ago

        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.

  • Kaity
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    109 hours ago

    These national tests are yeesh material tho. Subtle, or not so subtle, at least tangential to, eugenicist or nationalistic ideals.

  • ohellidk
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    39 hours ago

    Well, the way things seem to be going, it doesn’t surprise me too much.

  • @taiyang@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    I mean, by definition half of the countries will be below average. It’s a normal distribution— literally by definition since the distribution is set that way.

    • @delirious_owl
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      05 hours ago

      Could it be possible that the author was making a joke, and the people who don’t get it are the dumb ones?

      • @taiyang@lemmy.world
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        03 hours ago

        On TIL? A shitpost, sure it’s possible, but I see people not understand averages pretty regularly.