10% of the population has an IQ lower than 83, what this means

10% of the U.S. population has an IQ lower than 83.
16% of the population has an IQ of 85 or less.

In the following video the implications of this are discussed:



It's a very dismal statistic. But, if we're going to try to solve real world problems we need to take a look at the truth.

Some sort of eugenics program might be a solution in the long-term, but what about more immediate policy considerations?

 

It's what the statistics indicate has to happen. IQ is based on a normal distribution, that has been standardized to the mean being 100. That means 50% of the population should be above, 50% below. Well, delving into it for 85 IQ, that's exactly what you get. It means our population's IQ is a normal distribution, which is exactly what it should be. If our IQs were much different, than the test has to be renormed. In other words, IQ is not an absolute measurement. It's really just using a test to rate people from lowest to highest. Basically speaking, what your headline says is that 10% of the people are in the lowest 10% of the population on intelligence tests.

 

Interesting. I was just discussing a similar issue in another thread.

I don't see eugenics as being very practical. Short term I think the best way to handle 85 IQ type people is to make sure that school is adapted to educate them to the best of their abilities. That means tracking kids in education, have them shunted into classes they can excel at. We used to do that, have a college track in high school and "shop" for those not going to college. Currently we assume everyone can go to college and can do whatever they want to do. In fact, they can't. Right now our educational system fails kids who are not going to college. Since that's most students, something should be done about that.

 

Well if he is right and someone has an IQ of 85 or less than I wouldn't waste time educating them past the 8th grade assume they are disabled and put them on welfare programs until they die its clear they are likely unemployable enough to be deemed unfit for the job market. Let's be frank picking up trash, digging ditches and other simple work these folks used to do are gone. They could pick harvest on farms maybe.

Then for those not college material over that track them into vocational High School tracks with heavy employment skills training (75% of the classes either job related or getting skills in an area of employment) blue and white collar OR pre-college OR perhaps an hybrid option in the middle for some students.

 

This does not take into account the fact that some people "blossom" later than others. You are therefore selecting the idiots (aka "less qualified for post-secondary schooling) before their time and consigning them to a lower-class existence - without the ability to "prove themselves" as they see fit in time.

Which is probably a basic right of all individuals ever born.

Who are YOU to judge when a child is "ripe" and if not never will be ... ?

 

This is about very low IQ people, and I had three tests done to verify my IQ in school since I was having issues they found out later to organic issues with my mind my IQ is decently high but I can't use it due to my mind having issues. If your tested with an IQ of as low as the OP noted you can't even during a time of war under full mobilization of men and women to fight, be drafted, if the Army won't take you in any case since your too low IQ your not going to likely get a civilian job. Not likely as our economy gets more sophisticated even working at a fast food place is no longer simple work.

So I would recommend what I posted before give them some education and then some kind of welfare support so when they can get work fine and if not they will be provided for.

 

IQ tests are not really testing much, so lets not rely on them to determine anyone's destiny.

 

Exactly. As I learned in an Educational Measurements class, IQ tests measure IQ. IQ is simply what IQ tests measure. There is no absolute "thing" called IQ. The interesting thing is that average IQ has been rising in the U.S. over the past century.

 

It seems impossible for a massive public school system to nurture each snowflake to meet their fullest potential. In the real world, you need to provide a diagnostic tool to determine who can advance to higher level education. That's more or less how it's done in Europe. I would assume with your Euro-philia you would be on board with this.

 

What "real world"? The world we live in.

And in the US, Americans need to stop thinking that a secondary-school education is adequate to find a decent job. It isn't any more.

And, if we do not help each "snowflake" to get beyond the high-school diploma (of which about 6% will not), then they are destined for highly irregular work-lives. The world moves on but people like you do not understand that irrefutable/immutable "fact of life". (Very very soon China will have more engineers diplomaed than the US!)

Which is why we give companies tax write-offs for retraining their personnel. The necessity is absolute.

That diagnostic tool does not exist. You want to characterize/categorize the human being and decide what career everybody should pursue over a lifetime. That aint gonna work. Careers will be highly fluid and change along with Demand for goods/services.

Education is perpetual in life - right up to death. All that changes is the fact that some education is necessary to pursue a career and another to pursue personal interests.

Whichever, it is a life-long necessity ...

PS: The only difference is that "education" evolves. With the Internet it is available in a continuous fashion throughout our lives. Which is a great goodness that will help any country (that makes the effort) to keep its work-performance capabilities up to par!!!

 

We have to tackle the issue of breeding. People with lower IQs are having more children than intelligent individuals. The reason is that having children is often irrational and having a lot of children you cannot take care of is even less rational. For this reason, less rational people are more likely to propagate.

 

And I would recommend this professional explanation of the place of IQ in the human race:

'Nuff said? I think so.

IQ is innate in all individuals and it is highly variable throughout the human race. (It also improves generally with each generation.) But, it is a "given". If it expands in an individual that is a highly rare case. We are born and live, more or less, with our native IQ ...

PS: Very interesting exchange!

 

and IQ isn't static, it can be improved...

 

Hitler already tried eugenics. It didn’t go well.

 

IQ tests will reflect education, if the education is poor the IQ results won't be impressive...wherever education standards are raised, poverty decreases and birth rates decline as well... the best educated countries have declining birth rates...

 

Of course correlation does not imply causation. Just one theoretic example, it could be that decreasing poverty is the cause of raised education standards rather than vice versa. Why might poverty decrease? Maybe the cost of living goes up in a certain area and the poor just move somewhere else. I think if you really wanted to prove your point you'd have to look at countries, rather than specific regions of countries. Anyway, if you look at the United States right now, education has been going up at the same time average IQ has been going down. That doesn't prove any correlation of course, or absence of a positive correlation, but it does show that any correlation may not be that strong.

 

poverty doesn't decrease without education...

 

on an individual level or society as a whole? let's not make the mistake of fallacy of composition here.

Your statement is also highly questionable.

 

Ever think where we are is about as good as we will get in the main the poor have access to housing, food (SNAP, Breakfast and Lunch Programs etc.), education provided by the government, in the main save for some areas of violence your relatively safe from harm, the odds of any outside threat harming you is low and well what excuses are left? Add in public libraries, the internet, educational television (PBS for example) and such also available if people care to use them.

So I suspect any deviation from the OP numbers is minimal.

So what are you supposed to do again for low IQ persons when the chances of employment are low, especially if the Army can't legally during a time of peace or war can't take them for duty which is a simple bar they can't use them so no one else likely can except for very simple work like picking crops maybe but I think it would be pretty hopeless unless they show some talent for art or music or something.

 

both...this isn't a revelation it's been known since before I left uni 40+ yrs ago...
As education levels rise, poverty and birth rates decline. This isn't a mystery up for debate, it's fact.

 

This is really a piss poor job of rebutting my suggestions. Although at least I actually made some. Meanwhile, you didn't address the issue of why I was making them (hint-see the subject line). And if you are one of those who don't believe in diagnostic testing, I'm fascinated to hear your explanation of education without it. Proceed.

 

You would agree it would be irresponsible to only rely on education to address this issue?

There might be some improvement brought with increased education but it's not going to make all the problem go away, very likely it won't be able to make most of the problem go away.

 

education is the base on which health and wealth are built...

 

You'd agree there's also such a thing as miseducation.

 

? explain please...