IQ SCORES: PERILS OF RELIANCE ON OUR “OTHER BRAIN”

 PERILS OF RELIANCE ON OUR “OTHER BRAIN”

A recent study from Northwestern and Oregon Universities published in:”Intelligence” (a neuroscience journal) on March 10, 2023, indicates that IQ scores have fallen for the first time in decades.  Since 1932 when the test was invented and widely used, scores have regularly risen a few points with each generation. That is until recently. .  

One wonders why not?  All the the other mental test scores have fallen recently too…reading, mathematics, comprehension, foreign language skills..etc.etc. Most kids today can not even read the nation’s most revered and iconic political document…the US Constitution (or Declaration of Independence) since it is written in script.  Sadly, our modern youngsters can not complete the mental gymnastics needed to recognize those artfully and beautifully hand crafted script letters. 

I wonder could this frightening  “dumbing down”  result from the ubiquitousness and massive expanding reliance we put on our iPhones and other electronic tech gadgets?

 

In earlier times, we had to LEARN oh, so many things just to survive.  In school we were forced to memorize, our ‘times tables”’, the rules of math, and of the unpredictable, irregular English language spelling and pronunciation. Then too there were those confusing synonyms, parts of speech, nouns, verbs, pronouns, adverbs, and laws of sentence construction.  Some of us had to commit to memory Bible verses and prayers as well. 

These bits of information were  “hard wired” into our brains by difficult, time consuming and onerous mental effort. Now such efforts are no longer required….they are abandoned and called obsolete— anachronisms. 

Too many of these former mental activities  are now relegated to our “other brain”..that slim, rectangular, metallic and glass device you are now grasping in your hand.

 

Our brains, like our bodies are organic machines which thrive and prosper on regular usage. Disuse results in dysfunction. 

 The result: today’s youngsters may not have as many active synapses…and neural pathways in their cerebral cortex..and fewer stored memories and concepts —and thus less ability to make those critical (IQ rated) comparisons from one stored concept to another. 

Simply stated, our “other brain’ ..the one in your hand—is taking the place of our neocortex, hippocampus, and amygdala. These lower  IQ scores suggest our “organic brain” may be  simply withering away. 

That mass of about 5 or 6 pounds  we carry around above our necks may eventually become more of a “switching-station” organ, or ganglion center —like that of an earth woorm—only useful for sending neural messages from one body part to the other. 

Or will it evolve into a vestigial organ like the appendix. Once that organ functioned to digest fibrous foods when our primate predecessors were pure herbivores. But when more easily digestible foods, such as meat became available, this organ fell into disuse and simply withered away to the size of a baby’s pinkie. 

So perhaps can we expect in future, as our iPhones become larger and more complex, our brains will continue to shrivel to the size of a satsuma or kumquat and IQ scores will continue to fall or disappear all together. 

Perhaps if social and government policies continue as they are..some government agency will simply declare IQ scores “inequitable” and thus “invalid” and eliminate them altogether and thus assuage any fearful, unsettling concerns. 

But at least for those in the top 1% IQ  this will continue to remain a major worry for our future generations..