Sorry, Darwin! Research shows human intelligence is in steady state of decline

According to new research from the University of Amsterdam, human intelligence among Westerners has declined by a significant average of 14 IQ points since the late 1800s.

The research, which was published in the April edition of Intelligence, analyzed the results of 14 different visual response studies that were carried out between 1884 and 2004. The results of the visual reaction tests are generally considered to be effective indications of overall personal intelligence.

In the abstract of the published findings, the researchers said: “We tested the hypothesis that the Victorians were cleverer than modern populations… These findings strongly indicate that with respect to g the Victorians were substantially cleverer than modern Western populations.”

This conclusion contradicts the Flynn Effect, which assumes that each generations’ IQ is higher than their predecessors’.

Dr. Jan te Nijenhuis, one of the study’s co-authors, indicated the overall IQ decline may be due to the fact that women of higher intelligence tend to have fewer children. Therefore, it is those with genetically inherited lower IQs who — in time — represent larger portions of the population.

In a series of articles last year, columnists for The New York Times debated whether or not people are getting dumber.

“Our dependence upon technology has played a huge part in our ‘endumbening,'” said Erin Jackson, a stand-up comedian. “We don’t memorize phone numbers anymore. We’ve forgotten how to use maps and compute basic math problems.”

However, as Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker pointed out, humans are also the ones responsible for creating the short-cut technology.

“No historian with a long view could miss the fact that we are living in a period of extraordinary intellectual accomplishment,” Pinker argued.