The news media love stories about things that lower IQ, such as poverty.
Poverty and all its related concerns require so much mental energy that the poor have less remaining brainpower to devote to other areas of life, according to research based at Princeton University. As a result, people of limited means are more likely to make mistakes and bad decisions that may be amplified by — and perpetuate — their financial woes…
In a series of experiments, the researchers found that pressing financial concerns had an immediate impact on the ability of low-income individuals to perform on common cognitive and logic tests. On average, a person preoccupied with money problems exhibited a drop in cognitive function similar to a 13-point dip in IQ, or the loss of an entire night’s sleep.
Here’s a story about how lead lowers IQ:
New evidence suggests childhood lead exposure may have a persistent and irreversible effect on IQ during the adult years. A 30 year follow-up study in Boston found that even low level exposure to lead during childhood – that is, at or below the U.S. level of concern of 10 µg/dL – may impair adult cognitive function enough to lower IQ scores.
Even small decreases in IQ can increase the number of people in society who need extra help in school or who may have difficulty finding work. Although it is well known that lead exposure during childhood can decrease cognitive function in children, the results of this study suggest there are long-term consequences of environmental lead exposure.
That marijuana use lowers IQ got massive news coverage.
Here’s a list of 17 things that make you dumber and 25 things that make you smarter.
America turning Hispanic is lowering the national IQ but nobody seems to want to write about that except a few eccentrics such as Jason Richwine, who did a PhD at Harvard on the topic.
Richard Lynn wrote in his book Eugenics: “In an analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth data set, Hernstein and Murray found that the average IQ of the children of Hispanic immigrants was 81, of black immigrants 88, and of European immigrants 97.”
