Is Education in the U.S. Suffering?

A recent study suggests that half of all U.S. citizens scored below average on IQ tests. Is this true?

~Ulrika~

I sure hope so. If that's true we're all doomed.

I don unnerstand teh kwestyun.

Thankfully, all the children in Lake Wobegon are still above average.

heh

A dumb population is a complacent and easily led population.

LOL, I'm totally European, should I vote YES or NO?

Wait... is the question "Is this study flawed" or "Did half of all U.S. citizens score below average on a recent IQ test?"

If it's the latter, then yes it is flawed unless they managed to find a subset of the population that perfectly manages to portray the U.S. as a whole. No one ever asked me to take an IQ test for a study

If it's the former... then the answer is (i'm guessing) no. I don't think that half of the U.S. has even TAKEN an IQ test, though I haven't asked them all

I corrected my post such that I no longer have two questions in opposition. Sorry about that!

~Ulrika~

You know, I didn't realise you had an education system over there. *waves* Welcome to the modern world. Now, let's talk about that modern thinking "evolution" thing....

My, there's some catching-up to do.

But seriously, only half?

The average IQ of a population is by definition 100... did the study find that 50% fell below that? Wow we are stupid then... since typically only 10% is below 80...

And what's the link to education? Better education doesn't equal higher IQ... taken at a basic level, IQ is just the amount of education that the person is able to absorb.


Orrrrrr... is this just an "Ulrika is doing experiments using the SL forums" thread?

Its impossible to answer this question since we don't know the shape of the distribution. But we can be sure that half (+/-1) were below the median.


Edit: oops, the size of my error estimate could be wrong, since it depends on the number of entries at the median value, this depends on how discrete the measurement is.

Missing option: "It depends"
The average is a very sensitive statistical indicator, easily thrown off by outliers. If you have a group of 10 people with 9 having the IQ of a turnip and a really smart guy thrown in the mix, then 90% of people will have below average intelligence.
Even if we assume an idealized distribution where there are as many people above average as there are below average, we may or may not still have a group of people equal to the average.
EDIT: Grr, Zuzu beat me by a minute or so

Is this a trick question?

Can more than half score less than average? Certainly. Sadly, our education system has become largely like our economy. The few haves and the many have nots. Intelligence "Tests" are usually knowledge batteries that don't tell mucha bout the inner congative or raw thought crunching ability of a person. Also, remember that the smart people made the test.

I strongly believe it. Current data suggests that Americans do not even understand general science. A poll was conducted and concluded that one out of every five Americans seemed to think the sun orbits around the earth. In a world where science is key to everything, including things political in nature, this is unacceptable! Ignorance allied with a person’s ability to vote. Let’s hope members of the Electoral College did better on this test people.

Iumi, The electoral college, while they CAN go against the will of the people, wont' because they're smart enough to not get themselves in trouble. The average Joe tells the Elector who to cast for and sadly they're honest or dumb enough to do it in some cases.

And as for the Earch and Sun... People believe all kinds of strange things. There is still a strong contingent of Creationists who want evolution to not be taught.

I was just using that as an example of how our educational system failed to teach a few million general science, (crazy, personal, and spiritual) beliefs aside, there comes a time when you have to stop deluding yourself into thinking a vast majority did not score higher on this test due to reasons other than our educational system. This is a scary thought. You begin to wonder how well the average American would do on simple tests to judge areas outside of general science.

Heheheh

Ulrika outsmarted herself.

As was noted, she should be talking about the middle value and not the average.

Well, of course, then you run into the problem that the middle value is probably not unique, so some (quite likely significant number) of americans scored the middle value. Which could mean that less than half could still be below the middle value or less than half could be above.

You'd pretty much have to word it:

Did half the citizens of the US score less than or equal to the median IQ?

Yeah. Love the Leave No Child Behind program. By forcing schools to make sure that they have near perfect scores on STANDARDIZED tests, the Bush adminstration has done what they can to ensure that the classrooms in our country get even more dumbed down, and teachers will feel pressured to make sure that they teach just the answers to the tests and NOTHING else.

Interesting sidenote, the school system in the United States, as it is today (i.e. bells, breaking up the subjects, teaching patriotism) was not government created. It was created by your "robber barons" (i.e. Hearst etc), not to give an education, but to train children how to grow up to be good factory workers.

Actually... depending on how the average was taken...

If half of the people scored below, that would be normal.

Are we talking about the statistical mean, median, or mode here? There are many ways to skew results by taking an average a certain way, so that you can make statements like that. I'd like to see the study.

Ah, Blaze beat me to it! *laugh*