Barbara Walters demonstrates her ignorance of evolution

[aggle-rithm]

Just overheard a conversation on TV (The View?) where they were talking about a study showing that IQ scores have gone down 14 points in the last 100 years. One hypothesis to explain this is that intelligent women have fewer children than, say, crack whores.

Barbara expressed her incredulousness, saying "I would think, survival of the fittest, wouldn't the fittest be the most physically strong and the most mentally strong?"

Nope, Barbara. The fittest is whatever works in the environment we happen to find ourselves in. Where being strong requires more calories than you can get, it's not an advantage. Where being smart leads you to have fewer children, you don't pass on as many of your smart genes. Again, no advantage.

I know she's not a scientist, but she's generally regarded as being one of the smart celebrities. And, really...this was the premise of the movie Idiocracy. How hard can it be to understand?

 

[DC]

mmh i have never seen statistics where crack whores were listed

 

[Ixion]

Well, actually I think this is a very popular view of how evolution works, albeit incorrect. It doesn't bother me as much that Barbara Walters has this view of evolution than it does that there isn't anyone there to say "Well, Barbara, that is a popular view of how evolution works, but it is not correct. 'Survival of the fittest' is a very basic viewpoint of evolution;a better view is those that are best adapted to the environment are likeliest to pass on their genes. They do not need to be smart, or strong, just better at survival. Furthermore, evolution does not prevent those who are not as adapted to survival from passing on their genes. Evolution allows for those whose survival traits are more fit for the environment to be more successful at generating offspring."

 

[Dinwar]

I'm willing to give her a pass. It's actually a fairly complex topic, which took scientists a long time to work out. Essentially, we're asking people to abandon their concept of what fitness means. We have an intuitive understanding of what "better" critters, including humans are, and it's incredibly difficult for most people to abandon their intuitive understanding, even in the face of contrary evidence. For many, it's even worse--they see that smarter people live better, so we're actually asking them to accept an idea that CONTRADICTS their evidence. The issue is, of course, that they're not looking at a whole, unbiased dataset; but still, it's not an irrational position to hold. It's wrong, but not irrational.

 

[Ziggurat]

I know she's not a scientist, but she's generally regarded as being one of the smart celebrities.

That's a pretty low bar, though.

 

[Moon-Spinner]

That's the problem with shows like "The View", the point is not to think too much about what you're talking about, but to just keep talking, keeping the conversation going. For someone like Barbara Walters, who appears to be a little more intelligent than most Hollywood personalities, I still don't expect to hear her discuss subjects like a PhD graduate on whatever subject is being discussed at the time, so her not having a strong scientific understanding of evolution doesn't surprise me.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

Is IQ regarded as genetic or just a product of your environment and upbringing?

I don't think evolution has anything to do with the fact that poorer uneducated people have more kids than wealthier educated ones.

To be honest I find it pretty hard to believe that people in 2013 know less stuff than people in 1913 so it may also just be the test that is at fault.

 

[Hellbound]

Is IQ regarded as genetic or just a product of your environment and upbringing?

Depends on who you ask Generally, it's thought to be like your physical ability. There's thought to be a (well, a multitude of) genetic componenet, but the expression of it is affected by your environment/nuture.

I don't think evolution has anything to do with the fact that poorer uneducated people have more kids than wealthier educated ones.

Reproduction is evolution (well, on of the factors, anyway). The things we do are just as much selection factors as a warmer or colder environment. If there is a genetic component, then the ones reproducing more will have more offsapring, and over time this changes the species.

To be honest I find it pretty hard to believe that people in 2013 know less stuff than people in 1913 so it may also just be the test that is at fault.

Well, this is a misunderstanding. An actual IQ test doesn't (in theory) test knowledge. It tests pattern matching and recognition ability. Or it's supposed to, anyway. IQ isn't supposed to be about what you know, but how well you can learn.*


*Whether it actually tests that or not, I leave as an argument to the readers

 

[LSSBB]

Is IQ regarded as genetic or just a product of your environment and upbringing?

I don't think evolution has anything to do with the fact that poorer uneducated people have more kids than wealthier educated ones.

To be honest I find it pretty hard to believe that people in 2013 know less stuff than people in 1913 so it may also just be the test that is at fault.

It could be a factor of both access to education and also environmental factors such as living in an old house with lead paint, more true in poorer areas. There may also be increased adverse stress effects, or less family support for education. The whole "crack whore" to genetics concept at play here seems to have a nasty racial underpinning.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I thought IQ scores were going up.

~~ Paul

 

[brodski]

I thought IQ scores were going up.

~~ Paul

They are, there was a paper published recently which (according to news reports) argued that comparing modern averages on reaction speed tests with data collected in the Victorian era they could conclude that if the Victorian population had nutrition and education comparable to modern standards then they would, on average, score
14 points higher on current IQ tests.

If the paper is as reported I can see a number of problems.

 

[Alareth]

Perhaps she recently watched Idiocracy.

 

[aggle-rithm]

Perhaps she recently watched Idiocracy.

..and didn't understand it?

 

[Puppycow]

I thought IQ scores were going up.

~~ Paul

Me too. It's called the Flynn effect.

IQ tests are updated periodically. For example, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), originally developed in 1949, was updated in 1974, in 1991, and again in 2003. The revised versions are standardized to 100 using new standardization samples. In ordinary use IQ tests are scored with respect to those standardization samples. The only way to compare the difficulty of two versions of a test is to conduct a study in which the same subjects take both versions. Doing so confirms IQ gains over time. The average rate of increase seems to be about three IQ points per decade in the U.S. on tests such as the WISC. The increasing raw scores appear on every major test, in every age range and in every modern industrialized country although not necessarily at the same rate as in the U.S. using the WISC. The increase has been continuous and roughly linear from the earliest days of testing to the present.[9] Though the effect is most associated with IQ increases, a similar effect has been found with increases of semantic and episodic memory.[3]

Ulric Neisser estimates that using the IQ values of today the average IQ of the U.S. in 1932, according to the first Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales standardization sample, was 80.

This may be about what they were discussing:

Study: Western Country IQ Scores Declining

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – In the era of smartphones, smart TV’s, and even self-driving cars, it turns out the people operating those devices may actually be getting dumber, according to a new study.

The study, from the University of Amsterdam, found that on average, citizens in Western countries have lost 14 IQ points from 1884-2004.

The study is the exact opposite of multiple other studies citing the Flynn effect that showed a worldwide increase in measured IQ scores of roughly 3 points a decade since World War II.