Why our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents'

[cosmicfish]

<p>

Go any store and see the cashier scramble to give your change back … without the computer help her!</p>

<p>Take the calculator away from teenagers practicing the SAT.

I know! I mean, my neighbor’s kids have NO idea how to properly knap an arrow point, and don’t even get me started on their candle-dipping!</p>

<p>Seriously, don’t make the mistake of conflating a reliance on tools with a lack of intelligence. As an engineer, I am fully aware that my predecessors had, on average, better mathematical skills than I do, but this is because the tools that I use allow me to be vastly more productive… which makes the mathematical skills less important than learning the tools.</p>

<p>

or ask our current crop of students who do “well” on the SAT or ACT to take a stab at this kind of test. This would be especially funny if given to the masses of foreigners who ace the SAT but can’t speak much English without crutches. </p>

<p><a href=“http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...arvardexam.pdf[/url]”>http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...arvardexam.pdf&lt;/a&gt;

I would like to see a little more context on this test (such as the conditions under which it was given!), but I do not see any reason to think that Harvard’s admission expectations in the civil war era should be reasonable expectations of high schoolers today.</p>