Which generation is the least intellegent?

[Topher925]

I've been reading a few articles lately, such as http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/gallery/dumbestgeneration/" , about how my generation is the dumbest. When I first heard about this, I thought it was a bunch of crap. I thought to myself, I'm pretty smart, write?

But then taking a moment to sit back and observe my peers, I realized that we are definitely the dumbest. However, I have been told that my powers of observation are sub-par by many, see thread: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=140063&page=40". I think my generation is royally screwed and we have no chance. But I am interested to see what your opinions are.

I now direct you to the poll which is the main purpose of this thread. I have divided a range of ages into several segments which I am identifying as "generations". Identify which age group you believe has the LEAST amount of intelligence and/or intellect. Remember, the status-quo is that the age group 18-24 is the stupidest...

 

[LightbulbSun]

When I first heard about this, I thought it was a bunch of crap. I thought to myself, I'm pretty smart, write?

Oh, that is too funny.

 

[rootX]

I want one more option "Impossible to Evaluate" ...

In addition, define dumbest and intellegent. Someone talked about the same article few months ago and I think it was proved that none generation is dumb.

Oh and also I think you have very weak " powers of observation " lol - jks.

 

[FrancisZ]

I've been reading a few articles lately, such as http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/gallery/dumbestgeneration/" , about how my generation is the dumbest. When I first heard about this, I thought it was a bunch of crap. I thought to myself, I'm pretty smart...

Well, I guess that depends on the definition of intelligent. Howard Gardner believes that there may be as many as 9 different qualities of intelligence: Naturalist Intelligence, Musical Intelligence, Logical-Mathematical Intelligence, Existential Intelligence, Interpersonal Intelligence, Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence, Linguistic Intelligence, Intra-personal Intelligence, and Spatial Intelligence.

I have found people my own age at least to be quite socially gifted. I remember that from pretty much Kindergarten through 5th grade, it was always stressed that we should celebrate our differences, and "melt" in the great melting pot of American society--sort of the last gasp of the Civil Rights generation, I think, trying to raise us up to be better than the generation before us.

Anyway, there is surely prejudice in every generation; but I think that we are the most tolerant, even while possibly the most cynical.

I think my group excels at the Interpersonal quality.

 

[WarPhalange]

I always get so pissed when people say BOOKS = SMART

I'm sorry, have you actually read any books lately? They don't have any sort of screening for being intelligent. I could just as easily read porn novels as the Divine Comedy and somehow that will educate me as much?

 

[WarPhalange]

This is why I hate old people as a rule. They say stupid crap without realizing that when their legs are old and tired after a long day's work I'll be the one who gets to decide whether to give up my seat on the bus or just take a nap.

And it's people like me (i.e. young) who will be trying to cure their cancer, buy their groceries for them, and watch where we're going so we don't trample them.

 

[binzing]

Well screw you too, I don't even fit into the graph. lol

 

[Topher925]

As for a definition of intellegence, I think this one should work;

"the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience "

ha, sorry binzing, I didn't think anyone above 73 would bother taking the time to learn how to use a computer. And I figure people below 18 aren't mature enough to really judge their intelligence.

 

[SticksandStones]

Looking at your link:

Bauerlein writes: "The ignorance is hard to believe ... It isn't enough to say that these young people are uninterested in world realities. They are actively cut off from them. ... They are encased in more immediate realities that shut out conditions beyond -- friends, work, clothes, cars, pop music, sitcoms, Facebook.''

How is this different from any other generation? I see TV shows like "Leave it to Beaver" making the same judgments against THAT generation.

"It's a new attitude, this brazen disregard of books and reading. Earlier generations resented homework assignments, of course, and only a small segment of each dove into the intellectual currents of the time, but no generation trumpeted aliteracy ... as a valid behavior of their peers.''

What's so special about books? Now instead of reading a book on generator functions, I can read a couple of web pages. What's the difference, other than the web page can include interactive examples, be updated the minute an error is spotted, and is generally free from the perspective of the reader?

Lack of capitalization and IM codes dominate online writing. Without spellcheck, folks are toast.

And we also do without "thou" and "thee"! Langauge changes. Further, online writing is many times in the form of - amazingly - instant messaging where both parties are likely knowledgeable about the lingo used. Therefore, no information is lost between the parties communicating so who cares?

"On MySpace, if you write clearly and compose coherent paragraphs with informed observations on history and current events, 'buddies' will make fun of you,'' Bauerlein says. Wikipedia writing is clean and factual, but colorless and judgment-free. Often the most clever students, with flashes of disorganized brilliance on MySpace, switch to dull Wiki-writing formats for school papers, he says. "If we could combine the style and imagination of MySpace with the content of Wikipedia, we might get good stuff."

Seems like a baseless claim to me. I have never seen such a thing happen, at any rate.

The stats tell the story here. First week's sales: $500 million. The sales of GTA dwarf movie premieres, CD sales, or, Bauerlein notes, book sales. All that video use, Bauerlein says, has hurt in the classroom, too. Thousands of Massachusetts public school graduates are ending up in remedial reading and writing classes in college, according to a Globe story.

What does Grand Theft Auto have to do with one's reading levels? I'd say a bigger problem is when teachers spend an entire class time lecturing on why one should address them as "Miss" instead of "Misses" instead of teaching the students how to read.

"For digital immigrants, people who are 40 years old who spent their college time in the library acquiring information, the Internet is really a miraculous source of knowledge,'' Bauerlein says. "Digital natives, however, go to the Internet not to store knowledge in their minds, but to retrieve material and pass it along. The Internet is just a delivery system.''

Another baseless claim. One just as easily skims through a book looking for information to quickly "pass along" as one does on the internet. Further, one can just as easily store the information learned on the internet as one would with a book.

Or because their parents don't check their bedrooms at midnight to halt the instant messaging..."Kids are drowning in teen stuff delivered 24/7 by the tools, and adult realities can't penetrate," Bauerlein says. Another factor: "It's the era of child-centered classrooms and self-esteem grading.''

I'll give partial credit to this. Children should be pushed more. However, I don't see what this has to do with late-night instant messaging. I never had a bed-time, and I did fine.

Do you remember how stupid you were when you were a teen-ager? Or all that you didn't know -- and thought you did? And the skills you gained by holding back on foolish comments? Oh, the now-old guy in this picture? He once wrote: "I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now.''

...OK...

I seriously don't understand why people get so upset anytime something changes. For god's sake do you see anyone speaking middle English anymore? Do you see mail being delivered by pony? Do you go out and shoot your dinner every night?

Just because something is different doesn't mean it's bad.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

It's a moving target. When I was a teenager, middle aged people were the dumbest generation. Especially my father. But now that I am middle aged, teenagers have taken over that role. Especially my daughter.

 

[rootX]

"the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience "

I think that's the main problem. Majority relies on their parents for their first 18 years of life and they hardly ever get any expierence. They never really interact with the real world or make any critical decisions. So, anyone who is 18-20s looks like dumb with respect to older people. This is not the case for all people (orphans/poor .. etc).


IMO, parents should regulate their children activities and teach them about ethics and discipline till they reach 18 (Looks Optimal to me). They must learn these things before they start their world.

P.S. Nothing is wrong here.

 

[binzing]

Wow, add insult to injury. I'm 16 btw.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Although in some ways it seems that every generation faces its own set of challenges, keep in mind that many of the people who have helped to bring us the information age, bioengineering, nanotechnology, and privately funded space travel, were once called "the lost generation".

4. They get ridiculed for original thought, good writing
"On MySpace, if you write clearly and compose coherent paragraphs with informed observations on history and current events, 'buddies' will make fun of you,'' Bauerlein says. Wikipedia writing is clean and factual, but colorless and judgment-free. Often the most clever students, with flashes of disorganized brilliance on MySpace, switch to dull Wiki-writing formats for school papers, he says. "If we could combine the style and imagination of MySpace with the content of Wikipedia, we might get good stuff."

Interesting

 

[WarPhalange]

As for a definition of intellegence, I think this one should work;

"the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience "

ha, sorry binzing, I didn't think anyone above 73 would bother taking the time to learn how to use a computer. And I figure people below 18 aren't mature enough to really judge their intelligence.

That definition isn't very good. Say you take someone who learns fast but is smart, and another who needs to drill ideas into his head before he can understand them but is willing to work hard at it, aka tortoise and the hare.

Clearly the person that sticks with it for a long time will end up with more knowledge, but since it took him longer to get he's stupid?

 

[Topher925]

That definition isn't very good. Say you take someone who learns fast but is smart, and another who needs to drill ideas into his head before he can understand them but is willing to work hard at it, aka tortoise and the hare.

Clearly the person that sticks with it for a long time will end up with more knowledge, but since it took him longer to get he's stupid?

WarPhalange, the definition makes no reference the speed at which a person learns. It merely states a persons ABILITY to learn, not how quickly. For example I have the ability to understand the concept of adaptive reasoning and how it differs from classical conditioning while let's say my friend Sarah, who is very political, does not. By my definition, that would make me more intelligent than Sarah.

 

[mcknia07]

Are you calling intellengence book smart or street smart?

 

[WarPhalange]

I see, so it's kind of how much you know and how much you understand.

So say your friend Sarah ended up being the greatest philosopher in history, while never understanding the concept of adaptive reasoning and how it differs from classical conditioning. Are you still smarter than her?

Let me cut to the chase with this because I'm feeling impatient today: You are saying "I am smarter than Sarah because I am smarter than her."

If someone doesn't have the ability to learn something and you do, then sure, you're smarter than that person. Unless that person has the ability to learn something that you just can't seem to grasp. Then what?

Also, I'm not trying to give some wishy washy "Everybody's special!" defense here. There clearly exist idiots in the world. I'm just saying it's a case of pornography: I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

 

[Topher925]

Unless that person has the ability to learn something that you just can't seem to grasp.

A tie breaker I guess. Thats what they do on Jeopardy right? But personally I don't see how being a philosopher in history gives you any smart points. I consider mathematicians to be the only true philosophers. But maybe that's just because I am an idiot.

 

[WarPhalange]

A tie breaker I guess. Thats what they do on Jeopardy right? But personally I don't see how being a philosopher in history gives you any smart points. I consider mathematicians to be the only true philosophers. But maybe that's just because I am an idiot.

Looks like you have some more philosophising to do. ;)

 

[rootX]

A tie breaker I guess. Thats what they do on Jeopardy right? But personally I don't see how being a philosopher in history gives you any smart points. I consider mathematicians to be the only true philosophers.

Agree "but you should always be suspicious about what pure math person tell you about the real world anyway".

 

[lisab]

There's only six years between generations ?

Seriously, though, with respect to generational differences, your poll doesn't make a lot of sense. While there's a huge difference between a 12-year-old and an 18-year-old, there's no such difference between a 42-year-old person and a 48-year-old person, based on age alone.

For any two adults, you could make a list of parameters that would define them as different from one another, but age would be way down on that list.

 

[redargon]

Which generation is the least intellegent?

intelligent,

which generation did you say you were from?

We're evolving, if you believe that, then I think it would be assumed that younger generations are smarter, as being smart is more useful today and in the future than being strong. That being said, I think the generation below me isn't doing so well on the intelligence scale, but that's because I see what they do and how they act, but am not a part of what goes on behind the scenes. I also think, the older you get, the more experience you have and the more time you've had to acquire knowledge. If you used that time to develop a crack addiction, then I don't consider you smart.

I would say, in my opinion, that people between the ages of 25 and 60, probably have the best allround intelligence. But like, it has been said, this a moving target. People that are now younger than that have a lot of mistakes to make and much to learn. People older than that generally forget stuff or are outdated, especially in terms of technology.

@warphalange, one day you too will be old and hoping that some nice young person will find a cure for your cancer, buy your groceries and give you their seat on the bus. It's like the army, as you move up the ranks, so you expect the people below you to do the same things that they made you do when you were at the bottom, even if you think they're dumb.

 

[JasonRox]

I think the oldest generation is the dumbest. My reasons...

1. Most of them never graduated high school

2. Most of them never went to college

3. They have a lower literacy rate

But the percentage of seniors with low literacy will drop, from 85 per cent in 2001, to 73 per cent in 2031.

Note: That means literacy rates are going up. Hence, current seniors can't read.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/editorials/story.html?id=5a1667e0-0ce9-4526-bd27-6238b484986f

4. They also can not spell

They can't read so it just follows

5. Seniors voted for Bush

http://seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Politics/2004/4-11-03SeniorHelpBush.htm

6. Seniors are stubborn



I think we can make the case for any group. But really I think today's younger generation is looked at as dumb because well that outlook is something have been doing for years. 10 years ago, they said the young generation was dumbest. And 10 years before that... and so on.

Such non-sense. There is so much good coming out of the technological age that really we can't just run around saying someone is dumb. The only problem with a boosting technology age is that everything else is at a stand still. Teachers are not progressing to take the challenges of teaching and communicating with technology. And I'm NOT talking about PowerPoint. I'm talking that you need to teach in different manners and not use the old same boring methods because students now pick up algorithms faster but concepts at slower. If you're going to teach algorithms (which teachers do and there is a reason for this (political)), they'll get bored out of their minds real fast. Older people are also not growing with technology at all. It's also separating us a lot more socially although it is thought to be bringing us closer. I disagree because in my opinion I think Interpersonal skills are going into the ground (kind of like what Cyrus said about people looking at the ground when saying hello).

Anyways, cheers.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

I think babies are pretty dumb. They are easily fooled, and easy to trick into http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-wj6ppCYM8".

⚛​

 

[NeoDevin]

So the ``math major => intelligent?'' gets locked, but this one is still going?

 

[gutti]

There are different forms of intelligence, someone can be extremely book smart but not have the intelligence to realize their potential.

Everyone has the potential to learn and be intelligent if they want to,, the dumb people in my opinion are the people that have no drive to achieve.

And by the way, saying people under 18 are immature is rather offensive.

I am 15 and I'm more mature than many older people that I know. Also there are people who have graduated university by the age of 18, so are you saying they are not intelligent people?

 

[Evo]

The article was already discussed in another thread.

There is no difference in intelligence, there would be a difference in the amount of education and experience.

 

[LightbulbSun]

It's also separating us a lot more socially although it is thought to be bringing us closer. I disagree because in my opinion I think Interpersonal skills are going into the ground (kind of like what Cyrus said about people looking at the ground when saying hello).

Anyways, cheers.

Oh, come on. What a caricature. I spend 70% of my time on a computer and I still look up at the person when I say "hello." Maybe the person that looks down at the ground when saying hello has a lot more psychological issues which can't be attributed to technology.

 

[Math Jeans]

As a 14-year-old, I feel somewhat left out.

 

[Darkiekurdo]

What about me, the 15-year old?

 

[WarPhalange]

@warphalange, one day you too will be old and hoping that some nice young person will find a cure for your cancer, buy your groceries and give you their seat on the bus. It's like the army, as you move up the ranks, so you expect the people below you to do the same things that they made you do when you were at the bottom, even if you think they're dumb.

You don't understand. It's old people calling the young people dumb, even though they depend on young people.

When I get old I won't call the younger generations dumb, because I know I will depend on them to get through my day. You don't bite the hand that feeds you, especially if they are trying to feed you a cure for cancer.

 

[binzing]

Jeans are you serious?

 

[glondor]

I guess the largest age demographic would have the largest group of intelligent people. I do not think intelligence is a function of age as much as experience is. Largest age group wins. jmho.

 

[Moonbear]

There is no difference in intelligence, there would be a difference in the amount of education and experience.

Agreed. I do also notice differences in how much effort students will put into their studies. The current cohort of students seems a bit lazier when it comes to not reading their textbooks than previous generations. It doesn't apply to everyone, of course, but more in terms of what's typical of the group. But that's not an intelligence issue, rather it's motivation.

 

[Art]

If IQ is accepted as a measure of intelligence then each generation is, on average, smarter than it's predecessor as scores have increased (in the lower end of the distribution only) by about 3 points per decade, thought to be a result of greater cognitive stimulation and better nutrition. However there are indications this growth has slowed considerably or even stopped in the developed countries since the mid 90's (Probably because of computer games and mobile phones ).

It's called the Flynn Effect.