Are kids becoming dumber?

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ruveyn
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28 Sep 2010, 5:11 pm

WonkyDonkey wrote:

The young generation may be clever but are they skilled? How many young people could build a house today compared to young people in the 1950s?

House building is specialized labor and has been so throughout the 20th century.

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quiet_dove
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28 Sep 2010, 5:14 pm

WonkyDonkey wrote:

The young generation may be clever but are they skilled? How many young people could build a house today compared to young people in the 1950s?

You do realize that you, being 24 years old, are a part of the "young generation," don't you? Can you build a house?

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ruveyn
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28 Sep 2010, 8:51 pm

Even among the Amish, raising a house or a barn was never an individual effort. it was done by a group of able bodied, skillful builders. It was a community effort.

Come, John Book, we have a barn to raise.

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Orwell
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28 Sep 2010, 9:34 pm

I still have trouble with shoelaces, and all the tests say I'm in the top 1% of the population. What do shoelaces and old-style paper envelopes have to do with general intelligence? (And to answer the rhetorical question from that silly article: Yes, snail mail is so obsolete that teens don't need to waste time learning how to handle it)

Wombat wrote:

Two hundred years ago the population was 99% literate.

That's simply not true. Show me your evidence.

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skafather84
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28 Sep 2010, 10:16 pm

Orwell wrote:

Wombat wrote:

Two hundred years ago the population was 99% literate.

That's simply not true. Show me your evidence.

There's a small possibility for it to be true if 99% only means landowners only. Maybe.

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Orwell
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28 Sep 2010, 10:21 pm

skafather84 wrote:

Orwell wrote:

Wombat wrote:

Two hundred years ago the population was 99% literate.

That's simply not true. Show me your evidence.

There's a small possibility for it to be true if 99% only means landowners only. Maybe.

Oh right. Only rich white male landowners were "people" back then.

My mistake, Wombat.

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WonkyDonkey
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29 Sep 2010, 2:18 am

quiet_dove wrote:

WonkyDonkey wrote:

The young generation may be clever but are they skilled? How many young people could build a house today compared to young people in the 1950s?

You do realize that you, being 24 years old, are a part of the "young generation," don't you? Can you build a house?

Yeah, I'm part of the young generation. I can't build a house and it upsets me. Why do only people who study specialised courses get to learn how to build houses? Wouldn't it be better to incorporate the building and maintenance of homes into high school education? It would be a lot more useful to me now than learning French, advanced theoretical maths or how to build a wooden train or a simple electronic gadget has proven to be.

ruveyn
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29 Sep 2010, 6:56 am

WonkyDonkey wrote:

quiet_dove wrote:

WonkyDonkey wrote:

The young generation may be clever but are they skilled? How many young people could build a house today compared to young people in the 1950s?

You do realize that you, being 24 years old, are a part of the "young generation," don't you? Can you build a house?

Building a house these days is an exercise in medium and high technology. The laws regulating house building preclude the simplicity of the classical log cabin.

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29 Sep 2010, 7:12 am

ruveyn wrote:

WonkyDonkey wrote:

quiet_dove wrote:

WonkyDonkey wrote:

The young generation may be clever but are they skilled? How many young people could build a house today compared to young people in the 1950s?

You do realize that you, being 24 years old, are a part of the "young generation," don't you? Can you build a house?

Building a house these days is an exercise in medium and high technology. The laws regulating house building preclude the simplicity of the classical log cabin.

ruveyn

Yes. Meeting building code requirements is well beyond the bounds of even the most rigorous highschool shop class. Trade schools exist for a reason.

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29 Sep 2010, 9:42 am

WonkyDonkey wrote:

quiet_dove wrote:

WonkyDonkey wrote:

The young generation may be clever but are they skilled? How many young people could build a house today compared to young people in the 1950s?

You do realize that you, being 24 years old, are a part of the "young generation," don't you? Can you build a house?

Why not find a professional carpenter and ask him to teach you the trade? Or why not check out some books on carpentry from your local library? Simply complaining about being uneducated in the field of carpentry isn't going to get you anywhere.

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skafather84
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29 Sep 2010, 9:52 am

Orwell wrote:

skafather84 wrote:

Orwell wrote:

Wombat wrote:

Two hundred years ago the population was 99% literate.

That's simply not true. Show me your evidence.

There's a small possibility for it to be true if 99% only means landowners only. Maybe.

Oh right. Only rich white male landowners were "people" back then.

My mistake, Wombat.

200 years ago, it's very possible that might have been all they counted for the "actual population" and maybe had some side guesses about slaves and women.

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29 Sep 2010, 11:04 am

WonkyDonkey wrote:

quiet_dove wrote:

WonkyDonkey wrote:

The young generation may be clever but are they skilled? How many young people could build a house today compared to young people in the 1950s?

You do realize that you, being 24 years old, are a part of the "young generation," don't you? Can you build a house?

You never learned "advanced theoretical maths" in high school. At most, maybe you learned a bit of single-variable calculus, which is a heck of a lot more useful and more broadly applicable than house-building ever will be.

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Jono
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29 Sep 2010, 3:07 pm

As others have said, I think that kids appear to be getting smarter because they are learning skills that may not have been needed in earlier generations. I'm not that it necessarily means that people today are more intelligent than previous generations though.

skafather84
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29 Sep 2010, 3:11 pm

Jono wrote:

I'd more consider it differently intelligent rather than one being more or less intelligent than the other generation.

And so long as the information is at least stored and kept in books and by various individuals, it's not like as if much is lost overall. There are still people who know how to make black powder and how to do many lost crafts...I mean just look at renaissance fairs and the skills that are maintained through those people learning those lost crafts.

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29 Sep 2010, 3:34 pm

Jono wrote:

One of those skills is taking tests. I think that may be a big part of the Flynn Effect. People are just being trained almost from birth to frame information in an "I'm being quizzed. I know the answer" format. Even before school (or even preschool) starts, parents frame the world this way for their toddlers.

WonkyDonkey
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29 Sep 2010, 3:41 pm

quiet_dove wrote:

WonkyDonkey wrote:

quiet_dove wrote:

WonkyDonkey wrote:

The young generation may be clever but are they skilled? How many young people could build a house today compared to young people in the 1950s?

You do realize that you, being 24 years old, are a part of the "young generation," don't you? Can you build a house?

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it, it is never of any use to oneself.

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