Le duodi 12 nivôse, an CCXXV, deloptes a écrit : > No time to discuss too long with you Well, if you took time to find exact pointers rather than links to a huge website and a 80+ pages document, you would realize you cannot find anything to support the theory that the average level has decreased over a significant period of time (fluctuations over a 5-15 period of time are of course to be expected). Instead, you shift subtly the statement towards politics and economy. The truth is that the level has actually increased in developed countries: a greater proportion of people finish high school, a greater proportion of people access to higher education. The contents is also broader and more rewarding, people no longer learn by heart lists of battle dates and capital cities, they learn social mechanisms and geopolitics; they study literary works instead of minute spelling rules. They spend less time training to do three-digits multiplications by hand because they have calculators, and thus they have time to study statistics. Now, why do people think the level drops? There are several reasons. The simplest is this: they do not realize how much they evolved, they do not realize they were just as clueless and ignorant at the same age. If you can, dig something you wrote when you were barely an adult and read it: odds are you will want to slap that stupid guy. Another reason is a combination of confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance. The knowledge changes; without the level dropping, new generations know less about some topics, and more about others. When old geezers notice that a kid does not know something, they notice it, and they take it as a confirmation that the level drops, and they slap their forehead. On the other hand, they rarely notice when the kid knows something they ignore; because most of the time it is the old geezers who drive the conversations, and they will not talk about subjects they ignore; because if that happens anyway, they will not dwell on it, their subconscious will gloss over it to avoid the humiliation. Another point, specific to teachers and people exposed to the same kind of young population. A century ago, teachers beyond the level of 10-12 years-old kids saw only the elite. (Well, not exactly a century ago; exactly a century ago, teachers saw French mud and German shells.) At that age, kids who had neither money nor exceptional abilities were already plowing the fields or digging the mines (I might be exaggerating for emphasis). Nowadays, they see everybody (10-16 years) or almost (later). The level of a century ago's elite was better than the level of today's whole population, yes, big surprise. But if you consider the whole population on both cases, the comparison reverses. Show a function graph to a random 18 years-old European today, almost all of them will know what it is about, and more than half of then will actually know how to read it. I do not have figures, but I would be surprised if it was even half that sixty years ago. Now, I realize that you, the person who was contradicting me, will not agree with anything I wrote; it does not matter, these are well-studied facts (978-20-2012-469-0 for example) based historic statistical analysis. I wrote this for other readers who might be fooled by your pseudo-references. Now, I will leave you the last word: please go ahead and reply with a barely relevant rant laced with mystic nonsense. Really EOT this time (sorry). Regards, -- Nicolas George
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