{"id":9751,"date":"2013-05-27T09:02:33","date_gmt":"2013-05-27T16:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=9751"},"modified":"2013-07-07T12:51:28","modified_gmt":"2013-07-07T19:51:28","slug":"thanks-to-fox-news-human-intelligence-is-on-the-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=9751","title":{"rendered":"Thanks To Fox News: Human Intelligence Is On The Decline"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine my surprise to find a story on Fox Nation, the <a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/UPoI6a\" target=\"_blank\">lie-riddled<\/a> community web site of Fox News, about the decline of human intelligence. Was this an attempt to convey the results of an academic study, or are they just bragging?<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/Pix\/FoxNation\/foxnation-intelligence-decline.jpg\" alt=\"Fox Nation\" \/><\/center><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p>The article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2013\/05\/22\/people-getting-dumber-human-intelligence-victoria-era_n_3293846.html?view=print&#038;comm_ref=false\" target=\"_blank\">refers to a study<\/a> done at the University of Amsterdam that concludes that westerners have lost 14 IQ points on average since the Victorian Era. The study&#8217;s author surmised that a number of complex factors led to the conclusion that was based on tests of visual reaction times. The tests reflect a person&#8217;s mental processing speed which correlates to IQ. Among the explanations offered for the brain drain were the migration of populations to densely packed cities and a tendency for more intelligent women to choose to have fewer children.<\/p>\n<p>Not surprisingly, the Fox Nationalists utterly misconstrued the study&#8217;s findings. Their linked source for the story was an article on the conservative blog, Townhall, where the web editor dismissed the science behind the research and offered his own opinion that the decline in IQ was caused by MTV and video games. Somewhere along the way he missed the fact that the reported decline occurred over a period of more than a hundred years, which makes his hypothesis focusing on modern television and technology a pretty good example of a dumbed-down contemporary human.<\/p>\n<p>The rejection of science is not unusual for conservatives who persistently refuse to accept the scientific community&#8217;s nearly universal consensus on things like evolution and climate change. That may explain why scientists themselves veer away from conservative associations. A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.people-press.org\/2009\/07\/09\/section-4-scientists-politics-and-religion\/\" target=\"_blank\">study<\/a> by the Pew Center for the People and the Press revealed that <em>&#8220;most scientists identify as Democrats (55%), while 32% identify as independents and just 6% say they are Republicans.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><center>[<a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/News-Corpse\/117899091558228?v=wall\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Like me on Facebook\">If you like this, then LIKE News Corpse on Facebook<\/a>]<\/center><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, if there is a decline in intelligence, it is most starkly evident in the Tea-publican Party. A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/personal-finance\/2012\/10\/15\/americas-best-and-worst-educated-states\/\" target=\"_blank\">report<\/a> published by (of all places) Fox Business, surveyed the nation&#8217;s academic profile and found that the ten states with the best educated citizens were all <em>&#8220;blue&#8221;<\/em> states, while nine of the ten worst educated were <em>&#8220;red&#8221;<\/em> states (and eight of those were in the south).<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/Pix\/FoxNews\/foxbusiness-education.jpg\" alt=\"Fox Business\" \/><\/center><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p>The decline of western intelligence, according to the Amsterdam data, has been in the works for many decades. It would be interesting to conduct another version of this research that measures IQ in the United States since 1996, the year that Fox News debuted. Numerous studies have already documented the fact that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3409\" target=\"_blank\">Fox News viewers are more ill-informed<\/a> than consumers of other media. In fact, one study demonstrates that the more one watches Fox, the more misinformed one becomes. Of course, being ignorant or misinformed is not the same as lacking intelligence. But it has the same effect on electoral outcomes and, consequently, public policy.<\/p>\n<p>So whether Fox viewers are stupid or ignorant is immaterial. The important thing is to continue to provide a counterbalance to the propaganda Fox spews and rescue citizens from their deceitful disinformation that only benefits the wealthy, right-wing elites who Fox was created to serve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine my surprise to find a story on Fox Nation, the lie-riddled community web site of Fox News, about the decline of human intelligence. Was this an attempt to convey the results of an academic study, or are they just bragging? The article refers to a study done at the University of Amsterdam that concludes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[171,527,33],"class_list":["post-9751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-education","tag-fox-nation","tag-fox-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-2xh","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3792,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3792","url_meta":{"origin":9751,"position":0},"title":"Fox News Biggest Ratings Loser Of The New Year","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/1\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In what may be a bullish sign for America's IQ, Fox News suffered the biggest ratings decline of all the cable news networks from January 2010 to January 2011. Hopefully this means that television viewers are getting tired of brazenly biased news coverage that foments division, spreads disinformation, and insults\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8621,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=8621","url_meta":{"origin":9751,"position":1},"title":"Fake Study Gets It Right: Says Fox News Viewers Have A Lower IQ Than Average Americans","author":"Mark NC","date":"12\/9\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A press release was published this morning on Yahoo! News with a provocative headline declaring that an \"Intelligence Institute Study shows Fox News viewers have an IQ that is 20 points lower than the U.S. National average.\" The article went on to assert that \"Americans who watch Fox News have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":35863,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=35863","url_meta":{"origin":9751,"position":2},"title":"Moron Trump Turns Out to Be a Chicken, Backs Out of IQ Challenge With Sec. Tillerson","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/10\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Late last week NBC News revealed that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had openly disparaged Donald Trump as a \"f*cking moron.\" The surprisingly accurate analysis came during a meeting at the Pentagon in July according to three sources. Tillerson later held an unprecedented press conference to refute the charge that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Donald Trump Chicken","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-chicken-don.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-chicken-don.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-chicken-don.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":24374,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=24374","url_meta":{"origin":9751,"position":3},"title":"Fox News Employs Hilariously Warped Math To Claim Victory Over Dish TV","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/8\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The ongoing contract negotiations between Fox News and the Dish TV network has resulted in Fox pulling their programming off the service until their demands are met. Consequently, Dish subscribers are reporting an unexpected rise in IQ and a corresponding decline in irrational fear. And it measurably improved their Christmas\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox News Dish TV","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-dishtv.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-dishtv.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnews-dishtv.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":66375,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=66375","url_meta":{"origin":9751,"position":4},"title":"Trump Won&#8217;t Take Daily Intel Briefings, So His DNI Wants to Hire Fox News Producers to Make Them","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/31\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the most troubling aspects of Donald Trump's work ethic (or lack thereof) is his notoriously neglectful attitude toward doing any actual work. His office hours are reportedly limited due to what his aides refer to as \"executive time\" (aka napping, eating, watching Fox News, and rage-posting insults and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Donald Trump, Fox News, White House","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-whitehouse-foxnews.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-whitehouse-foxnews.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-whitehouse-foxnews.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5739,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=5739","url_meta":{"origin":9751,"position":5},"title":"Fox Nation: Retarded And Proud","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/6\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"To say that the Fox Nation exhibits the mental capacity of a six year old would be an insult to six year olds. Let's just say that Fox News is focused on appealing to a target audience with the IQ of Fox political analyst Sarah Palin's son, Trigg. This morning\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9751"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10076,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9751\/revisions\/10076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}