When we're confronted by statistics like "Study Finds One-Third in D.C. Illiterate" we've been conditioned to immediately blame education... but what if the real problem isn't education, but intelligence?
About one-third of the people living in the national's capital are functionally illiterate, compared with about one-fifth nationally, according to a report on the District of Columbia.Adults are considered functionally illiterate if they have trouble doing such things as comprehending bus schedules, reading maps and filling out job applications.
It's possible that in this case the major explanation is, as the article later claims, that there are a lot of non-English-speaking immigrants in the city (that many?), but what if the real reason that American academic achievement has been dropping isn't because of a worsening education system (which we spend more and more on each year) but because Americans are getting dumber?
Anyway, here's a neat page that describes functional literacy with a few sample problems and then links to even more. Go ahead and see how you do. You might be surprised at the types of questions that the majority of Americans simply can't answer.
The question of whether people are becoming more or less intelecually capable (or literate/smart/whatever) seems is a very tricky one:
As for the article on functional literacy... It's pretty much unbelievable. Literally. I find it hard to believe that I live in a world where half the people can't fill out an order form, or look at chronological columns of numbers and say which are getting bigger and which are getting smaller. I guess I can either trust the authority of the article, or not trust it, or investigate further. Which I guess is a function of how lazy I am. Now THERE's a probably-increasing characteristic worth studying...
Hmm, the link didn't make it. Let me try again:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.05/flynn_pr.html
Maybe I'm just simple-minded, but compressed air is only a way to store energy, not a source of it. The key question is: What source of energy will be used to compress the air, how much does it cost and how much pollution does it involve?
My impression is that oil and natural gas as simply the cheapest sources of energy available. So I don't understand the fascination with making a car that will run on something other that gasoline. We don't use gasoline because it's portable; we use it because it's cheap.
If you really want to popularize cars that don't run on gasoline, then build nuclear power plants. Once the capital cost is spread out over time, those produce cheaper energy than oil. Once we have cheaper energy, then people will find ways to move that energy into a portable form that a car can use.
Bernardo: The Flynn Effect is pretty much non-existent in developed countries, and is slowing around the world. Most researchers attribute it to improved nutrition, from what I've read.