Vassar makes the argument that science funding is increasing exponentially, so mean intelligence scores should be increasing exponentially as well. Personally I’m not sure that science funding is increasing exponentially.
The very short version of my thesis on sci/tech change is that we have exponential increases in resources devoted to science and technology as a civilization, linear returns on many scales such as life expectancy, mean IQ, log GDP (which is still of mildly diminishing utility), etc.
In other words, one way Michael Vassar measures the success of science is by observing the ratio of change in average intelligence per year to the number of dollars spent on science per year. Even if intelligence is going up, that ratio could be going down. And if it is, our science spending is getting less efficient (according to one measure).
Got that? It’s not too hard.
Edit: Why am I being downmodded? Is it because my interpretation of Michael Vassar’s argument is incorrect, or because I am being overly hard on people who can’t understand it, or something else? You guys are pissing me off.
Vassar makes the argument that science funding is increasing exponentially, so mean intelligence scores should be increasing exponentially as well. Personally I’m not sure that science funding is increasing exponentially.
How does it follow that science funding and intelligence scores should be so strongly correlated?
Oh geez. Here is exactly what he wrote.
In other words, one way Michael Vassar measures the success of science is by observing the ratio of change in average intelligence per year to the number of dollars spent on science per year. Even if intelligence is going up, that ratio could be going down. And if it is, our science spending is getting less efficient (according to one measure).
Got that? It’s not too hard.
Edit: Why am I being downmodded? Is it because my interpretation of Michael Vassar’s argument is incorrect, or because I am being overly hard on people who can’t understand it, or something else? You guys are pissing me off.