Fading creativity

As IQ inches upwards, creativity is sagging, according to this Newsweek article:

Like intelligence tests, Torrance’s test—a 90-minute series of discrete tasks, administered by a psychologist—has been taken by millions worldwide in 50 languages. Yet there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.
Why is this happening? The article suggests some possible reasons. "One likely culprit is the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing videogames rather than engaging in creative activities. Another is the lack of creativity development in our schools."

Continue ReadingFading creativity

All those cameras

Here's a random thought. I suspect that small tightly-knit communities--small towns--have tended to produce, on average, more people with a traditional sense of morality--more people with strong consciences. Don't steal, don't kill, be kind, look out to help others in need, for instance. I don't know this to be a fact. Rather, it's anecdotal, but it's based on 54 years of experience. I also suspect that part of the reason that this is true (to the extent that it is true) is that people in small towns keep a close eye on each other. In small towns, I suspect that children grow up more closely watched and corrected by others (especially corrected by neighbors and even strangers) when they gets out of line. I think that this sort of upbringing will tend to produce more of a traditional moral "conscience." Now consider that there are a lot of cameras out there these days. Lots and lots of government cameras, of course, but also millions of phone cameras as well as plain old . . . cameras. Anything unusual that happens out in a public space is now likely to draw at least some photos and video. Is it possible that all of these cameras in big cities might have the effect of turning big city "dog-eat-dog" people into something more akin to small town people? Will the presence of so many cameras tend to make big city people feel constantly "watched." Will that, in turn, encourage big city individuals to develop traditional moral habits?

Continue ReadingAll those cameras

Cigarettes save the environment by killing humans

The Onion reports:

"By killing off the No. 1 threat to the environment, new Marlboro Earths will have a long-term effect on the overall health of our planet," Philip Morris spokesperson Janet Weiss said. "If everyone in America does their part and joins our new green-smoking movement, then together we can eradicate man's destructive practices once and for all."

Continue ReadingCigarettes save the environment by killing humans

The problem with oratory skills

Noam Chomsky doesn't put any value in polished oratory skills, a point he made clear in an interview he gave Nigel Farndale at Telegraph.co.uk:

I am no Barack Obama,’ he says to me now. ‘I don’t have any oratory skills. But I would not use them if I had. I don’t like to listen to it. Even people I admire, like Martin Luther King, just turn me off. I don’t think it is the way to reach people. If you are giving a graduate course you don’t try to impress the students with oratory, you try to challenge them, get them to question you.’
What does Chomsky think of Obama?
I take it he didn’t buy into Obama’s message of hope and change. ‘Elections in the United States are expensive extravaganzas run by the public relations industry. The PR people looked at the polls and picked slogans accordingly. ‘Did you know Obama won the best campaign of the advertising industry in 2008? It was politicians being marketed as a product, like toothpaste. What does that have to do with democracy? If you read his statement you find yourself asking what was the hope? What was the change? These were empty words.’

Continue ReadingThe problem with oratory skills