leads the way!

Pretty much worldwide.

Would like to see more studies in peer-reviewed publications on the subject.

and the paper is marked as 'reviewed':

who do reviews. The science researchers I worked with published articles in PNAS but getting published in a journal from their discilpine is what their goal was because those are reiewed by the top researchers in the field. They considered PNAS more of a clearinghouse. I don't know about the reviewers at PNAS but if you read all of the link you posted they call for volunteers. Perhaps they are just as qualified but as far as this study, like I wrote, I would want to see more research that appears in journals from the discipline.

At least in part because I don't have one.

It's a convenience for some but it's a crutch for others.

So, what started in the '70s and has continued to the present?

Just turn on a TV and see how it apparently caters to ignorant morons with no attention span.

Hell, even NPR is nothing like it was a mere 10 years ago. All short, trivial little human interest pieces all day long: short, undemanding segments and "populair" entertainment.

There's also hardly one movie a year that might tempt me to the theatre.

But you're smarter than me because you don't have a smartphone.

TV is more and more moronic everywhere, following the imbecility of US commercial media. Lowest common denominator chasing probably accounts for a lot of it.

It is clear that there are folks who want to deny power to the people. It will be up to the people.

I've been around more people than I can count, in my various jobs, so stupid, that I'd wonder who tied their shoes for them each day. I'd estimate, by my own standards that 43% of uhmurkins, matching the number of drumpf supporters. I blame the cuts to education that seemed to pick up steam in the ronnie raygun era. Classes that teach or exercise critical thought have been largely systematically eliminated. Civics classes for one. Civics was required when I was in high school. years later. when my son was in high school civics was an elective, in the same school. Now I'm told it isn't even offered anymore. Schools are little more than day care centers, sometimes doubling as shooting galleries these days.

When I was in school an IQ of 104 was considered average. Now I'm told the average has dipped into the 90's, and yet 43% can't meet that standard.

The actions and policies of the thugs are squarely to blame, and almost half the country are too damn stupid to grasp this fact.

It will get worse. The pugs cultivate stupidity and ignorance because that is their base.

One taste of this tap water says you are wrong.

All scientific data says you are wrong. All.

Then I'll show you pictures of the Bronx, Flint, rivers in China, smog in LA.

I've recently been in both NC and in NY for extended periods. Years ago, one could see the fainter stars. Now, there's just a haze up there.

You have already said it. Anti-science people are like that.

BTW your problem with the stars is not air pollution, it is light pollution. That is what cuts out our ability to see stars. That type of pollution certainly has increased but has nothing to do with dirty air.

Master of Science in Technology Studies, here.

Masters Thesis: New Ways of Teaching Science

It should be easy. You said ALL.

I know the dif between light pollution and perpetual haze. I see how the sky has changed in 10-20 years. There are places I go where light pollution is minimal.

Even if it is cleaner in the US, India and China put out plenty of new sources of pollution.

No links, no believe you.

Well, at least you had an appropriate title...

Now let's see. The OP said we are getting dumber since the 1970s. And you said "Air and water pollution are contributing factors". Since we are 1) getting dumber since the 1970s and 2) air and water pollution are contributing factors, that means 3) air and water pollution must be increasing since the 1970s.

Now since you know "New ways of teaching science" why don't you show where 1) air and water pollution are increasing since the 1970s and 2) how that has contributed to us getting dumber.

You say that I said statements 1 and 2 must imply 3.

I actually said 3 and 2 imply 1. Do you see the difference?

Here's a link...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/13/air-pollution-linked-to-increased-mental-illness-in-children

You got a link for me?

And of course something in the Guardian which is not a science journal. If the premise of the article -- air pollution causes mental illness -- was correct then everyone must of been insane in the 1950s when air pollution was orders of magnitude worse than it is now.

Link which shows world air pollution going down:

https://ourworldindata.org/air-pollution

Link showing the same for the U.S.

https://gispub.epa.gov/air/trendsreport/2017/#highlights

> everyone must of been insane in the 1950s

No. This is an abuse of basic logic. SOME does not imply ALL.

> orders of magnitude worse than it is now.

Your article does not show "orders of mag," but rather LINEAR trends and for SOME pollutants.

Also, it speaks solely in terms of present-day "emissions." It does not deal with accumulation over the years.

Pollution is cumulative.

Also, the article does not account for events like Fukushima or ongoing processes like strip mining and methane exfiltration from oil wells, or Houston's oil refineries being flooded out from the recent hurricane.

And then there's the water. Lead in the water, such as in Flint, is known to cause brain damage.

Reading! I thank my parents for instilling a love of reading in me and my siblings, but do parents bother reading to their kids?

My parents always read to us, our house was filled with books of all genres, they bought us books as presents, and my dad insisted on a weekly Storytime. He did dramatic readings from classical literature and we learned the works of Homer, Aristotle, Plato and Marcus Aurelius. He read books in character, bring Shakespeare alive, or taking us into the drawing room of the Bronte Sisters, and his Southern drawl made see Mark Twain's world as it was. He teased us with installments of Horatio Hornblower, Sherlock Holmes, Don Quixote, and Long John Silver, and we argued over would would get to read those books first.

Reading gives us much more than the power of knowledge, it grows our vocabulary and further helps with comprehension far more than just watching the TV.

I remember Mr Wizard, and a lot of science and documentaries on network TV.

We all had a large intake or real sugar in the eras before the 70's. The report said IQ peaked in the 70's and then started dropping.

The report talked about the world wide IQ is dropping, so you can't point it to what we do here.

You don't even need a study to figure that one out. Look at the Trump voters. Many of them are highly intelligent and they don't have a lick of commonsense.

In a landmark public health finding, a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health finds that carbon dioxide (CO2) has a direct and negative impact on human cognition and decision-making. These impacts have been observed at CO2 levels that most Americans — and their children — are routinely exposed to today inside classrooms, offices, homes, planes, and cars.

Carbon dioxide levels are inevitably higher indoors than the baseline set by the outdoor air used for ventilation, a baseline that is rising at an accelerating rate thanks to human activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels. So this seminal research has equally great importance for climate policy, providing an entirely new public health impetus for keeping global CO2 levels as low as possible.

In a series of articles, I will examine the implications for public health both today (indoors) as well as in the future (indoors and out) due to rising CO2 levels. This series is the result of a year-long investigation for Climate Progress and my new Oxford University Press book coming out next week, “Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know.” This investigative report is built on dozens of studies and literature reviews as well as exclusive interviews with many of the world’s leading experts in public health and indoor air quality, including authors of both studies.

Significantly, the Harvard study confirms the findings of a little-publicized 2012 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) study, “Is CO2 an Indoor Pollutant? Direct Effects of Low-to-Moderate CO2 Concentrations on Human Decision-Making Performance.” That study found “statistically significant and meaningful reductions in decision-making performance” in test subjects as CO2 levels rose from a baseline of 600 parts per million (ppm) to 1000 ppm and 2500 ppm.

EDIT

https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-elevated-co2-levels-directly-affect-human-cognition-new-harvard-study-shows-2748e7378941/


Link to original study:
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/15-10037/


Link to 2012 study:
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1104789/

we can see it right here as people are wuzzling the report from some clickbait web site called fastcompany.com rather than reading and thinking about the original report.

This is a study concerning the slow down of the Flynn Effect. The Flynn Effect is the consistent, almost linear, growth in scores from IQ tests over the 20th century. Due to the Flynn Effect, tests have had to be renormed so that standardized scores continue to have a mean of 100 and a normal distribution. There is some evidence that the Flynn Effect has run its course in some developed nations, including Norway. The simplest explanation for this, if it is indeed the case, is regression to the mean. Obviously. In the current study, the authors examine correlates of IQ scores to determine if the slow down in the Flynn Effect in those industrialized nations is due to between-family factors - such as environmental changes like water and air quality - or within-family factors, and the data that they report suggest that the observed slow down in the Flynn Effect is due to within-family factors. That lead the author of the click bait article to suggest that within-family factors are cheeto-eating, binge watching, etc. "lifestyles," but, frankly, I am not sure how the author reached that conclusion or why these "lifestyles" would vary within families. As the authors of the original work state RIGHT IN THE ABSTRACT "The analysis controls for all factors shared by siblings and finds no evidence for prominent causal hypotheses of the decline implicating genes and environmental factors that vary between, but not within, families."

Through defunding and lower standards.

The right wingers want all of your kids in religious madrasses.