Victorians More Intelligent Than Us; g is declining

[Extollager]

Perhaps this was discussed here at Chrons before:

https://phys.org/news/2013-05-victorian-era-people-intelligent-modern-day-counterparts.html

This claim came to my mind as I was reading Wordsworth's Prelude (the version published in 1850; the "1805" version, favored by academics today, wasn't published till the 1920s).

This book-length poem was, it seems, pretty widely known and read in its day, and esteemed. But I think we today will find it hard going because of what will seem to us convoluted sentences.

Evidently many readers then were not stumped by this:

The Prelude: XIII
Imagination and Taste, How Impaired and Restored (concluded)
FROM Nature doth emotion come, and moods
Of calmness equally are Nature's gift:
This is her glory; these two attributes
Are sister horns that constitute her strength.
Hence Genius, born to thrive by interchange
Of peace and excitation, finds in her
His best and purest friend; from her receives
That energy by which he seeks the truth,
From her that happy stillness of the mind
Which fits him to receive it when unsought.
Such benefit the humblest intellects
Partake of, each in their degree; 'tis mine
To speak, what I myself have known and felt;
Smooth task! for words find easy way, inspired
By gratitude, and confidence in truth.
Long time in search of knowledge did I range
The field of human life, in heart and mind
Benighted; but, the dawn beginning now
To re-appear, 'twas proved that not in vain
I had been taught to reverence a Power
That is the visible quality and shape
And image of right reason; that matures
Her processes by steadfast laws; gives birth
To no impatient or fallacious hopes,
No heat of passion or excessive zeal,
No vain conceits; provokes to no quick turns
Of self-applauding intellect; but trains
To meekness, and exalts by humble faith;
Holds up before the mind intoxicate
With present objects, and the busy dance
Of things that pass away, a temperate show
Of objects that endure; and by this course
Disposes her, when over-fondly set
On throwing off incumbrances, to seek
In man, and in the frame of social life,
Whate'er there is desirable and good
Of kindred permanence, unchanged in form
And function, or, through strict vicissitude
Of life and death, revolving.

 

[Ursa major]

pretty widely known and read in its day

Even my feeble brain -- more akin to an ape's than to a Victorian's, it seems -- can see that the words I've quoted don't provide the information necessary to substantiate the claim made elsewhere in the post. What do those quoted words mean in practice?

 

[Extollager]

By "pretty widely known" I meant that Wordsworth's Prelude was known by reputation to many people, including people who hadn't read it, or so I surmise.

I provided the passage I'd just been reading from The Prelude to illustrate what I suspect will be its daunting quality for readers today. certainly it daunts me, and I won't attempt here to paraphrase it. A difference between myself and some people today is that I'm not content to write off Wordsworth as turgid, etc., but to consider that my/our problem with Wordsworth, as opposed to Victorian readers' capacity to read the poem, might be evidence that "we" are less intelligent than the population sampled in the article to which I linked. I realize there are many questions that might be asked about the article and about availability of books then and now and a thousand other things. But I'm willing to wonder if, all things considered, it is possible that, at least in regard to the spoken and written word, there has not indeed been a decline.

As further evidence I might adduce Shakespeare's plays. His original audiences did not have access to the texts. The plays were performed, it appears, quite rapidly. Yet Shakespeare was successful. Now some may say: Well, of course! He was writing for his audience and that's how they talked then. -- All right, sure, I recognize that we are slowed down because we have to look up the meanings of unfamiliar words (and of familiar words that meant something different then, e.g. "progress'). But Shakespeare wasn't writing the speech of the street in his swatches of blank verse. He was writing verse, with, sometimes, rather long sentences, with parenthetical clauses and phrases, etc. And evidently his audience followed the meaning and enjoyed the wordplay.

And so on.

My guess is that we will never really be able to settle the matter because we can't gather data under controlled conditions and so on. But I do wonder.

At the least I appreciate a different point of view than that which I encounter with colleagues (not just students) -- a quiet assumption of our superiority. I want to make no such assumption without reason.

To go on much further would likely get me into Owen Barfield territory, with his theory of changes in consciousness, but I am not going to take time for that now. The curious might look up his History in English Words, Poetic Diction, The Rediscovery of Meaning, etc.

 

[Theophania Elliott]

That's where 'big data' comes in. Here's an article in The Guardian from January 2017, reporting on some Icelandic research which indicates that IQ may be declining (slowly). Their explanation is that the genes for intelligence, and being predisposed to want to stay in education (where it's available) are linked to having fewer kids (regardless of whether people did actually get lots of education or not, so it's not about staying in school). Thus genes for high IQ/educational attainment have less chance of being passed on, thus become less common, thus the population as a whole gets slightly stupider on average with each generation.

The paper, Selection against variants in the genome associated with educational attainment, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, epub ahead of print, in January.

This isn't the first time this has been posited; Crabtree G published on the subject in 2013:
Trends Genet. 2013 Jan;29(1):1-3. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2012.10.002. Epub 2012 Nov 12.
Our fragile intellect. Part I.

I think there's a PDF version Crabtree here.

However, any actual decline in IQ (whether it exists or not) should not be confused with people not using the IQ that they do have. When I was at school, we studied Shakespeare - and we used the full plays, in 16th century English (although admittedly, being shown the Roman Polanski version of Macbeth with the severed hand and the naked witches probably did a good job of motivating us). And it wasn't a problem for us. Now, my niece - who is quite bright - is doing her GCSEs, and she not only isn't studying the whole plays - just extracts - but she has a 'kiddie version' of Shakespeare in modern English, because apparently the full plays in 16th century English are too difficult.

I do not for one minute believe that the human race has got that stupid in one generation. Nor do I believe that my class of Shakespeare-studying fourteen-year-olds was particularly brilliant.

On the other hand, I have no trouble believing that people who have never tried to read anything written in anything other than simple, clear, modern English, and have never been expected to put their minds to it and work for it, would find it difficult. It's all down to what you're used to: paying attention takes practice. By the time my class got to Shakespeare, we'd already done Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist) and Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre), not to mention the appalling Moonfleet (J. Meade Faulkner), so we were probably well primed!

Nowadays, we're used to simple, easy language. We're used to stories that start with a bang and gallop towards a conclusion (unless you read literary fiction, of course, and I'm going to stop that thought right there). We're not used to the slow unfolding of a tale, and a more flowery use of language. But all it takes is the desire to slow down and take the time, make the effort, and you, too, can appreciate Victorian literature.

Actually, I'm finally reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell at the moment, and it's reminding me a lot of Dickens - the slow pace, the detail, the little asides describe characters. I'm quite enjoying it - it's like taking a slow drive through country lanes rather than bombing around a race track.

 

[RX-79G]

What's the "g" in the title? (Would a Victorian have been able to figure it out?)


I have little doubt that the average IQ may be in decline. However, what people use intelligence for changes. People in the 1800s were "orators", who invested a large portion of their intelligence in the written and spoken word. But those same people might utterly collapse dealing with traffic speeds, electronic security and classifying the incredible range of jobs and activities modern people easily cope with, along with the non-stop drone of media, construction, ads, etc.

By the same token, some of the highest measured uses of intelligence have been found among stone age people, who's ability to remember locations, classifications, history and technology without reference material and are also able to apply all of it exceeds the capacity of both the Victorians and ourselves.

But I don't think we can extract IQ from all of that - and talking about average IQ certainly doesn't work since literacy rates were lower in 1850 than today - it was 76% in Great Brittain, up from 53% in 1820. I have a hard time believing the quoted passage was 'widely' recognized and understood when half the people couldn't even read it. I imagine our view of "people" in different ages often comes down to which people those different ages chose to think of as representative - and it probably wasn't illiterate sheep herders that made the cut.

 

[Stuart Suffel]

That's where 'big data' comes in. Here's an article in The Guardian from January 2017, reporting on some Icelandic research which indicates that IQ may be declining (slowly). Their explanation is that the genes for intelligence, and being predisposed to want to stay in education (where it's available) are linked to having fewer kids (regardless of whether people did actually get lots of education or not, so it's not about staying in school). Thus genes for high IQ/educational attainment have less chance of being passed on, thus become less common, thus the population as a whole gets slightly stupider on average with each generation.

The paper, Selection against variants in the genome associated with educational attainment, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, epub ahead of print, in January.

This isn't the first time this has been posited; Crabtree G published on the subject in 2013:
Trends Genet. 2013 Jan;29(1):1-3. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2012.10.002. Epub 2012 Nov 12.
Our fragile intellect. Part I.

I think there's a PDF version Crabtree here.

However, any actual decline in IQ (whether it exists or not) should not be confused with people not using the IQ that they do have. When I was at school, we studied Shakespeare - and we used the full plays, in 16th century English (although admittedly, being shown the Roman Polanski version of Macbeth with the severed hand and the naked witches probably did a good job of motivating us). And it wasn't a problem for us. Now, my niece - who is quite bright - is doing her GCSEs, and she not only isn't studying the whole plays - just extracts - but she has a 'kiddie version' of Shakespeare in modern English, because apparently the full plays in 16th century English are too difficult.

I do not for one minute believe that the human race has got that stupid in one generation. Nor do I believe that my class of Shakespeare-studying fourteen-year-olds was particularly brilliant.

On the other hand, I have no trouble believing that people who have never tried to read anything written in anything other than simple, clear, modern English, and have never been expected to put their minds to it and work for it, would find it difficult. It's all down to what you're used to: paying attention takes practice. By the time my class got to Shakespeare, we'd already done Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist) and Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre), not to mention the appalling Moonfleet (J. Meade Faulkner), so we were probably well primed!

Nowadays, we're used to simple, easy language. We're used to stories that start with a bang and gallop towards a conclusion (unless you read literary fiction, of course, and I'm going to stop that thought right there). We're not used to the slow unfolding of a tale, and a more flowery use of language. But all it takes is the desire to slow down and take the time, make the effort, and you, too, can appreciate Victorian literature.

Actually, I'm finally reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell at the moment, and it's reminding me a lot of Dickens - the slow pace, the detail, the little asides describe characters. I'm quite enjoying it - it's like taking a slow drive through country lanes rather than bombing around a race track.

I thought secondary school in the UK, briefly. There's no doubt that the curriculum has been dumbed down, for a wide range of subjects, on the GCSEs. I assume the thinking is, 'give em the basics, keep the good stuff for A level'. Pretty shocking stuff, and may well have a serious impact in future years. This was a non fee school, so not sure if the fee schools are much different. Re the OP and IQ, nah, don't buy it.

 

[Stuart Suffel]

What's the "g" in the title? (Would a Victorian have been able to figure it out?)


I have little doubt that the average IQ may be in decline. However, what people use intelligence for changes. People in the 1800s were "orators", who invested a large portion of their intelligence in the written and spoken word. But those same people might utterly collapse dealing with traffic speeds, electronic security and classifying the incredible range of jobs and activities modern people easily cope with, along with the non-stop drone of media, construction, ads, etc.

By the same token, some of the highest measured uses of intelligence have been found among stone age people, who's ability to remember locations, classifications, history and technology without reference material and are also able to apply all of it exceeds the capacity of both the Victorians and ourselves.

But I don't think we can extract IQ from all of that - and talking about average IQ certainly doesn't work since literacy rates were lower in 1850 than today - it was 76% in Great Brittain, up from 53% in 1820. I have a hard time believing the quoted passage was 'widely' recognized and understood when half the people couldn't even read it. I imagine our view of "people" in different ages often comes down to which people those different ages chose to think of as representative - and it probably wasn't illiterate sheep herders that made the cut.

+1
The whole area of IQ is tricky. So many elements come into play.

 

[Ursa major]

Setting aside that

By "pretty widely known" I meant that Wordsworth's Prelude was known by reputation to many people, including people who hadn't read it, or so I surmise.

doesn't even attempt to answer the question I asked....

Do you really find the quoted passage from the poem daunting**? While it does set the imagination running -- that must be at least one of its purposes -- it does so with words and short phrases that are easily understood by themselves. I suppose some readers (modern or otherwise) might think the list too full, but it seems to me that its power derives from that fullness. (Perhaps if I was more knowledgeable, I would see the difficulties you do; but one might also suggest that analysing anything (too?) deeply risks the analyst becoming overwhelmed.)


** - Okay, Wordsworth is far more fond of semicolons than I am, but they don't really make the sentences in the quoted passage convoluted. (That would have been more easily achieved if, instead of semicolons, Wordsworth had used different means to create those long sentences.)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I'd simply say that literate Victorians were more articulate than we are.

 

[RX-79G]

Am not!