I think some things that were said about "training" for IQ tests in the past (which increased scores) are true , but in a different way than may be considered on the surface. I believe we WERE training, but in a different way. But I will get back to that. To me, an iq test is a simplified way to judge someone's intelligence in a narrow fashion. A bunch of questions, in a controlled environment, that you can practice for. Seems a bit simplified as a means of measuring intelligence. Especially when very little of our lives are spent in such an environment. With the world being full of so many variables it seems like it would be more beneficial to gauge how that intelligence responds not just to simple questions or problems but how it applies that knowledge in real world situations. I think that is why a high or low IQ score does not necessarily determine success. I said before that we were training in the past for IQ tests. The training we were doing wasn't anything we did in school. It was the way we grew up and lived our lives. Before technology "improved" our lives, we had much more interactive experiences with the world. We played investigators in a world that required more physical engagement & effort to answer your questions. At that time it wasn't as simple as just using Google, having answers at our finger tips. If you had questions & wanted answers, it was more of an undertaking. It took more effort. Before you even started, you understood that you would have to WORK to answer your questions. Research and information gathering was much more difficult and involved. You also often had to speak to many different people along the way because information and opinions werent always easy to come by. I can also say from personal eperience that the satisfaction I had in the past having to do all the work to get my answers was much more satisfying than simply pressing search. I think this applied not only to learning & information gathering, but to life in general. In today's world, while I wouldn't say life is easier (it has its own challenges), i would say a lot has been simplified. Most of our daily struggles have changed. Technology has changed us from being doers into being more thinkers. More specialized. Specialized because the level of our technology forces us to specialize. Even if I have a high IQ, the world isn't as open & accessible as it used to be. It takes many years of learning & often a degree from a very specialized field to be successful. The things in the past that fueled our IQ growth, like all of our wordly interactions and learning due to the lack of said technology, have been in many ways removed. I keep coming back to what I call worldly interactions. In our lives today much of our lives take place in a very limited environment. There is not the unknown factor of daily physical interaction out in a big world with endless experiences & possibilities. You are sitting there scrolling on a tablet or pc from the comfort & safety of your home or office. Being more of a digital society we have lost a lot of our interaction with the world. I believe it is this simplification, this lost interaction, that has lead to lower IQ scores. We learn through our myriad of experiences and interactions. Having a broad volume of past experiences to learn from is how we grow our intelligence and become wise. Not simply by having a high level of gathered information & facts. Intelligence is applied.
The level of our current technology has unintentionally lead to this. By requiring us to specialize in today's world, the interactions gained through generalization that were facilitated by the lack of technology, have been lost. To help get my point across, i will use today's medical field as an example. A few years ago I started having seizures. I saw many different doctors specializing in their own fields. They all seemed very knowledgeable in their respective fields. But when it came to applying their knowledge across different fields, they were very limited. I was often told when asking questions "that is out of my area of expertise", even if they were related. I would have to be referred to another specialist. Whose knowledge was great but was again, narrowed only to their specialization. This leads to quite an issue. Todays specialization has lead to a doctors inability to be diagnosticians. By being unable to connect dots across different fields due to lack of general knowledge, it has lead to delayed and missed diagnosis. Not every case fits the books, some require thinking outside the lines and connecting dots that dont ordinarily connect. Specialization, by eliminating exposure to other fields has removed the idea of being a diagnostician due to their narrow scope. Its awfully hard to consider other conclusions if you don't have the breadth of knowledge to intelligently consider them. So....doctors seem more educated & know more about their specialty, but their usefulness has become very very narrow & something has been lost along the way.
This connects back to worldliness and experiences. The same way doctors have been limited by specialization is the same way technology is limiting us as a whole. Many of the challenges that fueled our IQ growth have been removed. Since we have fewer real life experiences and & have less opportunity to apply that knowledge broadly due to specialization....we can see the results.