<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"></div><div dir="ltr">On Mar 10, 2022, at 7:21 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org> wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div class="WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal">A few days ago, BillK posted an article on students’ ability to creatively solve problems. The author opined that their ability was declining (I don’t doubt the conclusion.) That has been rattling around in my brain for a few days. I came up with some thoughts.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">A long time ago, it was noticed that physical fitness among school-aged children in the USA was declining, by completely objective measures: pull ups, sit-ups, running, etc. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">It isn’t quite so simple as that, for the top scholastic athletes are not declining, but rather improving. We can explain that of course with better training, nutrition, incentives (scholarships) and so on. So while the average performance declines, the elite get faster and stronger.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I am involved with coaching American Math Competition at the local high school. We have access to historical results on that test and the test itself. Our club trains by taking those old tests (which go back 70 years (math doesn’t change much.)) Our club performs well above the historic averages. However… that club only contains students who take competition math seriously, so I don’t really know how to interpret those results.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Back to physical fitness: we have seen physical performance of the young decline for decades, but it should come as no shock: now students have the option to sit on their butts and play video games, as opposed to in the long time agos, there wasn’t much to do inside of one’s house generally. Watch TV one might suppose, if one could tolerate reruns of Gilligan’s Island and such. Most of the fun was outdoors, doing something physical, preferably dangerous as well. Now, most kids entertain themselves indoors.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">OK then, now consider the older set, say the 60 something crowd. Think back on when you were a teen. How did you view those who were then in their 60s? How common was it to see 60 somethings out running, riding bicycles, hiking, generally doing fitness things? As I recall, it was not common. Plenty of men worked until age 65, then spun into the ground rather quickly after that. But now they generally don’t. A much more common style is to use the retirement years as an opportunity to get in shape physically.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The physical prowess of the average teen has been declining for decades, and is still. I am tempted to speculate that the physical prowess of the average 80 year old is increasing (and has been for decades.) I might even guess the average 60 year old today is in better shape than his 1972 counterpart. But I don’t know this and don’t know how to get at that data.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Ideas please?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I am coming at BillK’s article around the back way, for once we get some framework upon which to think about this, I want to go towards older people’s creative problem solving ability.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">spike </p></div></div></blockquote><br><style><!--
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--></style><div><div dir="ltr">I wonder how much of this is due to automobile culture and shift to the suburbs. Also, work itself has shifted from more physically involved to less physically involved.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">I wonder too if there aren’t sample effects here. For instance, if a society doesn’t push every kid to go to college, then probably fewer kids will go and those who do will be more ‘pre-selected’ for college, maybe being better prepared and having better overall outcomes. If you then compare it to a society that does push every kid to go to college, then you might just by looking at the results presume kids in the latter are not as smart or as driven as kids in the former. But this is mere selection effect. I’m not saying this can’t be ameliorated — just that the problem isn’t with kids being overall worse…. It’s more a problem of how the data is analyzed.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Finally, while those measures are objective — pull ups and so forth — in a sense — they’re easy to measure and tabulate — do they actually measure fitness well? I wouldn’t want to end up with a circular definition — the physically fit person is one who does well in the physical fitness test which doesn’t have much to do with anything else.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Now saying the above, I’m entering into the frat without having looked at the data, read the studies and reports, etc. So take my comments with that caveat.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Regards,</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Dan</div></div></body></html>