Open thread, July 23-29, 2013

David_Gerard

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

I think running this for a week worked quite well. Weekly, then? Someone has to remember each Monday.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

I think running this for a week worked quite well. Weekly, then? Someone has to remember each Monday.

A new study shows that a major part of the Flynn effect in the US was due to iodine in salt. The study suggests that around 15 points of the non-normalized IQ gain was due to this.

I don't know about Flynn, but this is in large part not new news: that the early 1920s US iodization led to measurable gains in enlistees for WWII has been in papers floating around for a while now; for example, "The Economic Effects of Micronutrient Deficiency: Evidence from Salt Iodization in the United States", Feyrer et al 2008. "The Impact of Iodine Deficiency Eradication on Schooling: Evidence from the Introduction of Iodized Salt in Switzerland", Politi 2010, is also cool. Also maybe even voting patterns.

(Citations borrowed from ... (read more)

9satt13y

I've only read the abstract as the full PDF seems to be paywalled, but the 15 points of gain seem to be limited to "the one quarter of the population most deficient in iodine". The abstract says the estimated gain for the population as a whole was "roughly one decade's worth of the upwardtrend [sic] in IQ in the US", which is 3 points (from memory).

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Open thread, July 23-29, 2013

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Open thread, July 23-29, 2013

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