Indiana University study: having children significantly lowers parents' IQs.
Update: Alas, it's a spoof.
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by Michael Froomkin
Laurie Silvers & Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Miami School of Law
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That study is false and I could prove it if I could just figure out what my point was. Want to see some pictures of my kids? I’ve got some right here in my wallet. They’re the best looking, smartest, most superpower-endowed children in the history of the world.
Actually, the study was flawed because it failed to account for other explanations of the lowered performance. For example, the parents did indeed do worse on puzzle tests but that’s because instead of putting the pieces together to make the specified figure, they turned to the tester and yelled, “You pick up your mess right now! I don’t pay the rent so you can just leave your things wherever you want. No dessert for you tonight!” When asked math problems they usually responded, “If you don’t do it yourself, how are you going to learn?” And when shown pictures with one significant detail missing, they exclaimed, “What a beautiful picture. You’re quite the little artist, aren’t you? I’m putting this right up on the refrigerator as soon as I get home.”
My parents also seemed to lose the ability to form complete sentences around the time of my birth…perhaps verbal aptitude was being tested?
This article did not appear to mention the results in the control group, those 27 sets of potential parents given IQ tests but who did not successfully conceive. Did they test those people at different points in time as well, or was this study done with no control group at all?
A French writer of the turn of the century before last made the same point:
Un des plus clairs effets de la présence dun enfant dans le ménage est de rendre complètement idiots de braves parents qui, sans lui, neussent peut-être été que de simples imbéciles.
One of the most unmistakable effects of a childs presence in the household is that the worthy parents turn into complete idiots. Without the child, they might have been mere imbeciles.
Georges Courteline.
They were testing the parents when the child was 6 months old. Everyone I knew with a 6 month old was exhausted. To have a control group you’d have to take the people who didn’t conceive and wake them up a couple of times a night for the same 6 months and then retest their IQ.