理工学术英语阅读资源库-Reading 3-Passage One

Please read the following passage and choose the correct answer from the four choices.

Recently some researchers in Europe claims that the average IQ in Europe nations is on the decline.

It starts with a London-based researcher, Edward Dutton, who has documented decades-long declines in average IQs across several Western countries, including France and Germany. “We are becoming stupider,” announces Dutton at the program’s start. “This is happening. It’s not going to go away, and we have to try to think about what we’re going to do about it.”

Some Americans have long shown interest in the claim that our mental skills are shrinking over time, from the internet or phones or television; from eating vegetables or getting fat; or from whatever other ills of modern life happen to be on our minds. We’re just as drawn to other signs and symptoms of human degeneration, as expressed in trend lines pointing straight to hell.

Some researchers points out that it’s wrong to hint that scores on tests of memory and abstract thinking have been falling everywhere because there isn’t any sign of this effect on U.S. test results. But at least in certain countries—notably in Northern Europe—the IQ drops seem very real, and that they may deserve more attention than they’ve gotten.

Why has there been such a steady drop? Some studies have found that women of higher intelligence tend to have fewer children on average, meaning that population growth may be driven by those with a lower IQ. And over time, the abundance of less intelligent offspring would affect the overall IQ average.

Other possible factors are also mentioned such as worsening health and nutrition, detrimental changes to media exposure, and the indirect effects of immigration.

But another substantive hypothesis that the IQ decline might be caused by chemical pollutants is greatly ignored.

That’s the theory posed by Paris-based endocrinologist Barbara Demeneix. In her 2017 book from Oxford University Press, Toxic Cocktail: How Chemical Pollution Is Poisoning Our Brains, Demeneix argued that hormone-twisting industrial poisons have so interfered with human thyroid (甲状腺) function that the species has been thrust into “a sort of brain evolution in rather rapid reverse”—which includes among its symptoms, she says, the gradual diminishment of the human intellect, and increasing rates of autism (自闭症)and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder注意力不集中症）. Demeneix also stresses how iodine deficiencies, along with the spread of flame retardants (阻燃剂), pesticides, plastic residues, and other filth may be changing people’s brains.

The drops in sperm count and IQ have a fair amount in common. For both phenomena, there’s been an urge to pin the blame on toxic chemicals (at least in media accounts), while ignoring other causes. It may well be that sperm declines are linked, in part, to phthalates leeched from plastic packaging, but they could also be induced by lousy diets and obesity, or too much time spent sitting down, or even global warming.

Some researcher also reflects IQ drop may reflect a rise in service-sector jobs, and a resulting shift towards work that doesn’t foster abstract thought. They think during the 20th century, society escalated its skill demands and IQ rose, but during the 21st century, if society reduces its skill demands, IQ will fall.

These new studies contradict frequently replicated findings of an increase in raw IQ test scoring since the early 20th century. That upward trend was identified by a few different researchers and named for James R. Flynn. Starting in the 1980s, Flynn documented “massive gains” in mean IQ, starting with Americans, whose scores had soared by 14 points since 1932. The finding of increased IQ proposed by the Flynn Effect, is believed to be tapering off in some developed nations.