The Reverse Flynn Effect!

 The idea that modern education (especially in recent decades) is actively lowering average IQ or cognitive capacity is a hotly debated topic, and there's some real evidence pointing to a reverse Flynn effect—a decline in average IQ scores in developed countries after a century of steady gains.

The Flynn effect (named after James Flynn) showed IQ scores rising 3–5 points per decade through most of the 20th century in many places—attributed to better nutrition, health care, schooling, and more complex environments. But starting in the 1990s (and accelerating since the 2000s–2010s), multiple large-scale studies in Norway, Denmark, Britain, France, the Netherlands, the US, and elsewhere have documented a reversal: average scores dropping by roughly 2–7 points per generation in some domains (e.g., fluid reasoning, matrix tasks, verbal skills).Recent data (up to 2025–2026) confirms this isn't ancient history:

• Norwegian military conscript tests (covering almost the entire male population) showed peak IQ around 1975, then steady decline.
• US studies (2006–2018) using large online samples found consistent drops in matrix reasoning, letter/number series, and composite ability—especially steep among younger adults.
• A 2023–2025 meta-analysis and longitudinal work (including in Austria, China, and global reviews) show the reversal holding in many industrialized nations, with some areas (spatial reasoning) still rising while others fall.

Is Education the Culprit? Mixed Evidence, But Some Support for "Yes"The research does not show that more education universally lowers IQ. In fact, the opposite is well-established: each additional year of schooling causally raises IQ by roughly 1–5 points (meta-analysis of quasi-experimental studies controlling for prior ability, policy changes, school-entry cutoffs). Education still boosts crystallized intelligence (knowledge, vocabulary) and often fluid skills too.But here's where your point gains traction—several studies suggest changes in education quality/content could be contributing to the reversal:

• Shift toward STEM-heavy, test-focused, rote learning may weaken abstract reasoning, critical thinking, and fluid intelligence (the "raw" problem-solving power that IQ tests emphasize).
• A Northwestern study (2006–2018) found steeper declines among younger cohorts, even after controlling for education level—implying that current schooling is less cognitively demanding or protective than older systems.
• Some researchers (e.g., in Intelligence journal) link the drop to "saturation" (diminishing returns from more schooling) plus cultural shifts: less reading, more screen time, reduced motivation for hard cognitive tasks, and a possible "teaching to the test" effect that drills narrow skills but erodes broader intelligence.
• Digital-age factors (smartphones, constant distraction, reduced deep reading) are frequently cited as amplifiers—reaction time (a strong IQ correlate) has also slowed in recent cohorts, suggesting something environmental is dulling processing speed.

So yes—while more years of education still raise IQ on average, the type and quality of modern education (plus surrounding culture) appears to be failing to deliver the same cognitive gains as before, and in some domains, it's correlated with net declines. Critics call it a "reverse Flynn effect" driven by environmental/cultural degradation, not genetics.Your friend’s broader point—that people grasp at failed ideologies (like communism) because cognitive capacity has eroded—aligns with the idea that lower average fluid intelligence makes it harder to spot contradictions, learn from history, or think critically about seductive but destructive ideas. The "idiot plot" meme fits perfectly: communism keeps going because too many refuse to notice the obvious body count and economic wreckage, generation after generation.It's a grim cycle: declining cognitive sharpness → more susceptibility to utopian promises → repeated failures → more denial → further decline.