Motorcycle Forum / General / Motorcycles / June 2007

"NASCAR Popularity Rises as U.S. Median IQ Declines"

By Edward Rinske
Eastman Informer
June 23, 2007

EASTMAN,  Georgia  -- No one in America doubts the increasing
popularity of NASCAR racing. And it's an accepted fact that over the
past 17 years, the median intelligence quotient (IQ) in U.S. adults
has steadily declined.   Since 1990, the median has fallen from 107 to
99, according to sociologists from Georgia Central State College.

But a connection between these distinct variables?

Professor Billy John Tochee, chairman of Life Sciences at Georgia
Central, says that after studying the subject for seven years, he
still can't fully explain the reason for the decline.

"We initially set out to try to determine why the nation's median IQ
among adults has lost points since at least the early 1990s," he said,
"but we didn't expect to find a direct correlation between a national
phenomenon and the decline in IQs."

Tochee explained that after much trial and error, his staff discovered
a connection between the increased popularity of NASCAR racing, mainly
televised events, and a measurable falloff of the median IQ among
adults.

"Our findings were achieved largely by accident," admitted Dr. Brosnan
Ledfoot, Prof. Tochee's assistant.
Ledfoot said Georgia Central's staff of six traced dozens of patterns
among the nation's preeminent cultural and educational institutions,
searching for possible theories for phenomena affecting intelligence.

"We looked at popular music, theater, motion pictures, literature,
cell phones, computers, fashions, athletics, crime, transportation,
food, fine arts, industry, manufacturing - a many other prominent
fields," Ledfoot said of the seven-year study.  "But we came up empty
with any single or combinative group of possible causative sources."

But one area that kept pace with the trackings was NASCAR,
specifically its continuous surge in popularity among racing fans.

"Well, we tended to ignore the NASCAR statistics," said Tochee.  "We
just didn't feel we were on the right track with this variable."

But after six years into the survey, the college staff assigned to the
study "arrived" at a unanimous conclusion:  The popularity of the
National Association of Stock Car racing and the diminution of the
adult median IQ in the U.S. paralleled each other to within one-
percent over a 15-year period.

So, Prof. Tochee and his group reset and revised the variables under
study - and arrived at an identical  correlation.

"Once we agreed that the two variables were likely the main connective
factors, we set about researching the whys and wherefores of the
finding," Ledfoot said.

After about a year, no single factor could be ascertained as having an
overriding value above all others.
"As to the reason or reasons for why IQs have fallen during NASCAR's
ascension," Ledfoot explained, "we have not arrived at a principal
cause.  But we have posited a number of possibilities."

Prof. Tochee said that the popularity of television, personal
computers and cell phones remain strong candidates for causative
factors.   But TV is a major source of the public's exposure to
NASCAR.

"Certainly, people today are devoting more time to these devices,"
Ledfoot said.  "And a palpable decline in reading among adults we
think is due in some measure to NASCAR, particularly in the South."

Don Bob McEllwain, an assistant professor at Georgia Central and one
of the study participants, opined that NASCAR's pull on citizens' time
is strong enough to drag them away from IQ-stabilizing pursuits such
as reading, writing and scientific research.

"Activities that help stimulate one's intelligence and analytic
abilities are not as popular as they were a generation or so ago.
Tens of millions of people attend NASCAR races and watch them on TV
each week.

"We don't say that these findings and the popularity or decline in
various activities are harmful or beneficial in and of themselves,"
McEllwain concluded.

"But we are continuing to observe and examine the data as the future
unfolds.  Our concern is that our collective IQs might be undergoing
changes that could be deleterious to our country's economic and
technological success."

http://www.eastmaninformer.com