November 27, 2025 • 32 mins
Why are adult IQs falling? The whole world is getting dumber, and scientists aren’t quite sure why that is, but it may have something to do with the Flynn Effect. The only area in which intelligence has increased is spatial awareness, which is utilized for playing video games. Many people blame tech, modern communication, fear baiting from online dummies, and environmental factors such as microplastics. So, a lot of our dumbing down is down to information overload. And no, it’s not a Liberal vs. Conservative issue. Is your kid stressed out and also getting dumber? Diagnoses of ADHD, autism, anxiety and depression are skyrocketing. What garbage sides are we wanting to ban from the Thanksgiving table this year? According to surveys, it’s green bean casserole, cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes. Merrill believes it’s not a sauce if you can slice it and eat it with a fork.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand Thanksgiving weekend.
Glad to spend some time with you. Thank you for
spending time with me. Doing a little shopping here, trying
to find the good deals. And I'm on Amazon trying
to figure out what should I get my wife. Do
you think she would want a slushy maker?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It's on sale? Who doesn't want one of those? That's
what I was thinking.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Tony has one of those Tony Sorrentino, but we can't
ask him about it because he's not here tonight. But
he loves it. He loves his slushy makers. There a
slushy maker, really And I don't know if you knew this,
but you can put booze in them.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
I did not know that for sure, but if I
had a slushy maker it we would be giving out
a shot, regardless of what the instructions say.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I see, yeah, you know what I got her last
year that she loved.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
You.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Remember we were running those ads for that Bartisian Oh yeah, yeah,
Oh my gosh, and we had at one point the
company was offering like any insider discount and I didn't
jump on it at the time, so I ended up paying.
I didn't pay full price, but I paid like the
you know, like the Christmas sale price.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
My wife loves that thing.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Oh, it's like if you're ut familiar, it's like a
currig for alcohol.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
So on the one hand, I want, you know who
can't make a cocktail themselves, But on the other it
looks pretty fun.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
It is. Plus here's the other thing.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
I can make a cocktail myself, but in this case,
it's got like these flavor cups, and so I don't
have to go buy the bidders and I don't have
to go buy the sweet and sour mix, the simple
shirt syrup and all that. So I have to get
all that other stuff you have the pas. What is
the best cocktail from a part time Well, I'm I'm
you know, I like whiskey, so I'm I'm kind of
(01:40):
partial to the to the old fashions that come out
of that.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
How about a Manhattan Yep, they got the Manhattan too,
that's solid and the.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Whiskey cell.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Have you tried that too? Yeah? It's all good.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Yeah, And then my wife does she likes the iced
teas or uh like the mark Rita's that are in there. Yeah.
I why am I even talking about They're not paying
me to talk about that. I should not talk about that.
Oh maybe they will, now, No, they need to. I
should have you know what, Scrap the whole thing. Not
(02:15):
giving away free endorsements. It's the matter with me. Nah,
it's good.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I like it. I like it. She likes it. That's
the important thing. She likes it.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Yeah, Uh, we are getting dumber? Were who knew? I
was reading this article in New York magazine because I'm
an elitist and I was so interested to read the
theory of dumb. There is a phenomenon that's going on
for the last one hundred years or so that the
(02:45):
shows that we've been getting smarter and smarter and smarter
and smarter as and this is globally. This is not
just in the unest is this is globally, So we're
all getting a little bit smarter. And the theory is
that it has something to a society and environmental factors,
and that environment metal factors, as they improve worldwide, are
also improving our intelligence. All right, That's kind of the
theory until about twenty five years ago, and then we
(03:10):
started getting stupid from TLDR Global News, which is done
by a curiosity stream.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
They were talking about this very thing.
Speaker 6 (03:17):
This video was brought to you by curiosity stream.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Good.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
I'm glad you'd think that whoever edited this audio could
have skipp right past all of that.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Let's see who was it?
Speaker 6 (03:26):
Get a whole bunch of exclusive skip ahead. For most
of modern history, IQs in the developed world have been
on the rise. However, over the last few decades, raw
scores have slowly but surely begun to decline with no
obvious explanation.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So in this video we're.
Speaker 6 (03:43):
Going to be trying to figure out what.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Okay, so skip ahead. I thought I edited this? Did
I not edit this? As such?
Speaker 6 (03:50):
There's a whole load of different IQ tests out there, Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Perhaps the most.
Speaker 6 (03:54):
Well known and most commonly used one is the Weschler
Adult Intelligence Scale. Now, regardless of the specific test taken
these days, IQ tests are normally scaled to map onto
a particular population. Essentially, a test scores are transformed to
a normal distribution with an average score of one hundred,
which means if you score over one hundred, then you're
(04:16):
of above average intelligence for the population mapped.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
I don't have the intelligence to go through all this Okay,
skip ahead, come on, get to the meat.
Speaker 6 (04:22):
We're not going to get in this video, because that
would require an entire deserve decline, and developed countries is
almost definitely real.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
So there we go, an observed decline in developing countries. Really,
I'm really I apologize for that. Somebody's supposed to edit
this audio.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I don't know. I don't know who let us down.
I don't know. I will, I'll, I will give them
a stern talking to you though it wasn't us. Oh
look at first one wasn't mean problem what we know?
Oh dare you?
Speaker 6 (04:57):
But before we get to the modern data, let's roll
back the clock a bit. In the decades after World
War Two, raw IQ score is increased by an equivalent
of about three points per decade. Obviously, the nominal mean
each year was still technically one hundred.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Okay, but just the same. So he's talking about how
they adjust the scale. Basically they're great.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
On a curve.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
But but what you need to know is IQ scores
were going up three points per decade. So if you
if you do math on the radio, over the course
of one hundred years, you're talking about going up a bunch, right,
that's thirty points one hundred years. There's ten decades, three
(05:38):
points per decade, three times ten thirty, right, so that
means that collectively we've gone up thirty points in our IQ.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
That's a lot. That is a great deal.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
I was as I was writing this story in the
New York magazine, they were they were discussing how you
could explain that, and they said, if we had asked
someone in the early twenty percent, what do what does
a dog and a rabbit have in common? And they
would say, dog, Chase is a rabbit. Whereas if you
(06:09):
ask somebody, now, does the dog and a rabbit have
in common?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
They go, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
They're both mammals, they both have fur, they both you know,
we would give more of a scientific answer, whereas before
it was more of kind of life experiential answers. Now
it's more scientifically driven answers. So that's kind of how
they described that the intelligence had gotten better, but now
it's going the other way.
Speaker 6 (06:32):
Because that's what the data is normalized to. But the
raw scores were going up year by year and decade
by decade. Anyway, the name for this phenomenon of rising
IQs is the Flinn effect named after the psychologist James R. Flynn,
who did much to document the phenomenon and promote awareness
of its implications. Now, no one knows quite what caused
(06:54):
this uplift in IQ scores.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Right, I'm gonna skip through because this guy's kind of
boring the The the gist of it is they believe
environmental factors. Basically, everybody got smarter, or the world was
getting smarter, we were exporting education, and as a result,
rising tide lifted all ships. Okay, kind of the crux
of this, However, what ends up happening now is that
(07:19):
a scientist set out to see if this trend had continued,
with the assumption that it had. Now, as you know,
in science, you're not supposed to make assumptions, but they said,
let's verify that it is continuing, basically, so they took
a look at at IQ tests. A nice thing about
IQ test today is that they're pretty readily available online.
(07:42):
The trouble with the IQ test today is that they're
pretty readily available online, so you don't necessarily have a
constant testing environment. However, what you do have is a
huge quantity of IQ tests. Almost four hundred thousand IQ
tests that were examined between two thousand and six and
twenty eighteen. All right, declines in all of those across
(08:05):
all ages, all genders, all education levels. Steepest declines eighteen
to twenty two year olds and those with less schooling.
That seems to make sense, But remember this isn't just
the kids these days have their noses buried in their phones.
It happened across all ages, all genders, all education levels.
(08:27):
So what is causing it? They say, It's not just
the smartphones, it's also and I found this to be
the most fascinating, unfettered access to each other, constant connectivity,
information overload, distraction, they say, are the possible culprits. But wait,
there's more. I'm short on time. I'm going to tell
(08:50):
you what the rest is here, because why why are
those test scores falling? If not for the phones, which
seems like the obvious answer, why is it IQ is
dropping off? Dive a little bit more into this as fascinating.
It's next Chris Merrill I AM six forty. We're live
everywhere in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
More stimulating talk kind demand anytime the iHeart radio app
was talking about this article. I ran across the New
York magazine and it goes deep into why IQ scores
are dropping. Throughout the twentieth century. They were rising about
three points per decade. Then all of a sudden, we
get to the two thousands and they start to regress
accept in one category, and that was spatial relations. And
(09:39):
the author made a clear point. They said, in other words,
we can visualize rotating three D objects better than previous
generations or past you know, test takers anyway, and they
said the exact skill you would need to excel at fortnite.
And I thought, oh, that's interesting, But does that mean
that it's all because of video games that we're somehow
(10:01):
getting dumber. Now, the different categories where it dropped have
to do with things like pattern recognition or or you know,
the other stuff that if you've taken the IQ test,
you know, the stuff that it looks at and not.
They say that the drop off is not necessarily only
(10:23):
because of tech. Now, tech undoubtedly plays some sort of
a role. What is that role? First of all, they
say environmental factors. They could include anything from changes in education, nutrition,
family structure, and economic pressures to a cocktail of potentially
brain damaging exposures like microplastics, antidepressants, wildfire smoke. That's one
(10:43):
that hits us real close to home, doesn't it. But
the consensus right now is that the factor to blame
the most is actually the tech. But it's not that
people are scrolling. It's not just social media that's doing it.
They say, if we're getting dumber, there's a good chance
that we're making each other that way. Modern communication, in
all of its forms, has put us in contact with
(11:04):
more minds than we are able to handle, more than
we're built to handle, and our own seem to be
wilting under the load.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
So get this.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Basically, you've got information overload, that's what's happening, and you've
got a lot of dumb people telling you dumb things,
and your brain can't process at all.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
They go.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Not so long ago, the adults among us were free
to think their thoughts quietly to themselves, with no easy way.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
To share them.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
At worst, a person would usually just embarrass himself in
front of his own family or bowling team. Bad ideas
had a harder time scaling and reproducing, so lots of
stupidity stayed local.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
But I want you to think about that.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Now you are being inundated, and maybe the algorithm knows
that you like the clickbait. Maybe it knows that you
like those things that elicited that emotional response. You don't
care to fact check it because it satiates that emotion
that you wanted to feel. And honestly, fact checking that
means you have to learn about nuance. That means that
(12:04):
you have to fight against your instinct to oversimplify something.
And by the way, that's not your fault. That doesn't
mean that you're dumb, that's not the reason. That's not
indicative of you being unintelligent. That's indicative of you being human. See,
we do those things because we want our brains don't
want to find nuance. We want to identify threats right,
(12:27):
things that drive us fear and greed, things that drive
us fear and greed, and so our brains are constantly
scanning for threats and food right or threats and things
that can make our lives better, more comfortable, thrive. Generally speaking,
we're making sure we're not going to get eaten at
(12:47):
night while while the rest of the village is sleeping.
And then during the day, we're trying to find food
and expend as few calories as possible to do that.
Fear and greed and it's hardwired into us. So when
we see something that we don't like, and you can
you can pick any any current major political event what
(13:10):
drives us fear and greed, right, or fear and desire.
If you want to say desire, that's fine, but all
of these things, and it doesn't matter if you're liberal
or conservative.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
What we do is.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
We boil things down to the simplest form. And politicians
know this. They know and they don't try to explain things.
They don't try to explain nw ones, they don't try
to explain a gray area.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
They don't want to tell you how they came to
a conclusion.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
But they want to tell you is how you should feel,
and this is why, because if you don't, scary things
are gonna happen, or this is what you need to
do in order to get more right.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
I was going to think of think of taxes.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Okay, you're gonna hear the conservatives are always gonna tell
you, you know, we need tax cuts. If we have tax cuts,
that means more money in your pocket. You're gonna be richer.
That's very appealing. Liberals go, we have to raise their
taxes because we want to make sure that.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
We're feeding people. And you need to have empathy.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
So they're trying to tap into empathy and they're trying
to make you think of what it's like to be hungry.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Or they say, we've got to raise taxes so that
we can.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Offer more free stuff, free college, free buses in New
York City, right or or or whatever it is, and
you owe, I want that that's free. That's good, I'm
going after it. That's both sides attacking the greed aspect
of what we have, right. But then you have the
other side. You've got the fear. So let's think about
something like a border wall. You've got the GOP that's
(14:37):
gonna say, we have to build a border wall to
protect ourselves from an invasion of the illegal immigrants. That's
what that's that's the message, over and over and over
and over and over again. And the DHS is gonna say,
look at who we caught. We caught this this vicious criminal.
We caught this vicious criminal. We caught this person and
this person and this person all illegal. We got to
build this wall. We're protecting you, your safety, your security.
(14:57):
If you love your kids, you're gonna do this right,
then you get the livers. I remember, if you build
a wall, there's two sides to that wall. If you
build a wall that means you're trapped with a fascists.
You can't build a wall because then the fascists have
basically built you into your own concentration camp, and you go.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
You can't give over to the fascists.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
What you don't know is building the walls and imprisoning
yourself fear, both using fear, one more effectively than the other,
but both using fear to drive that national political issue.
Is their nuance? Is there intelligence in those arguments? No,
but they're simple and they appeal to the to our
basic instincts. But because we're being inundated with so many
(15:36):
messages constantly from a whole lot of people that don't
have any education, but continue to repeat like an echo chamber,
over and over and over again, our brains can't handle
all of that, and our brains basically just go I
can't focus or dive deeper or read into these things.
(15:57):
What I'm going to do is I'm going to take
the thing that makes the most sense to me as
far as self preservation and self advancement. But when we
do that, we're doing it at the cost of our
own ability to process that information. And I thought it
was fascinating, fascinating stuff, But now I realize I've just
(16:21):
been monologuing and it's probably not a lot exciting. So
all right, well, I'm geeked out. Thanks for letting me.
You keep hearing that American kids are falling apart. Nobody
wants to talk about the place where all of that
starts to show up. Right, Your kid may be getting stressed,
and that stress may not be starting in their brain.
It could be starting in the very place that you
expect them to be getting their stuff together.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
More.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
The brain drain and where that's beginning is next. I'm
Chris MERYLFI AM six forty. Were live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
You'll find this on demand anytime iHeartRadio app. When you're
on that app, you and always did that talkback button.
I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Let me see, Oh
I got this, I gotta Everythanksgiving I have a bit
of an issue. I'm gonna I'm gonna share with you
(17:15):
what that issue is coming up here after Mark's next newscast,
because it's I got a little bit of evidence today
to find out that I'm actually not alone on my
issue when it comes to that Thanksgiving dinner and what's
on the table. It's been a problem for a very
long time. Basically, you've been duped, and you've been duped
into a couple of things. One liking something that nobody likes,
(17:39):
and two pretending it's not what it is.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
That's again, that's after Mark's news. That's still to come.
I want to continue down this road though.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
As I was telling you that, there was a great
article in the New York magazine, which I was reading
because I'm an elitist and I have a lot of
Lacroix under my pillow.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
And from that then I was following up.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
On some of the research, and I was thinking, this
is just what I do in my fun time, just
run out on the rabbit hole, and I was thinking about, oh,
the kids these days. Are the kids these days getting
dumber as well? Do they have any hope? The research
on declining IQs was done for tests that we're taking
between twenty six and twenty eighteen. Certainly since COVID, it's
(18:17):
not like it's gotten any better. COVID's probably got some
more long term effects on the brain as well. That's
probably not for the kids didn't have the infections so
bad as the adults. However, as we know, the kids
had some delayed learning. It's one of the areas that
I think we learned a lot from. Like, Okay, that
was a misstep, and I'll be the first to tell
you that I wanted to delay kids going back to
(18:39):
school as long as I could. My thought was, if
they can be on zoom and they can be connecting
with the teachers and learning, that's sufficient. Data shows it
was not. It was just not And I'll be the
first to tell you that that was not it. But
what about the kids these days. If you take a
look at what's going out in a number of schools,
(19:00):
nearly one in seventeen year old boys now carries an
ADHD diagnosis. One million more children got that diagnosis in
twenty twenty two compared with twenty sixteen, So we have
skyrocketing diagnoses of ADHD, autism, anxiety and depression, and you
have to wonder why that is. Autism diagnosis rose from
(19:25):
one in twenty five hundred children back in the early
eighties to one in thirty one today. That's remarkable. When
I was growing up, I remember we had one kid
in our class, Stephen with a pH and Stephen, he
most definitely had a hyperactivity disorder. He definitely was ADHD
(19:47):
at the time. It was add he most definitely did.
And I recall that he had to go take medicine
every day at lunchtime or whatever he had to go take,
And I'm sure it was riddling at the time. And
I just remember there was one kid. Looking back on
it now, there were a number of other kids that
probably would in today, by today's criteria, would have been
(20:08):
diagnosed as somewhere on the spectrum. So why is it
that we're diagnosing now better than what we did before,
or more than what we did before. There may be
a number of different reasons. First, is we're better at
understanding that it's a spectrum. It's not black and white.
It's not as though, okay, this is a hyperactive kid,
that's it. Now we know hyperactivity maybe may fall on
(20:31):
the spectrum as well.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
That's part of the autism spectrum.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
We also have a number of different categories in the
autism spectrum, Asperger's for instance. And a lot of this
wasn't so well understood fifty years ago as well as
it is now, or at least our understanding was different
than what it is right now. But now we go, okay,
there's a spectrum. So for instance, my son, and here's
another one. Let me before I tell you my son's story.
(20:57):
Here's another one too, is that in the in the
older day, the old days, mark you remember the old days.
In the old days, you didn't want to be different
because different meant you were targeted.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Right, ooh ooh.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
I have to try to conform because if I'm too
far out out of the normal, the bullies are going
to pick on me.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And then we saw a change. We said we have
to stop the bullying.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
We saw change in the high schools in the in
the early to mid two thousands, right, we saw it
kind of shift where we go bullies are not cool,
and bullies themselves became ostracized and everyone was trying to
figure out what made each of them unique and special.
Sort of a mindset change. I think it's generally for
(21:40):
good but one thing that we found is that kids
were like, I'm special, I have this right. We would say, hey,
who's that kid in your class that you know, we
woul try to be encouraging. I had a kid in
my class when I was in fifth grade. He had
cancer and I remember he came to school and they
let him wear a hat class so that people wouldn't
(22:01):
make fun of him. Now, if there's a kid that's
fighting cancer and they come to school and they are
and they're going through chemotherapy, the class rallies around them, right,
and so there is this subconscious reinforcement that if you
are you know, if you're going through something, you're gonna
have support that makes you special, that makes you unique,
and the rest of the people around you are going
to respect you, and they're gonna give you you know,
(22:22):
they're gonna kind of rally. I think we've done a
good job of being better parents and teaching our kids
not to be jerks.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
That's good.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
But also here's my son. My son is thirty now
and he told us about two or three years ago,
he called us and he said, well, I just wanted
to congratulate you. You officially have a child on the spectrum,
and I thought, there are so many things with that
sentence I just don't understand, And I go, what do
you mean here? My psychologist diagnosed me with ADHD, And
(22:52):
I gotta tell you, there was nothing about my son
that was abnormal. He was pretty normal, little boy, teenage boy.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Normal.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
But as he's getting older, he's having some trouble focusing
and he's had he's had some issues and he was
seeking help, and there's that's great. I'm really happy for him.
But the fact that he said, congratulations, you have you
officially have a child in the spectrum, as though that's
the kind of thing that we're going to run out
and tell Oh.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
I can't wait to tell my friends. You see what
I mean. It's a little bit different.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
So I think the diagnosis goes up because in some
cases there's a there's almost a point of pride with
it because of the way that we accept things nowadays.
There's also a practical reason that we saw diagnoses of ADHD, autism, anxiety,
and depression jump not is that we changed how we
funded schools so no child left behind comes around and
we go, how do we make sure that schools are
(23:45):
getting the help they need? If they have kids with
special needs, and we go, well, if they have kids
with special needs, we can make sure they get more funding.
And if they have kids with special needs, that could
inadvertently affect the standardized testings. So in many states they
threw out the tests for kids that had certain diagnoses. Well,
if you're a school that's struggling and you want to
(24:08):
make sure you're getting the funding, one you're gonna get
more funding for somebody with a diagnosis, and two you're
not gonna be pedalized if your school is underperforming, if
you can throw out the scores of the lower performing
kids and go, oh, well, you know what, this one's
got a diagnosis. So there's an incentive, a financial incentive
(24:29):
to see more diagnoses in the schools as well. Now
is that beneficial to society or is that contributing to
that constant decline? Then of the IQ, if we're not
making sure that we're giving the proper attention to everyone,
or if we're simply giving someone an excuse, that is
(24:52):
that will be studied for the next fifty years.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
The families also get funding from the government off their
kid is.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Uh not not blanket. That's a more complicated question.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
It depends interesting, it depends on whether or not they
are receiving other funding generally speaking.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
Because in Australia, if your kid gets diagnosed on the
autism spectrum, you do get funding from the government. So
a lot of parents in Australia they do want the diagnosis.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Oh interesting, very interesting, isn't that.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
Yeah, no, it's not. It's not blanket like that here,
not blanket, but there are, there are. It's a complicated answer.
All right, I'm gotta get the break here. I'm already
really late. Your brain drain has you thinking you need
therapy for your life overhaul. But my friends, that is
the wrong tease for the next segment, So let me
just stop that.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Hang on, let me go back. Where am i here?
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Oh? Yeah, time I am speaking of brain drain. I'll
tell you what is making you dumber? Is that crap
on your your Thanksgiving table? My annual I can't stand
this on my table? Rant is next? Chris Merril KFI
AM six forty. We are live everywhere on the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Been update on your favorite streamers that could be merging here?
Not too long that's coming up after marks nine o'clock news.
All right, there are a couple of new surveys out.
They basically show the same thing, but they play with
the numbers just a little bit, and it's it's all
about what kind of garbage is sitting at your Thanksgiving
(26:25):
Day table? Fox eleven talking about this very important issue.
Speaker 7 (26:30):
Okay, when it comes to Thanksgiving foods, is there something
you'd like to ban from the table?
Speaker 2 (26:35):
We know roxy is choice roxy.
Speaker 7 (26:38):
According to new survey of people what agree with you,
they want to ditch the green, the what in being castrole?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Oh good, the GBC the green being castrole? Oh wow,
what's wrong with that? I don't know.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
I actually I don't hate the green bean Castroleiously, yeah.
Speaker 7 (27:01):
Maybe for different reasons, for different reasons, I'm sure too green.
Some of the other choices cranberry sauce, how dare you?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
And sweet potatoes? Come on, come on? Sweet?
Speaker 4 (27:14):
You get the feeling that all that they were gonna
just poo poo whatever it is, because they're afraid of
upsetting somebody who does like it.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
You know, you get enough hate mail from people that
are like, I.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Heard you say this thing about sweet potatoes and I'll
never watch your show again.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
How dare you?
Speaker 3 (27:28):
I'm not gonna be happy until people come to blows
over this.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah, wouldn't that be great? It will?
Speaker 5 (27:33):
Did candy yams not make the list?
Speaker 2 (27:35):
That's a sweet potatoes, the yams, yams and the sweet pets.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
But they put marshmellow in it.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
It's feral. It's so disgusting. Here we go, you peel
with your candy.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Here's the thing. Those three things depending on the survey
that you watch. And I saw I looked up two
of them. One was done by a Harris Pool and
then another one Southern Living had a pool I think
and oh Savings dot Com, Uh did it?
Speaker 2 (27:59):
And what they found? Wise, are you guys hearing an echo? No?
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Okay, sorry, I was getting like an echo there for
a minute. Uh what they what they? What they found
was those three things, the green bean castrole, the cranberry sauce,
and the yams. Both Poles found that those the least
like sides at the Thanksgiving Day table. Now I'm kind
of with Nikky on the whole yams are gross thing.
(28:25):
I'm not a fan of the ams. I'm with you, Mark,
I do like the green bean castrole. Very simple recipe.
I think, isn't it basically just green beans and cream
and mushroom soup with some funions on top of funions.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I mean, that's basically it, right. No, I like that.
I had the thought of using the actual funions. That's
a great idea. I mean, those are great. Those are
those are good. I like that.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
But I always have this issue, and that is with
the notion of cranberry sauce. It's not a sauce. No
sauce comes out shaped like a can. No sauce should
ever make the sound. Now you might say, well, wait,
wait a minute, wait a minute. Some condensed soup will
(29:13):
do that. That's right. But it's condensed, and then you
add water or milk if it's creamy, whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
You do that with cranberry sauce, they go, oh.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
No, you get out of the can and then you
slice it. Name another sauce that you can slice. You can't.
It is not a sauce. If you want to call
it cranberry jelly, I'll bet you get away with it.
But to call it cranberry sauce is absolutely.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Wrong.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
It's a misnomber of the highest degree. And I'm so
tired of this lie being perpetrated upon Americans, since I
can only assume the pilgrims who also got their ocean
spray cranberry sauce out of a can, probably from the Senecas,
to stop. If there is one thing that I want
(30:03):
to change in America before I die, that's it to
stop calling cranberry sauce in a can sauce.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
It is not. Now, maybe you're doing the whole cranberry.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
You know, you got the whole berries just kind of
mushed up in a compote of some sort. I don't
even know what that word means, but I saw it
on a fancy cooking show, or maybe I heard Neil
Sevager talk about it one time. If that comes out, okay,
look that's that's liquidy. But you can't eat sauce with
a fork. If you can eat it with a fork,
it's not a sauce. Quit calling it a sauce.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
How about goo that's fine, or protoplasm protoplasm.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
I was doing this rant one time, because this is
I'm telling you, this is like an annual thing for me.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
I was doing this one time and a guy he says,
cranberry sauce is a liquid with a very high viscosity,
and I thought, well, you know, I had never thought
of it that way before.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Not true. Fat Well, when you put it that way,
maybe it is a sauce. No, not a sauce.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Unbelievable fifteenth annual KFI pastathonus here Chef Bruno's charity, Katerina's Club,
providing more than twenty five thousand meals to kids every
week in need in Southern California. And it's all because
of your generosity that it can happen. We've got the
live broadcast going on on Tuesday, the second from five
am wake up Call Amy King all the way through
eight pm. Conway is extending his show an hour, going
(31:27):
out to the Anaheim White House, South Anaheim Boulevarding. Donate
anytime KFI AM six forty dot com slash Pastathon and
one hundozo percent of your donation goes to Katerina's Club.
You can also go to any Wendy's restaurant in Southern California.
Donate five bucks or more and you get a coop
and book, or go to Wild Fork Foods you get
any of the go to any of the eleven so
(31:47):
cal WILDFK Food locations and simply say KFI Pastathon a
checkout and fifteen percent of your purchase is going to
be donated to Katerina's Club. But you do have to
say KFI Pastathon at checkout. That's a secret code word.
Find all the details KFI AM six forty dot com
slash pastathon. All right, the studio is on sale and
(32:08):
it sounds like the takers are lining up onto round two.
Who will be the big winner in the streaming sale?
That's next, Chris Merril, KFI AM six forty. We're live
everywhere in the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1 (32:18):
App, KFI AM six forty on demand
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand Thanksgiving weekend.
Glad to spend some time with you. Thank you for
spending time with me. Doing a little shopping here, trying
to find the good deals. And I'm on Amazon trying
to figure out what should I get my wife. Do
you think she would want a slushy maker?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It's on sale? Who doesn't want one of those? That's
what I was thinking.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Tony has one of those Tony Sorrentino, but we can't
ask him about it because he's not here tonight. But
he loves it. He loves his slushy makers. There a
slushy maker, really And I don't know if you knew this,
but you can put booze in them.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
I did not know that for sure, but if I
had a slushy maker it we would be giving out
a shot, regardless of what the instructions say.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I see, yeah, you know what I got her last
year that she loved.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
You.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Remember we were running those ads for that Bartisian Oh yeah, yeah,
Oh my gosh, and we had at one point the
company was offering like any insider discount and I didn't
jump on it at the time, so I ended up paying.
I didn't pay full price, but I paid like the
you know, like the Christmas sale price.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
My wife loves that thing.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Oh, it's like if you're ut familiar, it's like a
currig for alcohol.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
So on the one hand, I want, you know who
can't make a cocktail themselves, But on the other it
looks pretty fun.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
It is. Plus here's the other thing.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
I can make a cocktail myself, but in this case,
it's got like these flavor cups, and so I don't
have to go buy the bidders and I don't have
to go buy the sweet and sour mix, the simple
shirt syrup and all that. So I have to get
all that other stuff you have the pas. What is
the best cocktail from a part time Well, I'm I'm
you know, I like whiskey, so I'm I'm kind of
(01:40):
partial to the to the old fashions that come out
of that.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
How about a Manhattan Yep, they got the Manhattan too,
that's solid and the.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Whiskey cell.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Have you tried that too? Yeah? It's all good.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Yeah, And then my wife does she likes the iced
teas or uh like the mark Rita's that are in there. Yeah.
I why am I even talking about They're not paying
me to talk about that. I should not talk about that.
Oh maybe they will, now, No, they need to. I
should have you know what, Scrap the whole thing. Not
(02:15):
giving away free endorsements. It's the matter with me. Nah,
it's good.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I like it. I like it. She likes it. That's
the important thing. She likes it.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Yeah, Uh, we are getting dumber? Were who knew? I
was reading this article in New York magazine because I'm
an elitist and I was so interested to read the
theory of dumb. There is a phenomenon that's going on
for the last one hundred years or so that the
(02:45):
shows that we've been getting smarter and smarter and smarter
and smarter as and this is globally. This is not
just in the unest is this is globally, So we're
all getting a little bit smarter. And the theory is
that it has something to a society and environmental factors,
and that environment metal factors, as they improve worldwide, are
also improving our intelligence. All right, That's kind of the
theory until about twenty five years ago, and then we
(03:10):
started getting stupid from TLDR Global News, which is done
by a curiosity stream.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
They were talking about this very thing.
Speaker 6 (03:17):
This video was brought to you by curiosity stream.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Good.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
I'm glad you'd think that whoever edited this audio could
have skipp right past all of that.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Let's see who was it?
Speaker 6 (03:26):
Get a whole bunch of exclusive skip ahead. For most
of modern history, IQs in the developed world have been
on the rise. However, over the last few decades, raw
scores have slowly but surely begun to decline with no
obvious explanation.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
So in this video we're.
Speaker 6 (03:43):
Going to be trying to figure out what.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Okay, so skip ahead. I thought I edited this? Did
I not edit this? As such?
Speaker 6 (03:50):
There's a whole load of different IQ tests out there, Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Perhaps the most.
Speaker 6 (03:54):
Well known and most commonly used one is the Weschler
Adult Intelligence Scale. Now, regardless of the specific test taken
these days, IQ tests are normally scaled to map onto
a particular population. Essentially, a test scores are transformed to
a normal distribution with an average score of one hundred,
which means if you score over one hundred, then you're
(04:16):
of above average intelligence for the population mapped.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
I don't have the intelligence to go through all this Okay,
skip ahead, come on, get to the meat.
Speaker 6 (04:22):
We're not going to get in this video, because that
would require an entire deserve decline, and developed countries is
almost definitely real.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
So there we go, an observed decline in developing countries. Really,
I'm really I apologize for that. Somebody's supposed to edit
this audio.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I don't know. I don't know who let us down.
I don't know. I will, I'll, I will give them
a stern talking to you though it wasn't us. Oh
look at first one wasn't mean problem what we know?
Oh dare you?
Speaker 6 (04:57):
But before we get to the modern data, let's roll
back the clock a bit. In the decades after World
War Two, raw IQ score is increased by an equivalent
of about three points per decade. Obviously, the nominal mean
each year was still technically one hundred.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Okay, but just the same. So he's talking about how
they adjust the scale. Basically they're great.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
On a curve.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
But but what you need to know is IQ scores
were going up three points per decade. So if you
if you do math on the radio, over the course
of one hundred years, you're talking about going up a bunch, right,
that's thirty points one hundred years. There's ten decades, three
(05:38):
points per decade, three times ten thirty, right, so that
means that collectively we've gone up thirty points in our IQ.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
That's a lot. That is a great deal.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
I was as I was writing this story in the
New York magazine, they were they were discussing how you
could explain that, and they said, if we had asked
someone in the early twenty percent, what do what does
a dog and a rabbit have in common? And they
would say, dog, Chase is a rabbit. Whereas if you
(06:09):
ask somebody, now, does the dog and a rabbit have
in common?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
They go, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
They're both mammals, they both have fur, they both you know,
we would give more of a scientific answer, whereas before
it was more of kind of life experiential answers. Now
it's more scientifically driven answers. So that's kind of how
they described that the intelligence had gotten better, but now
it's going the other way.
Speaker 6 (06:32):
Because that's what the data is normalized to. But the
raw scores were going up year by year and decade
by decade. Anyway, the name for this phenomenon of rising
IQs is the Flinn effect named after the psychologist James R. Flynn,
who did much to document the phenomenon and promote awareness
of its implications. Now, no one knows quite what caused
(06:54):
this uplift in IQ scores.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Right, I'm gonna skip through because this guy's kind of
boring the The the gist of it is they believe
environmental factors. Basically, everybody got smarter, or the world was
getting smarter, we were exporting education, and as a result,
rising tide lifted all ships. Okay, kind of the crux
of this, However, what ends up happening now is that
(07:19):
a scientist set out to see if this trend had continued,
with the assumption that it had. Now, as you know,
in science, you're not supposed to make assumptions, but they said,
let's verify that it is continuing, basically, so they took
a look at at IQ tests. A nice thing about
IQ test today is that they're pretty readily available online.
(07:42):
The trouble with the IQ test today is that they're
pretty readily available online, so you don't necessarily have a
constant testing environment. However, what you do have is a
huge quantity of IQ tests. Almost four hundred thousand IQ
tests that were examined between two thousand and six and
twenty eighteen. All right, declines in all of those across
(08:05):
all ages, all genders, all education levels. Steepest declines eighteen
to twenty two year olds and those with less schooling.
That seems to make sense, But remember this isn't just
the kids these days have their noses buried in their phones.
It happened across all ages, all genders, all education levels.
(08:27):
So what is causing it? They say, It's not just
the smartphones, it's also and I found this to be
the most fascinating, unfettered access to each other, constant connectivity,
information overload, distraction, they say, are the possible culprits. But wait,
there's more. I'm short on time. I'm going to tell
(08:50):
you what the rest is here, because why why are
those test scores falling? If not for the phones, which
seems like the obvious answer, why is it IQ is
dropping off? Dive a little bit more into this as fascinating.
It's next Chris Merrill I AM six forty. We're live
everywhere in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
More stimulating talk kind demand anytime the iHeart radio app
was talking about this article. I ran across the New
York magazine and it goes deep into why IQ scores
are dropping. Throughout the twentieth century. They were rising about
three points per decade. Then all of a sudden, we
get to the two thousands and they start to regress
accept in one category, and that was spatial relations. And
(09:39):
the author made a clear point. They said, in other words,
we can visualize rotating three D objects better than previous
generations or past you know, test takers anyway, and they
said the exact skill you would need to excel at fortnite.
And I thought, oh, that's interesting, But does that mean
that it's all because of video games that we're somehow
(10:01):
getting dumber. Now, the different categories where it dropped have
to do with things like pattern recognition or or you know,
the other stuff that if you've taken the IQ test,
you know, the stuff that it looks at and not.
They say that the drop off is not necessarily only
(10:23):
because of tech. Now, tech undoubtedly plays some sort of
a role. What is that role? First of all, they
say environmental factors. They could include anything from changes in education, nutrition,
family structure, and economic pressures to a cocktail of potentially
brain damaging exposures like microplastics, antidepressants, wildfire smoke. That's one
(10:43):
that hits us real close to home, doesn't it. But
the consensus right now is that the factor to blame
the most is actually the tech. But it's not that
people are scrolling. It's not just social media that's doing it.
They say, if we're getting dumber, there's a good chance
that we're making each other that way. Modern communication, in
all of its forms, has put us in contact with
(11:04):
more minds than we are able to handle, more than
we're built to handle, and our own seem to be
wilting under the load.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
So get this.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Basically, you've got information overload, that's what's happening, and you've
got a lot of dumb people telling you dumb things,
and your brain can't process at all.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
They go.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Not so long ago, the adults among us were free
to think their thoughts quietly to themselves, with no easy way.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
To share them.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
At worst, a person would usually just embarrass himself in
front of his own family or bowling team. Bad ideas
had a harder time scaling and reproducing, so lots of
stupidity stayed local.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
But I want you to think about that.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Now you are being inundated, and maybe the algorithm knows
that you like the clickbait. Maybe it knows that you
like those things that elicited that emotional response. You don't
care to fact check it because it satiates that emotion
that you wanted to feel. And honestly, fact checking that
means you have to learn about nuance. That means that
(12:04):
you have to fight against your instinct to oversimplify something.
And by the way, that's not your fault. That doesn't
mean that you're dumb, that's not the reason. That's not
indicative of you being unintelligent. That's indicative of you being human. See,
we do those things because we want our brains don't
want to find nuance. We want to identify threats right,
(12:27):
things that drive us fear and greed, things that drive
us fear and greed, and so our brains are constantly
scanning for threats and food right or threats and things
that can make our lives better, more comfortable, thrive. Generally speaking,
we're making sure we're not going to get eaten at
(12:47):
night while while the rest of the village is sleeping.
And then during the day, we're trying to find food
and expend as few calories as possible to do that.
Fear and greed and it's hardwired into us. So when
we see something that we don't like, and you can
you can pick any any current major political event what
(13:10):
drives us fear and greed, right, or fear and desire.
If you want to say desire, that's fine, but all
of these things, and it doesn't matter if you're liberal
or conservative.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
What we do is.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
We boil things down to the simplest form. And politicians
know this. They know and they don't try to explain things.
They don't try to explain nw ones, they don't try
to explain a gray area.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
They don't want to tell you how they came to
a conclusion.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
But they want to tell you is how you should feel,
and this is why, because if you don't, scary things
are gonna happen, or this is what you need to
do in order to get more right.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
I was going to think of think of taxes.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Okay, you're gonna hear the conservatives are always gonna tell
you, you know, we need tax cuts. If we have tax cuts,
that means more money in your pocket. You're gonna be richer.
That's very appealing. Liberals go, we have to raise their
taxes because we want to make sure that.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
We're feeding people. And you need to have empathy.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
So they're trying to tap into empathy and they're trying
to make you think of what it's like to be hungry.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Or they say, we've got to raise taxes so that
we can.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Offer more free stuff, free college, free buses in New
York City, right or or or whatever it is, and
you owe, I want that that's free. That's good, I'm
going after it. That's both sides attacking the greed aspect
of what we have, right. But then you have the
other side. You've got the fear. So let's think about
something like a border wall. You've got the GOP that's
(14:37):
gonna say, we have to build a border wall to
protect ourselves from an invasion of the illegal immigrants. That's
what that's that's the message, over and over and over
and over and over again. And the DHS is gonna say,
look at who we caught. We caught this this vicious criminal.
We caught this vicious criminal. We caught this person and
this person and this person all illegal. We got to
build this wall. We're protecting you, your safety, your security.
(14:57):
If you love your kids, you're gonna do this right,
then you get the livers. I remember, if you build
a wall, there's two sides to that wall. If you
build a wall that means you're trapped with a fascists.
You can't build a wall because then the fascists have
basically built you into your own concentration camp, and you go.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
You can't give over to the fascists.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
What you don't know is building the walls and imprisoning
yourself fear, both using fear, one more effectively than the other,
but both using fear to drive that national political issue.
Is their nuance? Is there intelligence in those arguments? No,
but they're simple and they appeal to the to our
basic instincts. But because we're being inundated with so many
(15:36):
messages constantly from a whole lot of people that don't
have any education, but continue to repeat like an echo chamber,
over and over and over again, our brains can't handle
all of that, and our brains basically just go I
can't focus or dive deeper or read into these things.
(15:57):
What I'm going to do is I'm going to take
the thing that makes the most sense to me as
far as self preservation and self advancement. But when we
do that, we're doing it at the cost of our
own ability to process that information. And I thought it
was fascinating, fascinating stuff, But now I realize I've just
(16:21):
been monologuing and it's probably not a lot exciting. So
all right, well, I'm geeked out. Thanks for letting me.
You keep hearing that American kids are falling apart. Nobody
wants to talk about the place where all of that
starts to show up. Right, Your kid may be getting stressed,
and that stress may not be starting in their brain.
It could be starting in the very place that you
expect them to be getting their stuff together.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
More.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
The brain drain and where that's beginning is next. I'm
Chris MERYLFI AM six forty. Were live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
You'll find this on demand anytime iHeartRadio app. When you're
on that app, you and always did that talkback button.
I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Let me see, Oh
I got this, I gotta Everythanksgiving I have a bit
of an issue. I'm gonna I'm gonna share with you
(17:15):
what that issue is coming up here after Mark's next newscast,
because it's I got a little bit of evidence today
to find out that I'm actually not alone on my
issue when it comes to that Thanksgiving dinner and what's
on the table. It's been a problem for a very
long time. Basically, you've been duped, and you've been duped
into a couple of things. One liking something that nobody likes,
(17:39):
and two pretending it's not what it is.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
That's again, that's after Mark's news. That's still to come.
I want to continue down this road though.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
As I was telling you that, there was a great
article in the New York magazine, which I was reading
because I'm an elitist and I have a lot of
Lacroix under my pillow.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
And from that then I was following up.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
On some of the research, and I was thinking, this
is just what I do in my fun time, just
run out on the rabbit hole, and I was thinking about, oh,
the kids these days. Are the kids these days getting
dumber as well? Do they have any hope? The research
on declining IQs was done for tests that we're taking
between twenty six and twenty eighteen. Certainly since COVID, it's
(18:17):
not like it's gotten any better. COVID's probably got some
more long term effects on the brain as well. That's
probably not for the kids didn't have the infections so
bad as the adults. However, as we know, the kids
had some delayed learning. It's one of the areas that
I think we learned a lot from. Like, Okay, that
was a misstep, and I'll be the first to tell
you that I wanted to delay kids going back to
(18:39):
school as long as I could. My thought was, if
they can be on zoom and they can be connecting
with the teachers and learning, that's sufficient. Data shows it
was not. It was just not And I'll be the
first to tell you that that was not it. But
what about the kids these days. If you take a
look at what's going out in a number of schools,
(19:00):
nearly one in seventeen year old boys now carries an
ADHD diagnosis. One million more children got that diagnosis in
twenty twenty two compared with twenty sixteen, So we have
skyrocketing diagnoses of ADHD, autism, anxiety and depression, and you
have to wonder why that is. Autism diagnosis rose from
(19:25):
one in twenty five hundred children back in the early
eighties to one in thirty one today. That's remarkable. When
I was growing up, I remember we had one kid
in our class, Stephen with a pH and Stephen, he
most definitely had a hyperactivity disorder. He definitely was ADHD
(19:47):
at the time. It was add he most definitely did.
And I recall that he had to go take medicine
every day at lunchtime or whatever he had to go take,
And I'm sure it was riddling at the time. And
I just remember there was one kid. Looking back on
it now, there were a number of other kids that
probably would in today, by today's criteria, would have been
(20:08):
diagnosed as somewhere on the spectrum. So why is it
that we're diagnosing now better than what we did before,
or more than what we did before. There may be
a number of different reasons. First, is we're better at
understanding that it's a spectrum. It's not black and white.
It's not as though, okay, this is a hyperactive kid,
that's it. Now we know hyperactivity maybe may fall on
(20:31):
the spectrum as well.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
That's part of the autism spectrum.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
We also have a number of different categories in the
autism spectrum, Asperger's for instance. And a lot of this
wasn't so well understood fifty years ago as well as
it is now, or at least our understanding was different
than what it is right now. But now we go, okay,
there's a spectrum. So for instance, my son, and here's
another one. Let me before I tell you my son's story.
(20:57):
Here's another one too, is that in the in the
older day, the old days, mark you remember the old days.
In the old days, you didn't want to be different
because different meant you were targeted.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Right, ooh ooh.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
I have to try to conform because if I'm too
far out out of the normal, the bullies are going
to pick on me.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And then we saw a change. We said we have
to stop the bullying.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
We saw change in the high schools in the in
the early to mid two thousands, right, we saw it
kind of shift where we go bullies are not cool,
and bullies themselves became ostracized and everyone was trying to
figure out what made each of them unique and special.
Sort of a mindset change. I think it's generally for
(21:40):
good but one thing that we found is that kids
were like, I'm special, I have this right. We would say, hey,
who's that kid in your class that you know, we
woul try to be encouraging. I had a kid in
my class when I was in fifth grade. He had
cancer and I remember he came to school and they
let him wear a hat class so that people wouldn't
(22:01):
make fun of him. Now, if there's a kid that's
fighting cancer and they come to school and they are
and they're going through chemotherapy, the class rallies around them, right,
and so there is this subconscious reinforcement that if you
are you know, if you're going through something, you're gonna
have support that makes you special, that makes you unique,
and the rest of the people around you are going
to respect you, and they're gonna give you you know,
(22:22):
they're gonna kind of rally. I think we've done a
good job of being better parents and teaching our kids
not to be jerks.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
That's good.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
But also here's my son. My son is thirty now
and he told us about two or three years ago,
he called us and he said, well, I just wanted
to congratulate you. You officially have a child on the spectrum,
and I thought, there are so many things with that
sentence I just don't understand, And I go, what do
you mean here? My psychologist diagnosed me with ADHD, And
(22:52):
I gotta tell you, there was nothing about my son
that was abnormal. He was pretty normal, little boy, teenage boy.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Normal.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
But as he's getting older, he's having some trouble focusing
and he's had he's had some issues and he was
seeking help, and there's that's great. I'm really happy for him.
But the fact that he said, congratulations, you have you
officially have a child in the spectrum, as though that's
the kind of thing that we're going to run out
and tell Oh.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
I can't wait to tell my friends. You see what
I mean. It's a little bit different.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
So I think the diagnosis goes up because in some
cases there's a there's almost a point of pride with
it because of the way that we accept things nowadays.
There's also a practical reason that we saw diagnoses of ADHD, autism, anxiety,
and depression jump not is that we changed how we
funded schools so no child left behind comes around and
we go, how do we make sure that schools are
(23:45):
getting the help they need? If they have kids with
special needs, and we go, well, if they have kids
with special needs, we can make sure they get more funding.
And if they have kids with special needs, that could
inadvertently affect the standardized testings. So in many states they
threw out the tests for kids that had certain diagnoses. Well,
if you're a school that's struggling and you want to
(24:08):
make sure you're getting the funding, one you're gonna get
more funding for somebody with a diagnosis, and two you're
not gonna be pedalized if your school is underperforming, if
you can throw out the scores of the lower performing
kids and go, oh, well, you know what, this one's
got a diagnosis. So there's an incentive, a financial incentive
(24:29):
to see more diagnoses in the schools as well. Now
is that beneficial to society or is that contributing to
that constant decline? Then of the IQ, if we're not
making sure that we're giving the proper attention to everyone,
or if we're simply giving someone an excuse, that is
(24:52):
that will be studied for the next fifty years.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
The families also get funding from the government off their
kid is.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Uh not not blanket. That's a more complicated question.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
It depends interesting, it depends on whether or not they
are receiving other funding generally speaking.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
Because in Australia, if your kid gets diagnosed on the
autism spectrum, you do get funding from the government. So
a lot of parents in Australia they do want the diagnosis.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Oh interesting, very interesting, isn't that.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
Yeah, no, it's not. It's not blanket like that here,
not blanket, but there are, there are. It's a complicated answer.
All right, I'm gotta get the break here. I'm already
really late. Your brain drain has you thinking you need
therapy for your life overhaul. But my friends, that is
the wrong tease for the next segment, So let me
just stop that.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Hang on, let me go back. Where am i here?
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Oh? Yeah, time I am speaking of brain drain. I'll
tell you what is making you dumber? Is that crap
on your your Thanksgiving table? My annual I can't stand
this on my table? Rant is next? Chris Merril KFI
AM six forty. We are live everywhere on the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Been update on your favorite streamers that could be merging here?
Not too long that's coming up after marks nine o'clock news.
All right, there are a couple of new surveys out.
They basically show the same thing, but they play with
the numbers just a little bit, and it's it's all
about what kind of garbage is sitting at your Thanksgiving
(26:25):
Day table? Fox eleven talking about this very important issue.
Speaker 7 (26:30):
Okay, when it comes to Thanksgiving foods, is there something
you'd like to ban from the table?
Speaker 2 (26:35):
We know roxy is choice roxy.
Speaker 7 (26:38):
According to new survey of people what agree with you,
they want to ditch the green, the what in being castrole?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Oh good, the GBC the green being castrole? Oh wow,
what's wrong with that? I don't know.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
I actually I don't hate the green bean Castroleiously, yeah.
Speaker 7 (27:01):
Maybe for different reasons, for different reasons, I'm sure too green.
Some of the other choices cranberry sauce, how dare you?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
And sweet potatoes? Come on, come on? Sweet?
Speaker 4 (27:14):
You get the feeling that all that they were gonna
just poo poo whatever it is, because they're afraid of
upsetting somebody who does like it.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
You know, you get enough hate mail from people that
are like, I.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Heard you say this thing about sweet potatoes and I'll
never watch your show again.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
How dare you?
Speaker 3 (27:28):
I'm not gonna be happy until people come to blows
over this.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah, wouldn't that be great? It will?
Speaker 5 (27:33):
Did candy yams not make the list?
Speaker 2 (27:35):
That's a sweet potatoes, the yams, yams and the sweet pets.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
But they put marshmellow in it.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
It's feral. It's so disgusting. Here we go, you peel
with your candy.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Here's the thing. Those three things depending on the survey
that you watch. And I saw I looked up two
of them. One was done by a Harris Pool and
then another one Southern Living had a pool I think
and oh Savings dot Com, Uh did it?
Speaker 2 (27:59):
And what they found? Wise, are you guys hearing an echo? No?
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Okay, sorry, I was getting like an echo there for
a minute. Uh what they what they? What they found
was those three things, the green bean castrole, the cranberry sauce,
and the yams. Both Poles found that those the least
like sides at the Thanksgiving Day table. Now I'm kind
of with Nikky on the whole yams are gross thing.
(28:25):
I'm not a fan of the ams. I'm with you, Mark,
I do like the green bean castrole. Very simple recipe.
I think, isn't it basically just green beans and cream
and mushroom soup with some funions on top of funions.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I mean, that's basically it, right. No, I like that.
I had the thought of using the actual funions. That's
a great idea. I mean, those are great. Those are
those are good. I like that.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
But I always have this issue, and that is with
the notion of cranberry sauce. It's not a sauce. No
sauce comes out shaped like a can. No sauce should
ever make the sound. Now you might say, well, wait,
wait a minute, wait a minute. Some condensed soup will
(29:13):
do that. That's right. But it's condensed, and then you
add water or milk if it's creamy, whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
You do that with cranberry sauce, they go, oh.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
No, you get out of the can and then you
slice it. Name another sauce that you can slice. You can't.
It is not a sauce. If you want to call
it cranberry jelly, I'll bet you get away with it.
But to call it cranberry sauce is absolutely.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Wrong.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
It's a misnomber of the highest degree. And I'm so
tired of this lie being perpetrated upon Americans, since I
can only assume the pilgrims who also got their ocean
spray cranberry sauce out of a can, probably from the Senecas,
to stop. If there is one thing that I want
(30:03):
to change in America before I die, that's it to
stop calling cranberry sauce in a can sauce.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
It is not. Now, maybe you're doing the whole cranberry.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
You know, you got the whole berries just kind of
mushed up in a compote of some sort. I don't
even know what that word means, but I saw it
on a fancy cooking show, or maybe I heard Neil
Sevager talk about it one time. If that comes out, okay,
look that's that's liquidy. But you can't eat sauce with
a fork. If you can eat it with a fork,
it's not a sauce. Quit calling it a sauce.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
How about goo that's fine, or protoplasm protoplasm.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
I was doing this rant one time, because this is
I'm telling you, this is like an annual thing for me.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Huh.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
I was doing this one time and a guy he says,
cranberry sauce is a liquid with a very high viscosity,
and I thought, well, you know, I had never thought
of it that way before.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Not true. Fat Well, when you put it that way,
maybe it is a sauce. No, not a sauce.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Unbelievable fifteenth annual KFI pastathonus here Chef Bruno's charity, Katerina's Club,
providing more than twenty five thousand meals to kids every
week in need in Southern California. And it's all because
of your generosity that it can happen. We've got the
live broadcast going on on Tuesday, the second from five
am wake up Call Amy King all the way through
eight pm. Conway is extending his show an hour, going
(31:27):
out to the Anaheim White House, South Anaheim Boulevarding. Donate
anytime KFI AM six forty dot com slash Pastathon and
one hundozo percent of your donation goes to Katerina's Club.
You can also go to any Wendy's restaurant in Southern California.
Donate five bucks or more and you get a coop
and book, or go to Wild Fork Foods you get
any of the go to any of the eleven so
(31:47):
cal WILDFK Food locations and simply say KFI Pastathon a
checkout and fifteen percent of your purchase is going to
be donated to Katerina's Club. But you do have to
say KFI Pastathon at checkout. That's a secret code word.
Find all the details KFI AM six forty dot com
slash pastathon. All right, the studio is on sale and
(32:08):
it sounds like the takers are lining up onto round two.
Who will be the big winner in the streaming sale?
That's next, Chris Merril, KFI AM six forty. We're live
everywhere in the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1 (32:18):
App, KFI AM six forty on demand
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