Judging from what one runs across on the internet, it’s easy to believe that something must be dumbing down the populace, as a recent Daily Mail piece humorously illustrated.

The Mail published a Tweet from a mother which involved a math question given to year 2 students – one the mom felt was too difficult for children as young as six years old to be expected to solve.

Here is the question:

“There were some people on a train. 19 people get off the train at the first stop. 17 people get on the train. Now there are 63 people on the train. How many people were on the train to begin with?”

Admittedly, this puzzle might be somewhat advanced for an average six-year-old, but it shouldn’t be that hard for an adult, since it requires only some very basic addition and subtraction skills.

If you guessed the answer to be 65, you are correct!

“The correct answer is in fact 65, which you arrive at by subtracting the 17 people who just boarded from the current number of passengers, 63, to get 46. Then you add the 19 passengers who got off to arrive at 65.”

Now, that wasn’t so difficult, was it? Any adult should be able to easily arrive at the correct answer, right?

Well, you might be surprised – many of the respondents to the Tweet, and even the mother herself, were unable to get it right.

Louise Bloxham, the mom, claimed that she found the “right” answer on a Facebook forum for teachers; apparently their answer was 46.

Are we being ‘dumbed down’ deliberately?

It’s easy to poke fun at those with less than stellar math skills, but are we really becoming dumbed down as a society?

Some experts think so, and that it is being done to us deliberately.

From a Global Research report entitled “The Dumbing Down of America – By Design:”

“The most obvious example of how Americans have been dumbed down is through this nation’s failed public education system. At one time not that long ago America reigned supreme as a leading model for the rest of the world providing the best quality free public K-12 education system on the planet. But over the last many decades while much of the rest of the world has been passing us by, it seems an insidious federal agenda has been implemented to condition and brainwash a population of mindless, robotic citizenry that simply does what it’s told, and of course the brainwashing commences early in America’s schools.”

The report’s author, Joachim Hagopian, heavily criticizes the U.S. educational system, but also identifies a number of other factors contributing to America’s mental decline, including the consolidation of mass media, drug use (both illicit and legal), alcohol, and even the flicker rates of televisions and computer monitors.

But, that’s not all that’s making us dumber. Pesticides, heavy metals, hormones and numerous other toxins enter our bodies through the foods we eat, the air we breathe and the water we drink.

The fluoride factor

The fluoride added to our drinking water is believed by many to be one of the most significant factors in our loss of mental capacity. At least 50 studies have confirmed a link between fluoride and reduced intelligence.

As reported by Fluoride Alert:

“As of April 2016, a total of 57 studies have investigated the relationship between fluoride and human intelligence, and a total of 38 studies have investigated the relationship fluoride and learning/memory in animals. Of these investigations, 50 of the 57 human studies have found that elevated fluoride exposure is associated with reduced IQ, while 37 of the 39 animal studies have found that fluoride exposure impairs the learning and/or memory capacity of animals. The human studies, which are based on IQ examinations of over 12,000 children, provide compelling evidence that fluoride exposure during the early years of life can damage a child’s developing brain.”

There are many factors involved in our dumbing down, but avoiding exposure to fluoride may be one of the most important keys to maintaining a healthy, functional brain.

Sources:

DailyMail.co.uk
GlobalResearch.ca
FluorideAlert.org
Science.NaturalNews.com

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