Do Americans tend to be dumber than other people in the world?
According to the 2008 UN Education Index (which is part of the UN Human Development Index), the United States ranks 19th (tied with Lithuania) among the 172 nations ranked. So if by ‘Dumber’ you mean ‘less educated’ then the stats would seem to say no. It’s worth noting that the index takes into account things like enrollment, childhood literacy, and adult literacy. So it doesn’t necessarily rank the overall quality of education received. My personal experience is that there are stupid and brilliant people from all countries and it’s probably impossible to generalize things like ‘tendencies’ towards stupidity in a broad group. I’m not an American myself – but I know a lot of very smart Americans. .
