Are We Getting Smarter? Rising IQ Scores In the Twenty-First Century

hessian sends this excerpt from The New Republic: "[A] person who scored 100 a century ago would score 70 today; a person who tested as average a century ago would today be declared mentally retarded. This bizarre finding — christened the 'Flynn effect' by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray in The Bell Curve — has since snowballed so much supporting evidence that in 2007 Malcolm Gladwell declared in The New Yorker that 'the Flynn effect has moved from theory to fact.' But researchers still cannot agree on why scores are going up. Are we are simply getting better at taking tests? Are the tests themselves a poor measure of intelligence? Or do rising IQ scores really mean we are getting smarter? In spite of his new book's title, Flynn does not suggest a simple yes or no to this last question. It turns out that the greatest gains have taken place in subtests that measure abstract reasoning and pattern recognition, while subtests that depend more on previous knowledge show the lowest score increases. This imbalance may not reflect an increase in general intelligence, Flynn argues, but a shift in particular habits of mind. The question is not, why are we getting smarter, but the much less catchy, why are we getting better at abstract reasoning and little else?"

Comments

Simple...

[wbr1]

I have to abstract myself away from shit like Jersey Shore, Real Housewives, Survivor, Jaywalking, etc. The things I hear pass for intelligent conversation now scare and enrage me. I for one do not believe American's at least are getting any smarter.

Re:Simple...

[crazyjj]

shit like Jersey Shore, Real Housewives, Survivor, Jaywalking, etc.

Conversely, compare modern dramas and comedies with their counterparts from 30-40 years ago. Even the network stuff has gotten a LOT more sophisticated, with complex plotlines and subplots spanning across multiple seasons that regularly employ devices like symbolism and metaphor, creative mixes of genres, etc. Now go back and look at the old stuff and realize that it wasn't that long ago that it was considered that all prime-time television should consist entirely of self-contained episodes with simple plots (even subplots were once avoided) that beat you over the head with every point. Seriously, just compare the original Star Trek sometime with something like new Battlestar Galactica for a check on how far pop culture has really come in the last 40 years. Sure, 90% of everything is still shit (and always will be). But, overall, our popular entertainment today is WAY more intelligent than it was just a few decades ago. Even our lamest sitcoms are more intelligent today than anything you would have encountered in the disco era. Even M.A.S.H. seems anachronistically silly by today's standards.

Re:Simple...

[dmbasso]

You are jumping to the conclusion that it is genetic related, when the anecdote you brought ("adopted baby from trailer trash") is most probably better explained by the consequences of development while in the womb. Or do you think a baby (whatever the genetic code) can develop normally within a system flooded with cortisol, alcohol, nicotine, etc.?

Re:Simple...

[JoshuaZ]

Yes, actually you have been getting smarter, and in ways that are sometimes subtle and not obvious. However, the Flynn effect leveled off in Great Britain about 20 years ago http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/4548943/British-teenagers-have-lower-IQs-than-their-counterparts-did-30-years-ago.html But until recently it was statistically robust.

It's pretty obvious from reading old Greek or Roman texts that people are pretty much the same now as they've always been. Shakespeare shows that nothing much has changed in England for over 400 years.

There are two serious issues with this claim. First, most (although not all) of the Flynn effect has occurred on the lower end of the intelligence spectrum. That means that the smartest people may not be that much smarter, but the average intelligence has still gone up by a lot. See for example http://synapse.princeton.edu/~brained/chapter15/colom_andres-pueyo05_intelligence_Spanish-schoolchildren-nutrition-hypothesis.pdf. Second, people today seem to be in some ways smarter than many of the smart people a few thousand years ago. For example, it used to be a big deal that someone was able to read so well that they didn't need to murmur to themselves or move their lips, whereas now we consider reading out loud a sign of stupidity http://www.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Manguel/Silent_Readers.html. It is possible that part of this difference was simply cultural, and that silent reading was purely a matter of education and norms. But the fact that some old sources considered silent reading a sign of intelligence suggests otherwise.

I would guess "literacy"

[SirGarlon]

Most IQ tests are in written form, so they can only be administered to children and adults old enough to read. So, only people who've been exposed to at least kindergarten plus (for a lot of people) preschool.

I am not a teacher, but I would venture to say that a whole buckload of evidence-based developmental psychology has gone into improving the educational system since 1912. Plus, things like school enrollment have gone way up. In 1912 a lot of rural kids -- and most people lived in the country -- went to one-room schoolhouses.

So I would think that IQ scores should go up in the competency areas schools have been trying to cultivate. And I would say, thinking about how different the education system probably is today, I'd be more surprised if nothing had changed.

the obvious cause

[slashmydots]

If you practice at something for years, you get better at it. I played video games for a lot of years and now I'm a puzzle-solving genius by 100 years ago standards. It's all because of video games.

Re:How long before a Politically Correct complaint

[ideonexus]

Mental retardation is an actual medical term which is subject to the Euphemism Treadmill effect, where over time a term becomes an insult in common usage and the professionals have to find a new word that doesn't have the baggage associated with it to maintain professional integrity (Similar to the reason we call them "Bathrooms" today instead of "Water Closets" or "Toilets" as the two latter terms became too crude through common usage). Don't blame "political correctness" on this, blame crass people like Anne Coulter who use the medical term in a derogatory sense towards those who don't have the disability without any sensitivity to those who must actually live with the condition.

Replace the word "Retard' with "AIDS carrier," "Cancer Survivor," or "Quadriplegic" and try making the argument that the offense people take to your use of these terms to disparage others is just "political correctness." The reason you don't use these terms as insults is because these are human beings who can fight back. "Retard" is okay because the mentally retarded can't defend themselves. Coulter is a bully and a coward for using the term and defending its use.

People like Coulter who call the backlash against their use of these words "political correctness" do so because the word "ignorant" applies to them. They are ignorant of the suffering of others, ignorant of medical science, and ignorant of basic good taste. I used the world "retard" as an insult when I was a child, but I'm an adult now and I am educated enough to know how abusing that word abuses those who are living with this debilitating condition.