There was a fascinating (to me) article in today’s Boston Globe Magazine (sorry, no link - try this for something similar: http://www.sciam.com/1999/0199issue/0199profile.html )
about a steady rise in average IQ scores over the last century. James Flynn’s work seems to have pretty well shown a rise in average performance, masked by repeated renormalization of scores, to the point that someone who had a 100 IQ 80 years ago would measure only 75 today.
He was inspired to undertake this work in order to refute Arthur Jensen’s conclusions that lower average IQ of blacks shows an innate inferiority. In fact, Flynn has shown that the gap is closing, and the average black score today is the same as the average white score 50 years ago.
I’ve always thought IQ was a load of crap, but you don’t need to believe it to look at data and say there’s something there. Flynn himself doesn’t think people really are more intelligent today, but others in the field do, and point to our increasingly-complex technology as simply one example, and improved diet/medicine/education as factors.
I’d like to think I’m “smarter” than my ancestors, of course, and I’m constantly surprised by what my kids do that I know I couldn’t at their age. I’m frankly undecided, but I’m sure a lot of you on this board have an opinion. So how about it? ARE people really evolving greater intelligence? Does it make a difference that we can see?
Clearly people are not “evolving” higher intelligence, if you mean evolution in a biological sense. Biological evolution doesn’t work that fast. The obvious environmental explanations for the Flynn effect (better nutrition, less disease, etc.) don’t seem to be right either. We can calculate how much they should affect I.Q. scores, and it’s not enough. The other environmental explanations (better schooling, better parenting, better test-taking abilities, something about the current media environment) may have some relevance, but nobody has been able to prove that they’ve changed that much, and nobody knows how they affect I.Q. Basically, this is something that baffles psychologists.
“Evolving” was meant in the cultural sense, but biological evolution does go one generation at a time.
I’m curious - how do you “calculate” the effect on IQ of environmental factors?
IQ scores have improved across the globe, not just in countries like america, where there have been lots of improvements in environment, nutrition, etc.
for example, in india IQ scores have improved by a margin similar to the margin of improvement in america, but many people (most people) living in india still suffer from malnutrition and lousy plumbing systems.
i dont have any sources to back me up - we were studying intelligience in a psychiatry course a few weeks ago, and this is what the professor said; he is really smart and famous too, so he is probably right : )
You can’t, not really. We can only estimate how much environmental factors affect IQ; we can never say “They affect IQ to such-and-such extent,” with absolute certainty. Studying twins raised in different environments is one way to study environmental influence, but I haven’t heard of any recent significant findings.
We can calculate the effect of better nutrition in the sense that, given that the average I.Q. has risen by about 20 points in the past 60 years, we would have to assume that nutrition has improved so much over those 60 years that it’s changed our average scores from 80 to 100 on I.Q. tests. That’s such a huge difference that you’d have to assume that everyone 60 years ago was constantly on the edge of starvation, and that just not true. All I can tell you is what I’ve read in the articles I’ve seen on the Flynn effect. Here are several of these articles, some of which talk about how much nutrition could have affected I.Q.:
These articles also mention that it doesn’t seem possible that the difference is just that education has increased our verbal abilities, since the highest increases are on tests that have nothing to do with verbal ability.
The Flynn effect is truly mysterious. In one of the citations I’ve given, Flynn himself says that if you were to accept these results at face value, it would mean that the average person 80 years ago was significantly mentally retarded by modern standards.
I don’t really know what you mean by cultural evolution. O.K., society has changed in 80 years. Which of these changes is relevant to the Flynn effect? I also don’t know what you mean by saying that biological evolution takes place one generation at a time.
I very much doubt that the world on average is getting more intelligent, and I think the Flynn effect may be explained not in terms of average intelligence, but in terms of improved scoring on standard tests and increased specialized skills. These are my opinions off the top of my head, and if you spot generalizations (you will) it is because, well, we’re talking about over 6 billion people here.
1. People in the developed world are actually becoming more stupid, but are also subject to more thorough specialized education that creates the illusion of higher intelligence. The classic examples are the Texas standardized test system and the SATs and similar idiocies (and yes, you can prepare to improve your IQ score). Kids don’t learn anything except how to pass the test when they study for these tests. The result is that education takes second place to scoring on standardized tests, inquisitiveness is stifled, creativity is repressed, and everything comes to depend on ranking systems.
Add to this the startling foolishness one sees on television at any hour of the day, the volcanic rise in popularity of video games, and the unlimited availability of substitution literature (ask any 12-year old whether he wants to have a Garfield comic or a copy of The Hobbit), and you have a pretty grim picture.
2. People in the developing world are becoming slightly more educated in general, although this depends on where you look. But in general, I think education tends to be improving, and it follows that a mind exposed to a better quality of education will be more intelligent. For example, in places like India you have phenomenally good education in spite of poverty; on the other hand, many (but by no means all) educators in China still believe that results are more important than anything else, and students in too many schools are still drilled with memorization tasks.
There is the danger that the developing countries may follow in the footsteps of the average developed public, and reach a comfort zone at which popular intelligence will begin to decrease owing to “distractions”.
3. Communication devices play a very confusing role. From the television to the computer, these devices have the power to educate as well as waste colossal amounts of time. Look at all the knowledge available on the Internet–but then look at the alarming flunk-out-of-college rate of University students who discover online games. You would think television would have the might to educate, but more often than not people are watching sports results and Baywatch instead of didactic programmes or channels. But then again, look at The Discovery Channel: 80% of the day, it is nothing more than a glorified acquarium/terrarium giving its viewers a faint dose of nature. I blame both the media and the audience: one group could not exist without the other.
4. Reading. As was pointed out in a Straight Dope column, a fair modicum of reading seems to allow development of higher intelligence. I doubt this applies to people who read nothing except Details and Cosmopolitan or Garfield and Teen magazine. In today’s busy world, it appears that fewer and fewer people have time to dedicate an hour a day to engaging reading material that actually requires brain power. We have fast food, and we have fast reading. Secondly, I doubt that people picking up a book will be helping to drive revenues for all those TV stations, colourful lifestyle magazines, videogame developing companies, and so forth. The media empires are making us stupid. Michael Ende: people with no imagination are easy to control. My take on that: People with no imagination buy your product.
5. Specialization and/or excessive dedication prevent us from achieving well-rounded intelligent personalities. Related somewhat to point number one. If you spend all your time on mindless labour (this includes most desk jobs) the mind becomes exhausted and starved for intellectual stimuli (one of the reasons I am forever thankful for this Web site-keeps my brain alive during working hours). It’s the vicious equivalent of lack of physical exercise: the less you exercise, the more tired you are, the less you can exercise.
I meet a lot of experts in their field (whether it be business or Internet or chemistry or even literature) who are incapable of discussing different topics–that is, if they can even hold any sort of broad conversation. They have a sphere of knowledge that is extremely specialized and very narrow. This tends to limit their general intelligence, although they may be spectacularly good at what they do.
5. Loss of creativity is crippling us. All the above points tend to bring about a reduction in imaginative power. Less imagination usually equates to lower intelligence. I realize that this assertion hinges on how you define intelligence, and I realize there is no one unversal definition; however I think everyone will agree that intelligence more or less equals problem-solving, application of knowledge, comprehension, development of knowledge by any means, and so forth. Take flexibility and innovation away from all those words and you are left with a dumb input-output machine, capable of performing certain jobs but hardly fit to be called intelligent.
When I look around me I see people becoming more stupid by the day, in spite of what psychologists may be reporting. Perhaps we’re just getting better at scoring on tests and specializing at certain tasks? With all the resources available to us, we SHOULD be getting smarter by stimulating our minds with a broad spectrum of knowledge and challenges (curiously enough and in spite of what I wrote above, some videogames–few of them–actually accomplish this). We may actually be choosing to become less intelligent.
While agreeing with Abe in large part (and noting in regards to that fool Jensen that his pseodu-biological conclusions on “race” are utterly without foundatoin) in some ways Abe reflects the problem with talking about intelligence as if it was measurable like strength – the inherent subjectivity of what we mean. Kinda like obscenity – you know it when you see (but is what you see what others see?).
For example
I agree with Abe and would like to add that I differ from Wendell, as improved childhood nutrition can have significant effects. I see no reason to impute ‘near-starvation’ as the basis of comparision (with Wendell’s statement). I don’t see (as a non-expert certaily) any reason to positively reject improvement in neo-natal care, infant and young children’s nutrition, improved education systems and extension of education to virtually all the populace as reasons too weak to explain the Flynn effect.
Now some things Abe says I think bear commenting on.
While not really disagreeing (in fact I feel the same way) I have to admit that these are subjective preferences and when I step back I don’t know that foolish TV means stupidity or just a preference for light entertainment for stressed folks. Highlighting the inherently subjective nature of what we call intelligence.
Again while not disagreeing, does this really speak to intelligence or our subjective preferences.
Well, colloqually we’re stupid for wasting lots of time, but does that really mean “unintelligent” – while noting that stimulas as a child also seems to be a significant factor in the development of intelligence (heritable insofar as stimulating environments are passed on in a cultural sense.)
Again the confusion of educational success with intelligence. (And in fact what did Binet really mean to measure when he invented the IQ? Educational aptitude.) As we all should know, that’s as much a question of drive as ‘native intelligence’ – if we mean whatever’s under the hood in the old noggin mechanically speaking.
And again, I agree yet we confuse education and perhaps critical thinking skills with the concept of ‘intelligence’ which I usually understand, when used in this context, to mean some kind of raw underlying human brain computing power. Frankly I don’t think, given present tools and understandings, that this concept can be measured. What we really measure is aptitude for learning in certain contexts, socialization and drive. Not trivial mind you, but not quite the same thing.
Well, here I differ and note that this is pure value judgement. What constitutes a well rounded intelligent personality? The ability to know a little about a lot, or a lot about a narrow range of things and a bit about everything else.
Specialization is by no means inherently wrong and indeed increases efficiency. We may have a romantic attachment to the old idea of the polymath, someone who masters many domains. But that is difficult to achieve in today’s world with today’s bodies of knowledge. In fact I am not even sure it is desirable. Certainly I try to personally read a wide variety of subjects, but I have to be specialized in only a few – actually my work is as an analyst so I need to be a generalist expert in making syntheses of various expert analyses for the big bosses. Who are expert in placing capital in its most efficient uses (hopefully, else I am screwed.). So I’m specialized in generalizing in a certain way.
Does this make me more intelligent than the bio-engineering or the finance folks I deal with? No, I see expert to the non-expert but I am a dolt compared to the expert. There is nothing unintelligent per se about any of us in these roles, however much I might be attached to a dream of being a polymath.
Given the explosion in the number of patents and a continued torrid pace of scientific advances in multiple domains, I have to utterly reject this assertion. It’s not supportable at all.
See, this is a matter of people not matching your personal tastes (mind you mine seem to be similar) rather than stupidity in the sense of something inherent. Again it goes right to the heart of the problem – how preference and cultural standards become mixed in with supposedly objective standards. (something of an over-generalization, but I think the subjectivity --at least at this stage of our knowledge-- of the subject is clear.)
“Rest assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls will scarcely get your feet wet.”
It is difficult for me to imagine that people are getting smarter when Baycrotch and Squeal of Fortune are the two most widely distributed and viewed television programs on earth.
As H.L. Menken once said:
“Nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the average American buying public.”
Thanks for commenting on my points, Collounsbury. I should have put greater emphasis on the fact that I was presenting here my very subjective opinions. But let me see if I can explain why I feel that these opinions, while subjective, are still based on some facts.
Generally speaking, I reject the idea of intelligence as raw computing power. Educational aptitude is no comprehensive description for intelligence–or wouldn’t that make all the high-scoring standardized test-takers geniuses? In its most elementary form, you can describe intelligence as problem solving, where a problem can be anything at all (the interpretation of a poem, the distillation of a formula from raw data, the navigation of a maze, the acquisition and processing of knowledge, the invention of a new concept/device, and so on). Loose definition, I agree, but probably more accurate than something you get from a standardized test. I say this because there is no test you can take on which you cannot improve your score with the correct preparation–and that invalidates the test.
Regarding people getting more and more stupid, I base this assertion on the fact that certain stimuli require more intellectual involvement than others, and that we are being deprived of valuable stimuli by any number of factors. If I am struggling to get through a paper published in Nature I am exercising my brain far more than if I am watching an episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer or Baywatch. That doesn’t mean I don’t like Baywatch or even that I disapprove of it; but the extent of my attention and involvement in that show is limited to how much tanned & aerobicized woman I can feast my eyes on.
Being completely politically incorrect, I have no problem stating that I enjoy looking at as many square inches as possible of aerobicized woman; but if I spend all my free time looking at Baywatch babes, I can safely say that I am depriving my brain of other important nutrients, i.e. stimuli conducive to the development --and maintenance-- of intelligence.
So I consider the above an excellent example of what I referred to as “distractions”, a term that I did not mean to be subjective. In my opinion, excesses of these distractions are part of what is making many of us more stupid. I believe that absolutely ALL stimuli are good in moderation, including and especially aerobicized women, however what we see in much of the world is a tendency to abandon many sets of stimuli that require effort to interpret: it’s a lot easier to admire breasts packed into a bathing suit rather than understanding why the speed of light cannot be exceeded by objects with mass, and therefore we might be tempted to do one only and not the other.
I’m not saying that one activity is intrisically better than the other, and I for one enjoy both breasts and physics; but I think you will agree with me that a TV channel that sells you Baywatch and Wheel of Fortune ad nauseam is probably not trying to stimulate your intellect.
The same argument goes for all communication devices and the potential they hold. As I said, ALL stimuli are important to a certain extent, if only to learn from their crappiness; but we are being bombarded and overwhelmed with too many stimuli not at all conducive to intellectual development. Watch this show, buy this microwave dinner, read this magazine, wear these clothes, have a job like this, live in a house like that. Where is the intelectual value of this bombardment? No one is bombarding The Odyssey at me. No one cares whether I know about the rise and fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire. I don’t see hideously expensive billboard advertising that asks me to learn more about molecular biology.
There is a lack of balance in the world. And the brain-numbing stimuli are winning.
A most appropriate comment. I did not mean that everyone should be a Renaissance man (good if they are!). I meant, once again, that there should be a balance that takes into account the development and maintenance of the intellect. I think you might be surprised at the number of people who couldn’t care less about intellectually stimulating material. Our jobs often require so much of our time, effort, and energy, that we are frequently left too drained to kick our brains into action and to enjoy challenging intellectual stimulation. Instead we resort to non-intellectual stimuli for easy receipt, and therefore deny ourselves intellectual nutrients. Fewer intellectual nutrients equals a reduced and in some cases atrophied intellect. Knowing everything there is to know about the praying mantis, for example, does not necessarily make me an intellectually mature and evolved person.
I think there may be a confusion of causality here. Are patents and scientific advances a direct result of our creativity, or do they result from the struggle against ignorance by a comparative few members of a rapidly increasing humanity? Thanks to our technological advancement, filing for a patent extremely easy (I’ve even written one). We can see farther because we stand on the shoulder of giants. Science is not only self-correcting, it is self-perpetuating. And yes, science can require a lot in the way of intelligence. So can literature. However, I will argue that if we were all so smart as the explosion of patents and scientific progress seem to indicate, then everywhere there would be great works of literature and amazing breakthroughs in science. That is not the case. In many instances, scientists are merely well-educated people of average intelligence who have specialized in a certain field and who follow correct procedures. That definition can be applied to a large portion of humanity, although I agree that a scientist’s job probably requires somewhat more intellectual alertness than most.
My conclusion is that a lack of intellectual stimuli will and does result in a reduced intellect, or lower intelligence. A large number of factors are to blame. I for one am convinced that my job, which keeps me at my desk in front of a computer for 9 hours a day, is starving me of important brain nutrients. There are many other similar factors that affect most of humanity, and the farther communication devices develop, the more the danger of an atrophied brain resulting from excessive “distractions” increases. A tool is neither good nor bad; it is our application of it that determines the outcome. Television could have been the greatest invention of this century, but instead I refer those who doubt me to Zenster’s quotes! We appear to be choosing intellectual stagnation. Not everyone, of course. But far too many of us.
(1) In general, the population is better educated, and better fed.
(2) Isn’t IQ based on maturity? i.e., An IQ of 100 is a “normal adult”. Kids may be maturing faster nowadays (also evidenced by the earlier puberty ages over the last century) and therefore showing higher IQs on an old standardized test.
(3) There has not been enough time for significant biological evolution of human intellect over the time IQs have been measured.
That article referred only to given, concrete facts about British history and popular culture. I really think you’d find, in any place and time, that each generation knows more about its own generation’s popular culture, as is illustrated by these examples. The headline might as easily say “Older Britons Found Dumber - Most Don’t Even Know the Name of Posh Spice’s Husband”.
The Flynn Effect seems to go deeper, showing actual gains in abstract, not concrete, reasoning ability. THAT’s what I’m puzzled by.
I do agree that actual biological evolution can’t go fast enough to explain everything, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen at all. Certainly the reasons can only be guessed at.
I was really looking for opinions as to whether the actual evidence around us of human behavior and accomplishments is consistent with the broad population being “smarter” than in previous generations. I’m inclined to think so, but it’s no more than a suspicion.
I agree to an extent but on the other hand, we also may undervalue some stimuli for purely cultural reasons. Plus kicking back from a hard day is not all that bad.
What’s un-correct about that!!! Oh, better shut up.
I’d agree although stupid might not be the word I’d choose.
True enough.
Well there doesn’t necessarily need to be intellectual value. I’ve been trvelling thorugh the mid-east on business the past few months and have been subjected to the local programming… They seem to pride themselves in the most dry intellectual programing possible. It’s painful. Of course maybe its just my understanding is so poor.
Ah yes…
Well to be fair, not everyone gets into that. I seriously doubt that there are very many folks like me who make a serious hobby out of reading about the paleoanthropology, genetics and say various non-Western histories (after having been focused on European history for a long time.)
However, I think there is something of an illusion regarding people getting stupider. I doubt the number (as a ratio) of people who are ‘intellectuals’ has changed, it might actually have increased. But the ratio of folks doing work which previously might have expected some intellectual background has changed.
Think of the explosion of lawyers – I meet many in my line of work as an analyst. Many are nothing more than word mechanics. Nothing wrong with that. Their mechanical churning out of documents to cover my scientist colleagues butts is a great service. But few have the intellectual firepower that I think the legal field once commanded. But then a few generations ago, the need for such services was more limited.
I see something of a mirage then, for its not that people are getting dumber but rather in the industrialized world services such as legal services which were once the province of a certain largely ‘intellectually’ oreinted group have become banalized.
How would one know? How could one measure such a thing? A matter of ratios perhaps?
Well, what is a great work of literature? A bit subjective.
I’m afraid I can not agree with you. I think you’ve become jaded. Or if I may suggest you’re confusing your intellectual needs, which I seem to share mind you, with judging general intellectual achievement. I have come to doubt myself whether having more intellectual folks like myself would necessarily be a good thing. Maybe for me, but in general? Maybe, maybe not.
I don’t have a cite for this, but a couple of years ago I read an article on this subject. One explanation offered for the rise in IQ scores was that many IQ tests have a section that involved putting together puzzles and solving mazes. A century ago many children might never have been exposed to that sort of thing before, while today most kids have plenty of experience with puzzles and mazes (lots of cereal boxes, etc., have mazes printed on them) and so will do better on those portions of IQ tests than previous generations did.
NO, they are not.
Any change in measured I.Q. can be explained by changed tests, techniques, etc. More likely, psychologists giving and designing tests are getting better. I believe that the I. in the I.Q. is the biological trait. As is height. How many years would it take for Homo sapiens to become taller? Do not tell me about nutrition, etc. All works till certain limit and there are ways to compensate for that, e.g., by measuring various ratios in the body, which are the same and constant in tall and short people. Besides, we are having an intellectual discussion here (pun intended), not a political argument. One percent change in ANY biological constant (height, “I.Q.”, blood sugar concentration or recently discussed here body temperature) would normally take millennia. On the other hand, as dogs show, directed selection can bring the results relatively fast. But I. is not a physical trait. It evoleved later in the evolution and, arguably, is more difficult to change, compared to, say, weght. In the above dog example, fast results were reached with physical traits. I don’t hear of dogs getting smarter.
And the ultimate proof: the percentage of unaddressed letters droped in street mailboxes has remained the same since 1900.
If you are still not convinced, read all (stupid) posts here.
Shrug. I guess the answer to the question above is, well, no.
Fine. I assume you mean genetically determined. You should inform yourself about what that really means.
Ah, so you don’t want to hear about one of the key aspects of how any genetically bounded trait is expressed? Pity, for you would discover that height is indeed heavily affected by nutrition. Changes in diet can effect noticable changes in the average height of a population, as has recently begun to happen among Japanese whose diet has shifted to European style cuisine – average height has increased. There is no reason to suppose the Japanese are ‘evolving’ rather with new environmental inputs (changed diet, not necessarily better but better for growing taller) are effecting a change based on the underlying genetic template (individual genes).
This has nothing to do with Homo sapiens growing taller - as a species we’ve not changed our underlying genetics significantly since we broke out of Africa about 100KYA. Many populations got shorter due to nutritional effects (signicant to compare early paleolithic population skeletons to post-agriculture remains.) Height in Europe, for example, has rebounded since industrialization brought access to improved (in a sense) nutrition. (Close to over-generalization here, hope it is forgive.)
??? Where did politics come into this? I thought most the comments in this thread to date were grounded in the literature and problems with IQ testing, not any particular politics.
??? What on earth are you talking about??? Significant changes in height between generations in European, North American and presently Japanese populations have been recorded in the last several decades. And indeed over the last several centuries. They show the variation within the gross template of genetic variation which can occur due to environmental effects. It’s not particularly controversial you know, in fact its bloody obvious. Things like blood sugar and body temperature are not subject, in large part, to the same influences – you’re mixing categories of analysis here, comparing apples to frogs in fact.
What do you mean by intelligence? The gross template for our intelligence is most certainly physical, its the brain. Unfortunately as of yet poorly understood. However individual expression of the culturally defined trait --the subjective issue I was chatting about above-- is another matter, dependant on environmental influences on the basic template. That of course is not a physical trait and is clearly environmental, bounded of course by one’s underlying physical capacity (good noggin, bad noggin – which in turn was in part genetically determined (genes) and in part environmentally determined (nutrition, perhaps early childhood stimulus.))
Complicated? Yuip, but dat’s the world.
I’m boggled. This makes, well, no sense. Well, I suppose if one takes this to mean that gross physical improvements in the brain are difficult to achieve, this is true – in fact its rather impossible to expect any ‘evolution’ in humans in any time frame meaningful to this conversation. On the other hand, from what I have read, exposure to stimuli, especially while young --as suggested by Abe above-- has real and measurable effects on brain function. Indeed I’ve read papers on children deprived of stimuli while young (I believe, and I am operating from memory, that these were cases of extreme child abuse) who ended up more or less retarded, despite their otherwise ‘normal’ genetic heritage.
Simplistic genetic causation is just bad science and sloppy, lazy thinking. The reality is that our traits are largely in a sort of --what’s the right word?-- dialectic exchange between our underlying genetic template and the environmentally determined expression of that template. (I mean that your genetic heritage provides some very gross boundaries which when coupled with one’s environment --nutrition and everything else-- determines what you are. Neither one nor the other necessarily trumps).