Whoa – ease up there, folks. There’s no reason that we can’t discuss this matter without insulting each others’ intelligence.
Manhattan, relax. Do not excommunicate CollyB. After all, he is the ONLY one who in great detail researched and replied to the only stupid post here.
CollyB, I wish we defined the terms here before we started this. I recon that I might not used all the terms as they are conventionally used in biology, anthropology, psychology, etc. So, I’ll try to explain. By I. I meant the innate ability to comprehend, as little affected by the environment as possible. I understand (surprise!) that nutrition, development, etc. influence I. I. is influenced by the environment more than other traits and can almost completely dissapear if the nurture is bad, but for the sake of this discussion we have to establish some limits. So, since the original question was “Are people getting smarter”? (i.e., is their IQ is getting higher), the answer is NO. Again, I mean if you correct for all easy adjustable factors. If we all are adequately fed, reared, educated, stimulated, and so forth. The standard of living in this country rose tremendously since 1900. So did the level of education, the number of college grads, etc. Yet my unaddressed letters anecdote is true, whether it’s rigorous or mediocre science in your eyes.
The height, like intellect, can be stimulated to some extend, or stiffled. But similarly, there are limits. Better fed Japanese are taller, because there was a potential for growth. Better stimulated inner city ghetto kids will go to college. But they still will send unaddressed letters. In the same proportion. There is no way in nature to change a trait within 100 years or 1000 years. That’s my main point. The 2000 Olympic records are higher than 1896 Olympic records not because human race is physically evolving. It’s because of better training, equipment, etc. Otherwise I agree with you, unstimulated mind will whither.
So, the improvement in IQ tests does not mean that we are getting “smarter”, whatever it means. We are getting better at giving and sitting for the tests.
A few words about your criticisms.
I think, the ability to think is genetically determined. In the sense that one is born stupid or not. Unstimulated undernourished child born with good brain will become “dumb”, one born with feeble brain will not become a genius under the best of conditions.
I don’t believe Manhattan was threatening anything of the sort, he was merely asking that people be polite. That’s not too much to ask is it? Anyway, it’s his bloody forum and he’ll do what he damn well likes 
Oh, peace all. Manhattan should reprimand when one grows to curt. I have a thick behind. And I misread your message, I thought you were a Jensenite, so sorry for the impatient tone.
Nothing wrong with plunging into things so long as there is an open mind.
There’s not even consistency across disciplines so these things are always a bit of a minefield.
I’m a bit confused by the above. I’m not sure what you mean by as little affected by the environment.
But the limits have to respond to reasonable standards – nutrition and early nurturing is key to the expression of the trait.
Oh, I think I see where this is going. If you mean that no wy has the underlying capacity to have intelligence changed, absolutely I agree.
But I don’t see that this is intelligence in the proper sense rather than people just being rushed, or foolish etc. That’s what I was getting at with Abe, we mix several different senses of intelligent in these discussions.
To a great extent I would argue.
Well, I differ here insofar as I think that unaddressed letters is not a good example --as noted above-- but agree that there’s no way that the underlying genetic basis for the expression of intelligence has changed at all.
Well, yes… At the very least combined with nutritional and educational improvements we’re also seeing people being trained to repsond to tests more.
Sure, I agree, but the problem becomes how does one know when the stupidity, if we can use that word, is from largely environmental factors and when its gross genetic influences. Certainly at the extremes we may safely hypothesize real genetic difference, especially at the much less subjective (but still to an extent subjective) level of real mental retardation.
Expression of traits is not mechanical at all and within the normal range of variation I for one would be unwilling to say that such and such is stupid and his stupidity is genetic (to the extent it is bounded by genetic heritage)and to the extent to which it was created by environmental conditions.
Today I waked up and said to myself: "I know what’s wrong here. Elvis asked: “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?”
So, I’ll answer again: NO, Elvis, you are NOT smarter than your ancestors. But WE collectively ARE smarter than OUR ancestors: we are better fed, we have better educated parents, we are stimulated better and earlier, we are better educated ourselves. Probably, it can explain the progress of the 20th century. In the 16th century, only one genius could invent the printing press (I do not want to argue the firsts here: it’s not the point). In the 20th century, we had offset printing, dot, jet and laser printing, etc.
So, Elvis, again, you probably could beat your ancestors at an arcade or “Monopoly”, but not at the chess game or even tic tac toe. And I’m sure that the frustrated postal workers will fish out the same percentage of unaddressed letters in 2100 as they did in 1900.
Relax, CollyB, I know it’s not the best example of I. It may be even a symptom of a brain disease (I think it’s a natural absentmindedness or forgetfullness of our biocomputers, though). I just thought it well illustrates the main premise: individually, we are not smarter than our ancestors. They potentially were capable of inventing CDs. But we can probably produce more Aristotles more frequennly. We’ll see.
BTW, what’s Jensenite? Not as bad as …?
Seconding
Forgive me, I drink at lest 5 cups of turkish coffee a day overhere trying to get things done…
Jensen is one of those ‘racial’ pseudo-scientists bent on proving the inferiority of the non-white etc…
Sorry, that just doesn’t make sense. The overall spread (referring to both the mean and the standard deviation) of “intelligence” (or whatever it is that IQ tests measure) is either rising or it isn’t. Of course, there’s still a wide range of individuals, but if the bell curve really IS rising, then there have to be individual data points making it rise. That has to imply a fair number of examples of individuals being “smarter” than their ancestors. But your denial of that puts you in agreement with Flynn himself.
The Flynn Effect seems to be irrefutable - whatever it is that IQ tests are showing, there has been a steady rise since they were invented, across whatever large populations are being studied. I was really asking for opinions as to whether or not there’s real evidence, or even suspicions, that the overall “intelligence” of the world’s population is really increasing. And I readily admit that the effects, if they’re real, would have to be widespread and incremental, and therefore hard to identify.
I mentioned Arthur Jensen in the OP, too. To repeat, he has asserted (“The Bell Curve”) that the lower average IQ of American blacks vs. whites shows their innate inferiority. Flynn is just one of many people who think that conclusion is unwarranted, and his work started as an attempt to prove Jensen wrong using his own tools.
Incidentally, Stephen Jay Gould has commented to the effect that “IQ tests are to the 20th century as phrenology was to the 19th.”
We get back to the original issue, what one means by smarter. Do we mean our underlying genetic template is improving? Quite simply that is not supportable. Do we mean that we are improving our environment so that our underlying ability (the genetically bounded possibilities) may be expressing itself more fully? Quite possible.
Actually Murray and whatsisface wrote the Bell Curve, although clearly they relied on Jensen a lot. Frankly human genetics is already capable of sinking Jensen’s conclusions since they depend on the unexamined assumption that race is a valid unit of analysis for what Jensen et al clealry presume are genetic differences. We already know that is not the case. In a thread on sports and race I think I covered this ground rather throroughly – that is why race is not a valid unit of biological analysis for humans.
I have to suspect that Gould is right. Until the mechanics of the brain are understood IQ testing rather ressembles phrenology.
How do we define intelligence?
From Websters:
intelligence \Intel"ligence, n. [F. intelligence, L. intelligentia, intellegentia. See Intelligent.] 1. The
act or state of knowing; the exercise of the understanding.
-
The capacity to know or understand; readiness of comprehension; the intellect, as a gift or an
endowment. -
Knowledge imparted or acquired, whether by study, research, or experience; general information.
If time travel were possible we could take people from the past and insert them into our time. I would theorize that our test subjects would demonstrate a capacity to learn equal to our own.
Let’s find someone who has never been taught math or a written language. Are they to be considered stupid? They would definately get a poor score on any I.Q. test I’ve taken.
I put little stock in what I.Q. tests show, I work with people who are considered to be retarded but often demonstrate how much they are able to learn given the proper learning environment.
I heard recently that our I.Q.'s increase significantly as we age due to us gaining life experience that helps us to solve problems more efficiently. There was a comparison of vocabulary and comprehension between recent college graduates and average 50 year olds with no college or university. Guess who scored higher?
The 50 year olds had nearly double the vocabulary.
50 doesn’t look so bad now.
BTW… Any reading is good for you as it stimulates the mind… even if it is a meandering post written by some guy named Feynn on a message board on the internet.
Jensen is one of those ‘racial’ pseudo-scientists bent on proving the inferiority of the non-white etc… >>>>>>>>
I do not think that [Amerivan] Blacks have lower IQs because they are inherently “dumber”. Having said that, I’ll state this:
The genus Homo sapiens includes many races which differ in color, height (African or S. American pygmeys vs. Nilotes), etc.[Incidentally, all three groups nearly starve] Having different skin color or hair structure (the latter is widely used in forensic science) is normal, physically and politically. Many cancers are more prevalent in certain racial groups, after correction for other factors. Italians sing, on average, better than any other people. Possibly, it’s due to historic, cultural or climatic reasons. It’s very probable, in my view, that thousands of years ago a random mutation occured, which caused subtle changes in laryngeal skeleton and which ultimately lead to this interesting phenomenon. Another example: marathons. White people in Europe and N. America ran them for years, developed techniques and training procedures, etc. Africans started to participate a few years ago, but beat them easily. So, apparently physical racial differences are not limited to skin color and hair structure. Why then we cannot accept that brains (substrates for I.) could be different in different races? Only because it’s politically inacceptable?
Elvis, I’m afraid that we are talking about two different things here. One is I., a poorly defined and understood thing. Another one is IQ and its testing. In simple terms -who is smarter? - you or your ancestors, my answer is we are equal. Simply, because any biological changes require longer time scale to be observed (it’s more likely, indeed, that we are “dumber”, because of entropy, but I ain’t in the mood today to start this). Collectively, we are “smarter”, because more people today are better fed, educated, etc. How well IQ tests can measure these changes is a matter of controversy. I saw chimps (on TV, of all places) who solved problems (with and without the help of computers) in color discrimination, numbers, shapes, etc. Perhaps, similar tests, i.e., not requiring culture, previous exposure or education, can be used in humans. Right now I do not know how to tell a “dumb” person from a “smart” one. B. Gates is a college dropout. L. Poling won two Nobel prizes. Who is smarter?
Good. (Did I write Amerivan?)
I am puzzled by this statement, especially the last part. Nearly starve? The connectio escapes me. If you are focusing on sub-populations then we might have a basis to work with, but without an objective definition that doesn’t get us very far.
Politically normal? Skin color is non-diagnositic for genetic relatedness.
This last part is an absurd assertion, and unsupportable on any physical grounds. On the later part, cancers do not map unto ‘racial’ groups, although some genetic diseases are more prevalent among sub-groups of what are colloqually called races. The fallacy of composition leads people to ascribe this onto the culturally defined mega-races. A fundamental error.
Are you seriously claiming “Italians” have a different structure than the rest of humanity? I dearly hope not. Or are you mentioning the general human trait. Any supposed superiority in Italian singers (and I for one do not agree one iota) certianly comes from cultural preferences and training, not from any NON-EXISTANT genetically founded difference between Italians (who?) and the rest of the world. I hope that I have misunderstood you.
I dealt with this fallacy in the following thread:
//boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=39955 I invite you to read it over, including the, I think, fairly copious citations on the issue.
But I note the following fallacies (1) the underlying presumption that the techniques developed in say the last 50 years in the developed world have not been adopted in the developing world, making a short cut as it were (2) the unicity of an “African” race, the detials of this fallacy I dealt with in the cited thread.
We can not accept that brians would differ by race because races are not valid descriptors of human variation at the genetic level. I amply demonstrated in the cited thread because the stereotypical races as units of genetic analysis are scientifically unfounded, utterly and absolutely useless. The only politics is found in those who deliberately don’t want to deal with what population genetics has taught us in the last decade.