X-Message-Number: 11485
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 16:58:18 -0700
From: Hugh Hixon <>
Subject: Re: Will we get smarter?

From *Science* 283, 1834 (19 Mar '99)

"If school does influence IQ, it might help explain something called the
Flynn Effect after its discover, political scientist James Flynn of the
University of Otago in Dunedin , New Zealand.  In 20 countries to date,
Flynn has documented a rise of about 20 IQ points every 30-year generation
-- a trend obscured by the fact that the major IQ test manufacturers renorm
their tests every 15 to 20 years, resetting the mean to 100.  However, if
everyone who took a test today was scored using the norms set 50 years ago,
more than 90% of them would be classified as geniuses, with IQs of about 130
or higher, depending on the test.  Similarly, if our parents' or
grandparents' IQ scores circa 1949 were measured using today's norms, over
90% of them would be labeled "borderline mentally retarded",  with IQs below
70 or so."

I'm not sure just what this means for our future, or for this thread, but
there it is.

Hugh Hixon

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