If the Flynn effect was true, then our great-grand parents must have had average IQs that would have categorized them as mentally disabled today. Clearly, this was not the case. My grand parents in their prime were just as smart as my parents, and my parents and uncles are just as smart as my cousins.
It's also interesting that measures of vocabulary and numeracy have been flat over the past century. More evidence that cognitive abilities have been flat.
emphasize "culture fair" tests such as Raven Progressive Matrices, which were presumed then not to include item content that is taught by compulsory schooling,
Here is the problem. Doing a Raven Progressive Matrix is just as much a learned skill as math or vocabulary. If people went from learning no math in 1900, to learning lots of math in 2000, scores on math tests would go up, even without any gains in underlying cognitive abilities.
All the Flynn effect means is that people have much more exposure to the type of puzzles in the Raven Progressive Matrix today than they did in the 1950's. Numeracy and vocab are actually better measures of historical trends in IQ, because environmental exposure has been more constant between the two time periods.
When people try and measure intelligence, they are trying to measure the underlying cognitive abilities that allow people to learn faster and achieve higher levels of cognitive skills. Unfortunately, there is simply no way to measure this directly. The only way to measure it, is to give a person a skill test, and then control for environment. This will always be fraught with potential for error.
My grand parents in their prime were just as smart as my parents, and my parents and uncles are just as smart as my cousins.
And this is one of the best empirical proofs that IQ scores are not a "measure" of how smart someone is. James Flynn discusses exactly this point of yours in several of his writings. He relates a story from Arthur Jensen about a mentally retarded man who claimed to be baseball fan, but who was very vague about the rules of baseball and didn't seem to know the names of many professional players. Yet that man had an IQ score that would relate back in time to a population average score from the era when baseball became a popular sport, widely followed in the United States.
All the Flynn effect means is that people have much more exposure to the type of puzzles in the Raven Progressive Matrix today than they did in the 1950's.
I'm very sympathetic to this statement, because I used to think that it offered the best explanation for the Flynn effect. But I am now convinced by Flynn's latest book
that on the one hand the gains in IQ test scores are real, and not just artifacts of familiarity with test item content (in large part because so many different kinds of tests have all shown this effect) and on the other hand that IQ has increased in society, and has been applied in the labor market and other aspects of daily life, without wisdom (Flynn's term) or rationality (Stanovich's) term increasing as generally in society.
I haven't read the books you've mentioned, although I'm pretty familiar with the debate, and the latest arguments.
I think it's interesting to make an analogy with a sport like running. If you measure running ability in a group where every person has absolutely no training, all the differential in running ability will be genetic. But a person will be able to train and improve, and so a change in environment ran result in gains in ability. If some people in the group start to train harder, then the differential in scores will be a mix of environmental and genetic.
If you compare members of a cross country team who all endure the same grueling training, the differences in their running speeds will be genetic. If one member tries to train even harder, he will probably be unable to raise his speed even higher. At some point, he maxes out and no training will raise his speed even further.
The subtests that have a flat trend were vocab, math, and general knowledge. What this indicates is that the environment of a century ago maxed people out at these skills a century ago. This is not surprising, as these skills are the most culturally common skills. Even in 1900 a person had constant exposure to reading, math, and general knowledge.
The subtests that have seen the greatest rise are all obscure skills - object assembly, picture arrangement, similarities. My guess is that the great increase in schooling resulted in more training in these obscure skills. Increased availability of games and puzzle books also helped. In 1900 if you were a genius kid, you read the classics. In 2009 you can play all sorts of fun puzzle games online or in books. As a result of this, scores on these obscure puzzles have gone up.
The net of this may mean that the hardcore hereditarians ( Murray, Jensen) are wrong about the specifics but right about the big picture. They are wrong to think that differences in the Raven test by themselves mean that one group has more natural cognitive abilities than another group. But they are probably right that individual and group differences in the economically and socially useful cognitive skills are mostly genetic. The differences in the obscure cognitive skills ( Raven's, picture arrangement) may be much more environmental.
Comments
If the Flynn effect was true, then our great-grand parents must have had average IQs that would have categorized them as mentally disabled today. Clearly, this was not the case. My grand parents in their prime were just as smart as my parents, and my parents and uncles are just as smart as my cousins.
It's also interesting that measures of vocabulary and numeracy have been flat over the past century. More evidence that cognitive abilities have been flat.
emphasize "culture fair" tests such as Raven Progressive Matrices, which were presumed then not to include item content that is taught by compulsory schooling,
Here is the problem. Doing a Raven Progressive Matrix is just as much a learned skill as math or vocabulary. If people went from learning no math in 1900, to learning lots of math in 2000, scores on math tests would go up, even without any gains in underlying cognitive abilities.
All the Flynn effect means is that people have much more exposure to the type of puzzles in the Raven Progressive Matrix today than they did in the 1950's. Numeracy and vocab are actually better measures of historical trends in IQ, because environmental exposure has been more constant between the two time periods.
When people try and measure intelligence, they are trying to measure the underlying cognitive abilities that allow people to learn faster and achieve higher levels of cognitive skills. Unfortunately, there is simply no way to measure this directly. The only way to measure it, is to give a person a skill test, and then control for environment. This will always be fraught with potential for error.
My grand parents in their prime were just as smart as my parents, and my parents and uncles are just as smart as my cousins.
And this is one of the best empirical proofs that IQ scores are not a "measure" of how smart someone is. James Flynn discusses exactly this point of yours in several of his writings. He relates a story from Arthur Jensen about a mentally retarded man who claimed to be baseball fan, but who was very vague about the rules of baseball and didn't seem to know the names of many professional players. Yet that man had an IQ score that would relate back in time to a population average score from the era when baseball became a popular sport, widely followed in the United States.
All the Flynn effect means is that people have much more exposure to the type of puzzles in the Raven Progressive Matrix today than they did in the 1950's.
I'm very sympathetic to this statement, because I used to think that it offered the best explanation for the Flynn effect. But I am now convinced by Flynn's latest book
http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Beyond-Flynn-Effect/...
that on the one hand the gains in IQ test scores are real, and not just artifacts of familiarity with test item content (in large part because so many different kinds of tests have all shown this effect) and on the other hand that IQ has increased in society, and has been applied in the labor market and other aspects of daily life, without wisdom (Flynn's term) or rationality (Stanovich's) term increasing as generally in society.
You'd probably enjoy reading Mackintosh's book,
http://www.amazon.com/IQ-Human-Intelligence-N-Mackintosh/dp/...
by far the best introductory text on IQ testing, and Flynn's latest
http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Beyond-Flynn-Effect/...
to delight your mind by grappling with how some specialist researchers have attempted to resolve the interesting issues you bring up in your reply.
I haven't read the books you've mentioned, although I'm pretty familiar with the debate, and the latest arguments.
I think it's interesting to make an analogy with a sport like running. If you measure running ability in a group where every person has absolutely no training, all the differential in running ability will be genetic. But a person will be able to train and improve, and so a change in environment ran result in gains in ability. If some people in the group start to train harder, then the differential in scores will be a mix of environmental and genetic.
If you compare members of a cross country team who all endure the same grueling training, the differences in their running speeds will be genetic. If one member tries to train even harder, he will probably be unable to raise his speed even higher. At some point, he maxes out and no training will raise his speed even further.
The subtests that have a flat trend were vocab, math, and general knowledge. What this indicates is that the environment of a century ago maxed people out at these skills a century ago. This is not surprising, as these skills are the most culturally common skills. Even in 1900 a person had constant exposure to reading, math, and general knowledge.
The subtests that have seen the greatest rise are all obscure skills - object assembly, picture arrangement, similarities. My guess is that the great increase in schooling resulted in more training in these obscure skills. Increased availability of games and puzzle books also helped. In 1900 if you were a genius kid, you read the classics. In 2009 you can play all sorts of fun puzzle games online or in books. As a result of this, scores on these obscure puzzles have gone up.
The net of this may mean that the hardcore hereditarians ( Murray, Jensen) are wrong about the specifics but right about the big picture. They are wrong to think that differences in the Raven test by themselves mean that one group has more natural cognitive abilities than another group. But they are probably right that individual and group differences in the economically and socially useful cognitive skills are mostly genetic. The differences in the obscure cognitive skills ( Raven's, picture arrangement) may be much more environmental.