What Is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect

by James R. Flynn

Professor James Flynn is one of the most creative and influential psychologists in the field of intelligence. The 'Flynn Effect' refers to the massive increase in IQ test scores over the course of the twentieth century and the term was coined to recognize Professor Flynn's central role in measuring and analyzing these gains. For over twenty years, psychologists have struggled to understand the implications of IQ gains. Do they mean that each generation is more intelligent than the last? Do they suggest how each of us can enhance our own intelligence? Professor Flynn is finally ready to give his own views. He asks what intelligence really is and gives a surprising and illuminating answer. This book bridges the gulf that separates our minds from those of our ancestors a century ago. It is a fascinating and unique book that makes an important contribution to our understanding of human intelligence.

Genres: Psychology, Science, Nonfiction, Education, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Sociology

274 pages, Hardcover

First published August 27, 2007

About the author

James Robert Flynn, PhD, aka Jim Flynn, is Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, researches intelligence and is famous for his publications about the continued year-after-year increase of IQ scores throughout the world, which is now referred to as the Flynn effect. The Flynn Effect is the subject of a multiple author monograph published by the American Psychological Association in 1998. Originally from Washington DC and educated in Chicago, Flynn emigrated to New Zealand in 1963.

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

James Flynn discovered the Flynn Effect, the steady worldwide increase in IQ scores, and is justly famous for it. He's been wondering about the implications of his discovery ever since, and in this book tries to summarise his thoughts. Unfortunately, he waited until he was 73 before publishing, and it shows. When I read it, I imagined sitting in a lecture hall, listening to him give a series of talks. You'd never know what to expect. Sometimes he'd be on form and come out with some amazingly insightful stuff. Sometimes he'd ramble, or spend the whole hour on one of his hobby-horses. But I'd have continued to attend, because the good bits were worth the annoyance.

The Flynn Effect is paradoxical, something that Flynn is well aware of. In fact, he starts by listing the various paradoxes involved. Here are the ones I found most interesting:

1. IQ scores keep going up, but people don't appear obviously smarter. Why? It's easy to wonder if the tests are measuring anything real.

2. If the tests are in fact measuring something real, then most people 100 years ago had IQs that now would put them in the bottom 10% or even the bottom 2% of the scale. How could they function in day-to-day life? Evidently, most people then could get by just as well as they do now, and maybe even better.

3. The IQ gains can't be due to genetic processes, since they have happened far too quickly. They have to be due to environmental changes. But, in many studies, in particular ones with identical twins separated at birth, you can see that IQ is largely inherited. How can environment have made such a huge difference in one case, but not in the other?

Flynn has an interesting explanation for these facts; I don't know if I buy it 100%, but at least it seems better that anything else I've seen. I'll start by looking at his criticisms of rival theories. The first thought that occured to me is that people have simply learned to be more skillful at doing IQ tests. I'm sure that it's possible to learn to do IQ tests much better by practicing in the right way, and I'm also sure that some people (Mensa, I'm looking at you) have been doing this. But Flynn argues convincingly that it doesn't explain the very steady increase we see in IQ scores from more than 30 different countries. The rise started well before IQ tests were common, hence before most people would even have thought of preparing for them, and it continued at the same rate after IQ tests became less popular, which would have given people less motivation. So this theory doesn't stand up to careful examination.

The most popular explanation, which is the one you see in the Wikipedia article on the Flynn Effect, is that it's due to better nutrition, either in early infancy or pre-natally. Flynn's archrival, who oddly enough is called Lynn, claims that this is the only account which makes sense: he sees it as decisive that the increases in IQ score show up even in very young children. This is indeed odd. But Flynn produces an even more decisive bit of evidence in the opposite direction. The Netherlands has detailed, comprehensive results for IQ testing over a long period, which is where the Flynn Effect was first noticed. Now there was an appalling famine in the Netherlands during 1944 - Germany was losing the war, food was short, and they just decided that most of it was going to go to the German occupiers. The Dutch nearly starved. If nutrition were key, you'd expect a dip in the IQ curve for children born around that time, but there is no dip at all. Hence the nutrition theory can't be right either.

So here's what Flynn thinks has happened. He claims that there's been a systematic, large-scale shift in cognitive patterns over at least the last 100 years, driven by the increasingly important role that science and technology have played in people's lives. In particular, it's meant that people are more and more able to think abstractly as well as concretely: IQ tests are very much about capturing the ability to think abstractly, and it makes a large difference to the score. The changes in cognitive style are so much a part of the fabric of society that we don't see them, but when you compare people's way of thinking today with the way they thought a hundred years ago, it's noticeable. Flynn says he started thinking about this stuff when he saw interviews that the great Luria had conducted with rural Russians, who indeed found it almost impossible to think abstractly or hypothetically. I loved the following example:

Luria: Where the land is always covered in snow, bears are white. Novaya Zemlya is always covered in snow. What colour are the bears in Novaya Zemlya?

Peasant: I have only seen black bears. I do not speak of that I do not know.

Luria: But, if someone saw bears on Novaya Zemlya, what colour would they be?

Peasant: If a man had been to Novaya Zemlya and told me he had seen white bears there, I might believe him.

It's hard to imagine a normal Western adult talking like this today, but it does seem to fit the picture of an uneducated Russian peasant that I've got from reading 19th century novels. Things have changed.

Another example that Flynn discusses several times comes from questions on similarities, an important component of several of the standard IQ tests. Suppose the subject is asked "What do dogs and rabbits have in common?" A hundred years ago, when IQ tests were just getting started, it was apparently common to answer "You use dogs to hunt rabbits". This isn't exactly wrong, but it isn't what you're supposed to say either: in the scoring instructions, the person administering the test is directed to give the subject no points if they answer in this way. The correct answer is "Both are mammals". These days, most average kids have unconsciously picked up enough of the scientific world-picture to know that this is what is intended. 100 years ago, only an exceptional child would do so.

Obviously, one anecdotal example can be explained in many ways. Flynn argues that all sorts of cognitive patterns which we now take for granted are of quite recent vintage, and that ability to use these patterns represents a real increase of intelligence which is being picked up by IQ tests. A particularly striking one is "percentage": according to Flynn, this idea is only about 160 years old. Imagine not being able to manipulate the concept of a percentage, and learning to do it. You would feel a bit smarter! Flynn gives many more examples. People may find some of them provocative: in particular, he considers that inability to understand the fallacy of the Intelligent Design argument shows you're stupid, and the fact that more people realise it's wrong is evidence of increasing intelligence. Feel free to storm out of the lecture hall if you don't like this.

Going back to less contentious questions, one of the great merits of Flynn's account is that it explains how people 100 years ago could have had IQs much lower than we have today, and yet have had no problems in day-to-day life. The main reason why people get better scores today is that they are better at abstract/hypothetical thinking, but day-to-day thought in a rural environment is largely about concrete things. If one of Luria's peasants had taken a modern IQ test he might have flunked all the questions about abstract reasoning, but that wouldn't necessarily have affected his ability to run his farm. Most people today are not farmers. If you're working at a tech startup in Silicon Valley, you can't do your job without constantly using abstract and hypothetical reasoning.

Flynn's model also explains why environment seems so much more important across generations than it does in identical twin studies. Identical twins, by definition, are born at the same time, and will grow up in cognitive environments typical of the same moment in history. When you compare across generations, you're comparing people who have substantially different cognitive frameworks. Here was another analogy that I liked. Suppose IQ were shooting: you compare scores for marksmanship across a period going from the Civil War to World War II, where the task is to put as many bullets as possible into a target within one minute. A Civil War soldier would be doing well to manage five bullets, but a World War II soldier might get 50 without even trying. It's not a fair comparison, because only one of them has a machine-gun. The implication is that scientific thought now gives us a mental machine-gun, whereas previously we only had a mental rifle. At first, I was sceptical, but the more I thought about it the more I liked it; we really have found useful new ways to think about things. To take a recent example, just stop for a moment and consider how illuminating it can be to conceptualise the mind as a piece of software, and all the useful metaphors it can give you. ("I must have had a bug!" "I think we've got an interface problem?") Only an exceptional person could have thought like this in 1950, but now it's natural for anyone who has a laptop or a cellphone.

Flynn views himself as a philosopher rather than a psychologist - his heroes are Aristotle and Plato - and the book is in that direction. There are more thought experiments than I would ideally have liked, and fewer controlled studies. As noted, he has an infuriating tendency to ramble. But he's an interesting and original thinker, and he's posing some important questions I hadn't previously seen stated this clearly. It's well worth reading.

[Rossdavidh · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are few things more likely to provoke an emotional response than discussing IQ. It can get you labeled an elitist, a racist, or a jerk faster than just about anything short of wearing a swastika. This is all especially true if you're talking to the general public, rather than, say, researchers in the field of intelligence.

So, when James Flynn discovered in the early 80's that IQ scores have been going up about 5-10 points per generation, in every country on every continent for as far back as we have IQ scores to compare, he published his findings in academic journals and steered well clear of any layman's forum. He persisted in this even after the authors of "The Bell Curve" made frequent reference to 'the Flynn effect' (if only to try to say it didn't matter for their conclusions). The popular backlash against "The Bell Curve" probably did nothing to convince Flynn that discussing IQ in the public eye was going to result in anything constructive happening.

After more than 2 decades, Flynn has broken his silence with the public. He says the reason for this is that previously he only knew that the effect existed, but not why or what it really meant. Now, he believes, he does; hence this book. At the risk of being thought fascist, racist, or insensitive, we will now consider whether his book is any good or not.

First of all, a word about "The Bell Curve", which any book on the topic of intelligence or IQ is bound to be compared to (especially if it advocates any position which implies that IQ matters in any way, or that some people may have more intelligence than others). Murray and Herrnstein did not often go out of their way to avoid rousing passions or harsh judgement, and had an obvious (and conservative) political axe to grind. Even when their reasoning was sound (and often it was not), they deserve some criticism for the way in which they expressed it.

None of this is true of Flynn. One trick he uses to good affect, to engage our attention without inflaming our opinion so much that our reason shuts off, is to translate from intelligence to athletics. To say that some people not only have highly developed skills in a particular sport, but better than average general athletic ability, is not a controversial statement. It is still true even if, for example, Michael Jordan might not be as good at baseball as he is at basketball, and even if there are a few sports (e.g. horse racing) where he may be worse than average.

The question then, is this: why do the makers of IQ tests (e.g. the US military) have to keep reestablishing the baseline score for them? By definition the average IQ score should be 100, but what if ten years after it was developed, the average score is 105? One possibility is that what is increasing is just test-taking skill, nothing really related to intelligence. Flynn compares this to saying that decreasing times in the 100 meter race have nothing to do with actual increased speed, but just race-taking ability. In the absence of any real evidence, and especially since nearly every race distance we have has seen decreasing world record times, it is a good bet to look for something like improved diet, better training regimens for athletes, higher average height resulting in longer stride, etc.

Flynn lays out a range of apparent paradoxes. If IQ is normally quite similar between twins, even twins separated soon after birth, it would seem to be primarily genetic. How then can it be increasing over time, since we have no evidence that people with higher IQ have more children? When I talk to people 50 years older than I, why is it I do not feel myself to be conversing with someone of lower IQ? How about when I read letters written 300 years ago? If trends from the 20th century are projected backwards, by the time of the founding fathers we should have had a population of idiots. This is clearly not the case. Yet the Flynn effect is found across cultures as different as the U.S., the Netherlands, Argentina, India, and Kenya. If it is due to a cultural bias of the tests, it is so widespread as to render the term "culture" meaningless.

Flynn gives us the answers, as he sees them, with well-chosen analogies and copious references to well-designed studies. I won't pretend that I can summarize it here, but the shorthand is that IQ measures several fundamental kinds of intelligence, and we are developing some of them better and better over time, and others are languishing. Attempting to say more here would do a disservice to Flynn, in large part because he has covered some very difficult topics in under 200 pages, and with no fluff and very little repetition. It is hardly possible to be more economical with words than he is, and if I try to then it will misrepresent his assertions. It is possible to say that a key point is that, while there are general intellectual capacities that transfer between one skill and another, there are more than one of them, and some of them are increasing over time while others are not.

So, what is to be gained from reading such a book? Or, for that matter, from studying IQ at all? The reason why we are, as a society, hesitant to study intelligence, is that we value it more than at any time in our history. In 1000 A.D., John Plowman would benefit from being smarter, but he would benefit a lot more from being bigger and stronger than average, and perhaps also from being quicker and more nimble. Having a healthier immune system was more valuable from the dawn of cities up until about fifty years ago, when a high IQ could result in a better paying job, thus better health care, and thus for the first time you were more likely to survive a plague by being smart than by being hardy.

Thus, while we are still willing to say that someone is tall or short, ugly or beautiful (if they are male), quick or slow, often sick or not, we have become uncomfortable with saying that anyone is less intelligent than average. It now impacts their destiny in so many ways, it seems tantamount to saying they are a lower class of human. Fifty years from now, it may be beauty and social skills that matters more, and computing ability may have advanced so much that intelligence is about as handy as being tall or strong is today.

Until then, being able to think honestly about the one trait that is most crucial to our prosperity (individually or as a society) is something rare and to be prized. Flynn not only thinks intelligently on the subject of intelligence, he makes the reader better able to do so as well, a mark of the best kind of teacher. From the impact of early childhood to the impact of aging on our mental functions, he is able to shed a maximum of light while generating a minimum of heat, and that is a gift we could use a lot more of, in this century or any other.

[Thomas Edmund · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went to a lecture by Dr Flynn (or Jim Flynn as commonly known about uni) a decade or more ago, and the main thing I took away is that everything he said seemed to make total sense, until I walked out the lecture theater and tried to explain the content to a friend and found myself floundering.

My wife jokingly referred to this as the 'real Flynn effect'

What is Intelligence is much the same. For anyone who isn't away Dr Flynn is an accomplished academic, but is particularly known for his work on the observation that IQ is increasing across generations as time goes by and doing considerable practical work in the U.S. around Intellectual Disability and the death penalty.

In this Book Flynn discussing some the paradoxes of IQ, IQ test, the Flynn effect and generally trying to define intelligence. The structure of the book is a little dense and hard to follow, which could of course be my own lack of intelligence, although I suspect a unique style of Dr Flynn's.

By the far the part of the tome I enjoyed most was Dr Flynn's analysis of what he posits as wisdom or important moral intelligence - and the separation between IQ and this.

Although there was also the concluding remarks of a chapter on environment vs genetics where Dr Flynn concludes by admonishing critics who complain about the lack of data with a challenge to either gather it or propose a better model.

In summary, What is Intelligence is not really a pop psychology or mainstream non-fiction book suitable for random interest, nor is it an exhaustive text on the subject. It's sits somewhere between textbook and non-fiction mainstream work and I thing is probably best for those deep into the topic and/or familiar with the author or the Flynn effect already.

[Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dry and Flynn seems happy to make his prose convoluted. However, the thoughts behind the prose are very interesting.

[Matthijs Krul · Rating 4 out of 5]

One part cranky, four parts brilliant. Must read to make sense of the IQ debates.

[Stefan Schubert · Rating 3 out of 5]

The topic is interesting and Flynn is clearly clever. However, the book is written in an idiosyncratic style, and he runs down in lots of rabbit-holes.

[Bernard English · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of my information about IQ came from The Bell Curve, published over 10 years ago. Iprefer Flynn's book in that he brings to bear neurological findings and generally is much more critical of the value of IQ. He even goes so far as to say that at this point we may have reached the limit of what research into IQ tests can tell us about intelligence. Perhaps a reader has come across much of the results of IQ tests he cites in miscellaneous articles (though I was unaware of the fact that blacks have narrowed the IQ gap with whites by 5.5 points between 1972 and 2002), but the real value of the book is Flynn's searching questions about intelligence and the hyperscientific attitude he has. You won't think of intelligence the same way again. Fans of Howard Gardner's seven intelligences definitely need to read the final chapter (11) discussing it, though perhaps unkindly he adds that he no longer follows Gardner's work.

[Łukasz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Przez pierwsze pół książki zastanawiałem się kto mógł poświęcić życie na napisanie takich śmieci. Później pomyślałem, że to mogła być czyjaś praca naukowa napisana w celu uzyskania tytułu naukowego, obarczona rygorem wysokiego limitu stron. A ponadto pełen chaos, męczące rozważania, masa powtórzeń, jakieś z czapy wyliczenia i wiara, że to ma sens. Dodatkowo badania prowadzone na rynku amerykańskim, co już totalnie nijak ma się do naszej rzeczywistości. Tylko dla umysłowych masochistów.

[Otto Elg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book, a bit too complex for me at times, didn’t understand it all. Kept it short and scientific, and somewhat enjoyable.

I especially liked the part where he explained how peoples minds were primed before the more modern, abstract, scientific society we live in today. How abstract reasoning and hypothetical thinking are capabilities that are developed through education and experience. The examples used throughout the book were helpful and fitting.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it a little hard to read in spots. Sometimes he makes a real effort to explain things to laypeople, other times it seems like his audience are experts. Also the organization is kind of jumbled and he tends to meander. I wish he had coauthored the book with a great science writer. There’s definitely a lot of interesting stuff here but it’s not presented well.

[Griffin Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very notable researcher in this topic.

Flynn lays out his explanation for the Flynn Effect, or secular increases in IQ scores observed throughout the 20th century.

[Marc Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

The earlier chapters are fairly technical, I also found Flynn’s writing in those chapters awkward, which made the first one third of the book a bit of a slog. I would need to reread them to fully grasp exactly what he was explaining.

In any case, the big takeaways are that our IQs have improved in specific subcategories of IQ tests; the tests for abstract reasoning and similarities. Flynn argues that the 30-odd point increase in IQ scores from the early twentieth century until the late 2000s is largely a product of the scientific worldview being taught in schools, coupled with the demands of knowledge economies. Together, those changes in environment have led to greater intelligence, in the same way that better and more training in certain track and field events have led to incredible performances in various events without underlying genetics changing all that much. This is one of the six paradoxes of IQ increases: how can IQ be both significantly contained by genetics (as twin studies show) but also increase drastically over a century (which seems to suggest environmental factors are significant).

Flynn likes to say that he is primarily a philosopher and often mentions concepts like wisdom and the work of Aristotle and Plato. He makes a pitch is for a wisdom and critical thinking test which he thinks could help track changes in wisdom. He seems to think wisdom is on the decline and that humanism coupled with scientific and rational thinking are the two major pillars of wisdom that will help preserve and improve our society. A perfectly fine proposal in my books, but I imagine there are plenty of practical reasons to think such a test would do little to improve things — it likely has a political slant, as reasonable people may disagree over what constitutes wisdom, it’s a measurement and not a program to improve wisdom, does wisdom lead to better life outcomes, etc.

This is a book I would like to revisit, both to better understand its arguments and the science. I don't have sympathy for culture war and the obsession about the link between IQ and race or ethnicity but do tend to think that scientific knowledge about the effects of genetics and environment on IQ is essential for promoting an equitable and prosperous would.

[mark propp · Rating 2 out of 5]

way, way above my iq level. this was tough to get through.

i've read books on intelligence - stuart ritchie's most recently - that were not so taxing. this was too much for me.

[Kevin Demel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just skimmed throught this book. He tried to explain about the increase in IQ over time but I was interested in what I could do to gain intelligence. Also difficult reading.

[HD · Rating 4 out of 5]

The kind of book that doesn't only provide an answer but also made you think about 'what are the things that constitute an intelligence'. There are lots of philosophical thoughts, paradoxes, and valid questions often with no answer in sight within the book.

[Ushan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The average raw scores on the IQ tests have been rising in the United States and other Western countries through the last century, and the tests are continuously being re-normed to have the average be 100. They have risen so much that if measured by current tests, the average IQ of Americans circa 1900 would have been about 70. This does not make any sense. In a 1981 book, an intelligence researcher interviewed a young man with IQ 75 who liked to go to baseball games but did not know how many players there are on a team, could not clearly state the rules of the game, and could not keep score with a scorecard. It is simply not true that more than half of all Americans who lived in 1900 were dumber than this young man; the author's father was born in 1885, and he taught the author to keep score in baseball and told him that everyone did it in his boyhood. So the score of 70 for the Americans in 1900 did not mean the same thing as it did for the Americans in 2000. Flynn notes that the gain in scores has been different for different sub-tests of the IQ tests. Between 1947 and 2002, the average gains for Information, Arithmetic and Vocabulary of WISC, a popular intelligence test given to children, have been 3 points, the gains for Similarities have been 24 points, and Flynn estimates the gains for Raven's Progressive Matrices to have been 27.5 points. Clearly, American culture in 2002 required much more abstract and scientific thinking than American culture in 1947, which in turn required much more of it than did American culture in 1900, and the test scores reflect it. When asked, "What do dogs and rabbits have in common?", an American in 1900 was likely to answer, "You could hunt a rabbit with a dog," and an American in 2000, "They are both mammals," and the test maker would only consider the latter answer correct. For "the Americans in 1900", substitute any ethnic group or social class whose average test scores are different from another ethnic group or social class. A person's IQ test score has something to do with how smart he is; a population's average IQ test score also has something to do with how modern it is. Thomas Sowell mentions in one of his books that the IQ scores of Polish Americans and Italian Americans rose dramatically between the 1920s and 1970s; the Polish and Italian Americans of the 1970s were descended from those in the 1920s: both ethnic groups tended to marry among themselves and there was little immigration from their home countries to the United States during this period. Clearly, they went through an accelerated version of the same process that the Americans of English and German ancestry went through.

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a psychologist who regularly uses IQ tests in my practice I felt this was a book I "should" read. I've also been to a talk by Professor Flynn and found him to be a fantastic speaker and a clear and logical thinker, so I had high hopes for his book.

The basic gist of this book and what I took away from it is that evidence overwhelming shows that IQ scores have been rising dramatically over the past century. Importantly this rise is predominantly seen in gains on certain subtests of IQ tests - specifically, those that measure what might be called abstract thinking. Flynn argues, I think fairly convincingly overall, that this is due to a cultural shift towards scientific, logical, abstract thought, versus concrete, practical thinking. Throughout the discussion Flynn touches on various interesting topics and applications. He argues that these changes cannot be due to genetics, or to better nutrition, or to greater test sophistication. One fascinating implication he discussed was what these gains mean for diagnosing people with intellectual disability (IQ below 70) - this diagnosis (or lack thereof) can have implications for the funding and services people receive, and can even affect whether people get the death penalty in the US. Towards the end of the book I felt he kind of went off-topic a bit in talking about wisdom, and different "short-hand abstractions", and how to measure these things. I didn't find the discussions and arguments in these chapters quite as tight or compelling.

Overall it took me a little while to finish this book and there were times were it was a struggle. It's not a light read. But I do think it's an interesting and important book for anyone who's interested in IQ tests and intelligence. Just stick with it and try not to be put off by Flynn's tangentiality and occasional "non-PC" language.

[Geoffrey Reesor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I failed to enjoy this book as much as I had anticipated, given how much I liked How To Improve Your Mind. Much of what I read regarded the lack of ability to isolate anything that could be defined as a variable that would account for intelligence gains over time. The problem that I ran up against (and apologies to the author if I simply failed to read all the way to the end) was that not once was societal mores (or lack thereof) taken into account. More than once it was stated that those skills and sections of the IQ and Raven's tests that related to rapid evaluation were increasing quickly every generation but not a single time was it associated with the fact that we are taught at a very early age to evaluate everything based on appearance, popularity, and/or income. At one point the case was made that many people of the current generation are seeking or being sought for managerial positions and above due to their ability to problem solve or make snap judgements. In my experience, most people seek out jobs at a managerial level or higher to increase their social standing, wealth, or both. Regardless of the fact that one also needs good problem solving skills to complete complex math equations, there are few enough people that get into that area of industry. This is suggested to be as a result of the lack of advancement in the field of mathematics, whereas, should one attend almost any high school, you would note that there are not terribly many of the "in" crowd that meet the expectations of high level mathematics. These people are far more likely to be involved in sports and/or have active social lives. Many of the more intelligent people that it has been my pleasure to meet do NOT work in management positions or above as often as not because they fail to meet the appropriate SOCIAL standards that are put in place.

[L.G. Estrella · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book for someone without at least some understanding of modern views of intelligence in psychology. Rather than lay the ground work for explaining how psychology views intelligence, Flynn chooses to focus on the Flynn effect, the phenomena whereby intelligence scores have been increasing consistently over time (although this appears to have slowed or even stopped in some countries).

Flynn writes well. His prose is neat and largely free of jargon except for the necessities. However, he definitely has a somewhat more philosophical bent. This is not necessarily a bad thing - but anyone looking for a discussion of the intricacies involved in measuring intelligence and adjusting for all the myriad factors that impact it will not find those here.

What Flynn does deliver is some very interesting speculation about the causes of Flynn effect. Due to ethical constraints, it isn't possible to test most of these explanation, but they are certainly very intriguing to consider. They are also a great deal more plausible than many of the alternatives that have been proposed. Still, one should be careful about embracing speculation as fact. There are other explanations and until the necessary research has been conducted, it is difficult to say which one (or ones) is correct.

For those with an interest in the psychological conceptualisation of intelligence, you are likely to be better served by turning to the classic works of Horn and Cattell whose theories (along with the work of J. B. Carroll) form the most widely accepted model of intelligence in psychology. Horn also provides a somewhat cogent description of the advanced statistics for the layperson.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was wanting a book to give a general review of what IQ is, and some background on the history. This wasn’t the best choice for that, but had some interesting parts. The big thing he discusses is the “Flynn Effect,” which essentially is that IQ scores have increased over time (by about 0.3 points per year). He notes that within a generation, the main driver of IQ is your genes, but that environmental factors impact the intergenerational differences. These gains are not in all areas, but primarily in Similarities and Raven’s Progressive Matrices and not in areas like Information, Arithmetic, and Vocabulary. He says that “today’s children are far better at solving problems on the spot without a previously learned method for doing so.” (19) I found this first part of the book interesting. He then goes into applications, like the cutoff for mental disability, and the application of the death penalty. I found these to be less interesting, and the book began to drag a bit. He touched upon some questions regarding race, but didn’t flush them out entirely. Instead of offering a review of what was out there, or reporting his own findings, there was a lot dedicated to telling people what they should look into more, so we would know more answers. Overall this book gave additional insight, but was a little disorganized, and the latter half was lacking in much interesting insight.

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Flynn sets out to explain why IQ scores have been rising over time all over the world. This is a subject in which he is an expert, and which I am highly motivated to understand. I don't think the only reason I finished the book somewhat confused by his explanation is my impatience with psychobabble and acronyms. I'm pretty sure he was trying to say that rising scores reflect societal gains in dealing with abstractions, and not gains in intelligence per se, or improvements in nutrition. He also seems to be saying that many of the disparities in IQ scores between ethnic groups are artifacts of testing norms and culture, not genetics. Both arguable, and falsifiable, theories, though his arguments aren't particularly clear. Then he starts in on wishing there were tests for "wisdom," which seems to be a term for agreeing with his politics. Really, really disappointed in this book, which should have been so much better.

[Nate · Rating 2 out of 5]

For years many scholars have thought that genes accounted for the vast majority of one's intelligence, with environmental factors (e.g., schooling, home life, social trends, etc.) exerting a minimal influence. In this book Flynn argues that environmental factors account for a great deal of one's intelligence. If this weren't the case, the 14 year-olds of 19o0 would be considered mentally retarded when compared to the 14 year-olds of today (i.e., when today's 14 year-olds take an IQ test that the 14 year-olds of 1900 took, they score significantly higher). He argues that the difference isn't innate cognitive ability (although there are individual differences among people) but the environment in which both groups grew/grow up. He supports his arguments with many statistics and complex analyses.

[Bob Gustafson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a summary of the work of James R. Flynn, his suggestions for future research (by others) and comments on the ideas of others, regarding Flynn's work. It is interesting.

I was brought to the book by an email message from a Yale professor of experimental philosophy (which sounds like psychology to me) who is one of the contributors to the edge.org website. This was my introduction to intelligence, but Flynn has been studying intelligence and lecturing and writing on the topic for fifty years, so maybe I wasn't Flynn's target audience. The book answered the question that I had asked that Yale professor.

[Ezra · Rating 4 out of 5]

In PSY 3xx: Tests and Measurements back in my undergraduate student days, the issue of what is IQ and its relationship with intelligence was of paramount importance. The Bell Curve quite upset me years before taking this class. Flynn makes some compelling hypotheses about what is intelligence and improvements towards measuring it.

These ideas are primarily based on Flynn's own research. Most of the references are to previous publications of Flynn's work. Otherwise, the explanations clearly expressed Flynn's points very well. The writing rambles a bit, but it flows well.

[James Igoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

The original text, minus the new chapters for this version, are generally excellent and insightful, nicely critiquing prior analyses of the Flynn effect, suggesting that the growth between generations can be partially explained by systems that increase abstraction and classification of the surrounding world. The new chapters, although somewhat insightful, generally seemed muddled, both intellectually and editorially.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Describes very improtant development in intelligence but his prose and some of his word usage "ghetto black children" obscured a very important point on IQ which is the key improtnace of cultural factors in IQ as well as genetics. Attacks the genetic determinism of the Bell Curve and followers of that ilk. Read the article in the New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell for a clearer take on ths issue.

[mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent exposition of the Flynn effect - the fact that the average score of IQ tests has risen steadily since their invention 100 years ago - and the meaning and importance of this. This has important implications for the use of those tests and for educators in general. I would say that this is a must-read for anyone involved in this area and highly recommended for anyone interested in it.

[Ernie Dawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fairly technical book and I'm sure that I haven't fully comprehended all of the material. Would not recommend this book to anyone unless they were really into the question of increase of IQ over the last century.

[P. Es]

Will probably be along the lines of my psychology-to-reads; that most of what we think we are thinking - is crap; especially about ourselves as selves.

[!Tæmbuŝu]

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