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this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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Has the average intelligence increased? As in, someone who scored a 100 in 2024 would definitely be smarter than someone who scored a 100 in 1969.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
The short answer is "Yes". Scores rise about 3-pts every decade and the "Q" is adjusted accordingly. That said, modern education and modern intelligence testing aren't independent of one another. It is very possible to train for an IQ test and improve your score (a thing that was originally argued as impossible when these tests were formulated). And - both consciously and unconsciously - we've geared our education system around improvements on standardized exams.
There's also a host of environmental improvements - better nutrition, fewer diseases, less heavy metal poisoning - which all contribute to higher cognition. These latter factors are suggested in no small part thanks to a leveling off of the Flynn Effect in later years, both thanks to marginal declines in all of the above and thanks to the diminishing returns once individuals reach peak performance.
But intelligence testing is also a very sketchy and misunderstood field, with lots of scams surrounding its practical application and enormous stigmas associated with any population that scores "below average".
Much like polygraph testing and dowsing (yes, American police still use dosing rods), its a methodology that police seem to cling to long after it has worn out its usefulness in practical terms.
In general, yes. Average IQ increases by a point or two every few years, so the people who design the tests need to consistently create harder and harder tests to maintain a good baseline.
It’s a large part of why many people say IQ is a bad metric for intelligence; It really just tests your ability to solve problems within the context of your upbringing and life experience. A carpenter or machinist who constantly uses geometry in their day-to-day life will breeze through any geometry-based questions, for instance. And as jobs have become more complex and efficient, people have gotten better at basic problem solving.
Average IQ cannot increase or decrease. The test is calibrated so that 100 is always the average. It's for this reason and many others that comparing historical testing data is difficult.
In the revised version of his book "The mismeasure of man" (about biodeterminism and measurement) Gould was asked why he didn't draw the obvious comparison between IQ and phrenology. His answer was that such a comparison would be unfair... to phrenology. The methods of phrenology were bunk, but it's theory (that different regions of the brain were responsible for different functions) was sound. IQ fails both in methodology and theory.
I understand that, but that means that the test has to be adjusted, which means that the middle point keeps moving. Similar to currency: $100 is $100, in 1920 or 2024 they are the same, but they also aren’t the same. Our current IQ would yield a higher score the further we go into the past, and a lower score as we travel to the future.
Just cast LeadBeGone!! on a country, and watch the IQ rise.
Aptitude tests aren't measures of education.
No, but human intelligence increases over time. Just wondering if it’s been long enough since the invention of the test.