Degrading Academe
~ Bari Weiss: Why DEI Must End For Good - Free Press > .
Until the last thirty "Flynn reversal" years, "Throughout the 20th century the average score on IQ tests around the world increased significantly – especially in the west. This increase was around three IQ points per decade – meaning we are [supposedly] living with more geniuses on the planet than ever before. [Considering that the planet currently boasts the highest-ever population, this is numerically logical, but is this a Flynn Effect boost?].
These “student-centred” teaching methods are now combined with interpersonal skills and teamwork along with encouragement for students to understand the emotional insights of others. The overall impact of this approach might encourage smarter and more effective working but places less emphasis on individual skills required in IQ tests [otherwise known as logical and analytical thinking]. So maybe in that sense, we’re just not as good at carrying out IQ tests any more."
The IQ test wars: why screening for intelligence is still so controversial .
This increase in IQ scores and the seeming tendency for intelligence levels to increase over time is known as the Flynn effect (named after the late US-born educator, James Flynn). And improvements in health and nutrition, better education and working conditions, along with recent access to technology have all contributed.
Indeed, in the 19th century, for example, industrialisation created large overcrowded cities with poor health outcomes and premature death. But improved housing, health and parenting, along with greater access to free education and gradual progression from manual to more intellectually demanding jobs, led many to live longer and healthier lives. Research even suggests there’s what’s known as an “IQ-mortality gradient” whereby smarter people often live longer.
Research in countries that have not undergone postindustrial development also supports the idea that improved access to education, housing and nutrition are the main factors that have led to IQ increases. A study of sub-Saharan African countries, for example, found that the Flynn effect has not yet taken hold there. Or in other words, IQ test results have not massively increased because life circumstances haven’t significantly improved for a large number of people.
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It’s also important to think about what IQ tests actually measure – and what they don’t – along with what we mean when we talk about intelligence. IQ tests, for example, are no good at measuring things like personality, creativity, or emotional and social intelligence – or even wisdom. These are attributes that many of us may well prize over and above a high scoring IQ test result. [However, we ought to value functional IQ (fIQ), which I contend is the ability to rise above overly-emotional heuristic thinking, which values bandwagon "virtue signaling" above pragmatic big-picture rationality.]...
But that’s not the whole story, because over the past 30 years there have been some reports of decreased performance on IQ tests in some countries. So is it fair to assume that humans in the west have reached peak intelligence?These results are hard to explain, but it has been suggested that it may be linked to changes in the way that children are taught in schools. This has been a time that has seen major shifts away from reading serious literature and rote learning – a memorisation technique based on repetition – to a more collective scientific problem-solving approach, which is now taught to most children in the west.
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