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<pre>Whatta load of bollocks.
>Yet Flynn discovered the astonishing and still little-known fact
>that intelligence scores have steadily increased for at least the
>past 100 years. And it's a substantial gain; people who would have
>been considered geniuses 100 years ago would be merely average today.
Which explains the preponderance of da Vincis and Newtons clogging every
street corner.
This is particularly stunning work since the notion of IQ wasn't even
established until the early 20th century, so any "data" about the
intelligence of people before that is just a wild-ass guess. Not to mention
that the whole notion of IQ is shaky at best.
And you can't even legitimately compare the IQ scores of people from
decades ago to today's scores, since they keep changing the tests. The
famous battery of IQ tests administered to inductees in the Army at the
start of WWI was ludicrously flawed, they required people to have knowledge
of baseball, or asked the subject to draw something, but neglected to
consider that some of the people taking the test had never even held a pencil.
Dave Palmer
----------------------------
On Fri, May 06, 2005 at 09:19:29AM -0400, Greg Singer wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""><span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>On 5/5/05, Dave Palmer <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:dwpalmer@earthlink.net"><dwpalmer@earthlink.net></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""><span class="moz-txt-citetags">> > </span>And you can't even legitimately compare the IQ scores of people from
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> > </span>decades ago to today's scores, since they keep changing the tests.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>I seem to recall that the scores on IQ tests are scaled so that if the
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>test were administered to the entire population, the median score
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>should be 100. Therefore, I don't even see how it's possible for
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>average IQs to increase over time, since the IQ score is supposed to
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>measure your intelligence relative to other people at this moment in
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>time.
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span> - Greg
</pre>
</blockquote>
<!---->See <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Eintell/flynneffect.shtml">http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/flynneffect.shtml</a>,
"Why must IQ tests be routinely
restandardized?"
Or <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/FLYNNEFF.html">http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/FLYNNEFF.html</a>
Flynn started his research because he noticed that the tests kept
having to
be restandardized to prevent scores from continually climbing upward.
<div class="moz-txt-sig">-- Jim Lippard</div>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html">< http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html ></a>
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veterans, Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]</pre>
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