In the argument section, page 43, Shenk wrote that 98 percent of IQ test taker now days score better than the average test taker in 1900. IQ test stands for intellignce quotient test and it measues a person's cognitive ability compared to te population at large. IQ test is something that can't be studied.
If this test i something that can not be studied, what do you think is the catalyst for the dramatic improvements in the IQ test scores? Does school educaton help people to improve their IQ test score?
Schenk writes that the change in IQ scores from our past to present is due to the evolution of our culture. He quotes Flynn's description of the change as "the [cultural] transition from pre-scientific to post-scientific operational thinking" (43). Schenk also states how today, 98% of test takers score above the average test taker from the 1900. (43) We, as a race, have grown in intelligence with the demand of our environment. Since the first administration of the test, scores have been increasing on average 3 points per decade with a current average score for a teenager at 100. (thenakedscientists.com)
ReplyDeleteThis evolutionary change in our intelligence shows how intelligence isn't fixed, we can always grow in our understanding and intellectual development and in generations to come the average IQ scores will continue to rise. This also contradicts the idea of intellectually gifted people as we now understand that a highly demanding and stimulating environment can foster intelligent people, such as in the study by Hart and Risley that showed "children in professionals' homes were exposed to an average of more than fifteen hundred more spoken words per hour than children in welfare homes" (45).
This also brings up the question of whether or not this century of intellectual evolution has also changed our physical brain construction as well. Would someone from our time, subjected to the environment of the 1900s still have the scores of today, or would they drop back down to those of the 1900s? Later in the book Schenk talks about how lifestyle can affect heredity in future generations and would suggest the this every increasing intelligence has affected us physically as well as intellectually.
I believe the overall IQ of the world has increased in the past 100 years because of the better education system which is still on the rise. Also, around 1900, women did not have nearly as many rights and liberties as men. These rights and liberties included anything as simple as voting to receiving an education. Therefore, a big chunk of the population around 1900 did not have the luxury of a free public education and decreased the nation’s total average IQ. Nowadays, we have excellent private schools as well as public schools nationwide for everyone, including women now, who wishes to receive an education. Because of this, the general population as a whole will overall have a higher IQ. This improvement in the education system is an example of a socio-cultural improvement. This supports Shenk’s chief argument that environmental factors can greatly affect our success and lives because the better education system now clearly proves a better and smarter nation as a whole.
ReplyDeleteGiven that the IQ test stands for “intelligence quotient test,” the claim can be made that receiving a school education does improve their intelligence, and by doing so, improve their IQ test score. Overall, the education system has grown more and more advanced, sophisticated and useful in the past 100 years. Therefore, school educations certainly help people improve their IQ test score.
-Sachin Vasikaran (sachinvasikaran@gmail.com)