Aaawww nuts.
Yes, education could be vastly improved, but you know what, my sons school is vastly improved over what I had.
Since 1913 when IQ tests started being nationally or internationally graded, the IQ median has been kept at 100. But without that smoothing the median level of 1913 would be 77 or so today, and the median today would be in the 130s
We have got smarter, or perhaps we have had mental tools passed onto us through education and social norms.
Here is your reference, the talk by James R. Flynn on TED (spoken in March 2013, published on TED in September 2013)
"James Flynn: Why our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents'."
The research by James R. Flynn on changes in IQ raw score levels over time in many different countries has been described by intelligence researcher N. J. Mackintosh like this: "the data are surprising, demolish some long-cherished beliefs, and raise a number of other interesting issues along the way." (IQ and Human Intelligence 1998, p. 104) In general, Flynn is a very respected researcher on human intelligence. Here is what the late Arthur Jensen said about Flynn back in the 1980s: "Now and then I am asked . . . who, in my opinion, are the most respectable critics of my position on the race-IQ issue? The name James R. Flynn is by far the first that comes to mind." Modgil, Sohan & Modgil, Celia (Eds.) (1987) Arthur Jensen: Concensus and Controversy New York: Falmer. Here's what Charles Murray says in his back cover blurb for Flynn's book What Is Intelligence?: "This book is a gold mine of pointers to interesting work, much of which was new to me. All of us who wrestle with the extraordinarily difficult questions about intelligence that Flynn discusses are in his debt." Flynn has earned the respect and praise of any honest researcher who takes time to read the scholarly literature on human intelligence. Robert Sternberg, Ian Deary, Stephen Pinker, Stephen Ceci, Sir Michael Rutter, and plenty of other eminent psychologists recommend Flynn's research.
ps if you ever do come across this I would love to know if you have either a really good memory, do a lot of research on the spur if the moment, or have an impressive filing system? cheers
For topics that come up over and over and over again on Hacker news, I have a 251KB flat text file with some references on various topics (and a few of those appeared in my reply to you). The particular TED talk was memorable to me because a local researcher shared it to an email list for the journal club I participate in, and then I posted that TED talk to my Facebook wall.
Yes, and isn't that change usually attributed to types of IQ test questions becoming outdated and part of popular knowledge? Attributing any change in IQ tests to a more intelligent population seems dubious at best. Any chance you have a link to that ted talk?
Also, my ability to communicate instantaneously is absurdly better than what my parents had, doesn't mean we should stop striving to improve improve improve, especially in an area as important as education.
Since 1913 when IQ tests started being nationally or internationally graded, the IQ median has been kept at 100. But without that smoothing the median level of 1913 would be 77 or so today, and the median today would be in the 130s
We have got smarter, or perhaps we have had mental tools passed onto us through education and social norms.
ref: err... a Ted talk recently released....