Re: Flynn Effect explained?

From: Bradley Felton (zim@pobox.com)
Date: Sun Apr 22 2001 - 13:56:31 MDT


At 10:12 AM 4/22/01 -0700, Hal Finney wrote:
>Charlie forwards:
>> See http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,476639,00.html
>> ...
>> >But more important is a stimulating environment, which makes people think
>> >more, prompting them to choose yet more stimulation. The smarter you are,
>> >the more likely you are to enjoy books, puzzles and challenging jobs. That
>> >in turn gets your brain working more and you choose even higher levels
>> >of stimulation in a virtuous circle of intelligence. 'Higher IQ leads
>> >one to better environments, causing still higher IQ,' said the report.
>
>This explanation doesn't make that much sense to me. The Flynn effect is
>cross-generational. It's not that an individual's IQ goes up as he gets
>older, as this paraphrased explanation seems to suggest.

David Friedman's explanation of the Flynn effect seems a lot more logical,
though it may be too un-PC to receive much acceptance:

<http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Miscellaneous/why_getting_smarter.htm>

-- Bradley Felton PGP encrypted mail preffered



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