At 03:34 PM 4/22/01 -0700, Spike Jones wrote:
>Bradley Felton wrote:
>
>> 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>
>
>I must have missed something. What is un-PC about this argument?
>Modern obstetrics has greatly improved the survival probability of
>large-skulled infants with respect to past times, and with respect to
>present day societies without modern obstetrics. That explanation
>works perfectly for me, and causes me irritation only because I didn't
>think of it. spike
It's been many years since I've read it, but IIRC, Gould's "The Mismeasure
of Man" (one of the holy books of the PC crowd) went to great lengths to
convince the un-critical reader that there was no correlation between brain
size and either IQ or race (without ever actually coming out and saying
so). I suspect that the PC crowd will be hostile towards Friedman's theory
for fear that it will open a can of worms that they would rather keep closed.
-- Bradley Felton PGP encrypted mail preffered
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