Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of boxes
- Preface to the expanded paperback edition
- Acknowledgments
- 1 A bombshell in a letter box
- 2 Beyond the Flynn effect
- 3 Towards a new theory of intelligence
- 4 Testing the Dickens/Flynn model
- 5 Why did it take so long?
- 6 IQ gains can kill
- 7 What if the gains are over?
- 8 Knowing our ancestors
- 9 The art of writing cognitive history
- 10 About GUT: the grand unification theory of intelligence
- 11 Howard Gardner and the use of words
- Appendix I Tables
- Appendix II Declaration in a capital case
- References
- Subject index
- Name index
2 - Beyond the Flynn effect
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of boxes
- Preface to the expanded paperback edition
- Acknowledgments
- 1 A bombshell in a letter box
- 2 Beyond the Flynn effect
- 3 Towards a new theory of intelligence
- 4 Testing the Dickens/Flynn model
- 5 Why did it take so long?
- 6 IQ gains can kill
- 7 What if the gains are over?
- 8 Knowing our ancestors
- 9 The art of writing cognitive history
- 10 About GUT: the grand unification theory of intelligence
- 11 Howard Gardner and the use of words
- Appendix I Tables
- Appendix II Declaration in a capital case
- References
- Subject index
- Name index
Summary
Yesterday upon the stair
I saw a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
How I wish that man would go away
(Nursery rhyme)I will try to make the problems posed by IQ gains go away, but do not really think that I can say the final word. I claim only that I can at last propose an interpretation that eliminates paradoxes. These paradoxes have been so intimidating as to freeze our thinking about the significance of IQ gains ever since we began to take them seriously (Flynn, 2006a).
Intelligence and the atom
Before I state the paradoxes, there are some concepts to convey. My fundamental line of argument will be that understanding intelligence is like understanding the atom: we have to know not only what holds its components together but also what splits them apart. What binds the components of intelligence together is the general intelligence factor or g; what acts as the atom smasher is the Flynn effect or massive IQ gains over time; the best IQ test to exemplify both of these is called the WISC (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children).
The WISC has ten subtests that measure various cognitive skills. For example, the Similarities subtest measures the ability to perceive what things have in common; the Vocabulary subtest measures whether you have accumulated a large number of the words used in everyday life; Information measures your store of general (as distinct from specialized) information; Arithmetic measures your ability to solve everyday mathematical problems (how much change you should have if you bought certain items out of a five-dollar bill); and so forth (see Box 1).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- What Is Intelligence?Beyond the Flynn Effect, pp. 4 - 47Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
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