Re: Gene-Meme Co-evolution in Reverse?

From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Sat Aug 18 2001 - 00:53:51 BST

  • Next message: Bill Spight: "Re: Gene-Meme Co-evolution in Reverse?"

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    From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
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    Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 18:53:51 -0500
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    Subject: Re: Gene-Meme Co-evolution in Reverse?
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    On 17 Aug 2001, at 16:42, Bill Spight wrote:

    You're right, it was the Flynn Effect

    > Dear Joe,
    >
    > From
    > http://www.beyond-the-illusion.com/files/New-Files/200101/why_kids_are
    > _smarter_than_you.txt
    >
    > <<
    > "The rising-IQ trend is often called the Flynn Effect after New
    > Zealand sociologist James Flynn, who first noticed the phenomenon in
    > the 1980s. Since 1984, Dr. Flynn has published a series of papers
    > showing that IQs in at least 13 developed countries have gained five
    > to 25 points in recent decades.
    >
    > He managed to find what others had missed because he did not look at
    > average IQ scores, which rank how people compare with each other at a
    > certain point.
    >
    > Instead, Dr. Flynn looked at the number of questions people
    > answered correctly on the intelligence tests over the years and
    > found everyone from school children to soldiers was scoring
    > progressively better.Interestingly, Dr. Flynn does not
    > necessarily believe the Flynn Effect points to a rise in
    > intelligence.
    >
    > "If people, children, were really becoming smarter, teachers
    > would be saying, 'My gosh I can't believe how fast kids learn
    > today,' and they are not saying that," he said in an interview
    > this week.
    >
    > "If people were really getting as smart as the test scores
    > suggest, we should be blinded by brilliance."He suggests that the
    > rising-IQ trend tells us more about what society demands of people's
    > mental abilities than about their actual intelligence level because
    > the gains have been in very specific skills. >>
    >
    > So the data is misreported. IQ scores have not been rising. And thus
    > IQ, whatever the term may mean, if anything, has not been rising. What
    > has been increasing is specific knowledge, both declarative and
    > procedural. So people today would have scored higher on previous IQ
    > tests. The Flynn Effect illustrates the cultural relativity of IQ
    > tests, reflecting cultural change over time.
    >
    > Best,
    >
    > Bill
    >
    > Bill
    >
    > ===============================================================
    > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    > Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    > For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
    >

    ===============================================================
    This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit



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