Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id IAA20079 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 20 Aug 2001 08:49:13 +0100 From: <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 02:48:27 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Gene-Meme Co-evolution in Reverse? Message-ID: <3B807A7B.22077.BBEB26@localhost> In-reply-to: <008f01c128ff$ff795dc0$c024f4d8@teddace> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 19 Aug 2001, at 15:40, Dace wrote:
> > >>
> > "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
>
> Sheldrake offers this as evidence for morphic resonance. He cites
> Flynn in The Presence of the Past and agrees with him that rising IQ
> scores do not reflect rising intelligence. Instead they reflect
> improved performance in a specific skill, that of taking IQ tests.
> Current test-takers benefit from the cumulative effects of morphic
> resonance with past test-takers. He also notes that this kind of
> evidence can't result in any firm conclusions, which must come from
> specially designed experiments.
>
Yeah, he'd cite Amelia Earhardt's disappearance if he could, and
such citations, in the absence of concrete scientific proof, mean
absolutely nothing.
>
> Ted
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
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>
===============================================================
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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