Ahead of their time: A review of "Are We Getting Smarter?" by James R. Flynn

JDN 2456327 EDT 19:20.

 

We often say that a genius such as Leonardo or Newton is "ahead of their time"; I doubt most people realize just how accurate this is. In what is called "the Flynn effect", IQ scores have been increasing steadily at a rate of about 0.3 IQ points per year since we have been keeping track of them. This means that in the past century we have risen an average of 30 IQ points, which is the difference between average and the top 2.5%, or the difference between the bott...