TEACHERS and politicians complain bitterly about the media’s current
flirtation with “dumbing down”. But IQ data from more than 20 nations, including
Brazil and China, shows that since the 1930s each subsequent generation has in
fact been brighter than the previous one. So who’s right?
New Zealand psychologist James Flynn first detected the IQ effect in 1984.
Flynn found that throughout the industrial world the IQ of children of the same
age is rising by an average of 3 points each decade. But now he says the effect
is accelerating. The IQ of children of the same age has gone…
