A recent BBC article covered the Flynn effect – the fact that IQs have been rising over time.

The most striking line:

If Americans today took the tests from a century ago, Flynn says, they would have an extraordinarily high average IQ of 130. And if the Americans of 100 years ago took today’s tests, they would have an average IQ of 70 – the recognised cut-off for people with intellectual disabilities.

Some other data:

In short: as countries develop, their IQs go up, and the gains in IQ seem to be driven by abstract logic and pattern recognition (Raven’s measures this type of thinking).

I’m curious about causation and correlation.

Yesterday, I posted about how Ian Morris believes human values are adapted to the primary economic mode of energy harnassing (there have been three modes: foraging, farming, and industry). Each of these transitions can also be considered a technological singularity.

In his view, the method of harnessing energy caused societies to adopt certain values.

For gains in IQ, I wonder whether changes in the method of harnessing energy caused IQ gains (our brains adapted to the needs of the new economy), or whether gains in IQ led to the development of new ways of harnessing energy (we got smarter and invented new ways of doing things).

My guess is that, for the transition from farming to industry, it’s the former.

Or to put it another way: humans developed the IQ we needed.

It is likely that the next singularity will also deliver gains in IQ.

Of course, our IQs could go backwards as well.

The implications for education are interesting. Perhaps schooling is really about reducing inequality (ensuring that as many people as possible make the transition to the new economy) while technological change is what ends up driving large, widespread absolute gains (by increasing the demands on the human mind).

Much to consider.