April 03 2008 / by memebox
Category: Other Year: General Rating: 8
Dr. James Flynn, the
cognitive theorist who discovered the steady rise in human IQ
scores over the past 100 years (subsequently dubbed the Flynn
Effect), is now advancing a compelling new model of
intelligence based on the idea that 
environment significantly impacts the development of intelligence,
aka our ability to solve complex problems.
Attributing IQ gains largely to “the rise of the scientific
ethos” and abstract thinking ability, as well as a propensity for
genes to “match better environments”, Flynn imagines a future in
which technological breakthroughs may better our ability to
comprehend complex systems, making us a good deal smarter. However,
he also cautiously points out that we could be approaching natural
limits to critical thinking ability, as the pursuit of decadence
increases and humans become “less willing to do cognitive
exercise”.
What follows is an illuminating must-read interview with Flynn
about his thoughts on the interplay between intelligence and our
rapidly changing environment:
MemeBox: What do you do and how is that related to the
future?
James Flynn: I am both a historian of cognition and a moral and
political philosopher. The latter relates to the future because
clear thinking about the good life and the good society is of
eternal 
value. However,my recent book, What is intelligence?
(Cambridge), describes the evolution of the American mind in the
20th century. As usual, only if we understand our immediate past
can we see the challenges the future holds. In this case, we can
make two predictions about the 21st century with some probability.
That developing nations will acquire the habits of mind that
developed nations have recently acquired. That the task for
developed nations like America is to build an enhanced critical
ability on the foundation of the IQ gains of the 20th century.
M: Why is the study of intelligence important to us
humans?
JF: That we think it is important is undeniable in that we spend
huge sums on education trying to train intelligence to be socially
useful. We are correct to do so. Intelligence is essentially the
capacity to solve problems and a complex industrial society demands
that we have certain habits of mind: that we classify the world in
a way that promotes a scientific understanding; that we can use
logic to deal with hypothetical problems; and that we can deal with
novel problems on the spot.
M: What is the relationship between environment and
intelligence? (Environment as in the whole system: biology,
information, technology, society, the universe.) To what extent can
we distinguish between the two?
JF: Until recently, it was thought we could use twin studies to
neatly distinguish the effects of genes and environment on IQ and
they said that genes were overwhelmingly potent and environment
feeble. Then I began to document these huge IQ gains over time that
amounted to some 30 to 50 IQ points during the 20th century in
America. These showed environmental factors of enormous potency,
but that of course created a paradox: how could the twin studies
show environment so feeble while IQ gains showed it to be so
potent? (Cambridge), describes the evolution of the American mind
in the 20th century. As usual, only if we understand our immediate
past can we see the challenges the future holds. In this case, we
can make two predictions about the 21st century with some
probability. That developing nations will acquire the habits of
mind that developed nations have recently acquired. That the task
for developed nations like America is to build an enhanced critical
ability on the foundation of the IQ gains of the 20th century.
The answer the book gives is the Dickens/Flynn model. Within a
generation, better genes tend to match better environments, that
is, a person born a bit taller and quicker than average will be
likely to make basketball teams throughout their school years and
get the environmental advantages of team play and professional
coaching. The twins studies credit this powerful combination of
genes and environment all to genes, so the potency of environment
is hidden. But the present generation has not real genetic
advantage over the last generation, so the huge IQ gains are purely
the effect of environment and testify to how potent it really
is.
M: As we evolve IQ tests to reflect general wisdom and
problem solving abilities, do you expect them to remain limited to
single humans, or must they also incorporate environment? In other
words, can we truly measure intelligence without holistic
context?
JF: The short answer is No. Individuals respond to the changing
priorities of an evolving society. In America in 1900, the emphasis
was mainly on utilizing the concrete world for practical purposes
and even the schools examined for what they considers to be
socially valuable facts. Today, we are expected to go beyond the
concrete to classify it using the language of science. In 1900, if
you asked someone what dogs and rabbits had in common, they would
tend to say that you use dogs to hunt rabbits. Today, they would
say that they are both mammals. In 1900, people did not take the
hypothetical very seriously and were exposed to few abstract
symbols. Today, we use logic to deal with hypothetical situations
and formal symbols all of the time – just look at we spend our
leisure on video games. And school exams focus less on facts than
on relationships between concepts.
So, when you measure IQ, you are measuring more than
intelligence in the narrow sense. You are also measuring the
patterns of thinking that the times emphasizes. And measuring all
of this by a single number misses too much. For example, I have
spoken as it it were informative to say Americans gained 30 to 50
IQ points in the 20th century. Actually, this conceals a whole
range of different trends. The best data (since 1947) show we have
gained almost nothing in terms of general information, everyday
vocabulary, and arithmetical reasoning, but have made huge gains in
classification, seeing logical relationships between symbols, and
on-the-spot problem solving.
M: What might a general IQ test consist of 10 years from
now?
JF: I think that tests like the WISC
(Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) that has 10 subtests
will still be appropriate. But they should be supplemented with
tests of critical acumen. I am in the midst of designing a test
that will measure how well university graduates can do social
analysis and criticism, that is, whether they have learned to use
concepts like market, tautology, placebo, to analyze what they hear
and read.
M: In your most recent book, What is Intelligence?, you
explain that abstract thinking and the tendency of IQ tests to
reward abstract thinking generally explains the Flynn Effect. Does
abstract thinking make humans more intelligent, or simply more
likely to arrive at more intelligent decisions? JF: I
think the word “intelligence” muddles what has actually happened
and what has happened can be described as follows. Our brains at
conception are no better than they ever were. But in response to
the evolving demands of society, we can attack a far wider range of
problems than our ancestors could. It is like the evolution of the
motor car in the 20th century. Are automotive engineers any
brighter than they were 100 years ago? – no. But have cars evolved
to meet modern demands for more speed and entertainment while we
drive (radios, tape decks, etc) – yes. Our brains are no better but
our minds have altered as dramatically as our cars.
M: How does abstract thinking allow humans to do “more,
better, with less”, as Systems and MEST
Compression theorist John Smart puts it?
JF: I suspect that we reach a limit as to how much hard thinking
we are willing to do both on the job and in our leisure. Call that
energy and time, if you will. Modern society has reduced both the
hours and physical demands of work and thus enormously expended the
energy we have to devote to cognitively demanding pursuits in our
leisure. But the rise of the scientific ethos and freeing logic
from the concrete are a great gain in efficiency. Look at how much
information is immediately conveyed when we call something a
“mammal”.
M: Is there a MEST compression
of ideas / simulations / memes occurring in our
brains?
JF: We do not know enough to do this kind of analysis yet. My
book looks at the brain physiology level of intelligence and argues
that we are only now beginning to understand the roles of blood
supply, dopamine sprayers, and mental exercise and how they are
related to one another.
M: What is the relationship between human technology and
abstract thinking / evolving intelligence? How are they similar?
Does one beget the other? (I’m seeing proto-humans staring at cave
paintings.)
JF: The first step towards a scientific ethos is the widespread
use of machines because they encourage a de-personalized concept of
causality. Then the industrial revolution demands universal
education, eventually tertiary education, which encourages the
formal as distinct from the concrete mode of thinking. Finally, if
you are lucky, people absorb from science the concepts (market,
tautology, placebo, sample, confounding variable) the tools of
critical thinking
M: Do you suppose there is a correlation between
accelerating growth in information , technology and communication
and accelerating growth in IQ scores? Would you say the Flynn
effect is a correlate of the Law of Accelerating Technological
Returns?
JF: Definitely not. The rise in IQ scores is a function of total
social forces of which the acceleration of information accumulation
and technological change is only one. This is proven by the fact
that in nations most advanced in these things, IQ gains have slowed
and perhaps even stopped (Scandinavia). Most people live their
lives with family, at work, and enjoying leisure. A more favorable
ratio of adults to children in the home has driven IQ gains and now
this has reached a limit with only one or two children and is
reversing with the rise of solo-parent families. Formal education
now takes up, for many, the years before 30 and it is not clear
that people with tolerate much more. Leisure is also about as
cognitively demanding as many will tolerate. The proportion of
managerial and professional work roles is reaching
“feather-bedding” levels. Perhaps as many people have absorbed the
scientific ethos as can do so. The next century could see a period
of decadence in advanced societies so that people are less willing
to do cognitive exercise.
M: How will advances in brain imaging, information
storage, longitudinal information capture, neuro-science, etc,
affect the study of intelligence?
JF: I think brain imaging will take us for the first time to the
“Babalonian astronomy” level of brain physiology, so that we will
have a “map” of what parts of the brain are active in what
cognitive functions. Also we may be able to “see’ blood supply and
dopamine spraying at work in strengthening the neural connections
that are used. If the latter could be matched the habits of the
mind we build up when we solve problems and the former to whatever
genes and environment make for efficiency of blood supply and
dopamine spraying, we could begin to integrate brain physiology to
the Dickens/Flynn model (which captures the basic mechanics of the
personal and social levels).
M: How might human cognition be altered in the age of
accelerating tech, info, comm change? How will new simulation
tools, immersive 3D environments,brain-computer interfaces, faster
computers, a more fluid web, scientific breakthroughs, etc, all
conspire to affect cognition?
JF: Integrating people with machines (as I am doing at this
moment with my word processor) may speed up the drudge of research.
If I had electrodes on my skull that called up information at once
and performed mathematical operations on cognitive demand, the
amount of work I could do would expand but the quality (no sources
left out) only slightly. And that is my social science work. I am
not sure that thinking about philosophical problems would profit
much at all. I do not think that the level of philosophical
thinking has risen at all in the 20th century, although technology
has certainly given ethics new problems to address.
M: What’s the relationship of human cognition to
achieving the most comprehensive view of the system possible, or
“topsight” as David Gelertner describes it? JF: If
technology gives one an overview of a system (say the brain) so
that one can absorb it as a unit rather than piecemeal, that will
be a great step forward in many areas of science.
M: It’s been shown that tribes like the Piraha cannot be
taught to count to 10 after certain critical windows are missed .
What are the implications of critical periods for intelligence /
abstract thinking, especially considering accelerating
change?
JF: These people pose interesting problems for the development
of language but I think we will get to know more about “critical
periods” (say why it is so hard to learn language after a certain
age) from current research. Note by the way the oddity that no one
has posited that they are somehow genetically unique as at least a
partial explanation of their culture.
M: What advice would you give to one of the many
researchers currently pursuing Artificial General
Intelligence? JF: Keep at it because it is interesting and
I do not know how to do it. But they might temper their predictions
by asking whether these intelligences will really write something
on free will versus determinism that is not imitative.
M: What are some general trends you see forming or
already in effect that are changing/will change the way we
learn?
JF: The worst trend is the distortion of university education to
towards narrow specialization so that even the best graduates can
think critically, if at all, only in a narrow area. Learning how to
think critically has gone up with the habit of taking hypothetical
situations seriously, but further progress means better
universities and I am not sanguine.
M: Any hunches about the ultimate destiny of
intelligence?
JF: This is equivalent to knowing the ultimate destiny of man
and I will be happy if we survive the 21st century with viable
civilized societies. That behind us we can plot utopias for the
future.
This interview was conducted by Alvis Brigis.
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