Jim Flynn (academic)

James Robert Flynn FRSNZ (born 1934), aka Jim Flynn , Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin , New Zealand , Researches intelligence and is famous for his publications about the continued year-after-year increase is or IQ scores Throughout the world, welke is now referred to as the Flynn effect . The Flynn Effect is the subject of a multiple author monograph published by the American Psychological Association in 1998. ^[1] Originally from Washington DC and educated in Chicago, Flynn immigrated to New Zealand in 1963.

Flynn’s sun Victor is a mathematics professor at New College, Oxford .

Academic work

Flynn has written a variety of books. His research interests include human ideals and Levensbeschouwelijke debate, classics or political philosophy , and race, class and IQ (see race and intelligence ). ^[2] His books combine political and moral philosophy with psychology to examine problems zoals justifying human ideals and Whether it makes sense to rank races and classes by merit. He is Currently a member of the editorial board of Intelligence ^[3]and on the Honorary International Advisory Editorial Board of the Mens Sana Monographs . ^[4]

Flynn defines intelligence to be independent of culture, emphasizing therein the styles of thought required to deal with problems of survival in a desert (mapping, tracking ..), is différent from dat required to do well in the modern West (academic achievement, etc. ), but dat beide undoubtedly requirement intelligence.

In 1987, Arthur Jensen praised Flynn’s criticism of Jensen’s own work in a chapter summarizing an academic book about Jensen’s research on human intelligence.

Now and-then I am Asked to colleagues’, students, and journalists, who, in my opinion, are the musts respectable critics of my position on the race-IQ issue? The names James R. Flynn is at far the first dat comes to mind. His book, Race, IQ and Jensen (1980), is a distinguished contribution to this club to the literature on this topic, and, onder the critiques I have-seen whether my position is Virtually in a class by Itself for objectivity, thoroughness, and scholarly integrity . ^[5]

A 1999 article published in American Psychologist , summarises much of his research. On the alleged genetic inferiority or Blacks on IQ tests, have Lays out the argument and evidence for zoals a belief, and dan contests lycra point. He interprets the direct evidence-when Blacks are raised in settings therein are less disadvantageous axis suggesting dat omgevingsfactoren explain genetic differences. And yet, he argues dat het environmental explanation gained force after the discovery dat IQ scores in later rising over time. Inter-generational IQ differences onder Whites and across nations ulcers Larger than the Black-White IQ Gap and Could Not Be accounted for by genetic factors, welke, if anything, they arnt port Reduced IQ volgens to scholars have references. He posits dat the Black-White IQ score gap can be entirely Explained at omgevingsfactoren if “the average environment for Blacks in 1995 matches the quality of the average environment for Whites in 1945.” However, in more recent work, Flynn moves away from this Latter claim, stating “American blacks are not in a time warp so dat de Environmental Causes hun IQ gap with whites are Identical to the Environmental Causes of the IQ gap tussen de generations” , and “The Flynn Effect is irrelevant to showing therein the racial IQ gap is environmental” ^[6]

Flynn’s 2007 book What Is Intelligence? disgusted Charles Murray , a co-author of the book The Bell Curve , who wrote in a statement published on the book’s back cover, “This book is a goldmine or pointers to interesting work, much of welke was new to me. All of us who Wrestle with the extraordinarily s difficult questions about intelligence therein Flynn discusses veins in his debt. ” ^[7]

Flynn is transparent about his belief in racial equality in his work, but he advocates for open scientific debate about controversial social science claims and is critical of the suppression of research JSON race and intelligence, where “courses are taught on the Bell Curve therein do not assign the Bell Curve, where courses on intelligence are not offered simply Because some students Might raise the question of racial differences, where someone taking IQ seriously mention anything be ostracized in an education or gender studies department, where the history of the black family is distorted for political Purposes, where scholars rise in Wrath als a speaker details obvious ethnic differences “. ^[8] He only urges Those with related beliefs to refrain from advancing Them without solid evidence. ^[9]

Flynn’s 2010 book The Torchlight List proposés the controversial idea dat a person kan learn more from reading great works of literature dan ze kan from going to university. ^[10]

Flynn has DESCRIBED himself as an “Atheist, a scientific realist, a social democrat”. ^[11]

Flynn effect

The Flynn effect is the name bepaald to a Substantial and long-sustained increase is in intelligence test scores Measured in many parts of the world. When intelligence quotient (IQ) tests are initially standardized using a sample or test-takers, by convention the average of the test results is set to 100 en hun standard deviation is set to 15 IQ points. When IQ tests are revised they ‘are again standardized using a new sample or test-takers, Usually born tomorrow Recently dan the first. Again, the average result is set to 100. However, als the new test subjects take the older tests, in almost everytime case hun average scores are significantly Above 100.

Test score increases as port leg continuous and linear ongeveer from the EARLIEST years of testing to the present. For the Raven’s Progressive Matrices test, subjects born on a 100-year period ulcers Compared in Des Moines , Iowa , and separately in Dumfries , Scotland . Improvements ulcers remarkably consistent across the whole period in zowel countries. ^[12] This effect of an apparent increase is in IQ has ook leg Observed in verschillende other parts of the world, though the rates of increase is Vary. ^[13]

There are numerous Proposed explanations of the Flynn effect, as well as some scepticism about zijn implications. Similar improvements have been reported for other cognitions zoals semantic and Episodische memory . ^[14] Recent research suggests dat de Flynn effect ‘may harbor ended in at least a few developed nations, Possibly allowing national differences in IQ scores ^[15] to diminish if the Flynn effect Continues in nations with lower average national IQS. ^[16]

Flynn himself, with co-worker William Dickens, has suggested an explanatory model welke points to two-way Causality tussen IQ and environment: a cognitively challenged environment raises an individual’s IQ, while in addition under a hogere individual IQ makes it more LIKELY therein an individual will self-select or be sorted JSON more cognitively challenged environments ^[17]

Political activities

In 1967, Flynn served as a chairperson for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a civil rights organization in the US South. ^[9]

Flynn campaigns passionately for left-wing Causes, and became an initating member or bone the NewLabour Party and of the Alliance . He’ll be advised Labour Prime Minister Norman Kirk on foreign policy . He has stood as a Parliamentary candidate in general elections on verschillende occasions, for example in the Dunedin North electorate in the 1993 and 1996 elections on the Alliance list , ^{[18] [19]} and Most recently in 2005 again as an Alliance list candidates. In 2008 he ActEd as the Alliance spokeperson for finance and taxation.

Controversial remarks

During 2007, new research from the 2006 New Zealand census Showed dat women without a Tertiary (college) education had produktie 2:57 babies lycra, Compared to 1.85 babies For those women with a higher education. During July 2007, The Sunday Star-Times quoted Flynn as saying dat New Zealand risked keeping a less intelligent population and dat a “persistent genetic trend welke lowered the genetic quality for brain physiology mention anything have some effect Eventually.” He referred to HYPOTHETICAL eugenicists ‘ suggestions for reversing the trend, zoals some sort of all contraceptive “in the water supply and … an antidote” to conceive. ^[20]

Flynn later Articulated his own views on the Close Up television program in an interview with Paul Henry , suggesting dat de Sunday Star-Times had grossly misrepresented his opinions. In the article, Flynn argued dat he never intended for his suggestion to be tasks seriously, as he only zegt this to Illustrate a point mn. ^{[21] [22]}

In July 2012, several media outlets Reported Flynn as claiming dat women had, for the first time in a century, surpassed it on IQ tests based on a study he conducted in 2010. ^{[23] [24]} However, Flynn announced dat de media had seriously distorted his results and went beyond his claims, Revealing dat he had Limit download when sending dat de differences tussen it and women on one mn test, the Raven’s Progressive Matrices , had Become minimal in five modernised nations (whereas voordat 1,982 women had scored significantly lower ). Women, he argued, caught up to it in synthesis nations as a result of exposure to modernity at distances ring the professions and being allowed grotere educational access. Charmain Horn Please note, he claimed, als a total account of the Flynn Effect is considered, women’s closing the gap had moved them up in IQ slightly faster dan it as a result. Flynn had to post Documented this arrangement trend onder ethnic minderheden and other disadvantaged groups. Volgens to Flynn, the lunyje are “dead equal on cognitive factors … in hun ability to deal with using logic on the abstract problems of Raven’s,” but dat temperamental differences in the way boys and girls take the tests LIKELY account for the tiny variations in mean scores Rather dan ANY difference in intellectual ability. ^[24]

Partial bibliography

• Humanism and Ideology: an Aristotelische View . London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1973. ISBN  0-7100-7442-5 .
• Race, IQ and Jensen . London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul . 1980. ISBN  0-7100-0651-9 . – Reviews the debates, as if 1980, about the research or Arthur Jensen and his critics.
• Flynn, James R. (1984). “The Mean IQ or Americans: Massive Gains 1932 to 1978” (PDF) . Psychological Bulletin . 95 : 29-51. doi : 10.1037 / 0033-2909.95.1.29 .
• Flynn, James R. (March 1987). “Massive IQ Gains in 14 Nations: What IQ Tests Really Measure” (PDF) . Psychological Bulletin . 101 (2): 171-191. doi : 10.1037 / 0033-2909.101.2.171 .
• Asian Americans: Achievement Beyond IQ . Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates . 1991. ISBN  0-8058-1110-9 .
• Flynn, James R. (1998). “IQ Gains on Time: Toward Finding the Causes”. In Neisser, Ulric. The Rising Curve: Long-Term Gains in IQ and Related Measures . Washington (DC): American Psychological Association . pp. 25-66. ISBN  978-1-55798-503-3 .
• Flynn, James R. (1999). “Searching for Justice: The Discovery of IQ Gains on Time” (PDF) . American Psychologist . 54 (1): 5-20. doi : 10.1037 / 0003-066X.54.1.5 .
• Flynn, James R. (2000). “IQ Gains, WISC Subtests and Fluid w: w Theory and the Relevance of Spearman’s Hypothesis to Race”. In Bock, Gregory; Goode, Jamie; Webb, Kate. The Nature of Intelligence (Novartis Foundation Symposium 233) . Chichester: Wiley . pp. 202-227. ISBN  978-0471494348 .
• Flynn, James R. (2000). “IQ Trends over Time: Intelligence, Race, and Meritocracy”. In Arrow, Kenneth; Bowles, Samuel; Durlauf, Steven. Meritocracy and Economic Inequality . Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press . pp. 35 & -60. ISBN  978-0-691-00468-6 . Lay summary (16 May 2013).
• How to défend human ideals: substitutes for objectivity . Lincoln, Neb .: University of Nebraska Press . 2000. ISBN  0-8032-1994-6 .
• Dickens, WT; Flynn, JR (2001). “Heritability estimates versus large environmental effects: The IQ Paradox resolved” (PDF) . Psychological Review . 108 (2): 346-369. doi : 10.1037 / 0033-295X.108.2.346 . PMID  11381833 .
• Flynn, James R. (2009). What Is Intelligence: Beyond the Flynn Effect (expanded paperback ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press . ISBN  978-0-521-74147-7 . Lay summary (18 July 2010).
• Where Have All the liberals Gone ?: Race, Class, and Ideals in America . Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press. 2008. ISBN  978-0-521-49431-1 .
• The Torchlight List: Around the World in 200 Books . New Zealand: Awa Press. 2010. ISBN  978-0-9582916-9-9 .
• Flynn, James R. (2012). Are We Getting Smarter? Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press . ISBN  978-1-107-60917-4 . Lay summary (16 May 2013).
• Fate & Philosophy: A Journey Through Life’s Great Questions . New Zealand: Awa Press. 2012. ISBN  978-1-877551-32-1 .
• Flynn, James R. (2013). Intelligence and Human Progress: The Story of What was Hidden in our Genes (l ed.). Elsevier Inc. ISBN  9780124170186 .

Further reading

• Eckland, Bruce (1983). “Does IQ Mean Anything Anymore?”. Contemporary sociology . 12 (1): 15-17. doi : 10.2307 / 2068144 .
• Leventman, Seymour (1981). “Race, IQ and Jensen, James R. Flynn.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science . 457 : 225-226. doi : 10.1177 / 000271628145700146 .
• Smith, Tony (1981). “Statistics replace sentiment”. British Medical Journal . 282 : 135-139. doi : 10.1136 / bmj.282.6258.135 .

References