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Originally Posted by stumpycat
I've heard it theorized that this particular phenomenon has to do with the fact that because IQ tests are an attempt to test for more innate, "unlearned," non-rote intelligence (i.e., "fluid", as opposed to "crystallized" intelligence), and that the complex systems, technologies, and fast pace of modern society tends to demand that one possesses an ever-greater fund of fluid intelligence to successfully adapt and survive within it, that society itself has actually helped cultivate fluid intelligence within individuals in such as way that it is reflected in the apparent increase in average IQ over time. (Which might prove that given substantial real world experience, this type of intelligence really can be cultivated--even if not explicitly "learned" in the traditional sense.) The western educational system itself was also historically highly reliant upon rote learning but that has dramatically lessened over the years. That might actually go towards also explaining why there can sometimes be such dramatic differences to be found in IQ scores across the world between geographical regions and their populations in the modern era. (Just apply the Flynn Effect in reverse....it seems to logically follow that a few generations ago, the modern score of 70--apparently the current average score in some regions of the world--would have been equivalent to about average range for that time, as is only now "substandard".)
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Yes, I'm just questioning that it means people are actually smarter or more that they're having cultural cultivation of potential that just wasn't valued as much before. That makes a lot more sense than that our fundamental intellectual capacities have increased over such a short period of time. And IQ tests would have you believe that they are testing potential, but if they are, then (if what I'm saying is correct) people's IQs should not be going up so drastically over relatively short periods of time. They aren't testing what they have aspired to test, in that case.
My main point is that IQ /= intelligence, I don't know what right or wrong about the entire paradigm