Customer Reviews

Rising Curve: Long-Term Gains in IQ and Related Measures (Apa Science Volumes)

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Many people are aware of the thesis of Herrnstein and Murray's "The Bell Curve," regarding IQ, its bases, its consequences, its correlates. This edited volume reviews relevant literature and joins the debate over the nature and implications of IQ.

The editor, the well-known researcher Ulric Neisser, notes in a brief preface, some of the issues addressed in this volume (p. xiii):

"It turns out that there is another side to the story, one that leads to quite different conclusions [from Herrnstein and Murray]:

* Scores on intelligence tests are rising, not falling.
* The Black-White gap in school achievement has closed dramatically in recent years.
* There is no convincing evidence that any dysgenic trends exist."

One takeoff poignant for this volume is the so-called "Flynn Effect." In an early essay in this volume, Flynn himself notes the central point ) p. 26): "Data are now available for 20 nations and there is not a single exception to the finding of massive IQ gains over time." In essence, over the past 80 years, evidence indicates that people are getting more and more "right" answers on IQ tests. That is, raw IQ scores have been rising systematically and substantially. While the average IQ score remains 100, the actual intelligence of people across cultures has increased, in terms of rising raw scores.

This volume explores a number of issues: (1) what are the trends in IQ?; (2) What factors have affected this increase in intelligence? (e.g., enhanced nutrition? Other research outside this volume even suggests that computer games might be related to this increase); (3) What trends are there in racial differences in IQ in recent years? (4) Are there "dysgenic" trends in intelligence?

All in all, the volume raises quite a number of important questions. Does it answer these? Not conclusively. But sometimes just raising questions is an important contribution. For those interested in an intellectual and research-based book on IQ, this is a good starting point.

Although I am not a professional psychologist, it is my opinion that psychometrics is the dirty little secret of this discipline. This book was published as a reaction to Herrnstein & Murray's _The Bell Curve_, and includes (somewhat) recent primary-source scholarship on the state of intellectual norming, from the Flynn Effect to Lynn's dysgenics hypothesis. Every aspect of intellectual norming is covered, from the nutritional hypothesis to other SES correlatives.

Forget that the bell curve is a statistical convenience. The ostensive purpose of this text is not to show that psychometrics is invalid, but to show that Herrnstein & Murray were selective in their studies on intelligence, and that intelligence is on the rise. To the layman, however, it shows that psychology actually grapples with racial differences and believes that norming is a valid measure of human intelligence. It made me realize that the caustic reaction to Herrnstein & Murray was not because their suppositions about the measuring of intelligence were wrong, but because they made public many of the embarassing(can I say racist?) underpinnings of psychometrics.

Even if psychometrics is not inherently racist, the continued sorting of individuals on the basis of race and class has no effect but to stigmatize and socially divide. However, I understand that it is part of human nature to continue conducting such studies.

This book is enlightening. If you're in the field and you read journals, however, it is nothing new. (The book is a compilation of journal articles.)