Radio Commentary
An interesting fact has emerged from IQ testing over the
past 60 years: Scores have risen so dramatically and so quickly that scientists
say heredity cannot be the cause.
Because IQs
are always adjusted into a bell-shaped curve, with an IQ of 100 being the
mid-point, the rise in raw scores has
not been readily apparent.
But
researchers for 10 years now have been giving subjects IQ tests that had been
unchanged for most of the last century.
The results
show that today’s American children would perform 20 points higher in IQ on the
scale given in 1931.
Today,
about 25 percent would rank as intellectually superior on that 1931 test, when
only 3 percent fell into the category at that time.
Scientists offer a variety of
possible reasons behind the rise in IQs:
• better nutrition,
• improved child-rearing in smaller
families,
• more exposure to schooling and testing,
• the bombardment of media stimulation,
• and modern teaching techniques.
They all agree that heredity could not account for
the rise.
IQ tests measure intelligence,
abstract reasoning, or mental sharpness, and scientists say this is apparently
more responsive to changes in the way we live than to our genetic makeup.
Living in a
richer, more stimulating environment may not make people wiser, kinder, or more
accomplished on tests of recall. But it does seem to make them smarter in the
ways that intelligence tests can record.
