News flash: Thanks to popular culture, America's IQ is rising! Tests
prove it!! Steven Johnson's recent book, Everything Bad is Good for
You: How Popular Culture is making us Smarter (2005), seems calculated
to infuriate those of us who have written off popular culture as dung
for flies. But Johnson does more than simply infuriate - he almost
convinces. Given the sorry appearance of pop culture these days, this
is quite an accomplishment. How does Johnson do it? He begins by
recounting how, in the 1970s, civil rights activist turned amateur
scholar James Flynn vowed to show a conservative establishment that the
gap between the IQ scores of blacks and whites reflected culture
biases, not genetic differences. Confirming his hypothesis, Flynn's
research revealed that as blacks had better access to education and
cultural amenities, their IQ scores went up. But then Flynn discovered
something unexpected. The scores of whites had been rising almost as
quickly. In 46 years, the average IQ. of the American people as a whole
had risen by 13.8 points. Since the time of Flynn's findings,
psychologists and social scientists have documented a three point per
decade rise in IQ scores in most developed countries. According to
Johnson, the best evidence even suggests that the rate of increase is
accelerating.
News flash: Thanks to popular culture, America's IQ is rising! Tests
prove it!! Steven Johnson's recent book, Everything Bad is Good for
You: How Popular Culture is making us Smarter (2005), seems calculated
to infuriate those of us who have written off popular culture as dung
for flies. But Johnson does more than simply infuriate - he almost
convinces. Given the sorry appearance of pop culture these days, this
is quite an accomplishment. How does Johnson do it? He begins by
recounting how, in the 1970s, civil rights activist turned amateur
scholar James Flynn vowed to show a conservative establishment that the
gap between the IQ scores of blacks and whites reflected culture
biases, not genetic differences. Confirming his hypothesis, Flynn's
research revealed that as blacks had better access to education and
cultural amenities, their IQ scores went up. But then Flynn discovered
something unexpected. The scores of whites had been rising almost as
quickly. In 46 years, the average IQ. of the American people as a whole
had risen by 13.8 points. Since the time of Flynn's findings,
psychologists and social scientists have documented a three point per
decade rise in IQ scores in most developed countries. According to
Johnson, the best evidence even suggests that the rate of increase is
accelerating.
