Jim Flynn from Otago U. in New Zeland, the discoverer of the Flynn effect, has published a research paper which includes the city of La Plata, Argentina, whose IQ according to the study has gained 24% between 1963 and the late nineties. As it usually happens with journalistic articles and also with sociology - psychology research papers, the concept seems plausible ("from 36000 feet" as they say) and I would have believed it uncritically except that I lived six years in La Plata - studied in the La Plata National University, so I am familiar with the population he describes.
Flynn deals with the population of the city of La Plata as a constant. Yet this is a city founded less than a hundred years ago for administrative purposes (as capital of the province) and its population in the 1960s was quite different from the 1990s not only in numbers but in quality. This was a period of growth of the university and the provincial administration, and the city more than doubled its population attracting middle class bureaucrats and university staff from Buenos Aires (illustration: Fidel Shaposnik) and the "interior".
Flynn deals with the population of the city of La Plata as a constant. Yet this is a city founded less than a hundred years ago for administrative purposes (as capital of the province) and its population in the 1960s was quite different from the 1990s not only in numbers but in quality. This was a period of growth of the university and the provincial administration, and the city more than doubled its population attracting middle class bureaucrats and university staff from Buenos Aires (illustration: Fidel Shaposnik) and the "interior".
The population of the University (on whose IQ results Flynn's conclusions are based) had no genetic or social relationship with La Plata's stable population. The university attracted tens of thousands of transitory students from Buenos Aires (the capital), the interior of Argentina and from neighboring countries like Bolivia and Peru. It was totally free and admission was liberal with no entrance exams. The courses were structured so that one could graduate in two-three years or ten years. Student life was cheap and easy. In my time, the University even provided free meals to the students and the streets were planted with fruit-bearing trees. La Plata's attractions included a world-standards hyppodrome, a dynosaur-bones museum and enthusiastic girl-volunteers servicing the student population.
It is difficult to make long-term comparisons in countries with fluid populations and in Argentina more than most. It is a very mobile immigrant society, even today, and very free (in the sense that the borders are open and the population is rootless and without ethnic identities).
Should I conclude that the Flynn Effect is non-existent? I dont know. But I sure have doubts about the 24% increase in the IQ of La Plata's population.
Should I conclude that the Flynn Effect is non-existent? I dont know. But I sure have doubts about the 24% increase in the IQ of La Plata's population.
13 comments:
Flynn is almost completely unreliable in the statistics he dredges up in general. I believe he had some study that put Poland at IQ 106. His methodology never adds up.
I have learned to take everything psychometricians say with a huge grain of salt - like any science it is full of wishful thinking, agendas, and bad methodology, that you will never realize unless you look at what they base their conclusions on in detail. Then you will grasp just how shockingly inadequate their evidence for some of their most popular claims are.
Psychometrics has some degree of very limited utility - some test results really do have some limited predictive power, but they have nothing like the predictive power often claimed for them. Entire dimensions of human cognitive performance are not captured by them and real world results frequently do not align with psychometric measurements in serious and dramatic ways.
The field is in an intellectual muddle and should not be taken too seriously. I advise you to read up on the reasoning behind the concept g and the evidence for it - quite an eye opener.
....like any science it is full of wishful thinking, agendas, and bad methodology
What was shocking to me was to realize that this is true even in the "hard" sciences such as physics. The social sciences ...fuggedaboutit...they have zero credibility.
A few years ago there was a leftist academic (Bellesiles) who wrote some papers (and a popular book) to the effect that gun ownership in early America was extremely rare and that therefore there was no historical support for the idea that it should be constitutional right. He claimed he had data for this based upon estate inventories and other public records. Some of the data sounded suspicious so he was pressed for his notes - he claimed that they had been destroyed in a flood. It turned out that some of the sources that he cited were non-existent - he had simply made his data up to suit his pre-existing beliefs. He ended up resigning from his professorship after the fraud was exposed. It would not shock me if Flynn was such a fraud because he is SO beloved of leftists. Like Trayvon the saint, there is a saying among leftist journalists that some stories are "too good to check".
BTW, it turns out that gun ownership WAS extremely common in early America. Not only were such weapons useful for hunting, defending oneself against Indians, etc. but the American founding fathers felt that gun ownership was one of the attributes of a free people and understood that they would serve as a check against tyranny. Europeans to this day take a much narrower view of what freedom consists of - for example the French efforts to restrict the hijab (and likewise the yarmulke) would be entirely illegal in America.
K
Psychometerics, however, ought to be a hard science. It could be.
I have no doubt that IQ tests measure something of vital importance. But like everything else, they are subject to the garbage in, garbage out principle.
Anon
No it is worse than garbage because garbage has at least an element of randomness - this data is intentionally skewed.
K
Quite a strong statement, coming from a lawyer.
Anon.
Maybe Flynn is as honest as the day is long, but his results are so beloved of leftists that I have to be suspicious, especially given that he keeps coming up with fresh results (and no one else seems to). J has already pointed out the methodological flaws in this study and he wasn't even trying very hard. As I said before, the results are too good to check for those on the left.
K
Gould, on the other hand, has recently been exposed as an agenda driven fraudster.
Anon.
Gould - I'm shocked, shocked I telll you. Shocked.
K
ChEck out Lewis E et al, PLoS Biology,June 2011 Vol 9; e1001071.doi:10.1371/journL.PBIO.1001071
Anon
"When PROPERLY analyzed, Gould argued, Morton's measurements show only trivial differences between populations"
"While we differ with Gould in regards to his analysis of Morton, we find other things to admire in Gould's body of work, particularly his staunch opposition to racism"
The authors misunderstood Gould - PROPER analysis in the hands of a leftist is analysis that supports a "non-racist" conclusion. Since Morton's data showed racial differences, a priori it could not have been "proper" and had to be re-analyzed to discredit the dead white male Morton.
Could you even begin to imagine Gould finding that Morton had UNDERestimated racial differences? There's no way he would have published such results. As in much of what leftists do, Gould's accusations against Morton were merely projection.
Even the Soviets ultimately realized that there could be no "socialist science" - science either adheres to the scientific method or not (and in the later case it is not science at all). But in the West, guys like Flynn and Gould are still fighting for their version of Lysenkoism - politically correct science.
K
Gould died in 2002, of esophageal cancer, and is probably still dead.
Anon.
Gould died of esophageal cancer in 2002, and is still dead.
Anon.
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