I chose to respond to the article “Searching for Justice: The Discovery of IQ Gains Over Time” by James R. Flynn. Though quite complex, and at times even frustrating, this piece deals with questions that every teacher must contemplate. Flynn writes, “four issues are addressed: the equation between IQ and intelligence, whether group potential is determined by a group’s mean IQ, whether the Black-White IQ gap is genetic, and the meritocratic thesis that genes for IQ will become highly correlated with class.” IQ gains over time are integral to his treatment of these topics. Flynn connects these ideas with “a commitment to a humane-egalitarian concept of social justice.” He supports these ideas with such detail that the layman reader is easily lost in the forest because of all the trees. I will try to summarize his points, sans minutiae.
    What exactly is IQ, and what is intelligence, and what is the equation between them? Does high intelligence directly cause success in life’s endeavors? Intelligence has been classified into many different categories, distinguished from simple knowledge of facts, and called culturally suspect, yet what it is cannot be firmly agreed upon. Flynn writes, “the present generation has a huge IQ advantage over the previous generation. Yet the IQ advantage did not seem to be accompanied by a corresponding achievement advantage.” He discusses fluid intelligence versus crystallized intelligence, and the fact that most IQ tests attempt to measure fluid intelligence, which is considered an innate part of a person’s brain, as opposed to crystallized intelligence, which are facts the person has learned. Thus an unintelligent person who has memorized all the state capitols and other such facts might do better on a culturally biased test than a hunter gatherer of Papua New Guinea who is very intelligent and has a vast amount of crystallized intelligence regarding survival skills for his environment, but who would do very poorly on an IQ test. The reader is forced to reflect on these questions, although an answer is difficult to cement.
    The data on IQ, compiled with demographic data, lead Flynn to ask whether group potential is determined by a group’s mean IQ. He writes, “does their mean IQ really chain ethnic groups to their particular pair of oars in American society?” Some groups seem to achieve either above or below what their mean IQ would indicate. It appears that cultural factors not directly related to intelligence are the cause. He writes that Chinese Americans “performed as if they had a mean IQ 21 points higher than they actually had,” possibly because of culturally dependent work ethic. The example of the Irish and the Chinese potential Stanford law students clearly shows how two people with the same IQ might end up in different life situations. I have also personally known some brilliant people, who partied out of school into a dropout lifestyle, despite getting perfect scores on the ACT test. Other very intelligent people might be hampered by prejudice. The populace’s stereotypes of an ethnic group does effect them, as “even unbiased people are likely to judge individuals by group performance rather than by personal traits.”
There has been a stable 15-point difference in IQs between blacks and whites since people have been testing IQ. This begs the question: is it genetic or environmental? Both answers have been offered with varying justifications by serious scholars as well as racist bigots. I admire Flynn’s openness to considering both possibilities, despite his declared dislike of the genetic answer. He writes, “no one has the right to attack scholars simply because their research has led them to unwelcome conclusions.” His own research on IQ gains over time indicate that the difference is environmental. “An analysis of Armed Forces mental tests … revealed that Blacks had been gaining on Whites.” Also “representative samples of White Americans were setting higher standards of test performance over time.” As it seems illogical for Jim Smith Sr. to give such improved genes for IQ to Jim Smith Jr., who then passes on even better IQ genes on to Jim Smith III, Flynn concludes that “IQ differences between the generations are clearly environmental in origin.”
    What is the cause of this increase in IQ? Some “tests measure intelligence partially through the vehicle of items taught in school, and therefore, more or better schooling could produce the appearance of intelligence gains over time.” However, “from 1930 to the present, the largest IQ gains were on culture reduced tests.” IQ inflation quickly becomes a problem. “IQ gains over time create obsolete norms, and scoring against obsolete norms gives inflated IQs. … The day after an IQ test is published, IQ gains begin to diminish the number of people who score below a score of 70.” The results must be taken with a grain of salt to avoid nonsensical interpretations of past generation’s intelligence. As Flynn asks, “how reasonable is it to assume that 70% of late 19th century Britons could not, even if it were their chief interest, understand the rules of cricket?”
Nonetheless, the scores are improving. Video games, computers, better nutrition, “enhanced socioeconomic status, urbanization, more or better education, and the advent of television,” are causes offered by some for this. Although Flynn gives a reason why each one is not the cause, in the aggregate they seem likely to me. He also asks, “what if parents or schools are enhancing the generalized problem-solving ability that improves performance on IQ tests? … It would simply mean that g can be taught. … It really is true that those with mental agility usually also develop large vocabularies and stores of general information.” As we now know, fetal brains are not fully developed at birth, unlike the heart or liver, but grow and change after birth, and the environment has a tremendous effect on that growth. A rich environment does in fact lead to a more developed, more intelligent brain. Thus, better schooling can lead to higher IQ, not just a more informed student who scores high on culture oriented questions. For example, a friend of mine from the Peace Corps, Richard Russell, was a tank soldier in WW II. He was made a sergeant because he was from the mid-west and could read and write. He told me that most of his comrades from the south, many of whom had only completed eighth grade, could barely read and write. Even those who had graduated from high school were not very educated, in comparison with Richard and his high school education. I would imagine that today’s students from the south are a little more educated than they were when the U.S. was still a largely rural population with one room school houses, and possibly their actual IQ has improved correspondingly. Going further, children on “Star Trek: Next Generation” have calculus problems for homework, which might not be realistic given current developmental thought on children’s ability to abstract, but well educated children of the past read Homer in the original Greek. Who is to say what effects on IQ an advanced education might have?  Already my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter knows that you have to “put the CD on” in order to play Sesame Street on the computer, giving her an understanding of a system that will be integral to her world.
    I find it somewhat strange that Flynn does not mention the fact that many IQ tests are culturally biased towards White American culture, which is often given as a cause of the gap. He touches on it when he writes, “the present generation of an ethnic minority does not compete with a previous generation of American Whites. It must compete with its White contemporaries in the context of a particular social structure. … Black parents want their children to excel in the kind of intelligence that pays dividends in America or England or France, not in some preindustrial society.” He also downplays racism, often given as the “mysterious factor X,” as the culprit. He writes, “racism looks like a potent environmental factor that affects all Blacks both negatively and with considerable uniformity,” and then rejects that. I would say that the environment that racism often creates for Blacks seems another reasonable explanation.
     Flynn finally offers a “powerful piece of direct evidence in favor of genetic equality. The soldiers of the American occupation force in Germany, both White and Black, fathered thousands of children with German women after World War II. … Of 181 Black children and a matching group of 83 White children … their mean IQs were virtually identical. …[This] would indicate that the [White-Black IQ] gap is almost entirely caused by environment. … The troops in postwar Germany provide the best example of Blacks actually escaping the usual American environment, and they provide evidence in favor of an environmental hypothesis.” Further detailed correlations and equations bring Flynn to conclude, “an environmental explanation of the racial IQ gap need only posit this: that the average environment for Blacks in 1995 matches the quality of the average environment for Whites in 1945. I do not find that implausible. … The appropriate rejection of Black genetic inferiority is this: Nothing at present coerces rational belief.”
    Flynn then addresses “the meritocracy thesis… [which] is that the heritability of IQ plus social trends render inevitable a society in which good genes for IQ are highly correlated with class.  … The closer we come to environmental equality, the more all talent differences become caused by genetic differences. The more we eliminate privilege, the more we have total social mobility, and good genes for talent rise to the top and bad genes sink to the bottom.”  He gives several reasons why this thesis is illogical and will not happen. He also appears to loath the prospect of it occurring. I think it is happening to an extent, but not totally. Yes, high status people may find places for their low talent offspring, but in the extremely competitive business climate of the global market place, companies hampered by an ineffective person in an important place because of personal connections will lose out to companies with effective people in important places because of their abilities. For example, the daughter of my company’s former owner used to have a nice cushy job as European sales agent, although we all knew that she actually did very little work. She lost that position immediately after the company was bought by a large, multinational company. Even though prejudices and injustices still do exist, so do possibilities for minorities and women who do have what it takes to attain their goals.
    Flynn asks for someone to offer “a plausible social dynamic… [of] how environmental equality [is] to be achieved when a large underclass is already knocking at the door. … Hernstein and Murray imagine environments being equalized by magic.” I don’t believe magic is necessary. I don’t imagine environments being totally equalized. However, an adequate minimum environment of sufficient food, housing, education and employment could be established, both out of philanthropic reasons, for people like myself with a conscience due to philosophical or religious beliefs, and out of egotistical realization that our health and safety as a society depends on not turning out criminal psychopaths at the rate that we currently are. He writes, “the truth is that we cannot push equality much beyond our capacity to humanize. Every significant step toward equality must be accompanied by an evolution of values unfriendly to success as defined by the present class structure.” Not necessarily, look at social countries like Sweden. I admit, the United States has far, far to go in becoming a socially responsible society, but we just possibly might be able to achieve it. As singer Greg Brown says, “I watched my country become a coast to coast shopping mall. If we can do all this in just thirty years what could we do if we tried?”
    Flynn holds some beliefs that I cannot share. He writes, “the humane-egalitarian quest of abolishing inequality and privilege … is a poor ideal that must pray for eternal failure to avoid unwelcome consequences.” I ask, what unwelcome consequences, what is wrong with there being a class stratification based on talent? I have no problem with everybody having adequate food, housing, clothing, education and employment, but I also have no problem with some people having more than others. Humanity strives for excellence. Albert Einstein, Michael Jordan, Miles Davis, and Luciano Pavorati are not household names because they were mediocre in their fields. They are famous and admired for their outstanding inequality compared to other people. How reasonable is it to expect that they will not give their children an environment that is unequal to the children of normal people? Flynn seems to consider this unfair. He writes, “upper-class parents will always find ways of bending the rules in favor of their children.” As for myself, my wife is French, but we speak German to each other. Our two-and-a-half-year-old daughter is functionally fluent in French and English and understands German. As both my wife and I are teachers, we read to her every day and spend a lot of time with her in educational activities. She knows the alphabet, the colors, numbers to ten, and a vast amount of vocabulary, including the names of most folk instruments, which I often play to her. When she plays with her six-year-old cousin, it is she who tells the older child about letters and colors. I would be surprised if she is not reading by the time she starts kindergarten. Tell me she does not have an unequal environment, compared to, say, one eight-year-old girl I met in my initial clinical who had trouble reading and asked, “What’s a guitar?” upon seeing mine. Tell me I should refrain from giving my child this environment for any reason, and I’ll tell you where you can go.
    What is wrong with meritocracy? Does Flynn truly want a world where absolutely everybody is equal in every quality? Even if he wants it, does he seriously believe it is ever attainable? He writes, “charitable feelings toward others could survive, but not the great ideal of reducing inequalities of environment and privilege, not if every step in that direction is a step toward an even more obnoxious inequality.” I disagree. He continues, “for most of us, giving everyone an equal chance would mean that the lowest level of environmental quality would have to be rather good.” I do agree with that. I believe that the level of public education given to everyone should be very good, although as mentioned above I also believe that it is impossible to insure absolute equality. Even if we change the law to fund Edina schools exactly the same as inner city Minneapolis schools, the Edina P.T.A. is still going to find a way to fund their hockey program.
    This was quite an interesting article, but what will it mean to me as an elementary school teacher in the Twin Cities? Of course, I must be aware of the trends that IQ and group membership imply, but each student in my future classroom will be an individual with the possibility of being anywhere on the IQ curve. I may have a class full of Black children with exceptionally high IQs. I may have a class full of White students who are not very bright. I will probably have a mix. My understanding of intelligence leads me to believe that teaching children actually does improve their intelligence, both fluid and crystallized. The culturally dependent factor of motivation and effort are equally important, as lazy geniuses could fail where diligent dullards succeed. I will strive to make my students exercise their minds. One more thing, I don’t think that I will subject them to any IQ tests.