The IQ Conundrum

Is intel­li­gence a sin­gle, gen­eral fac­tor, or is it more plural and frag­mented? Are we actu­ally get­ting smarter, or are we just get­ting bet­ter at tak­ing tests? This month’s Cato Unbound offers up a cog­ni­tive feast of views­points. James Flynn, who opts for the plural, frag­mented view of IQ, argues that the envirnoment makes a lot of dif­fer­ence in terms of effect on our level of cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing. Once we grasp that “the brain is much more like our mus­cles than we had thought, ” we can do more to improve cog­ni­tive per­for­mance by doing more to exer­cise the brain. “If only we who teach could make more of our “sub­jects” fall in love with ideas. Then we would have truly effec­tive interventions.”