There has been an interesting tendency in measured human intelligence (IQ) over the past century: average IQ has risen 3 points every decade. This was first observed during the 1980s by James Flynn, and is now called the Flynn effect. The tendency was never taken seriously before simply because the current group is always taken as the basis for the average IQ (100).
The implications are interesting, for instance in explaining the commonly held belief that IQ tends to drop as people grow into old age. It has now been found that comparing the person's score with the corresponding group, the expected score is more or less accounted for.
No one really knows why this happens but the author of the article contends that factors like the general improvement in nutrition and health, reinforced by a surplus of leisure time, increased wealth and education, allow parents better to care for their children and attend to their learning needs, and children to better be able to teach themselves.
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