The Flynn Effect Analysis

1494 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Standardized testing in education

Among the great debate of religion lies the question in the theory of evolution. Evolution is not questionable, it is fact, but are we still evolving? The answer lies within the last few thousand years. Henry Harpending from the University of Utah says, "We aren't the same as people even 1,000 or 2,000 years ago." Due to the rapid evolution in technology, it is easy to see humans are evolving socially, but humans are mostly experiencing changes within their genetic makeup. Using limited data, Professor Harpending and seven other universities found over 3.9 million point mutations. The fact is, 7% of the human genes are rapidly evolving. On average, seventy new mutations appear per generation. The mutations are fueling the rapid evolution in …show more content…

In the popular “Darwin’s Theory” survival of the fittest was the key role in evolution, but does that include intelligence? Robert Ehrlich discusses the evolution of intelligence in his article “Are People Getting Smarter or Dumber?” Through several standardized testing, it is easy to see the rapid incline of passing students in the past few years. IQ scores have also been on the incline. The rapid inclination of IQ score has become known as the Flynn Effect. The Flynn Effect seems like solid supporting evidence for evolution, but the Flynn Effect has flaws. It is impossible to narrow down why humans are achieving high IQ scores. Many factors could play into the high IQ scores such as test taking skills. The high IQ scores correlate with the amount of standardized testing. Since students are taking several standardized tests a semester, they are becoming test savoy. In actuality, scientists are believing humankind is becoming …show more content…

If the thousands of mutations continued to occur without natural selection, humans would have thousands of subspecies, and resources would be scarce. Natural selection brings diseases that are connected to mutations to create a pathway for evolution, but without natural selection humans are evolving with no direction. Modern medicine has become so advanced, diseases are no longer a threat to the population. When an epidemic breaks out, a cure or vaccination is created within two years. “Medicine can be described as ‘the comprehensive attempt to frustrate the course of nature’” as said by John Harris. When cancer was first introduced to mankind, it was because humans are living too long. Now cancer is being found in children and babies. Cancer is nature’s way of reintroducing natural

Show More
Related

  • None Of The Above: What IQ Doesn T Tell You About Race

    108 Words  | 1 Pages

    In his article, “None of the Above: What IQ Doesn’t Tell You about Race” journalist Malcolm Gladwell refutes the notion that intelligence is based on genetics and argues that IQ is not just based on an individual’s level of thinking but also on the location where an individual resides. In 1984, James Flynn discovered that over the years, the IQ of people around the world had been increasing by three points per decade. This is now known as the Flynn effect. The IQ fundamentalists around the world believe that IQ score shows an individual’s level of thinking and it is based on genetics. However, Flynn effect disproves this

    Read More

  • Analysis Of 'The Bell Curve'

    957 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Bell Curve is a book originally published in 1994. It was written by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray to explain the variations of intelligence in American Society. They accomplished this by using statistical analysis, for the purpose of raising warnings regarding the consequences of the intelligence gap. This was also made to propose a national social policy with the goal of mitigating bad consequences that have been attributed to this intelligence gap. Much of the information is widely considered controversial. An example of this is the low African-American scores compared to whites and Asians, and genetic factors in intelligence abilities. The introduction of the book starts with a brief history of intelligence theory and recent developments in intelligence thought and testing. The author creates six assumptions that has to do with the validity of the “classical” cognitive testing techniques.

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Darwinian Medicine

    584 Words  | 2 Pages

    Others include defenses, genes, and design compromises. Some health practitioners treat symptoms without consideration of evolution. This is dangerous both to the individual and to society as a whole. If a fever is viewed as a highly evolved bodily defense, then the decision to treat that fever takes on a new level of consideration. If iron deficiency is a defense to chronic infection, should a supplement be prescribed? If the defense threatens the well being of the patient, then treatment is necessary. If the defense presents discomfort, but is fighting the pathogen, treatment may present the greater danger. On a societal scale, failure to consider evolution combined with over prescription of antibiotics to treat bodily defenses has lead to “superbugs” resistant to

    Read More

  • Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection and Social Darwinism

    2626 Words  | 6 Pages

    Anyone with even a moderate background in science has heard of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. Since the publishing of his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859, Darwin’s ideas have been debated by everyone from scientists to theologians to ordinary lay-people. Today, though there is still severe opposition, evolution is regarded as fact by most of the scientific community and Darwin’s book remains one of the most influential ever written.

    Read More

  • Synthesis Essay: How Evolution Has Changeed Species

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    Natural selection is the process at which organisms develop the best traits they can in order to pass them on to their offspring in order to improve their offspring genetics as well as traits. The reason organisms use natural selection is because they want to increase their offspring survival compared to their own. By organisms using natural selection it can help provide scientist with insight to reason why some organism have selected certain traits that they wanted to develop and have pasted on to their offspring. Also , with the use of natural selection it helps scientist to understand how some organism pick their mates in order to improve their

    Read More

  • Evolving Ourselves Chapter Summary

    429 Words  | 1 Pages

    Evolving Ourselves explained well about how human is depending on technology, and it is changing our life quickly and easily. The mushrooming technological development changing the environment as well as our DNA. In the book, it was nicely introduced about Darwinism and compared the theory on natural selection and random mutation which are not the primary determinants to change life forms. If Darwin is alive today, he will add unnatural selection and nonrandom mutation to the theory.

    Read More

  • Skymall: Pie In The Sky: Ethical Consumerism

    1083 Words  | 3 Pages

    Once again, the growth of intellectual abilities was necessary for our ancestors to survive the harsh conditions of that age. As things became easier, intelligence became less imperative. In early times, someone who wasn’t clever enough to provide for their survival likely died, and through this process only the sharpest of people produced offspring (Kim). However, the idea of humans getting more stupid instead of smarter is very controversial. All the technologies of today’s world were invented by some amazing minds, and the incredibleness of those objects cannot be denied (Pappas). Despite the evidence that human minds are still growing in capacity, the fact still stands true that people are “allowed” to be less intellectually capable and still live quite comfortably. Grand intelligence isn’t necessary. This permits many people to “feed off of” the brilliance of others while still being routine

    Read More

  • Evolution: Mutation, Natural Selection, Genetic Drift and Gene Flow

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    It also allows species to survive. It produces new and different species through ancestral populations of organisms and moves them to new populations. Both natural selection and genetic drift decrease genetic variation. If they were the only mechanisms of evolution, populations would eventually become homogeneous and further evolution would be impossible. There are, however, mechanisms that replace variation depleted by selection and drift (Colby).

    Read More

  • The Outliers Gladwell Analysis

    1160 Words  | 3 Pages

    Malcolm Gladwell makes many debatable claims in his book “The Outliers”. One of these controversial topics is brought up in chapter three when he talks about a person’s IQ and how that relates to one’s success. Gladwell says, “The relationship between success and IQ works only up to a point. Once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around 120, having additional IQ points doesn’t seem to translate into any measurable real-world advantage.”After reading “Outliers” I believe that this is the greatest controversial topic. I agree with Malcolm Gladwell because there are a high amount of people who are not incredibly smart that are very successful, success can be viewed differently by different people, and from my own experiences on the U-High

    Read More

  • Homo Habilis: The Evolution Of Human Evolution

    1916 Words  | 4 Pages

    Are we still evolving? How do humans and apes share a common ancestor? Modern human species or Homo sapiens have shown great similarities in the physical and genetic makeup to another group primates species, the apes. Both organisms share a common ancestor dating back eight to six million years ago. Evolution means change over time. Human evolution is the process by which humans have emerged from apelike ancestors. Through sequences of mutations, genetic drift, migration, and natural selection and technology we are able to observe the amazing amount of similarities and diversity of humans to other living organisms. Humans have roamed the earth for about six million years. At least, that is from when the oldest human ancestor was discovered.

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Intelligence

    1196 Words  | 3 Pages

    Recent information collected showing an increase to our IQs have many asking the question, are we smarting than our ancestors? Unlike our predecessors, we live in a time that poses a greater range of cognitive problems than our ancestors encountered, and as a result we've developed new cognitive skills and the kinds of brains that can deal with these problems. So in a way we are getting smarter throughout history, though it is widely debated if this is due to our environment or genes. Since IQ tests have been standardised many times over the last one hundred years, scientists have participants take a test designed for a previous age and record the results. What (Flynn, 1994) unearthed was that new test takers score much higher than those of the older generation. Flynn and his colleagues guessed that the difference in scores was due to improving modern environments. To them IQ is part heritable and part environmental- provide a child with opportunities to learn and they're likely to have a higher IQ later in

    Read More

  • Creation vs. Evolution

    701 Words  | 2 Pages

    There was a Dutchman named Hugo DeVries who found something interesting one day. He found a flower that had mutated. All of the Evolutionists went crazy over this and thought that this was their big breakthrough as to how life evolved. But scientists refute this claim because they can find no incident where a mutation is good. Every mutation that they have come across has hurt or damaged the organism. They describe a process called natural selection.

    Read More

  • Intelligence: Nature or Nurture?

    1352 Words  | 3 Pages

    On the ‘nature’ side of the debate is the psychometric approach, considered to be the most dominant in the study of intelligence, which “inspired the most research and attracted the most attention” (Neisser et al. 1996, p. 77). It argues that there is one general (‘g’) factor which accounts for intelligence. In the 1880s, Francis Galton conducted many tests (measuring reaction times to cognitive tasks), (Boundless 2013), in order to scientifically measure intelligence. These tests were linked to the eugenic breeding programme, which aimed to eliminate biologically inferior people from society. Galton believed that as intelligence was inherited, social class or position were significant indicators of intelligence. If an individual was of high social standing, they would be more intelligent than those of a lower position. However he failed to show any consistency across the tests for this hypothesis, weakening his theory that social class correlated with intelligence. Nevertheless, his creation of the intelligence test led many to continue to develop...

    Read More

  • Rates Of Evolution Theory: The Rate Of Genetic Theory

    947 Words  | 2 Pages

    Evolution is defined as the process in which there is a change in allele frequency within a population over successive generations, in response to evolutionary forces (Ridley, 2004). The rate of evolution is a measure of how quickly these allele frequency changes take to establish within a population. Evolution is a highly complex process, due to the numerous contributing factors that influence it (Hamilton, 2009). Therefore the rate at which it occurs varies greatly, influenced by a combination of factors such as the mutation rate, the type of mutation, population size and life history traits of taxonomic groups (Frean, 2013). The rate at which evolution occurs is an aspect of Evolutionary Biology that remains highly disputed,

    Read More

  • The Process of Evolution

    980 Words  | 2 Pages

    Natural selection is based on the concept “survival of the fittest” where the most favourable individual best suited in the environment survive and pass on their genes for the next generation. Those individual who are less suited to the environment will die.

    Read More

More about The Flynn Effect Analysis

Open Document