Were our ancestors stupid?

last updated 8 January 2015

James R. Flynn

The Wall Street Journal

Are people really getting smarter? asked James R. Flynn. That’s what IQ tests would suggest. Over the past century, Americans have gained three to five IQ points per decade, on average. This would seem to suggest that our forefathers were dumb, and that the human brain itself has gotten larger. Not so. The real explanation is that IQ tests measure intelligence of a certain sort—the abstract reasoning, pattern-making, and symbolism you find in modern societies. A century ago, people thought in concrete, pragmatic terms. Asked what a rabbit and a dog had in common, they might answer: “You use a dog to hunt rabbits.” Today, the correct answer is: They’re both mammals. Is the latter response more “intelligent” than the former? Not really. In our grandparents’ or great-grandparents’ time, most people had little education, and had to focus mostly on survival. Knowing how to hunt rabbits was more important than how to classify them. Today, education, technology, and a constant bath of information have changed how we think and see the world. Our IQs are unquestionably higher—but we are not inherently smarter than our ancestors.