The 'Flynn Effect' and Flynn's paradox

摘要

1. Lynn on naming Richard is correct. Calling massive IQ gains over time the "Flynn Effect" was an accident of history, a label Charles Murray coined in The Bell Curve in 1994. It is not a verdict a court would have been likely to hand down if it had an eye for the historical record. It is only fair to note that Murray's rationale did not attribute historical priority: "We call it 'the Flynn effect' because of psychologist James Flynn's pivotal role in focusing attention on it, but the phenomenon was identified in the 1930s when testers began to notice that IQ scores rose with every successive year after a test was first standardized." (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994, p. 307).