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This generation is the smartest in history, but don't expect children when they grow up to be able to read War and Peace, a leading intelligence researcher says.
Nor should you expect them to get smarter. For decades, IQ test scores have risen dramatically, indicating that the new generation were smarter than their parents.
The discoverer of the phenomenon, Otago University emeritus professor James Flynn, says: "The very fact they occurred creates a crisis of confidence: how could such huge gains be intelligence gains? Either the children of today were far brighter than their parents or IQ tests were not good measures of intelligence."
In his new book, What is Intelligence: Beyond the Flynn Effect, out next week, he argues that rapid changes in Western urban societies have challenged and stimulated our minds to higher development.
But with more advanced schooling practices, the types of intelligence we have acquired and the speeds with which we have picked them up have been the major developments. We are not necessarily smarter than our grandparents.
Today's children may master pre-adult literature earlier but "they are no better prepared for reading more demanding adult literature. You cannot enjoy War and Peace if you have to run to the dictionary every other paragraph."
Professor Flynn said there were signs that IQ gains might cease in developed countries, although they would improve in the developing world as those societies progressed.
"That would refute those who see the lower IQs of developing nations largely as a fixed cause of lack of economic progress."
