James Flynn (academic) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
James Flynn
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Flynn in June 2007
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James Robert Flynn
28 April 1934 Washington, D.C., United States
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| Died | 11 December 2020 (aged 86) |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago (AB, PhD) |
| Known for | Flynn effect |
| Children | Victor Flynn |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Political philosophy, intelligence |
| Institutions | University of Wisconsin-Whitewater University of Canterbury University of Otago |
James Robert Flynn (28 April 1934 – 11 December 2020) was a famous researcher who studied intelligence. He was born in Washington, D.C., United States, and later moved to Dunedin, New Zealand in 1963. There, he taught political studies at the University of Otago.
Flynn became well-known for his discovery that IQ scores around the world were increasing over time. This interesting trend is now called the Flynn effect. Besides his academic work, he also strongly supported social democratic ideas throughout his life.
Contents
James Flynn's Life and Discoveries
Early Life and Education
James Robert Flynn was born on April 28, 1934, in Washington, D.C. His parents were Irish-Americans from Missouri. His father, Joseph, left school at age 12 to work in a factory. He later became a journalist and editor. Flynn said his father was a "keen reader" who loved to solve the New York Times crossword puzzle.
A Young Reader and Thinker
Flynn's father read classic books to him when he was young. Flynn grew up "surrounded by good literature" and became a big reader himself. He later wrote a book about world literature. In a speech, he told graduates to learn by reading "works of great literature". His mother, Mae, worked in an office and was a homemaker. She had also trained as a teacher. Flynn had a brother named Joseph, who became a chemist.
Flynn was raised in the Roman Catholic faith. He was a choir boy at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. He also went to Catholic private schools. At age 12, Flynn won a full set of World Book Encyclopedia in a competition. After reading about scientific ideas for how the universe began, he decided to no longer follow his Catholic religion. He felt that rejecting his religious upbringing and his parents' views on race helped him form his own ideas about equality. Flynn described himself as an "atheist, a scientific realist, a social democrat".
Flynn loved running and was a competitive runner his whole life. He ran for his high school and college teams. He won six US running medals.
College and Activism
In the 1950s, Flynn received a scholarship to the University of Chicago. He first wanted to study math or physics. But he decided to study moral and political philosophy instead. This field felt more practical to him.
Flynn was a strong supporter of democratic socialism throughout his life. In college, he joined the Socialist Party of America. After graduating, he became an activist for civil rights. While studying for his doctorate, he worked with the NAACP on housing projects. His doctorate paper was about "Ethics and the Modern Social Scientist."
He met his wife, an attorney, at a protest against segregation in Maryland. She was 17 and he was 26. She said he had all the qualities she wanted in a husband. She proposed to him three times. He said no twice because she was so young, but accepted the third time. They named their oldest son, Victor Flynn, after a socialist leader. Their daughter became a clinical psychologist.
Early Career and Moving to New Zealand
After getting his doctorate in 1958, Flynn taught at Eastern Kentucky University. There, he led a local group of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). This was a civil rights group in the US South. He was criticized by the mayor and the university for his anti-segregation work. He was also removed as the university's track coach. In 1961, he left Kentucky to teach at other universities. He was later fired from one of these jobs for his political views and peace activism.
Flynn said he was often fired in America in the early 1960s because of his social democratic beliefs. So, in 1963, when he was 29, he moved with his family to New Zealand. He taught at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch. He continued to support the American civil rights movement from afar. In New Zealand, Flynn kept working for left-wing causes. He even advised the Labour Prime Minister Norman Kirk on foreign policy. He was part of an anti-war group and spoke out against nuclear proliferation.
In 1967, he joined the University of Otago in Dunedin. He became the first Professor of Political Studies and led the university's politics department. In 1973, Flynn published a book called Humanism and Ideology: An Aristotelian View.
Understanding the Flynn Effect
In 1978, Flynn was working on a book to challenge ideas about racism. He read an article by psychologist Arthur Jensen. Jensen's article suggested that Black people scored lower on IQ tests due to genetic differences.
Flynn first planned to spend only a few pages in his book discussing Jensen's work. But as he studied old IQ tests, he noticed something important. Even though IQ tests were always set so that 100 was the average score, people's actual raw scores were getting better over time. Flynn calculated that the average American in 1900 would have scored a 67 on a 2000 IQ test. This score would suggest a mental impairment.
What is the Flynn Effect?
Such a big increase in IQ scores in just a few generations could not be due to genetics. So, Flynn concluded that the increases must be caused by changes in the environment. This meant that a person's IQ is influenced more by their surroundings than by their genes.
In 1980, Flynn published his research in his important book, Race, IQ and Jensen. He argued that increases in IQ scores over time, and differences between groups, are due to environmental factors, not genetic ones.
In 1984, he published an article showing that Americans' average scores on IQ tests increased by 13.8 points in 46 years. This was a huge jump.
Some people thought the IQ increase might just be due to better education. So, Flynn looked at Raven's Progressive Matrices IQ tests. These tests use visual patterns instead of words. They measure "on-the-spot problem solving" and are not affected by education or culture. In 1987, Flynn found that IQ scores in 14 countries increased by five to 25 points on these tests. This increase has been steady over time.
In 1994, a book called The Bell Curve was published. It talked about Flynn's research and named the increase in IQ scores the "Flynn effect." Flynn often debated with other researchers, but they respected each other.
Flynn believed in equality for all races. He argued that intelligence is shaped by environmental factors linked to a person's social and economic situation. He did not believe there were genetic differences in intelligence between races.
The "Flynn effect" is the significant and ongoing rise in intelligence test scores seen in many parts of the world. When IQ tests are first created, the average score is set to 100. But when new groups of people take older tests, their average scores are usually much higher than 100.
Flynn became famous around the world for the Flynn effect. Psychologists widely accept it. It has been seen in many developed and developing countries. The increases are too fast to be caused by changes in genes. They match environmental changes like modernization and better education. The Flynn effect led researchers to rethink IQ tests and what human intelligence really is.
There are many ideas about why the Flynn effect happens. Some recent studies suggest that the Flynn effect might have stopped in some developed countries. Flynn himself, with a colleague named William Dickens, suggested that IQ and environment affect each other. A challenging environment can raise someone's IQ. Also, a higher IQ can lead someone to choose more challenging environments.
Later Life and Other Interests
While teaching at Otago in the 1990s, Flynn helped start the NewLabour and Alliance political parties. He ran for a seat in the New Zealand House of Representatives several times but was not elected. In 2008, he was the Alliance party's spokesperson for finance.
In 1996, Flynn stepped down as head of the University of Otago's politics department. In 1997, he became an Emeritus Professor in the Politics and Psychology departments.
Flynn continued teaching and wrote many books in his later life. He wrote almost a book every year in his last decade. His books covered many topics. He was interested in humane ideals, political philosophy, and the relationship between race, class, and IQ. His books combined philosophy and psychology to look at problems like justifying humane ideals.
Even though his work on IQ was very successful, Flynn saw himself mostly as a philosopher. He felt he had just taken a "holiday" in psychology.
In 2010, Flynn published The Torchlight List: Around the World in 200 Books. In this book, he looked at world literature. He suggested that people can learn more from reading great books than from going to university.
Flynn published three books in 2012. Are We Getting Smarter? Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century summarized his past IQ work. It also answered questions about environmental causes for IQ differences between groups. Beyond patriotism: From Truman to Obama criticized US foreign policy. It suggested people should care more about the world community than just their own country. Fate & philosophy: A journey through life's great questions discussed science, ethics, religion, and free will.
In 2012, some news outlets reported that women had, for the first time, scored higher than men on IQ tests. However, Flynn said the media had misunderstood his findings. He had found that differences between men and women on one specific test had become very small in five modern countries. Women had caught up with men in these countries because they had more opportunities in jobs and education. Flynn believed that men and women are "dead equal on cognitive factors" when it comes to solving abstract problems.
Flynn's 2013 TED talk, "Why our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents'", has been watched millions of times.
In 2016, Flynn published No Place to Hide: Climate Change: A short introduction for New Zealanders. In this book, he suggested using climate engineering to delay the effects of climate change. This would give time for renewable energy to become more available.
In 2019, Flynn faced a challenge with his latest book. It was originally called In Defense of Free Speech: The University as Censor. The book looked at whether modern universities still supported free thinking. His English publisher, Emerald Group Publishing, decided not to publish it. They thought it might be too controversial under UK hate speech laws. Many academics supported Flynn. Later, a US publisher, Academica Press, published the book under a new title: A Book Too Risky to Publish: Free Speech and Universities.
Important Awards and Recognition
Flynn became an Honorary Fellow for life of the New Zealand Psychological Society. In 1998, he received a special award from them. In 2002, he won the University of Otago's gold medal for Distinguished Career Research. In 2007, he became a Distinguished Contributor of the International Society for Intelligence Research. The University of Otago gave him an honorary Doctorate of Science in 2010.
He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. In 2011, he received its Aronui Medal. He was also a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, a Distinguished Visiting Speaker at Cornell University, and a Distinguished Associate at Cambridge University. Flynn was on the editorial board of the journal Intelligence.
Flynn retired in 2020. He passed away on December 11, 2020, at the age of 86, after a period of illness.
See also
In Spanish: James Flynn para niños
