IQ Scores Are Falling But, No, We’re Not Growing More Stupid
Summary
What This Article Is About
Writer Stuart Jeffries takes on the alarming claim that Western populations are getting less intelligent, as suggested by the negative Flynn Effect — a reversal of the pattern identified by philosopher James Flynn, who found that IQ scores rose steadily by three points per decade between the 1930s and 1990s. Jeffries argues that before panicking about screens, social media, or AI, we must ask a more fundamental question: are IQ tests a reliable measure of intelligence at all? Drawing on the famous quip by Professor Edwin G. Boring that “intelligence is what the tests test,” he contends that IQ scores reflect culturally specific values at a given moment in time — they are judgements, not objective facts.
The article ranges across several provocative angles: how high-ranking Nazis scored as geniuses on IQ tests, yet displayed what philosopher Hannah Arendt called a profound moral and empathetic blindness; how a 2023 study found falling scores in most categories but a rise in spatial reasoning, possibly reflecting the demands of video gaming; and how digital tools might be extending rather than replacing human cognitive capacity, much as Marshall McLuhan argued the light bulb extended human powers over darkness. Jeffries ultimately defends a sceptical position: the real problem is the grand delusion that IQ numbers are objective truths rather than culturally relative measures.
Key Points
Main Takeaways
IQ Tests Measure Cultural Values, Not Intelligence
IQ scores reward mental traits that a particular society values at a particular time — making them judgements rather than objective measurements of raw cognitive ability.
The Tests Can Be Racist
Culturally specific questions on IQ papers have historically penalised Black children, labelling them “educationally subnormal” not because they lacked intelligence but because test language was culturally alien to them.
High IQ ≠ Moral Intelligence
Senior Nazis scored as geniuses on IQ tests, yet exhibited the moral and empathetic blindness that Hannah Arendt famously called the “banality of evil” — an incapacity to think from another’s perspective.
Not All Scores Fell — Spatial Ability Rose
A 2023 US study found that while scores dropped in logic, vocabulary, and reasoning, spatial ability — crucial for visually intensive tasks like gaming — actually increased, complicating the “getting dumber” narrative.
Digital Tools May Extend, Not Replace, Thinking
Drawing on McLuhan’s idea of the light bulb, Jeffries argues that AI and digital tools could extend human cognitive reach — if users apply critical discernment rather than passive dependence.
IQ Numbers Are Relative, Not Absolute
The “grand delusion” of IQ is treating scores as objective facts. What counts as intelligent or stupid shifts across time and culture — the tests tell us more about our values than our minds.
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Article Analysis
Breaking Down the Elements
Main Idea
Falling IQ Scores Reveal the Flaws of IQ Tests, Not a Dumber World
The apparent reversal of the Flynn Effect should prompt not alarm but scepticism — about whether IQ tests ever measured genuine intelligence, or merely the culturally specific cognitive traits that each era happened to prize.
Purpose
To Debunk a Popular Narrative by Questioning Its Premise
Jeffries writes not to deny that IQ scores are changing but to challenge the premise that such scores tell us anything meaningful about real intelligence — deploying a rich range of historical, philosophical, and empirical evidence to destabilise what the article calls the “grand delusion” of IQ objectivity.
Structure
Problem Framing → Methodological Critique → Historical Counterexamples → Digital Debate → Sceptical Conclusion
The article presents the falling-IQ narrative, immediately undermines it with measurement critiques, reinforces these with the Nazi IQ and racial bias examples, then examines screens and AI as ambiguous factors before arriving at a self-aware, wry conclusion about the relativity of intelligence measurement.
Tone
Sceptical, Witty & Intellectually Restless
Jeffries writes with the irreverent curiosity of a cultural essayist — his prose is playful without being frivolous, holding difficult ideas (the Holocaust, racism in education) alongside lighter touches, and closing with deliberate self-deprecating irony about his own intelligence.
Key Terms
Vocabulary from the Article
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Tough Words
Challenging Vocabulary
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Not able to be denied or disputed; presenting evidence so solid that it cannot be argued against. The article uses it negatively — IQ numbers do NOT offer incontrovertible evidence of declining intelligence.
“These numbers do not offer incontrovertible evidence that us poor mugs in the developed West are more stupid on average than our grandparents.”
The quality of being comfortably foolish or smugly complacent without awareness of one’s own intellectual vacancy. Used to describe the passive, undemanding mental state that digital convenience can encourage.
“…enabling us, the creators of these machines, to slide into the warm bath of mental fatuity.”
Assigned high value or worth, often by social or cultural consensus rather than intrinsic merit; the article questions whether the abilities that IQ tests valorise genuinely reflect what intelligence means today.
“Some abilities valorised by IQ tests decades ago may be worthless in 2026.”
Until now, or until the point being discussed; a formal word marking a before-and-after boundary. Used in the McLuhan passage to describe what existed in darkness before the light bulb extended human powers.
“The light extends human powers over what was hitherto dark.”
The logical flaw of defining something using the very thing being defined, going round in a circle; applied to Boring’s maxim — “intelligence is what tests test” — which defines intelligence by pointing to tests, not to any independent standard.
“It’s a maxim whose circularity suggests that aptitude at passing IQ tests may be a hopeless proxy for intelligence.”
A state of lacking intelligence or common sense; used in the closing line as deliberate irony — the judgment that we are “more stupid” may itself be an act of witlessness on the part of those making the claim.
“That judgment may say more about our witlessness than our intelligence.”
Reading Comprehension
Test Your Understanding
5 questions covering different RC question types
1According to the article, the 2023 study by researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Oregon found that scores for spatial ability rose among average Americans between 2006 and 2018, even as scores in other categories fell.
2Why does the article include the IQ scores of high-ranking Nazis such as Hjalmar Schacht and Hermann Göring?
3Which sentence most directly states the article’s central argument about IQ tests as a measure of intelligence?
4Evaluate the accuracy of the following three statements based on the article.
The article presents James Flynn as having welcomed the reversal of his original finding, arguing that the decline in IQ scores proved Western societies had reached the limits of educational improvement.
The article uses the example of Caribbean-heritage children misidentifying the word “tap” on an IQ test to argue that culturally specific test language can produce racially discriminatory outcomes.
The article notes that psychologist Elizabeth Dworak proposed the “ceiling effect” — the idea that there is a natural upper limit to how far average human intelligence can rise — as one explanation for the negative Flynn Effect.
Select True or False for all three statements, then click “Check Answers”
5The article compares Marshall McLuhan’s view of the light bulb with the potential role of AI and digital tools. What does this comparison most strongly imply about Jeffries’ own position on digital technology and intelligence?
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
The Flynn Effect is the documented rise of approximately three IQ points per decade across Western nations from the 1930s to the 1990s, identified by philosopher and intelligence researcher James Flynn. Its reversal — with scores in some Nordic nations declining since the mid-1990s, and broader Western populations following suit — alarmed commentators because it suggested that cognitive gains from education, nutrition, and modernisation might be unravelling, potentially linked to screen addiction, AI dependence, or other modern habits.
Hannah Arendt coined this phrase after observing Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann at his 1961 trial in Jerusalem. She was struck not by his monster-like evil but by his shocking ordinariness — his inability to think from another person’s standpoint, which she called a form of “thickheadedness.” Jeffries invokes this to make the point that moral intelligence — the capacity for empathy and perspective-taking — is entirely absent from IQ measurement, yet may be the most important dimension of what we should call intelligence.
Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian media theorist whose 1964 book Understanding Media argued that communication technologies reshape human experience regardless of the specific content they carry. His idea that the light bulb “creates an environment by its mere presence” — extending human control over darkness — is used by Jeffries as an analogy: just as the light bulb was not inherently dumbing or enlightening but extended human capability, AI and digital tools might extend cognitive capacity rather than merely replace it, depending on how they are used.
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This article is rated Intermediate. It introduces several named concepts — the Flynn Effect, the banality of evil, the ceiling effect — that require readers to track multiple strands of argument and distinguish between evidence the author presents versus evidence he immediately qualifies or undermines. The tone is essayistic and ironic at points, requiring readers to notice when the author is hedging or being self-deprecating rather than making straightforward claims. It is ideal for readers building confidence with idea-dense non-fiction.
Psyche is published by Aeon, a longstanding digital magazine known for commissioning in-depth essays at the intersection of psychology, philosophy, science, and culture. Its editorial standard involves expert fact-checking and clearly identified sources, making it well-suited to essays that challenge mainstream narratives — like this one questioning the interpretation of IQ data — in a rigorous but accessible way. It occupies a respected niche between academic journals and general-interest magazines.
The Ultimate Reading Course covers 9 RC question types: Multiple Choice, True/False, Multi-Statement T/F, Text Highlight, Fill in the Blanks, Matching, Sequencing, Error Spotting, and Short Answer. This comprehensive coverage prepares you for any reading comprehension format you might encounter.
