Actually, to give precedence, it should be called the Smith effect[1]. Few would argue that Lynn or Flynn "discovered" it; they just popularized it so that it became an official tributary of inquiry in the river of intelligence research. Their (quite scholarly, as far as academic debates go) debate (real IQ increase via nutrition vs. IQ is meaningless) helped spur other researchers to investigate the issue.

Oh, and the title of Flynn's 1982 article is "Lynn, the Japanese, and environmentalism," and, I'm 95% sure its a rebuttal of Lynn's 1982 Nature article. Nevertheless, Lynn was looking at this topic in the 1970s [2-5]. Although, admittedly, not via the lens of why-is-there-an-increase-in-IQ-over-time, but work that (somewhat) anticipated it (e.g., why are their discrepancies in mean IQs in various countries and/or changes w/in in a given country?)

PS, I ordered the Bulletin articles. I'll pass them along when they come, and we can parse through them.


[1] Smith, S. (1942). Language and nonverbal test performance of racial groups in Honolulu before and after a 14 year interval. Journal of General Psychology, 26, 51-93.

[2] Lynn, R. (1977) The intelligence of the Japanese. Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 30, 69-72.

[3] Lynn, R. (1977) The intelligence of the Chinese and Malays in Singapore. Mankind Quarterly, 18, 125-128

[3] Lynn, R. (1979). The social ecology of intelligence in the British Isles. British Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, 18, 1-12.

[4] Lynn, R. (1977). Selective emigration and the decline of intelligence in Scotland. Social Biology, 24, 173-182.

[5] Lynn, R. (1979) The social ecology of intelligence in the British Isles. British Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, 18, 1-12.

On a seperate issue, Philip E. Vernon (whose son is Tony Vernon [whose first name is also Philip], a great behavior geneticist), is an vastly underappreciated member of the London School. A very small bio: is here

AlexB:

Your suggestion that "...why are their discrepancies in mean IQs in various countries and/or changes w/in in a given country..." amounts to the Flynn effect is to strecth the meaning of 'anticipated' a bit too much. Along with David B., I don't see how such research pointed up the importance of "... a large, widespread, long-term trend...found throughout the developed world...". Flynn, after all, was the one to call attention/discover and extensively document the trend.

Kumar

Flynn, after all, was the one to call attention/discover and extensively document the trend.

I am not arguring against Flynn being monumental in documenting this effect, although he in no way discovered it. But I think you'll find that his research hatched from debates w/ Lynn's work on IQs in the East. I'll keep silent on this issue, though, until the aforementioned Bulletin articles arrive, as I could be wrong and Flynn started work on it totally independent of Lynn's work.

I stand by the view that the content of Lynn's 1982 paper does not in itself justify the 'Lynn-Flynn' label. As to the origin of Flynn's 1982 paper, Lynn's 'Nature' paper appeared in May of that year, so it is likely (given the page number of Flynn's paper) that Flynn's paper came later in the year. Whether it was a 'riposte' to Lynn's paper we shall have to see. It would be a rather quick turnaround, especially if Flynn was not already working on the subject. I would put the odds at 50:50 that it was actually a response to Lynn's earlier paper on Japanese IQ in the same journal (i.e. the Bulletin, not Nature).

Actually, I *would* argue that Flynn 'discovered' the 'Flynn Effect' in the sense of demonstrating a large, sustained, long-term, widespread rise in mean IQ performance. Earlier writers (including Lynn) had noticed particular instances of this, and occasionally, like Vernon, had even formulated a general proposition about such a trend, but without really documenting it.

BTW, Vernon's 'Intelligence and Cultural Environment' (1969) comments that 'there has been a marked rise in the average intellectual capacity of the British over the past 100 years... Whether there has also been a rise at the top end of the scale, i.e. in the production of men [sic!] of outstanding intellectual ability, would be almost impossible to prove and seems much more doubtful. But there is ample opportunity for taking in more of the 'slack' at the bottom end'.

David B:

"Actually, I *would* argue that Flynn 'discovered' the 'Flynn Effect' in the sense of demonstrating a large, sustained, long-term, widespread rise in mean IQ performance...".

Yes, very much on point. In science, or at least my little corner of it, demonstrating/proving/falsifying counts for a lot more--certainly, that's the case when deciding who gets to visit Stockholm in December.

Kumar

Chris Brand has suggested that rising raw scores on IQ tests were noted as early as the 1940s. You might drop him a line -- he knows a lot about the history of psychometrics.

By the way, somebody with Nexis could look up the first mention in the popular press of rising raw scores. I would bet that it would be in a Keeping Up column by Daniel Seligman (now Dan Seligman) in Fortune in 1981 or 1982. He wrote about the very high IQ scores Lynn found in East Asia (around 110), and mentioned that Lynn had decided that was overstated because of rising scores over time.

Flynn's 1983 'Nature' piece mentions that L. and M. Tarnopol had claimed a rise in Japanese IQ in 1980 - so it may be difficult to pin down who was first to make the claim wrt Japan. We may end up with the Smith-Vernon-Tarnopol-Lynn-Flynn Effect, which would be a bit of a mouthful!

(R. D. Tuddenham, who reported a major increase in the test scores of US army recruits between WW1 and WW2, should also get a mention.)

In fact, almost anyone who has ever studied IQ over time has reported an increase - the conspicuous exception being Cyril Burt, who claimed in 1969 that the IQ of London schoolchildren had been almost static for 50 years. Needless to say, no confidence can be placed in this.

And yet, no-one before Flynn had really grasped the importance of the rising trend as a general phenomenon.

I've always thought Rushton's credit for Lynn was misplaced. This instance is much more clear-cut than e.g. why we credit Darwin for natural selection rather than Wallace. Flynn clearly was alone in isolating the phenomenon that the scientific community discusses today.

Though as David notes, "the Lynn Hypothesis" is correct for the nutrition idea just as "the Brand Hypothesis" is correct for the guessing explanation.

NB - Almost all of the Internet commentary around the "Lynn/Flynn" term revolves around GNXP and Sailer. I noticed a couple of people claim the term sprung from Lynn trying to "take credit" from Flynn. This is incorrect, as all the references I've seen from Lynn just refer to "Flynn correction", etc.