Some time ago, I wrote an article in which I pointed out that the "average general intelligence" had stopped in developed countries, and I cited archives of intelligence tests in Japan, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, and Germany. However, talking about "stopping the level of intelligence" does not mean the inevitability of stupidity and backwardness, because there are peoples in whom the average intelligence has not risen at all, while the possibility remains that developed peoples have reached a "higher ceiling" that is difficult for the human brain to exceed at all! The truth is that psychologists and neuroscientists do not know to this day to what extent human intelligence can rise. It is generally observed that the rise in the level of education and knowledge (not to mention technical complexity, openness, and globalization) all raise the average intelligence of society. Intelligence levels rose among European generations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a clear and certain way. This is a phenomenon observed in countries such as Britain, where children's intelligence recorded an increase of 27 points since 1942, and in America 24 points since 1918, and Argentina, Europe, Japan, Canada, China, Australia, and New Zealand (with an average of 20 points) since 1950.
This unprecedented phenomenon in history was confirmed for the first time thanks to the research of Professor James Flynn of the University of Otago (in New Zealand), who in 1987 tested the average intelligence of children in 14 countries and then compared them with the results available since 1950. He found a real leap in the general average. He also reviewed the records of the army in the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark (where new recruits undergo intelligence tests) and found that the average intelligence of the new generation had increased by 25 points!!
Professor Robert Howard of the University of New South Wales in Australia also studied this phenomenon and reached similar results. He gathered his evidence from intelligence tests, mental games (such as chess and towers), and children’s ability to deduce and analyze. The results were positive, and children from all countries achieved higher levels than their fathers and grandfathers! Today’s children have a qualitative advantage represented by higher levels of education, culture, openness, knowledge, and a greater blend of ideas than their fathers and grandfathers. This advantage has contributed to raising their average intelligence compared to their peers in previous generations, not because of changes in the brain itself, but because of the expansion of perceptions and the accumulation of new knowledge. To understand the idea better, imagine the level of understanding of a man living in the Arabian Peninsula only 500 years ago and the extent of his knowledge of geography, history, philosophy, and the existence of peoples living only a thousand kilometers away, not to mention the existence of Venezuela, Argentina, the rings of Saturn, nanotechnology, and the dark side of the moon...!
That's why you won't be surprised if I tell you that the intelligence of today's children has become comparable to the genius of individuals two centuries ago.. Rather, notice how the intelligence of children (even at the level of one family) has become clear through the children's superiority over their parents in using computers and video games, learning to drive, and mastering foreign languages with amazing speed! And when experts today express their fear that the average intelligence in developed countries will stop; it is because developed countries are the most capable of taking future generations to new levels of intelligence that we do not know now (and thus rest assured that we have minds that can penetrate all the supposed ceilings of understanding and knowledge)!!
Personally, I am convinced that just as there are creatures in the animal kingdom that cannot raise their thinking and understanding above a certain ceiling, we humans also have a higher ceiling of intelligence that we cannot exceed or rise above (or even imagine its existence)!!
This, gentlemen, means that all humans will inevitably (in the distant future) reach a unified ceiling of intelligence and a common average of understanding at which everyone is equal.
Only then can we say that we are head to head with the Japanese!
