I'm not sure I like some of the things that James Flynn says, but I find his analysis of our evolving intelligence pretty compelling. As a parent, I recognized myself:
And when he looks at his two-year-old grandson, he sees social priorities shifting still further. "His parents have enlisted in the great crusade of intellectual stimulation. If he identifies something they immediately pounce on it. A parent 30 years ago who was looking at a book with their child, if the child said, ‘that's a cow'; they would say, ‘you're right, it's a cow.' Today's parent will add, ‘And what noise does a cow make? How many legs does a cow have?' And away they go."
I tell him that this story makes me think of my own 18-month-old son, who, when I took him to his room the night before our conversation, had turned the light switch on and off, again and again, until finally, to his disgust, I had pulled him away to put him in his cot. "Exactly! Merely being surrounded by mechanical contrivances prepares you to have a different mindset. They are artificial causal networks. That in itself helps to free the mind."
