Rethinking the Flynn Effect

Since its discovery, the Flynn effect has been the target of a general unease that has been manifested within the research literature in various guises, including a dismissiveness of the phenomenon’s significance, an overfitting by complex models, and a bias towards the Flynn effect’s anticipated end. Ironically, one approach not considered by the research community has been to embrace the Flynn effect as valid, fundamental and enduring. This exclusion will prove to be a mistake, because a simple analysis demonstrates that the Flynn effect has been operative within the human species throughout much of human history, ever since the turn towards behavioral modernity, and as a consequence, the Flynn effect has a great deal new to tell researchers about human intelligence today.