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Neisser, U. (Ed.). (1998). The rising curve: Long-term gains in IQ and related measures. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association (415 pp., $27.97 hb, ISBN 1-55798-503-0).
Ulric Neisser's edited volume The Rising Curve: Long-term Gains in IQ and Related Measures addresses three issues: gains on intelligence tests, the narrowing gap in school achievement between Blacks and Whites, and the hypothesis of dysgenic trends in intelligence. Half of the book is dedicated to the first issue, which is seen by the editor and Howard Gardner (on the book jacket) as providing a serious challenge to the findings of The Bell Curve. The argument is that, contrary to notion of "fixed intelligence," IQs worldwide have shown a dramatic increase over the past century. The basic evidence for this is studies of changes in score distributions for the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices over time documented by the psychologist James Flynn. Several psychologists, including Flynn, discuss the implications of these findings, which have now been termed the "Flynn Effect." The authors explore various explanations: test wiseness, environmental complexity, cultural evolution, school effects, home influences, and nutrition. The second section of the book focuses on Black-White test score differentials on achievement tests over...