Is there any indication of increased intellegence over time within the Human species?

On increase in intelligence, I thought I should mention the Flynn effect.

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The Flynn effect is the continued year-on-year rise of IQ test scores, an effect seen in all parts of the world, although at greatly varying rates. It is named after New Zealand political scientist James R. Flynn, its discoverer. The average rate of rise seems to be around three IQ points per decade.

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Flynn effect - WikipediaThis may merely indicate that IQ is a poor measure of what we mean by "intelligence."

This is actually a bit misleading.There are quite a few books, research article, etc of feral children. You might want to google on "feral child" - there is probably a lot online.It is known that if they are not exposed to language early enough, they will never be able to acquire it very will (the so-called critical age). However, they might have a lot of intelligence, but they are unable to display it in ways that we can discern.This message has been edited by nwr, 11-21-2005 09:39 PM

This is going to depend on what you mean by "intelligence". We don't have very good definitions. The ways that we assess intelligence depend on the ability to communicate.In Message 4 I commented on the Flynn effect (the rise of average IQ over time). James Flynn, who discovered that effect, does not believe that intelligence rises. Rather, he takes the rise in IQ as an indication that IQ is not actually measuring intelligence.Many believe that IQ and other measures of intelligence are culturally biased. The wolf boy was raised in the culture of wolves. The ways that we assess intelligence are biased toward our own culture and do not adequately reflect the ways that intelligence would be expressed in a wolf culture.I guess we are drifting a little off topic for this thread.