As each day passes, we are smarter. Perhaps In different ways than the previous day, but nonetheless, ...smarter.

This week I finished the book "The Better Angels of our Nature" by Steven Pinker. Keeping in mind that "by definition" the average IQ score must be 100, Pinker points out (on page 626) that to comply with this definition "the companies that sell IQ tests periodically renorm the scores." On page 627 he goes on to say:

"An average teenager today, if he or she could time-travel back to 1950, would have had an IQ of 118. If the teenager went back to 1910, he or she would have had an IQ of 130, besting 98 percent of his or her contemporaries. Yes, you read that right... ...a typical person today is smarter than 98 percent of the people in the good old days of 1910. To state it in an even more jarring way, a typical person of 1910, if time-transported forward to the present, would have a mean IQ of 70, which is at the border of mental retardation.?"

Pinker goes on to explain that the good people of 1910 were not at all mentally retarded; they were just utilizing the intelligence necessary for that time and place. Gains in intelligence over the decades since have been in areas of abstract reasoning, which I interpret as necessary for the technological advances that have created the smaller world of this time and place. It appears that within a given time and circumstance, we utilize the intellectual skills necessary for progress and adaptability. And while (for me) this is encouraging, I might also argue that many individuals, (perhaps even a majority), could (and should) put forth more effort to stay ahead of (or at least with) the leading edge of innovative thought and abstract, connective reasoning.

According to the dictionary app on my phone, stupidity is "Lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind." Just as the bar for 'average intelligence' has been raised since 1910, so too has the bar that measures 'ordinary quickness and keenness of mind'. I believe that 'stupidity' today is a reflection of one's inflexibility and inability to expand thought into ever-widening circles of possibility; while in 1910 stupidity might have been attributed to one who was unable to cipher with pencil and paper or recite the state capitols. To some, this contrast of intelligence and stupidity may sound harsh. To me it is simply a different phrasing of previous written thought on the dangers of certainty and the mutual beneficence of uncertainty. "So what" if your cashier at the convenience store cannot count back your change. While this lack of skill is to some a sad reflection of the times, the reality is that this skill is not necessary for these times. This ordinary convenience store clerk may very well be extraordinary in ways unheard of in 1910; and yet his incredible skills (by 1910 standards) may still translate into 'ordinary' in this time and place.

One hundred years ago our circles of influence were more tightly bound in family and community creating and allowing for a higher degree of certainty based on this smaller in-group consensus. Today, not only are our in-groups larger (up to and including all of humanity) but we as individuals are often attached to a greater number and diversity of in-groups, which in turn create uncertainty and require adaptability.

I have been on vacation this past week enjoying the company - and the technological wizardry - and the social savvy - of my three-and-a-half year old granddaughter. Living several hundred miles away, I don't see her (or my daughters) nearly as often as I would like, but when I am exposed to this youngest grand-generation, I really am encouraged. The children growing up today with the technology of today, and the more subtle advances of today, (I believe) will spend less time marveling and more time asking questions that will lead to productively beneficial solutions.

I believe that this grand-generation will adapt and learn to reject certainty and actively accept uncertainty as the new norm - and that is encouraging.