Humans Achieve Massive Increase In Average IQs -- But How?
The Average Human Achieves IQ Scores 60 Standard Deviations Above The Average Person of 2016
By the time the year 3016 rolls around, the human race for the first time ever has achieved an average Intelligence Quotient that is 60 standard deviations above today's average.
Using any scientifically valid information available today, how can such an achievement be justified?
Please ignore the fact that different types of IQ tests calculate/calibrate their scores slightly differently.
Please ignore the fact that current tests may not be capable of accurately assessing IQ's at or near modern-day "genius" level
If possible, please cite at least one modern scientific discovery to support your scenario
Valid scenarios must achieve the goal using today's IQ standards. So, please do not use scenarios where IQ is increased by simply altering the IQ tests themselves (i.e. adding more categories of IQ being tested, such as creativity or social intelligence) or where IQ standards are redefined (i.e. restructuring to compensate for factors like scientific racism.)
If you cite the Flynn Effect then please provide a date you feel the goal will be achieved based on 2016 standards and explain why you chose that date
If you say computer-enhanced thinking, augmented thinking, or cybernetic links to the internet, please remember that most if not all IQ tests also test speed with which information in consciousness can be processed by the nervous system and output through motor skills, i.e. the speed of perceiving the question and then providing an answer
If you suggest meditation, please specify which type and why, if possible
If you suggest eugenics, then (if possible) please describe how to implement it so that people eagerly embrace it, and all human rights activists throughout time will applaud it's implememtation
Bonus: If at all possible, please give a date or date range when you think your scenario could occur and an explaination of why you chose that time
NOTE: Please consider not downvoting answers already posted referring to "1000 point IQs", "4 digit IQs" or "900 point increases in average IQ"--those answers were worded that way based on previous wordings of this question.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/65363. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
By definition, the average IQ score is 100. However, the above-mentioned Flynn effect states that average IQs relative to previous years' standards increases.
Going by this paper, the increase in averaage IQ is about $2.9 \pm 0.3$ per decade (in the Stanford-Binet and Wechsler IQ tests) and also suggests that the effect is not diminishing.
Assuming (or perhaps, defining) both of these to be true, the year that the average IQ will be 1000 by 2016 standards is in $310 \pm 3$ decades, or (more likely than not) in the year 5117.
Having said that, the highest possible score is actually somewhere near 200 (depending on the exact test), so actually getting a score of 1000 is literally impossible.
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