James R. Flynn

James Robert Flynn (also Jim Flynn, born 1934) is an intelligence researcher and Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, known for his discovery of the Flynn effect, the continued year-on-year rise of IQ scores in all parts of the world. Flynn is the author of five books and his research interests are humane ideals and ideological debate, classics of political philosophy, and race, class and IQ (see race and intelligence).. His books combine political and moral philosophy with psychology to examine problems such as justifying humane ideals and whether it makes sense to rank by merit races and classes. He currently sits on the editorial board of Intelligence. Originally from Chicago, Flynn arrived in New Zealand in 1963.

Flynn is a passionate campaigner for liberal causes, and was a founding member of both the NewLabour Party and the Alliance. He also advised Labour Prime Minister Norman Kirk on Foreign Policy. He has stood for Parliament on a number of occasions, most recently in 2005 as an Alliance list candidate, and is currently their spokesperson on Finance and Taxation.

In 2007, new research from the 2006 New Zealand census showed that those women without a tertiary education had produced 2.57 babies each, compared to 1.85 babies for those women with a higher education. In July 2007, Flynn was misquoted in the Sunday Star Times as having suggested that New Zealand was at risk of having a less intelligent population and that there a "persistent genetic trend which lowered the genetic quality for brain physiology would have some effect eventually". Among the hypothetical eugenicists' suggestions that he referred to for reversing the trend was for some sort of oral contraceptive "in the water supply and have to take an antidote" in order to conceive. Flynn commented that at "73 he was too old to worry about offending anyone". One academic described what was reported as Flynn's view in the Sunday Star Times as "totally repugnant" and that it was "social engineering of the worst sort".

Flynn later articulated his own views, showing that the Sunday Star Times had grossly misrepresented his views, on Close Up in an interview with Paul Henry. Flynn argues that his suggestion was not serious, but intended to illustrate a point. . The possibility of manipulating fertility was previously suggested in the controversial best-seller The Bell Curve, a book which Flynn consistently argues against in his academic work and teaching.

Partial bibliography

 * Race, IQ and Jensen
 * Humanism and Ideology: an Aristotelian View
 * Asian Americans : Achievement Beyond IQ
 * How to Defend Humane Ideals
 * What is Intelligence?