Michael Woodley

Michael Anthony Woodley of Menie, Younger (born 16 May 1984,[1] and better known professionally as Michael A. Woodley) is a British ecologist and intelligence researcher.

Michael A. Woodley

of Menie, Younger
Born
Michael Anthony Woodley

(1984-05-16) 16 May 1984
NationalityUnited Kingdom
EducationRoyal Holloway, University of London (PhD in biology, 2011)
Known forResearch on the evolution of human intelligence and the Flynn effect
Scientific career
FieldsEcology, psychometrics
InstitutionsVrije Universiteit Brussel
ThesisOn the community ecology of Arabidopsis thaliana (columbia 0): An experimental investigation into the domains of co-existence, competition and life history (2011)

Biography

Woodley is the eldest son of Caroline Cuthbertson and Michael Woodley of Menie, 28th Baron of Menie.[2][3]

He received his PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London in 2011, with a dissertation on the life history ecology of Arabidopsis thaliana.[4] Since then, he has focused his research on the evolution of human intelligence and life history traits.[1]

In January 2013, he became a permanent research fellow with the Center Leo Apostel at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Brussels, Belgium.[5] From 2015 to 2016, he was scientist in residence at Chemnitz University of Technology.

Research

Woodley is primarily known for his research on secular trends in human intelligence. He first gained widespread attention in 2013, when he authored a study reporting that average general intelligence (g) had decreased by about 1.16 intelligence quotient (IQ) points per decade, possibly due to dysgenic selection, since the Victorian era. This was based on a meta-analysis of studies measuring simple visual reaction time, starting in the late 19th century.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Woodley's co-occurrence model predicts that cognitive measures which serve as stable and highly heritable measures of g should decline with time due to genetic changes, the Flynn effect being restricted to narrower and less-heritable abilities and skills that rise over time due to environmental improvements.[1] Other researchers have looked for evidence of this model in meta-analyses of time trends in measures of short-term and working memory,[13] visuo-spatial ability,[14] and ability-based emotional intelligence.[15]

Woodley authored a 2014 study arguing that the Flynn effect is, in part, a result of people becoming better at using simple rules for identifying solutions to IQ test items, rather than a true increase in g.[16] In 2016, he authored a study which found a negative relationship between a population’s level of a polygenic score linked to educational attainment and fertility rates.[17] A study he authored in 2017 reported that polygenic scores linked to both educational attainment and g are more common among Europeans now than was the case earlier in the Holocene epoch, three to five thousand years ago.[18] In 2018, he joined the editorial board of the journal Intelligence.[19]

London Conference on Intelligence controversy

In 2018, Woodley was criticized for his involvement with the controversial London Conference on Intelligence, for which he co-wrote a paper with the editor-in-chief of Mankind Quarterly, Gerhard Meisenberg.[20][21] He subsequently organized a formal response to the controversy which was co-signed by fourteen other academic attendees and was published in the journal Intelligence.[22]

Books
  • Woodley, Michael A. (2008). In the Wake of Bernard Heuvelmans: An Introduction to the History and Future of Sea Serpent Classification. Centre for Fortean Zoology. ISBN 978-1905723201.
  • Woodley, Michael A.; Figueredo, Aurelio José (2013). Historical Variability in Heritable General Intelligence: Its Evolutionary Origins and Socio-cultural Consequences. University of Buckingham Press. ISBN 978-1908684264.
  • Woodley of Menie, Michael A.; Figueredo, Aurelio José; Sarraf, Matthew A. (2017). The Rhythm of the West: A Biohistory of the Modern Era, AD 1600 to Present. Council for Social and Economic Studies. ISBN 978-1878465498.
  • Hertler, Steven C.; Figueredo, Aurelio José; Peñaherrera-Aguirre, Mateo; Fernandes, Heitor B. F.; Woodley, Michael A. (2018). Life History Evolution: A Biological Meta-theory for the Social Sciences. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3319901244.
  • Dutton, Edward; Woodley of Menie, Michael A. (2018). At Our Wit's End: Why We're Becoming Less Intelligent and What It Means for the Future. Imprint Academic. ISBN 978-1845409852.
  • Sarraf, Matthew; Woodley of Menie, Michael Anthony; Feltham, Colin (2019). Modernity and Cultural Decline: A Biobehavioral Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783030329839.

References
  1. Figueredo, Aurelio José; Sarraf, M. (2019). Shackelford, Todd K.; Weekes-Shackelford, Viviana A. (eds.). Michael A. Woodley of Menie, Yr. Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. pp. 1–9. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3838-2. ISBN 978-3-319-16999-6.
  2. Dewar, P. B. (2001). Burke's Landed Gentry of Great Britain: The Kingdom of Scotland. Vol. 1 (19th ed.). Wilmington, Delaware: Burke's Peerage and Gentry. p. 1530.
  3. "Michael Woodley of Menie, 28th of Menie". ThePeerage.com.
  4. Woodley, Michael A. (2011). On the community ecology of Arabidopsis thaliana (Columbia 0): an experimental investigation into the domains of co-existence, competition and life history (Ph.D). University of London.
  5. "Michael Woodley". VUB.ac.be. Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
  6. Woodley, M. A.; te Nijenhuis, J.; Murphy, R. (November–December 2013). "Were the Victorians cleverer than us? The decline in general intelligence estimated from a meta-analysis of the slowing of simple reaction time". Intelligence. 41 (6): 843–850. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2013.04.006.
  7. Konnikova, Maria (April 2014). "Does thinking fast mean you're thinking smarter?". Smithsonian.
  8. Collins, Nick (13 May 2013). "The Victorians were smarter than us, study suggests". The Telegraph.
  9. Moss, Stephen (14 May 2013). "Were the Victorians cleverer than us? It depends which way you look at it". The Guardian.
  10. "Last century: Western nations lost an average of 14 IQ points". United Press International. 23 June 2013.
  11. Gregoire, Carolyn (11 May 2014). "Is Human Intelligence Rising with Each Generation?". The Huffington Post.
  12. "Our IQ is on the decline: A study suggests Victorians had higher IQ than us". Hindustan Times. 19 July 2017.
  13. Wongupparaj, P.; Wongupparaj, R.; Kumari, V.; Morris, R. G. (2017). "The Flynn effect for verbal and visuospatial short-term and working memory: A cross-temporal meta-analysis". Intelligence. 64: 71–80. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2017.07.006.
  14. Pietschnig, J.; Gittler, G. (2015). "A reversal of the Flynn effect for spatial perception in German-speaking countries: Evidence from a cross-temporal IRT-based meta-analysis (1977–2014)". Intelligence. 53: 145–153. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2015.10.004.
  15. Pietschnig, J.; Gittler, G. (2017). "Is ability-based emotional intelligence impervious to the Flynn effect? A cross-temporal meta-analysis". Intelligence. 61: 37–45. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2016.12.006.
  16. Robb, Alice (2 December 2013). "Our IQs are climbing, but we're not getting smarter". New Republic.
  17. Moody, Oliver (16 July 2016). "Age of stupidity dawns as clever parents have fewer children". The Times.
  18. Moody, Oliver (18 July 2017). "Class of 2017 dumber than Victorians". The Times.
  19. "Editorial Board". Journals.Elsevier.com. Intelligence subsite.
  20. "London Conference on Intelligence 2016" (PDF). Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  21. van der Merwe, Ben (19 February 2018). "It might be pseudo science, but students take the threat of eugenics seriously". New Statesman.
  22. Woodley of Menie, Michael A.; Dutton, Edward; Figueredo, Aurelio José; Carl, Noah; Debes, Fróði; Hertler, Steven; Irwing, Paul; Kura, Kenya; Lynn, Richard; Madison, Guy; Meisenberg, Gerhard; Miller, Edward M.; te Nijhenhuis, Jan; Nyborg, Helmuth; Rindermann, Heiner (2018). "Communicating intelligence research: Media misrepresentation, the Gould Effect, and unexpected forces". Intelligence. 70: 84–87. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2018.04.002.
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