The Paradoxes of Intelligence: A Case for Cognitive Fitness

How can intelligence be highly heritable while IQ scores shift dramatically across generations? What do those shifts really tell us about the intelligence of our great-grandparents? And if expertise takes 10,000 hours, why don’t decades of professional experience automatically produce mastery? In this talk, McKay Reed Moore explores these apparent paradoxes through the Flynn effect, the relationship between genes and environment, and the difference between routine experience and deliberate practice. Against a backdrop of declining cognitive-test scores in some countries, he examines why heritability does not mean immutability and why time spent doing something is not necessarily time spent improving. These questions lead to a practical case for cognitive fitness: intentionally developing our knowledge and skills through effective learning, meaningful challenge, and feedback. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of intelligence and practical principles for becoming more capable learners.

McKay Reed Moore is a software engineer and the founder of Gwen Learning, a platform designed to help students, professionals, and lifelong learners retain knowledge through spaced retrieval. He holds bachelor’s degrees in psychology from Brigham Young University⁠–Idaho and cloud computing from Western Governors University. Combining his backgrounds in psychology, teaching, and software development, McKay focuses on translating learning science into practical tools and habits. His work centers on a question: how can we move beyond exposure to information and build knowledge and skills that last?