A talk by University of Otago emeritus professor Jim Flynn on rising IQ levels has been viewed almost 800,000 times after being put online last week.
Prof Flynn, who gave the ''Ted Talk'' at Long Beach seven months ago, was excited to have reached such a wide audience.
His talk, entitled ''Why our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents''', examined why average IQ scores had substantially increased in the past century. As of yesterday afternoon, it had been viewed 569,707 times on YouTube and 227,555 on Ted Talks website.
He pointed to the increasing cognitive demands of modern life as one of the reasons why people were scoring higher on IQ tests.
''We don't just get a few more questions right on IQ tests. We get far more questions right on IQ tests than each succeeding generation back to the time that they were invented.
''Indeed, if you score the people a century ago against the modern norms, they would have an IQ of 70. If you score us against their norms, we would have an average IQ of 130,'' Prof Flynn said in the talk, which also looked at the link between rising IQ scores and moral progress.
Prof Flynn became part of a global phenomenon, with the Ted Talks, by people including former United States president Bill Clinton and British primatologist Jane Goodall, gaining more than a billion online viewers.
He believed people were interested in his talk because hearing that IQ scores had increased by such a wide margin, and this trend was connected to moral progress, gave people a ''jolt''.
''If there is anything that people have as a fixed attitude it is that somehow we are going downhill morally.
''When you look at the evidence, you find not only has there been moral progress as well as cognitive progress, but in a sense the two feed off one another.''
His motivation for giving the talk was the wider audience.
''When I was invited to go to Ted, that of course was the big incentive, because I think all of my books, all together, have sold about 55,000 copies. That's spread over about 12 or 13 books.''
