Mercury data derived from the
Fremont glacier: 
The general trends of the Flynn effect and its reversal in at least five countries:
These graphs are from my recent paper linked here:
All the world's experts would have predicted the exact opposite.
But it is exactly as my unfaulted autism theory predicted all along.
Unsurprisingly, the trends of mercury toxicity and IQ levels follow the same basic pattern over time as seen with lead toxicity and violence rates. Though with lead toxicity there is a 20 year lag time for it to show up in the criminal data.
ReplyDeleteAnother difference is that lead toxicity had two smaller spikes in the 19th century and a drop around 1920. But otherwise it had the same overall increase across the past century with a decline in the late 20th century.
Of course, industrialization would explain the generally correlated rates of lead and mercury in the environment. And it's true that the heavy metals have many overlapping effects, such as increasing mental illness like mood disorders.
As you've pointed out, this has everything to do with the Flynn effect. Interestingly, you might also consider Steven Pinker's moral Flynn effect about overall decreasing violence rates.
Some might think it's hard to explain all this mix of data. Yet you might be onto something with your antiinnatia theory. In recent history, there has been a simultaneous increase of pro-social and anti-social behaviors and traits.
All kinds of trends are all over the map. Physical and mental health have been worsening, generation after generation. Yet a certain kind of intelligence and non-violence are becoming more common that has made possible a more complex and innovative society.
It's an interesting prospect to consider that some of the same environmental factors of public health could be pushing the extremes in all directions, both positive and negative. For example, incidents of mass violence were increasing while overall violence was decreasing.
All of it is strange. There is another set of theories that are involved. You might find them interesting. They have to do with health, both individual and collective, and so very well might overlap with the antiinnatia theory.
This other area involves parasite-stress theory, behavioral immune system, and sickness behavior; in relation to increases or decreases of various personality traits and psychological profiles.
Under conditions of sickliness and stress (pathogen exposure, parasite load, high inequality, heavy metal toxicity, etc), there are various population-level shifts in the measures of:
Threat response, disgust response, (high) conscientiousness, (low) openness, social conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and dark personality traits (psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism, sadism).
But I don't know how this would fit into your own theorizing. It's just considering that, since all these theories are dealing with the population level effects of public health, they likely involve the same or similar mechanisms.