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IQ tests are without a doubt a debatable measure. Especially if you would like to debate precisely what kind of intelligence it purports to measure. But I do believe that this measure has proven itself time and time again to be an reliable, if not perfect, predictor of a person's ability to perform intellectually. Don't forget how much research has gone into perfecting the tasks involved in the testing and the care that has gone into ensuring that those tasks are an accurate measure of core concepts, concepts which are supposed to be so rudimentary that their deployment is expected to be intrinsic to all or most intellectual activity.
So I think that when we learn that IQ is rising on average, as a couple of these writers mentioned, it is a valid indicator that our societies are definitely making some kind of cognitive progress. Precisely how and why they have been improved is less easily understood.