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Size Does Matter... But Only in Women

Posted by Hemos on from the half-usage-full-usage dept.

Frankenmoro writes "This online article at Nature notes that new research indicates that a woman's intelligence is directly related to the size of her brain. But, before you uber-male-geeks start to gloat, it may be that a woman with half your brain size has the same language processing power as you do, seeing as how you only use half of your brain to process language, and she's using it all... Lazy boy."

12 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. No matter what size their brain is... by darkov · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...women will still be irrational 90% of the time.

    Can I just say though: IQ testing is the biggest load of wank. There is no way to measure intelligence. There isn't even a decent definition of what intellegence is. The fact that they use short term memory tests as some sort of metric tells you about how irrelevant IQ testing is. Compare this with the fact the brigtest individuals can intuit answers or have brilliant ideas come out of nowhere - I don't see any future in trying to measure the subconsious.

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    1. Re:No matter what size their brain is... by BerntB · · Score: 5, Insightful
      IQ testing is the biggest load of wank.

      The consensus of the active researchers in the field might be wrong, of course, but you are contradicting the researchers in a way that seems to assume they are fools that don't know about the scientific method.

      A bit like creationism where all paleontologists and evolutionary biologists have to be idiots or in a conspiracy to hide the truth.

      I'm sorry, but my bogosity counter went off.

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    2. Re:No matter what size their brain is... by kmellis · · Score: 5, Insightful
      "Can I just say though: IQ testing is the biggest load of wank..."
      ...and some more relevant stuff deleted.

      I both agree and disagree with you. If you are saying that as a practical matter it's very difficult or impossible to accurately and precisely measure general intelligence, I'll agree with you (at least on the "difficult" part). If you're saying that it's impossible as a matter of principle, or that there's no such thing as general intelligence, then I strongly disagree with you.

      Don't believe me? Well, kill off three-quarters of someone's brain and try to convince me that they are not less intelligent. Is there a monolithic thing that is "intelligence"? I very, very much doubt that there is. But that doesn't mean that the term "general intelligence" is senseless. It could be, and probably is, our way of describing what we experience in ourselves and others as the composite level of functioning of most or all mental activities of which we are intuitively aware. Thus, "general intelligence", and even comparing intelligence across species, is meaningful as long as we understand what we mean. D'uh.

      By the way, evolutionary psychology specifically (and, I think, correctly) argues on evolutionary grounds that a generalized rational ability doesn't exist in humans.

      I'm of the opinion that we have a very long way to go till we achieve what was aimed at when the IQ test was developed. But I think it's possible. I do think that current tests are still greatly hampered by the fact that we understand our own minds so poorly. We do a lot of cognition, of course. Are we really trying to measure a true composite of every important cognitive task? I doubt it. And I doubt that the various tasks are weighed remotely correctly, nor tested without enormous bias.

      It seems to me that language processing and abstract/mathematical reasoning are each quite important to us and amenable to measurement. They likely correlate pretty strongly to people's intuitive measure of "intelligence".

      When I was in school, we spent a lot of time being very careful about defining our terms. There is something of a quandry when we are trying to talk about concepts expressed in everyday language. Is the thing what we explicitly think it is? That is to say, in this example, is what we're measuring the monolithic abstract intelligence that some people think "intelligence" is? On the other hand, we wouldn't use the word "intelligence" if it isn't meaningful in some sense. So I would always make the point that even if we figure out that we can't really say something like "you're smarter than him" and mean what we think we mean in one regard, that doesn't require that what we're saying is totally meaningless. In fact, it's often very interesting and revealing to discover what it is that we're groping for in language.

    3. Re:No matter what size their brain is... by DuBois · · Score: 3, Insightful
      The better way to put this (as Rob Becker in his record-breaking comedy routine does) is: "Women are not hindered by rationality."

      Think about it, if you can.

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    4. Re:No matter what size their brain is... by Hast · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes I'm sure that a lot of people are honestly trying to do their best when it comes to this type of research. But you need to realize that there is no single definition of "intelligence" neither is there any way to really measure it.

      It's not like measuring the time it takes for an apple to fall to the ground. Because in psychology you don't know what the apple and ground is, and you can't measure time.

      The same thing is happening in other "soft" sciences. Interesting examples in the field on anthropology can be found in the book "Lila" by Robert M Pirzig. (Same guy who wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence.)

      The scientific method is a powerful tool, but like any good tool you might try to apply it to cases where it doesn't apply.

      And it should perhaps be mentioned that I'm not knowledgeable about all that much research in the area. I have read some about cognition and that's really interesting IMHO. The researchers there are generally not stupid/brave enough to say that they now have found "intelligence" they tend to discuss more specific problems. Like what happens in your brain when you see different objects, or read different words. Then the scientific method is valid.

      And I have yet to take an IQ test which I afterwords felt actually did a good job of exploring my intelligence. (Yeah, it's just because I do poorly, har har. ;-)

  2. Re:huh? by joto · · Score: 5, Insightful
    No, no, no. IQ tests doesn't measure intelligence at all. They measure your ability to perform well in IQ tests. It's just a number.

    Of course, there is some correlation with intelligence. But then we'd have to define what intelligence is (which is very much open to debate).

    Some people view intelligence as the ability to perform well in the society. In that case it should take into account social aspects (and health). Some think that intelligence is your ability to solve abstract problems (in which case IQ tests is more meaningful). Some think intelligence should somehow be a measure of your brains "capacity". In that case, it would make sense to view educated people as more intelligent. After all, it doesn't matter much with potentials, it's the end-result that matters. And so on...

  3. Ugggh.. annoying out of context brain percentages by perljon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's like when people say you only use 4% of your brain... imagine if you could use 100%. Well, I IMAGINE that if you approached 6% of 'usage', your brain would probably melt... (not literally, but it wouldn't work quite right)

    The percentage usage is based on concentrations of oxygen which are supposed to indicate usage... but really parts of your brain appear to be programmed to only be able to do certain things. ie, part of your brain will only be used to see, and as long as you can see, it will be used for that. So, it wouldn't make sense for you to use 100% of your brain to calculate math or compose and essay because X% will always be reserved for the tasks of seeing.

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  4. mismeasure of man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    the late stephen jay gould wrote a fantastic book called The Mismeasure of Man dissecting the use of various metrics (brain size, iq test, etc.) as a measure of intelligence. it's a very engaging book.

  5. Oh yeah? by Tom7 · · Score: 4, Insightful


    Well, I use the other half to drink beer and scratch my nuts.

    thpt.

  6. Re:Ugggh.. annoying out of context brain percentag by Tom7 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We use all of our brain.

  7. Re:Confounding Variables ignored? by Urox · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As to some of the other comments so far, even though I don't believe I.Q. is an accurate measure of intelligence, it is at least a fixed quantitative measure of performance on an I.Q. test. Kinda like the SATs: they just measure how well you perform on the SATs.

    But the idea behind the standardized tests is that correlations have been found where people who perform well on the tests generally also become successful in other fields.

    But I'm all behind you on being skeptical of studies not taking in or at least LISTING the other statistics of the test takers. I'm almost afraid it would be likely because they don't want any other researchers deriving anything from the time they put in.

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  8. Re:huh? by dukerobinson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Is the education of a person not a factor in his or her intelligence? If you are proposing that a test be developed that would measure "what if?" intelligence I say more power to you. With such a test you could tell me my intelligence in any array of possibly situations I might have lived in. Think of it! And the African-Asians..... wow they are in for a shock. Well I suppose Tiger Woods warmed them up for this. My intelligence as a barkeep in London, 1743 AD My intelligence as a caveman in the cold recesses of the north, 7000 BC My intelligence had I been a "Native American" while still living in the Siberia/Mongolia region before moving with my nomadic tribe across the Bering Straight and arriving in North America. Therefore not making me a "Native American" Wait a second..... All humans came from Africa, so that must make me an African American! Ha, listen to those damned African-Europeans not knowing what to call themselves. What ignorance! Sorry for digressing. My point was just that it is impossible to separate the environment of the individual being tested from the individual h/im/erself. Damn it we need neuter pronouns.