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Report Claims Men More Intelligent Than Women
Jeremy Dean writes "In controversial research reported all over the place, Richard Lynn, the emeritus professor of psychology at Ulster University claims that, on average, men are more intelligent than women. Let battle commence!
As the research is not yet published there's nothing more to go on than the press reports. The co-author of the study, Dr Irwing, a senior lecturer in organisational psychology at Manchester University, is apologetic about the findings.
In the BBC News report he states that the paper will go on to argue that despite their disadvantage in IQ, there is evidence that women utilise their (lesser!) talents better than men. This simply begs the question of what use IQ tests are if they don't predict anything in the real world."
Every woman on earth believes that men should be able to read minds. Every man knows this is impossible. Ergo, we are more intelligent.
Now if we could just find a way to explain this to the ladies, there'd be much less unhappiness in this world.
Why exactly do we have to battle at all? What's the reason to have any sort of contest over which 'side' is 'better' than the other? It just seems like a waste of energy to try and 'prove' that one sex is in any way superior to another. We are who we are, and most of our achievements aren't due to how our brains and bodies are wired at birth, it's what we do with our brains and bodies.
I hate how people get all pissed off and offended by "controversial" studies like this. If the study was done correctly, then there's really nothing you can do except shutup and live with it or do your own study that proves it wrong.
If the study was done correctly, then getting offended by the results is like getting offended when somebody says "The sky is blue." You just look like an idiot, no matter what gender you are.
Maybe not
Even if true, it would still be a generality. It doesn't mean that you are smarter than whoever is in the car beside you at the stop light.
Mi niece told me the other day that she would rather be beautifull than intelligent.
Society tells women to be stupid and popular and then asks itself why women, on average, seem less inteligent than men.
Yeah, especially after RFTA'ing.. you really just wanna piss on the head of this guy. He also claims that White people are more intellegent than black...
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
My question is this... who wrote the tests?
I would be willing to bet that if a woman were to come up with an IQ test that women would do better at it than men.
Being smart doesn't make you better at anything other than being smart. If you can add two 8 digit numbers in your head then great. If you can lift a car over your head, good for you. If you can stomach the sight of blood enough to become a doctor, guess what... good for you.
Women, men, children, black, white, grey, whatever.... who you are is not defined by what you can do better than others. Nobody is the best at everything. Some people throw great parties or know how to make others laugh and feel better about themselves. If that is their greatest skill then so be it. Everyone should be happy with themselves or at least be given sufficient opportunity to be happy with themselves.
If your only way to be happy about yourself is to be better at something than others, find a new hobby.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
(Will this post survive the political-correctness police? Lets watch...)
We apologize for the inconvenience.
I don't understand what all the stir is about this topic. All the study says is that given the general population from which the sample was drawn, there is a measurable difference in IQ scoring. Maybe the test measures inteligence, maybe it doesn't, but everyone is treating this as though the researchers insulted them personally. Some women are downright nasty about how they portray these researchers, and some of the men are appologetic, while others are self righteous. Statistics say absolutely nothing about individuals, only the population as a whole. Why is it that everyone is so quick to forget that?
-=geoskd
www.geoskd.com
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Why are women so quick to react and bitch about something like this? Maybe it's because it took YEARS for us to have the same "rights" as men. Maybe it's because we've been treated as the lesser of two human beings for centuries.
:)
I'm not sparking a debate here, but you guys need to think for a second. You haven't been denied the right to vote, discriminated at the workplace, took lesser wages, get constanly objectified... all because you're a chick.
I have tons of guy friends (more than girls, believe it or not!) who take a little educating to understand why we're so different. I say you all need a little time with an atypical female
We're not all crazy bitches.
see sig. see sig run. run sig run.
If that's what the study shows, what is your issue with the methodology? Or is it that you couldn't bear that finding? Stereotypes don't just pop up out of thin air, they have at least a basis in truth.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
There is so much confusion about the notions of intelligence, cleverness, wisdom, creativity, etc., etc. that belief in the signficance of IQ testing only proves someone to be an elitist fool--usually because that person "does well" on certain tests.
By the way, I almost always score in the top 1% on every standardized written test, including IQ tests. The only exception I can recall was the LSAT, where I only scored in the top 10%. However, I'm not foolish enough to think those tests indicate anything of significance.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
What I find intresting is the replies from the "men of the street" shown in the BBC's article.
One women was openly offended. Almost all of then seemed to be offended. Not a single women accepted the study.
Some men belived the study and were delited about its results. Most of the men didn't belive the study.
Some replies didn't belive the study because of their "personal experience". Few women belive in
somekind of conspiracy. One male doesn't seem to belive it science. Also few men point out the fact that men tend to have higher variance in IQ tests. They seem to suspect that the results were in fact measuring this.
Not a single person considered to read the study before commenting on it. Not even Maria from Sheffield who was "suprised that a academic journal is even considering this publication".
I think that this Maria is not alone and we hear lots of similar comments. And they are listened. Welcome to an age where academic journals screen articles based on the results not the methodology.
Apparently IQ is of no use in finding the actual meaning of "begs the question"!
God do I hate that misuse.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beg_the_question:
"Begging the question is the term for a type of fallacy occuring in deductive reasoning in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in one of the premises"
Buy Text Processing in Python
Seems to me the Emotional Quotient is a simple reaction to IQ. "So, men perform better in one test, let's find another evaluation that is broadly similar in name, mixes concepts and in which woman get the best results".
Nobody complains that women and asian people are smaller on average then men and african people, but when it comes to IQ, seems every group on average should get the same average (men, women, caucasian, black, rich, poor, Britney Spears fans, music lovers, and so on). Absurd.
Why should these quotient measurements give equal score to all sides? Why would nature divide intelligence equally between gender and races?
All Political Correct crap to me.
I thought about why measuring intelligence is so taboo. It seems that it's one of the few things that scientists are not allowed to study, not because it violates the law, but because it's simply taboo. It seems that as soon as we are able to devise methods of measuring intelligence, such measurements also became taboo or at best are viewed as curiosities flaunted by the arrogant.
Perhaps that's because correlating these measurements with any kind of social categorization, whether it be race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, eye color, etc ignites a socially unacceptable controversy. If these correlations are taken seriously, it often leads to attempts at eugenics and strengthens discrimination against the group that is deemed "less intelligent". These correlations are not false in that they violate generally accepted statistical practices, it's just that we feel that we're better off not knowing and entertaining the illusion that all are roughly equal.
If our modern atheist society has a religion which facilitates social cohesion than this is probably part of it: That we're all of equal ability and if we just work at it anyone has the same chance of acheiving a goal as anyone else. Intelligence correlations contradict this idea directly and are therefore considered heresy and hence are taboo.
I submit that the submitter is an idiot, and doesn't know how to use "beg the question" properly. Therefore, the submitter has no business talking about intelligence of either sex.
Beg the question:
An argument that improperly assumes as true the very point the speaker is trying to argue for is said in formal logic to "beg the question." Here is an example of a question-begging argument: "This painting is trash because it is obviously worthless." The speaker is simply asserting the worthlessness of the work, not presenting any evidence to demonstrate that this is in fact the case. Since we never use "begs" with this odd meaning ("to improperly take for granted") in any other phrase, many people mistakenly suppose the phrase implies something quite different: that the argument demands that a question about it be asked--raises the question. If you're not comfortable with formal terms of logic, it's best to stay away from this phrase, or risk embarrassing yourself.
link
Success in the real world is defined by one's ability to use logic to regulate emotions so that they do not become dominant. That's your EQ (what I think it should be). If emotion controls logic, you're probably entangled so far into your ideals that you'd contradict their very meaning in the process. i.e. being so anti-fascist that you become fascist.
Balancing logic and emotion means to balance the man with the beast.
That said, 'intelligence' is extremely tricky to define, composed of dozens of different dimensions. It's possible that women do better at certain areas than men, and vice versa.
This also is an average. It doesn't mean that every woman is inferior to every man, as some people will assume this means.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
There's overwhelming evidence in favor of this conclusion. There are overwhelmingly more male scientists, composers, painters, sculptors, etc. etc. than female ones. And don't try to tell me that women were somewhow denied access to these things. They simply weren't for the last 50 years.
About 5 years ago I read about a study that showed that women's performance on scholastics tests was more consistent than males. The male performance curves tended to wider than females. In other words, most of the very stupidest and the very brightest people (based on test) were male.
This may explain why there are less female "super scientists", but also less females in jail.
Historically, male roles tended to be more varied per individual, and thus natural selection has given males a wider variation of abilities to fit into different roles more easily. This is not saying that each male has wider abilities, but rather that males differ more. However, women's roles were pretty much to take care of the children and the sick (for good or bad). Thus, their brains are more geared toward a smaller range of roles. One male may specialize in hunting, another in herbs, and yet another in memorizing religious chants because of natural affinity to such.
Think of it this way. Suppose our brains had 3 lobes, A, B, and C, in it that specialized in different things. In women, the *variation* between the lobes compared with other women would be smaller. Really large or small lobes of any of the letters would be rarer in women. However, some males would have giant lobe C's and tiny lobe A's, or giant lobe B's and smaller lobes A and C. (The total volume of all three lobes would be about the same.)
Table-ized A.I.
This whole idea is rather obvious and simple.
Look, men are groomed from childhood to be smart, be athletic, make money, get a hot girlfriend or wife and work for a living their entire life.
Women are groomed to be cute, pretty and attract a rich, athletic, successful, smart man.
Women have as much potential as men. It's just a matter of where we, as a society, influence them to go. Girls are never praised for being so smart, but you're praised for being so cute and adorable the day you're born, then hot and sexy the rest of your life after some teen-ish age.
does anyone realize how stupid this debate is? women and men are built both physically and phsycologically different. men are more inclined towards physical prowess, mathematics and violence, but at times lack common sense and are not as prone to go with any group. women are inclined to try to be beautiful, talking skills, people skills, writing skills, and to follow the group, but they for the most part have great common sense. there are millions of exceptions to this, so trying to judge peoples intelligence or behavior by their sex is really stupid. trying to figure out which sex is superior is not only impossible to do, but it's also irrelevent.
most of the best writers are male
Meanwhile, J.K. Rowling is holed up in her thousand acre castle trying to decide whether to buy and sell the queen.
Rock Us, Dukakis.
Firstly, a score on an IQ test indicates nothing more than performance on a selection of mental tasks that a researcher has deemed to be fairly representative of some quality (general intelligence) that is assumed -but not yet proven- to actually exist.
Secondly, Those who know the history of IQ tests will give this study much less credibility. Allow me to inform. The first IQ tests showed that women were smarter than men, and whites were smarter than blacks. The former was taken to be an error in the testing, so the questions were adjusted (by adding and removing test elements that tested different abilities) until men and women scored equally. The latter was taken as evidence of racial superiority.
I hate having to draw obvious conclusions but I will do so anyways in case you are tired while reading this -the results of an IQ test do not actually correspond to an actual characteristic or trait of an individual, and should not be taken as seriously as they are.
Other IQ tests could just as easily produce the opposite result as this study (as they indeed did originally) simply by switching around the scoring of a few questions. I think it is terribly irresponsible of the researchers to make statements such as they are without providing a thorough explanation of what it is the tests are actually measuring, because it promotes a sexist attitude (ie its okay that men are smarter, its just genetics!)
This study demonstrates nothing more than how sexism still thrives among the intellectuals of today, in their willingness to draw and promote such conclusions in the face of valid alternatives.
Taking your statements for granted, all you have shown is that there is a correlation between IQ score and some success metric. It doesn't demonstrate causality (esp. for a given individual) and doesn't justify a physical link between IQ and potential.
All it says is people with high IQs do better by some chosen metric(s), in general, than people with low IQs - by design. The test itself may have value in that somehow it is measuring existing thought process. I cannot see how it measures potential (unless it is proven that ones thought processes are locked and unchanging, a theory I would resist without brutal proof).
How is that really useful then? It can't predict the future of an individual. It may or may not even be permanent. It just somehow has a correlation with success. I can see it has value to people trying to understand the brain, I can't see that it has social value, nor that it should be thrown about with such recklessness.
It sounds like the guy just pulled a bunch of "intelligences" out of his ass so that everyone can be intelligent.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
So, if they can charge men more for car insurance because statistically they are worse drivers then can employers pay women less because statistically they are less intellegent?
NOTE: I'm ripping on the car insurance, not advocating paying women less. It's all foolishness.
Without having read the article, this does sound quite a bit like earlier findings that men have more grey matter and women more 'white' matter. That is, men are better at pure processing and women are better at making connections between things. This is consistent with conventional wisdom (like "Men navigate by names and numbers, women navigate by landmarks"), and is hardly what I would call controversial. In addition, saying that women 'use' their grey matter more effectively by making connections better doesn't imply that increases in grey matter are useless; your implied assertion that IQ is 'useless' it unfounded. There are many areas (mathematics, science) where focussed processing power (if you'll allow the analogy) is exceedingly useful.
Depending on my mood, I find it annoying or amusing that people would be up in arms for saying that men are more intelligent, but nobody thinks twice when someone says that women are more intuitive. If these recent studies and conventional wisdom are to be believed, then both statements are equally correct.
most of the best writers are male
Meanwhile, J.K. Rowling is holed up in her thousand acre castle trying to decide whether to buy and sell the queen.
Oh well done, you've pointed out a single counterexample to a generalisation. Now go down to your local bookshop and find out which authors sell in quantity and you'll find that there are a lot more men in the list.
The real point is what if they reported that women were found to be more intellegent? Would there be the same hesitation to report the findings? I've heard other reports that claimed women were superior with some subjects and those were thought to be reporting accurately but when the opposite is found to be true it's a vicious lie. Have we hit the point that the facts must fit into political correct position? I guess the answer is obvious but the real victim in the end may be science and the truth. What if you take it to the next level and said it's wrong to report that some races and sexes were more prone to some deseases? We're close to that and I've heard complaints about those findings as being potentially racist. Burying those facts could cost lives all in the name of sparing some one's feelings.
The point is, when you have a scholarly paper (presumably there is a real scholarly paper behind this) you evaluate the paper on it's own merits. You read the research, the methods, the results and the conclusions. You then deicde what merit, if any it has. Maybe the methods are wrong, maybe the results don't substantiate the conclusions, maybe it's just plagarized Harry Potter text.
Whatever, the point is you judge the paper based on it's own merits. You do not read the brief conclusion in the abstract and start decrying it just because you don't like what it says. The truth is not always what you want ot hear and what you agree with, so just because you disagree doesn't make it wrong.
You yourself are guilty of this, you immediatly launched an ad homenim attack. You claim this guy is a proponent of Eugenics, and infer that therefore his paper is worthless. Further you use a straw man in saying that he favours shutting down ideas he disagrees with. Both of these presented with no proof.
Now frankly, I don't know if these are true, and I'm not going to take the time to research it, because I just don't care. The point is simple: IS the paper good research? I won't know until I've read it, so I'm certianly not going to start villifying it. Who cares who the author is? Science is not a popularity contest, it's not a democracy. It's a way of knowing about the universe. Thus you judge scientific research based on it's own merits, is the research sound or not.
I am a psychologist who specializes in assessment. Your comments are basically correct, but I think you might not appreciate the implications of what you're pointing out.
... is foolish." However, that's actually saying quite a bit, and there's a lot of room for foolishness, so to speak. For example, contrary to what you suggest, it is strongly predictive of many forms of success (not the only predictor, and not a perfect predictor, but one of, if not the strongest, predictors). Moreover, a good intelligence test will cover a lot of forms of problem-solving abilities, so it covers a lot of ground. Finally, intelligence tests correlate with a large variety of indices in very interpretable ways (including neurobiological measures).
First, although you're sort of correct in noting that psychologists made "this construct they term intelligence quotient," it's not just getting "reliability across a number of tests, plus a few more things." Measures of intelligence are considered measures of intelligence partially because they all correlate with one another. It's not just that the tests are reliable, it's that the test scores all correlate in a predictable pattern that suggests an underlying ability structure.
Second, you are also correct in noting that "in effect, you see if anything else correlates with Intelligence." However, more specifically, it's important to show that intelligence is generally correlated with things that you'd predict it would be correlated with (e.g., GPA, neurodegenerative disease), and not correlated with things you'd predict it wouldn't be correlated with.
Finally, you're also true that presuming that intelligence "means anything other than what it correlates with
The point I'd like to add to what you're saying--and others have said it--is that intelligence tests do measure something that is closely related to what we think it measures, and that something is very important, empirically speaking, in predicting a large number of significant biological and behavioral phenomena. So, even if this study turns out to be a bunch of hogwash, it doesn't necessarily mean that intelligence testing per se is fundamentally flawed. There are flaws, to be sure (e.g., most tests only measure average individuals very well, there is some bias for some purposes), but those flaws are not fundamental flaws.
DUH! People who put themselves first, aka assholes, can make much greater success from any given innate talents than can a cowardly nice-guy. And instinctually, women go for mates that will produce the most successful children. So if a moderately intelligent guy with a go-getter attitude, even somebody who doesn't respect your unnatural moral ties, is competting against a meek geek of intelligence moderately higher, her instincts will perform a crude calculation of which mate will produce the most successful children, and drive ambition and assholed-ness are heavily weighted factors for a species new to civilization. Sorry bud, you'll need to become more self-centered and driven if you want the poonany, lord nows I'm not acting in my natural dispostion, you gotta do what you gotta do.
Intelligence has nothing to do with how much knowledge you have. You can have a high IQ but be devoid of useful knowledge.
While IQ is theoretically justified, EQ is just a bunch of big crap for people to believe in and to make some BIG bucks:
:)
EQ "tests" were validated with samples that are NOT available to scientific scrutiny. The samples are property of a company (forgot the name), and are not being released on basis of intellectual property. All of you people, who read that EQ tests are valid and read the validation scores - must take them as they are - you will not be able to check them personally.
Replication studies have been made, and not a few of them:- none - NONE - have been succesful. Yet people still believe this crap.
EQ is defined by the psychologists who use this concept as the ABILITY to understand other's reactions and actions, act upon them in accordance. They say this ability is LEARNED: (otherwise they wouldn't make a penny). Ok, so we now take the 10th grade psychology book and look at keywords as ability, learning and look, we find the term: SKILL not EQ! We already have a word for this! EQ is being sold as THE next best thing in seminars and coaching workshops because they 'predict' success. Not true, but this is not what i can say about IQ: though definitions may differ - the concept remains and IQ is the predictor for things such as (and these are real): School success, a big part of work performance and a bunch of other stuff. OK; rant off!!!
I take my children to see Madonna(..), but I never for once ever thought I was in the same business.Chris Rea.
Your post is an example of how ideology and dogma can confuse the issue.
I base this on a couple of things you wrote.
What a clear example of the harm of using non-scholarly sourcing (for the record, I love Wikipedia for getting a general idea of a topic, but I would never use it as an authoritative source on a complicated topic such as this one).
Even worse than these flaws, though, is your conclusion that "there may be some truth to it."
The only reason you might consider this harmful is if you already believe what the source suggests is false. It's unlikely that you would claim that that there was much harm in believing a non-scholarly source if what that source was claiming what you believed already to be true.
I also said that there may be something to it. And there might. There is no evidence that you've given that rules it out. If anything, you're the one implying the much stronger claim that there is no relationship.
How can you make such a strong claim? The only thing that might engender that level of confidence in you without strong evidence is ideological, not scientific, thinking.
If you think you've got evidence that rules out a connection between race and intelligence then let's have it. Until then you can keep your sense of moral superiority to yourself. I'm not interested in what you think should be true or comforting.
But it's more than just what society "says" when raising children.
The fact of the matter is that most successful men want a hot, attentive young wife. if I'm making $500k/yr, I probably don't care if you have a PhD and make $100k/yr yourself. I'm probably more interested in whether you will be good at raising children, be good in bed, look good, etc.
I'm not saying that's the way it *should* be, but the fact of the matter is that, largely, it IS that way.
Just like how girls don't want sweet nice guys. They want a bad boy or a guy with money.
So it breaks out evenly.
In other pseudo-science news, squirrels are obviously smarter than people. People have to go to work every day. Squirrels take afternoon naps on their favorite tree branches.
People travel on dangerous streets; squirrels travel on low-traffic overhead wires that they had the people install for them. All hail our squirrel overlords!
Yes, as the [Insert Evil Group Here] have shown us so well, why resort to "facts", "information" and "logic" to debate the merits of a proposal when all you need is hyperbole, appeals to emotion, and ad-hominem attacks
--
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Someone hates these cans.
My first impressions are that he's basically an idiot.
I know I should withhold judgement on a scientific study until I've read the methedology and study, but come on - criminal traits genetically inherited? Race-based intelligence studies? This sounds like a classic case of someone who ascribes to genetics what is caused by upbringing and social factors such as education.
I thought we were past all this crap, along with Eugenics, Phrenology and other biological determinist pseudoscience.
He will have to come up with some damn good evidence if he wants to convince me of such ideas.
- taking the research to be directed at each woman individually
- suggesting the research and researchers are biased
- behaving as though the difference was much greater than it actually is
- assuming that women are only the victims and never the perpetrators
This scientific study shows there is a difference between the average man and average woman. It says nothing of any two given individuals.A difference of 5 points is small. It is so small that I have no doubts that one's messured IQ would vary by more than that from day to day. Which leads me to ask why there is no margin of error included in the numbers. I would be most interested to see how they arrived at their numbers.
But, I would not say that the researcher or research is biased. With the current state of science, I would not be surprised to find that the methodology was suspect or that the outcome incorrect due solely to poor work.
You state:
Interestingly, you totally ignore the following- In the media, men are portrayed as:
- Incompetent, sloppy, conivings, lazy oafs, especially in "comedies" where they are paired with smart, capable, attractive women.
- Ugly, mean, vicious criminals.
- Poor, abusive, uncaring failures.
- Rich, handsome, successfuly business men
- Rich, powerful, ugly men with trophy wives
- A good portion of the greeting card industry thrives on portaying men in the worst terms. Try a little experiment: Go to a card shop and pick out some of the "humorous" ones involving men and women and reverse the sexes and ask yourself "Would this card be sold like that?"
- In many instances, if a man is accused of a crime, especially a sex crime, the man is automatically considered, and treated, as guilty. In a He said/She said situation, what She said is considered truth. Also, as we have seen recently in my home state of Florida, if a woman has sex with a young teen she is considered "sick" and in need of help, not inprisonment. If a man were to do the same, there would be calls for life sentences, castration, and execution. She is "mentally ill and in need of care" and he is a monster deserving of the worst punishments imaginable.
- Many women's groups lie. My favorite is the statement that spouse abuse complaints and emergency room visits jump drastically on Superbowl Sunday in the US. This has been proven false. It was made up on the spot during a press conference.
- Women are just as shallow as men, but do not own up to it. And, often they are even more mercenary.
Perhaps you are just blind to anything that does not directly effect you.There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
IQ Test Question No 42:
Which one of these four things is least like the other three?
1. Idli
2. Dosa
3. Vada
4. Chappathi
Correct Answer: Chappathi
Because Chappathi is made from Wheat but Idli, Dosa and Vada are made from Rice.
What does an IQ Test measure? Intelligence or is it Knowledge? I would like to ask the same thing about SAT I Tests....
Is there a way to measure Intelligence without measuring Knowledge?
Putting my Caucasian (are Finns caucasian?) intellect to work, I'd like to say who cares. Point of these studies is to boost the researchers ego. Variation of IQ within the population is so large that generalization is just inflammatory and serves no purpose.
Yes, oh so true; when evaluating scientific research, the very first question to test the findings should be: "Are the findings politcally correct?".
Or not.
The main and very common missconception is confusing that knowledge and intelligence. IQ test INTELLIGENCE. Tests grades are KNOWLEDGE. What their study shows is not that men are dumber than women, it shows that they are on average more lazy. Which I believe most of us can agree with. I believe women are less intelligent because, although both sexes are bound by emotions, most women choose not to fight them at all. Thus women become less logical in their daily thought processes. However, for reasons I am still not sure about, women tend to care about their grades more then men. So they STUDY and MEMORIZE more. Knowledge is not helpfull at all in "the real world" though, since that is another missuse of the word. The REAL WORLD is in the woods, in nature. Human society has greated their own, artificial world, and knowledge is usefull there and only there, where it cannot accomplish anything of worth to THE REAL WORLD. Intelligence is helpfull to philosophize and understand the funciton of the universe and life. However, since men are lazier on average, they don't bother to untilize their generaly higher IQ. Yes, the IQ tests are flawed and are not perfect, however they test your Intelligence much better than a U.S. history test.
Leave aside for a moment the question of whether or not IQ tests are fair measures of "intelligence" (whatever that is), and consider the following question:
Hypothetically, in our enlightened modern climate of equality and fairness, even if were proven beyond doubt that (for example) men are more intelligent than women, would we accept it or (as most of the comments above, and on the BBC News feedback page) merely reject it out of hand?
Nobody would be up in arms if asian students were proven better at maths, or if gay people made better artists, or if women were proven more intelligent than men.
However, the first suggestion that the perceived majority group (straight white males) might be better than any minority, at anything, threatens us - just listen to the knee-jerk reaction of almost-unanimous disapproval.
The experimental procedure and results haven't been published yet - nobody even knows what the numbers are, how the trial was conducted or even what IQ test(s) were used, and yet here we have people who know nothing but a soundbite about the final conclusion of the study, already feeling justified in ripping it to shreds.
This has none of the justifications of considered intellectual doubt, and all of the hallmarks of instinctive emotional rejection.
Regarding the researcher's other work, does this necessarily prove he's a bigot? Could he (in fact) be merely discovering unexpected and therefore interesting statistical trends?
Racists claim that one race is unilaterally better than another, and this is (rightly) universally recognised as bad. However, wishful-thinking political correctness stipulates there's no difference between any groups of people, and this is clearly bullshit. Adults are stronger than kids. Men are generally stronger than women. Women are generally more empathic than men. And yes, black men on average have bigger (longer but thinner) penises than white men - look up the statistics.
These facts have been statistically proven time and time again, yet because they don't fit with our prevailing ideology we pretend they don't exist. This is no less intellectually dishonest than creationists who selectively ignore evidence that contradicts their position.
If we truly believing in science, mathematics and rationality means sometimes having to confront facts or possibilities that make us uncomfortable. Putting our hands over our ears and singing "Lalalalalala" is just as bad when we do it as when the ID or creationist crew do the same.
Assuming the study's accurate and valid, does this mean that women are stupid? No, it means that the average woman is (almost unmeasurably) less "intelligent" (whatever that means) than the average man. It means that men are more likely to be geniuses, not that women can't be.
Get down off your high-horses, reign in the emotion and behave in the same way we demand of the creationists - rational, sensible, and valuing Correct thoughts over Comfortable ones.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
Do you know how science works at all? Since when did the burden lie on skeptics to "disprove" far-fetched claims? I can pull "numbers" out of my ass too, but I bet you wouldn't swallow them wholesale if they didn't fit with your prejudices, would you?
The poster you pounded out your inane response to is right: an IQ of 59 is so low that in clinical practice such a person should be barely able to function in society, let alone live an independent life as Equatorial Guineans actually do.
Why is it such a big deal to learn that the IQ tests are flawed, and are affected by cultural components. The IQ test was invented by men. It's not surprising to learn that women fare less well under tests which exclude a model of their intelligence as well.
During the 60s, IQs amongst well-off white kids in the US went up because of the better post-war diet and economic status.
IQ tests mean nothing except to the stupids who belong to MENSA.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
"This simply begs the question of what use IQ tests are if they don't predict anything in the real world."
Steven Jay Gould wrote a great deal on the history of various methods of "mental testing" including IQ. These tests have been used to justify slavery, anti-immigration policies, and, yes, treating women as inferiors. Read more in The Mismeasurement of Man. In it, he shows the fallacy of assigning any real world meaning to these tests.
"there is evidence that women utilise their (lesser!) talents better than men."
That is a common cop out to the fact that these results are likely meaningless. It is easy to dismiss any evidence to the contrary to the women-are-inferior hypothesis with such assertions. I would wager this guy "knew" in his mind what he wanted the outcome to be before he starting his study.
My other computer is a Jacquard loom.
There's usually a time when one's formal IQ-number is the single greatest weapon in an arsenal of self-esteem... at least for geeks.
But the older (and, ideally, smarter) one gets, the more that number's importance diminishes alongside the many other (and very practical BTW) mental assets one comes to recognize and envy.
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
This argument contains a common logical mistake. The fact that you disagree with the author's findings in another study or think that the author is racist, have nothing to do with his research that compares intelligence in women and men. The author could be racist and sexist, but that doesn't invalidate the research he has done. The fact that someone has a motive to believe something doesn't mean that what they believe is necessarily wrong. You have to argue the research, not the researcher. If you find that you disagree with the results of the study because the research was not conducted properly in some way, then that is a valid criticism. But of course, you can't do that until the study is published.
It's a known fact that Man chases Woman until she catches him.
As a disclaimer...I really have no professional knowledge about gender differences, and I have never actually taken a formal IQ test, but I've done some informal testing, so I know sort of how the tests are done.
That being said, I think I may be able to offer a suggestion here, which people may or may not find to be accurate, but holds in my experience.
I'm not sure we can talk about a single test defining "intellegence". There are so many different aspects to it that giving it a single number is deceptive. In fact, I'd venture to say that the test doesn't cover all the aspects and this might be the reason for the differences in scores.
I am definately of the mindset that women and men think somewhat differently. I can't put my finger on exactly what this difference is, but I have noticed it on occasion. For example, despite the fact that we have a very similar background and schooling, I have noticed that when I design code, the structure tends to be somewhat different than most of the males in my group. A lot of them will look at a problem from one angle, and I will try to approach it from another angle entirely. How much of this is actually attributable to gender differences, I'm not sure, but there does seem to be a slight difference in the way that males and females think.
That being said, the IQ test is rather old and comes from a day when mostly men were controlling academia and things like IQ testing. The tests were designed by men. If men were designing the tests, would it not then be reasonable to assume that the tests might be more geared towards men?
As a sort of aside - when I was in university, my best friend was this incredibly intelligent girl down my hall. I'm talking genius level here - top of her class in high school, top of her program at graduation, awards and scholarships being thrown at her etc. etc. and she barely even had to study for anything because just going to class was usually enough for her to get just about everything. BUT...the one class she really struggled with was CAD design. Because she absolutely could not picture 3D things in 2D. Hand her a 3-view and it was like 3 totally different objects until she sat down and bent up the paper and got it into a 3D form. Her brain just didn't work that way. Put her down at an IQ test and you'd find her scrunching up the paper, really struggling with some of the geometry stuff, but her down in front of a slighly differently designed test and she'd probably beat the pants off of the vast majority of the people I know. Not great at an IQ test, but definately not unintelligent by any stretch of the imagination.
I think we need to be careful when we make these types of generalizations...and I'm not just talking about applying these general findings to single people although that is important to recognize. More that it is important to recognize that these tests measure aspects of intelligence, but the tendancy is to take this as a measure of overall intelligence in all areas, which is does not necessarily cover.
...no two people are not on fire.
While I can understand how an IQ test might be culturally biased, I don't see how it could possibly be gender-biased. Examples?
Men have larger brains and are (supposedly) stronger in analytical thought than women. Women have more interconnects and are (supposedly) capable of seeing patterns on a broader level than men.
So it would follow that if you include pattern identification questions with a broader scope, it would be biased towards women, and if they are a narrow in scope but follow chains of logic, it would be biased towards men.
It's the whole "womens intuition" thing, which has been established as having a physiological basis.
It occurs to me that while men and women have different powerful tools for arriving at the truth of things, the means they use mean that it's easier for a man to prove to you that what he has figured out is true than it is for a woman, who might see the truth but be unable to communicate to you why it's true in a conclusive way. If that's true, the most brilliant women could perceive things and be utterly frustruated in their ability to get any recognition.
Perhaps our continual advancement in computers and the increased capacity that gives us to verify things using statistical analysis rather than logical analysis will make it easier for us to harness the unique mental capacities with more confidence.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I think that *all* intelligent human beings, of both sexes, should be outraged and disgusted that the society in which is so hostile to the pursuit of actual truth, that research scientists find themselves in a position where they need to be "apologetic about the findings" of their research.
Tell me that black culture isn't different, and then maybe I'll believe you about the "smarter" bit. When you stick a man in a foreign situation, of course he isn't going to fare as well then if he had been in that situation all his life. Bill Gates is not going to become a politician. Bush, even if his reputational slate were clean, wouldn't stand a chance in an election in some other country. Frankly, I myself would be very bad at killing lions or surviving on a deserted island.
But does this mean that we are all stupid, because we cannot deal with situations that we are not prepared for? A man would could would certainly be an intelligent man indeed, but I don't know any such man. White men are foreign to black culture, so how is that any different? If they were, say, a scholar of modern black culture or had just as much experiance in it (that is, living their entire lives in it), I have no doubt that, apart from factors stemming from their appearance, they could be just as versitile stratagists as blacks.
You make it also sound like black culture is better than white. Granted, I have no experiance of black culture, but I have news for you: Nothing is even close to perfect. Therefore, I shy away from such assertions.
Also, since when is sexuality REPRESSED in white culture? You're confusing "white" with "Christian", Turn on your TV set to soaps, MTV, and comedy shows. Watch some of the many "R" rated movies out there. Go to college. You'll see, frankly, that white does not equal Christian.
Finally, if a white man is excluded from black society because he can't follow such complicated jokes, what is that but the enforcement of conformity? How is that different from what any other race or social class does? Learn quickly that conformity is a universal issue, just as selfishness, anger, hate, lies, and thievery are.
I fear what the next thing is to piss off your parents will be.
Extremist religion. No shit, that's a large part of where Muslim extremists are getting there support in the west--Muslim kids trying to piss off their moderate parents. Fanatacism is the new punk. But it'll pass...
Funny? Insightful! I wish your message would catch on universally - and for boys, too.
I just sent my little girl to kindergarten for the first time last week. I sat her down and had a heart-to-heart talk about what school would be like. I told her about how fun it's going to be to get better at reading, and learning math, and seeing the world of science, and I could see her eyes light up at the idea of the wonders in front of her.
I also told her that some people would tell her that girls can't learn or do as much as boys. I told her that those people are stupid and scared, and most importantly, wrong. She's lucky in that she has an automatic counterproof: my wife's a doctor, and graduated from Army Airborne school while in ROTC. My daughters and son know what women can do because their mommy showed them.
I also want the other little girls (and boys) to know that while there are differences between all of us, each individual can rise to the level they want. People who would tell them otherwise are murderers, as far as I'm concerned.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
criminal traits genetically inherited
This is entirely true, and has been proved in several studies. Are you suggesting that behaviour is not based to some degree on genetics? Do you know dogs can be bred for aggression fore example?
Race-based intelligence studies?
If you agree that intelligence is based partly on genetics (and you must, or you'd have to accept that a chimp brought up as a human would have similar intelligence levels), and different races are genetically distinct (they are, by definition), then you have to accept at least the possibility that the genes for intelligence correlate with those for race.
This sounds like a classic case of someone who ascribes to genetics what is caused by upbringing and social factors such as education.
Both nature and nurture have an effect.
I thought we were past all this crap, along with Eugenics
What's unscientific about eugenics? We can artificially select and breed animals for traits, so since humans are animals it is likely that we could do the same thing. We (rightly) tend to reject eugenics for social reasons, not because it doesn't work.
He will have to come up with some damn good evidence if he wants to convince me of such ideas.
If you're not going to even read the research, then how is he going to convince you?
A book I think you should read is a pop science book called "Genome" by Matt Ridley. I don't agree with all his conclusions, but it's a good read, and he goes into a lot of this stuff.
"We would reject it, and quite sensibly, because this fact (like his conclusion that whites are more intelligent than blacks) tends to lead people to the illogical conclusion that intelligence is genetically determined."
So you'd deliberately and happily refuse to acknowledge something unarguably proven to be a fact, simply because it was possible for some people to misunderstand or misuse it? Really? Is that a good thing? Whatever happened to intellectual integrity?
"Assuming this data is true, would women be more intelligent than men if they were raised as completely equal to men? Anecdotal evidence suggests yes."
What you seem to be doing here is arguing that because the different between men and women could possibly be down to test-bias, that justifies ignoring the entire thing and relying on subjective personal judgement, from a sample-set tens of times smaller? That's not a very logical assertion...
"After all, the "smartest human in the world" judging solely by IQ is a woman, not a man."
That's completely irrelevent: We're discussing broad statistical trends, so single data-points don't prove anything. No-one at any stage was suggesting that women couldn't be geniuses, merely that more men were than women.
Basically, both men's and women's IQ scores form a bell curve. It's just that the men's is broader and flatter - more geniuses and more intellecually subnormal. The women's bell curve still has a high end.
"So if men are more intelligent, this might only demonstrate that women aren't yet being treated as full equals by our parents and teachers. Same for non-whites."
Indeed. However, we've got some evidence that points in a certain direction. Just because you can suggest a possible bias in the test, that doesn't mean the conclusions are definitely incorrect.
If you believe the test is biased you should withold judgement - it's not a valid reason to conclude the argument's wrong.
"Yet when most people hear "men are smarter than women" or "whites are smarter than blacks", they hear a sexist or racist slur."
Yes, which is why we should be careful how present the results. However, this doesn't mean the results are wrong.
"Because the statistical data does nothing to prove that women MUST REMAIN less intelligent than men. It can't. But since this is what must be inferred, it is better for the statement to remain unspoken."
You've completely missed my point. If this test indicates that men are provably more intelligent (whatever that means) than women, we should accept the conclusions, however uncomfortable they make us.
The fact that the test could possibly have bias doesn't prove it's wrong. If you (stupidly) believe the test doesn't have bias, you can believe men are definitely cleverer than women. If (as I do) you believe the test could be biased, the only logical conclusion is to withold judgement. At no point can you sensibly argue that the results are definitely wrong.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
Thank you! You don't need a study to understand that women aren't as bright as men. You just need a little experience living on this planet.
Once women start getting noticed by men, it's all over for them. Even for smart women. You simply can't have that much attention foisted on you and not end up being damaged. Even not-so-good looking women have enough men who will do things for them (buy them things, help them move, drive, etc), that they aren't driven to do anything but look pretty (or worse, be easy).
I know that if I were constantly being pursued by random women, I'd get little done. My mind wouldn't be as immersed in technical or philosphical concerns if I were always wondering if Jane likes me. If had to spend extra time each day on makeup or outfits, that would further starve my mind. Brains, like muscles, atrophy from non-use.
Physiologically speaking, women are more emotional. I'm can't concentrate or get much done when I'm angry or in love. Maybe women can, but I doubt it. Emotions cloud intellect. The more you have, the less intellectual you are.
I do think that women are harder workers than men. And that often makes up for any intellectual deficiencies in the workplace. But the things that are simple for men, at my company, are often a tremendous struggle for the women. They get those things done by staying late and on weekends, but they shouldn't have too. I'm happy to be working with them, because like I said, they make up for it. But I've never known a single woman to be the go-to-guy when you need a technical real-world problem solved.
For the record, I very much prefer smarter women. Dumb women have no appeal to me, even when it's just for sex. I come from a family of smart women. My sister teaches statistics to PHD students at a major university. But just like all women, when she gets caught up in a relationship with loser boyfriend of the week, that spark goes out the window and she becomes as dumb as every other girl out there. And as much as she's a loner like me, she's never alone because boyfriends and stalkers are always pursuing her. On those rare times that she is alone, she's always working on some theorem or project.
Although I would have hated it when I was in high school, I've become convinced that schools would benefit from a division of the sexes. The public school system is bad for everyone, but placing a girl in a public school is tantamount to child abuse, in my mind. If you want your daughter to grow up to be intelligent, send her somewhere where she'll be treated like a person instead of a sperm dumpster.