Slashdot Mirror
How Men and Women Badly Estimate Their Own Intelligence
theodp writes "In investigating the question of whether men are smarter than women, British researcher Adrian Furnham came up with some startling results. His analysis of some 30 studies showed that men and women are fairly equal overall in terms of IQ, but women underestimate their own intelligence while men overestimate theirs. Surprisingly, both men and women perceived men being smarter across generations — both sexes believe that their fathers are smarter than their mothers and their grandfathers are more intelligent than their grandmothers. And if there are children, both men and women think their sons are brighter than their daughters."
Odds are your father or grand father are smarter than their partners. Sure you mom may have a vast wealth of knowledge about shoes or Oprah but that's not of any real use.
Why isn't anyone raving about the Twitter feed called Shit My Mom Says?
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
IQ is more a measure of your 'working' memory and capacity to quickly understand new topics, it doesn't necessarily to what a person would call 'intelligent'. Allegedly GWBush was has a fairly high IQ (well at least 120+) yet, outwardly at least, he may not seem it.
Women underestimating their intelligence proves their own theory while us males overestimating our intelligence also proves their theories. Another case where women are always right even when they are wrong.
That intelligence != knowledge
Only recently have we even acknowledged that women are not inherently inferior to men, so is it so much of a surprise to learn that there is a strong cultural gender bias in favor of men being superior in intelligence?
In my own family, my mother is a medical doctor, while my father never made it through college, and despite this reversal, I have caught myself falling into the same traps and patterns that society at large puts out as truth that women are inferior to men in certain fields of study, if not all intellectual pursuits.
both men and women perceived men being smarter across generations
What's important is not reality but our perception of it. Men 1 - women 0.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
Men have more variance in IQ, that's why there's more very smart men than very smart women. Of course, there's more very stupid men, which is reflected in crime rates etc.
Research finds that it takes a slashdot drone 23 months to report a story.
Ceci n'est pas une
Here is a thought, if women and men think that in themselves, their children, their parents, and their grandparents that men tend to be smarter than women, it could mean that the test, rather than all those people, is biased.
I have this keen insight thanks to Mr. Y chromosome. Of course I blame poor grammar on the same thing.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
There are so many theoretical & methodological problems IQ testing. Any analysis with IQ scores as a data set in inherently flawed. Garbage in, garbage out.
I recall reading an article earlier (no idea where it is now) that looked at exactly what the different genders "know" and are "smart at". Men generally fared well in the more science and maths based questions, while women fared significantly better at sociology and understanding emotions in others. Assuming this is true (and it seems accurate based on the people I know) then this may support the "men think they are smarter article". People generally associate intelligence with the sciences, while paying less detail to other parts that make up a persons intelligence. I would say that if the association with sciences and intelligence wasn't there, women would certainly see themselves as being quite smart. After all, how many women would say "oh, yes, my partner is so much better than me when dealing with an emotional crisis over the phone" and by the same token, not many males would say "My partner is certainly smarter than me, she knew just the right thing to say when I was arguing with my brother...".
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Believe it or not, I live with a women and she could care
less about an IQ test. I would also like to go on record as
saying that she is much smarter than me Iloveyouhoney.
Clearly this is the case. Men haven't been able to win domestic arguments since clubbing and dragging was considered a valid way to conduct discourse.
Believing you're smart, and acting on it, can be considered as a claim to an higher amount of psychic territory. Social forces are such that women have been less likely to use intelligence as a basis for this for this, but I think that's changing...but I wonder how a sample of "Mad Men"-era housewives would have treated assessing their own 'prettiness' or 'perkiness' compared with their husbands' self-assessments.
It can also be a tactic for feeling better about your own place in the actual hierarchy, even as it breeds resentment (it doesn't work for me, but I see people seemingly sustained by the 'knowledge' that they're smarter than everyone else).
Women can also be extremely concerned about hierarchy, but again there seem to be differences in how they get their places in it, less 'Look at me, I can make an intensely loud threat-display!' than 'Girls, you all know how much I've groomed all of you....'
It's not that I think you intentionally screwed up the results, darling. It's just I'd feel better if a man looked over the numbers real quick.
Skynet would make sure everyone knew their proper position on the intellectual ladder.
In my own personal findings, I've found that most hyper-intellectuals don't have a lick of Common Sense. It's funny how God works that way. And no, I'm not talking about a brilliant mind with an eccentric tick or two that us lowly 140IQ "idiots" can't even begin to fathom, I'm talking about downright stupidity in some of the most obvious and basic ways.
Take money management for example. Brilliant individual, six-figure salary to boot, and so damn broke he/she can't afford to change their mind. Freaking kills me.
Of course, going along the debt theory, our own Government must be made up of some of the most brilliant minds in the world...
Another study of teachers, asked to estimate the IQ of their students, found they overestimated the IQ of extroverted kids, and underestimated the IQ of quiet kids. Males tend to be more extroverted than females, so that could explain the perception of males as 'smarter'.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
I've always assumed that my mother was probably smarter than my father, or at least more educated. She went to Princeton, and my dad went to a public school in Florida. She studied Romance Languages, particularly French and Italian, and currently has a masters in Spanish. She used to be an investment banker with a Japanese company, and as she speaks 7 languages, was heavily involved in a lot of deals. My dad was an airline captain for many years, and he's good at maths and stuff though. On my dad's side, my grandfather was a navy pilot with a civil engineering degree, and my grandmother was a calculus teacher though. On my mother's side, my grandfather had a business degree, also from Princeton, and my grandmother was a model, and I don't think she went to college.
So, in my family its evenly matched (and perhaps actually stacked in favor of the women). However, that's just one more anecdote and not a real data point.
Allegedly GWBush has a fairly high IQ (well at least 120+)
(Allegedly there, I FTFY.) That's alleged by people who allegedly have an allegedly low IQ themselves (well at least 80-, allegedly) and will, I allege, show up shortly to allege otherwise. I'll also allege that I'd like to hear what new alleged topics Bush allegedly had the capacity to allegedly understand.
They allegedly always allege that Bush was allegedly smarter than Obama (allegedly our new president, although he allegedly has some alleged paperwork problem allegedly involving his alleged birth in the State allegedly of Hawaii- allegedly one of the States which are themselves alleged to be United- that magically [allegedly] transports his alleged birth to the alleged nation of Kenya as if that would allegedly make them alleged victims even if it were allegedly true in the alleged first place).
Now before anyone allegedly jumps on me, please allegedly remember that I allegedly only alleged these things were alleged, so I'm allegedly sorry.
Surprisingly, [both] men and women perceive men being smarter across generations. Both sexes believe that their fathers are smarter than their mothers and grandfathers are more intelligent than their grandmothers.
The second sentence doesn't necessarily support the first. There's a lot of things that could be going on here, like valuing male relatives more, for example, or the participants' views could be affected by their belief in familial gender roles. Family is special - you can't just say that since people feel this way about their relatives that they feel this way about all men and women.
It might be true, of course, but this doesn't prove it.
When woman want to show their interest or admiration in a man they tend to compliment his abilities to solve their problems. ("Oh, could you figure this out for me? Could you help me fix my car?"). When men want to show their interest in a woman we compliment their attributes ("You are so lovely in that dress... You would make such a good mother...)
I have known many drop-dead gorgeous and intelligent woman - most of whom are aware of men (and women) looking at their beauty well before they even notice a brain, if they ever notice. And they did tend to underestimate their intelligence, even when I would ask advice on problems of them.
On the other hand I have been contacted by women from my past who indicated how much they liked me - but all they complimented me on was my intelligence, so how was I to know that I was attractive? I would wonder if the same polls would find men underestimating themselves in the physical realm, with woman overestimating themselves... Provided you could get more than bragging from the men polled.
If you're familiar with the Myers-Briggs/Carl Jung personality type system, I believe it can apply to this discussion, in connecting certain personality types with society's views of "intelligence." For example, I am an INTP (a "Thinker"), and consider myself to be fairly intelligent. Most who are familiar with the system would also agree that INTPs tend to exhibit traits typically viewed as "intelligent." However, I am constantly reminding my girlfriend, who is an ISFJ (a "Nurturer") that she is a very intelligent person. She seems to have an ingrained notion that she is less intelligent than others around her, and a general lack of self-confidence when it comes to intellectual pursuits. She is actually much better than I am at various mental tasks, specifically factual memory, recalling dates, multitasking, numbers, etc. My understanding is that the same societal and environmental influences which contribute to the development of one's personality are the same that give that person their sense of self-understanding, and transitively their sense of self-worth and intelligence. I may have a more developed "intuition" trait, which allows me to make conceptual connections very easily (ie. inventing, engineering, programming), but I will never be quite as good at recalling dates, or at being very aware of my immediate surroundings as she is.
"... they don't do as well at uni any more don't live as long have a weaker immune system and now they think they are smarter! the over paid evolutionary throwbacks, why don't we get rid of them all and move on as a race" I hate articles like this, there are so many, and yes I am a man, Until we start treating each other (the sexes) as equals, and recognising the differences (there are some) then we cant move on and away from the inequality of the past. this kind of sensationalist journalism, just polarises the sexes. I meen the title says it all, "he's not as smart as he thinks" so provocative where they could have gone for the more positive "she underestimates her intelligence" - but this is less catchy
I think in general, people perceive that bolder, outspoken people are smarter - as if their boldness comes from understanding and knowledge. I also think that men (by virtue of testosterone) tend to be bolder than women. This get misperceived as intelligence, thus men are generally perceived to be more intelligent.
we go out of our way to always make it sound like the sexes are equal. We can't ever just say a negative we have to find some way of qualifying it. For example the article says that men are better at spatial recognization but then says but women are better at "emotional intelligence". Since when is emotional a type of intelligence? The way I've seen the term used it has been to mean being able to correctly identify what you or others are feeling. Well good for you. It is similar to awarding points for being able to identify smells. "Sure your son is as dumb as a brick but his aroma intelligence is off the charts."
Also, they can't say that the way an average man thinks makes him more suited for work life and the way a woman thinks makes her more suited for nurturing tasks. When they want to say something like that they have to find a way around it by saying something like "men tend to have a logical/rational thinking process, whereas women tend to have a more empathetic thinking process". emotion != intelligence/reasoning. One is subjective and one is objective. I can reason with you and prove that my ideas are right, however I can't ever prove to you that my feelings are right. One way you are open to being persuaded the other way you just state that you have a right to feel that way and so what you've chosen to do is right.
These are also obviously averages. I personally think my mother is more intelligent than my father, even though my dad finished highschool and my mother dropped out. Similarly in university I took physics and I think the girls in the class were on average smarter than the guys. This could be due to a selection bias though: for a girl to go into physics she has to overcome the society stereotype that it is a men's profession and women can't do it, so it could lead to only the most gifted women trying the field.
The idiot is called an idiot for a reason. You don't walk up to someone who spends their spare time lighting their farts and ask them to assess anyone's intelligence, least of all their own.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
That's what she said! Uh, you said. Hmm, works either way.
One possibility is that men really are smarter, just that IQ tests don't measure the most important aspects of intelligence.
Homo Sapiens are high end apes that have evolved some crucial abilities. The most important ability of all is the ability to use tools.
Even more important than that is the ability to INVENT NEW TOOLS. Our entire civilization exists because of bright men in the past who invented and engineered the technology we have today. Ironically, civilized trappings such as feminism and political correctness are only possible at all due to technology.
Anyways, as far as I know, men have done around 95-99% of the inventing. Correct me if I'm wrong. Furthermore, in many situations in real life, it's usually a male co-worker that invents a new solution to a technical problem. IQ tests can only measure the ability of a person's brain to apply existing, canned solutions to problems.
In order for a culture to be sustainable across many generations, it absolutely must maintain a rate of population growth that is competitive with other cultures. Since, try as they might, men still just don't seem to be able to birth as many children as women birth, some specialization of labor is unavoidable. Women are also hormonally predisposed for superhuman patience, kindness, multitasking abilities, and other faculties necessary for raising children, while men have evolved to have, on average, a greater spirit of materialistic achievement, beer consumption, upper body strength, and other skills essential to "bring home the bacon".
I have to wonder how much a person's self-esteem has to do with their self-perception. I usually don't think that people with externally-visible low self-esteem are terribly bright. People who are unable to address and/or deal with their inner troubles, for instance, get a very low rating with me. More commonly than not, these "frail" people tend to be women, in my experience (though there are certainly some strong ones). Kinda interesting looking at these observations in writing, and thinking back to how things "used to be" where women were considered the weaker sex - not as mentally bright, not as intrepid, etc. (Contrary to the status quo belief of the 'sexism' of yore, the 'weakness' of women was generally considered to be mental/emotional, not physical.)
Also, testosterone (resulting in an more forward inner drive) probably has something to do with it, I imagine. If someone is driven, they are more likely to manifest their dreams, or to even have those dreams. From what I've seen, guys with more testosterone are not only more extroverted and have higher self-esteem, but also tend to accomplish more than their peers if they're the least bit intelligent.
I've got two children - a daughter, 3, and a son, 6. I don't think my son is more intelligent than my daughter, and don't necessarily think the inverse is true, either. I'm unsure due to age and gender related development. I do know that my daughter tends to learn better: she listens more carefully, and is generally more attentive to what's being told to her. But she's also nowhere near as headstrong or driven as my son, either.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I know this will upset alotta folks, but here goes anyway. This is not SPECIFIC, but speaking in GENERAL terms. Specific individuals can be larger, smarter, more beautiful, ad nauseum.
Women, on average, are smaller than men. The smaller individuals, male or female, within a species usually fares better by NOT advertising that they are smarter, stronger, quicker, etc. They may be the same as their larger counterparts in almost every way, but will generally try NOT to draw attention to themselves until mating time.
I do not believe that most women actually believe that their intelligence level is less than that of their male counterparts. I do believe that they have an ingrained, almost instinctual, need to allow others to believe that they genuinely believe that their larger and stronger male counterparts are also smarter. Women flatter men shamelessly to their faces, but if you ever get the chance to listen in to any gaggle of women when they believe there are no men around...well, that's quite an eye-opener.
Finally, in most western societies, women generally have more control over mate selection than men do. Why would a woman pick a mate she believed was stupid? Even if she did, she is unlikely to admit that she chose poorly until after she has ended the relationship (ex-whatever). There is no advantage to telling the world that your mate is a moron unless you are getting rid of them. All of these factors combined would probably be more than enough to skew the findings of this study severely, if it was done well to begin with.
Unless they're a Mythbuster.
Captcha: crotch 0.o
I thought the same thing. I estimated 9 inches, she measured 5 inches.
I recall my grandfather having farting competitions with his friends one Christmas.
However, I'd certainly consider the man "smart" or even a "genius". Not too great at book smarts (well, mathematics, at least). But the man was a genius in his own right: an incredible artist (oils on Masonite, having paintings sell for millions), an Expert marksman when he shot for the Army Rifle Team (they asked him to go to the Olympics), a phenomenal outdoorsman (if it exists, he probably knew its name, scientific name, what it ate or ate it, etc.), and a poet/singer who knew thousands of lengthy songs and poems by heart (including Horatius and many of his own).
But yeah, he liked lewd jokes and fart competitions. That, alone, doesn't make someone dumb.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
We don't even have a very good definition of "intelligence". How can you measure something when you can't even define it?
And there you have proof that men are not smarter than women. We all want sex, but if women will have it with us, most of us consider that a "negative trait" [ though I certainly don't if any hot geek girls out there want to get their freak on ;-) ]
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I think the real reason men feel they're more intelligent than women can be summed up in two words: "Twilight Saga".
GNAA is proud to present the GNAA Penis Bird Flag!
Wave it and Wear it! Contest - entry is free and so are the prizes!
We're giving away 1,000 Penis Bird flags, t-shirts, hats, and smocks!
Enter now!
http://penisbirdflag.gnaa.org/wave-it-and-wear-it-contest.html
But yeah, he liked lewd jokes and fart competitions. That, alone, doesn't make someone dumb.
Lighting farts does though. You an injure yourself badly doing it.
I never said lewd jokes made one "dumb". I used lighting of farts as an example of something an idiot would do. The rest of your spiel about your granddad was touching but irrelevant. I don't know the man but wouldn't call him an idiot based on what little you've told me about it.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
What a BS article (but what do you expect from Newsweek). The "researcher" doesn't even answer half the questions, but goes off on tangents. There is only mention of "on average" with no discussion of how the data is distributed. This idiot probably just thew the data in Excel's "average" and "stddev" functions without even looking to see what kind of distribution it might be. Given the types of differences in upbringings that lead to self perception issues, I'd expect at least a bimodal distribution, if not something more non-Gaussian.
Here's the opening of the article:
"NEWSWEEK: Many studies show that men score slightly higher in IQ tests. Is this significant?
Adrian Furnham: Universally, men tend to score higher on certain specialized skills, such as spatial awareness. In the real world, that means they might be better at reading maps or navigating. Women score higher in terms of language development and emotional intelligence."
OK. Translated, this seems to be saying "well, men actually do score better on those things that are measured by IQ tests, but that's not relevant because women score better on things that are not measured on IQ tests."
Shit! The stuff measured by IQ tests is known, technically, as "IQ." If this sentence is true, then, in fact, men do have higher IQs than women. The very first sentence of the article destroys his case.
There are different sets of mental abilities that people of both genders have, and while some people will be very strong in some, they also can end up very weak in others. It is also the perception of the word "intelligent" that can also differ from person to person, or from ethnic group to ethnic group. As a result, you can have people who score very high in certain types of tests, yet if you throw them into an unusual situation, they won't have the slightest idea how to handle it.
The ability to come up with solutions to different problems is the perfect example of this. You can take someone with amazing abilities in mathematics or physics, but they might not be able to come up with a good solution on how to improve the functional efficiency of a business, group, or come up with other solutions outside their area of expertise. In this regard, their high intelligence is limited to a narrow area.
Being able to evaluate problems with systems of doing things may also be an area where people considered to be intelligent might have trouble, but at the same time they can handle very advanced scientific problems quickly and easily. A part of this is that people tend to either focus on specifics, or generalities. While some will really dig deep to find a detailed solution to a problem thrown at them, others will look at the situation from a "big picture" perspective and figure out a USE for what the detail oriented people come up with. Women and men both have the ability to fall into either group, but this idea that intelligence can be easily evaluated without looking at other mental strengths and weaknesses of the individual is what is flawed.
You can also break things down into areas such as memorization ability, the ability and speed to learn a new concept, and the ability to analyze and apply knowledge to various very different situations. If you take some Math majors from MIT and try to throw them into a situation that calls for a solution that does not call for a mathematical solution, would they be able to find the solution? Knowledge and Wisdom.....one is how much a person knows and can recall, and the other is the application of knowledge. One without the other tends to be fairly useless, but without wisdom, knowledge becomes useless. How many people do YOU consider to be idiots because they can't come up with good solutions to problems, even though they have very obvious mental strengths? It also requires a certain type of thinking to see systematic flaws in different areas, and it is unfortunate that many people don't understand this.
And finally, it takes the cooperation of DIFFERENT people with different mental strengths to come up with solutions to many things. The problem is that too many people fail to see their own weaknesses, and where they NEED the help of people with a very different way of approaching problem solving.
He presents it as a paradox that, on the average, people believe that their mothers were less intelligent than their fathers, and their grandmothers less intelligent than their grandfathers.
However, it is no paradox for men to be more intelligent than the women they marry (on the average), even though men and women have the same average intelligence. This merely requires that women tend to marry men more intelligent than they are, while men tend to marry women less intelligent than they are.
Of course, this give problems at each end of the scale-- men at the low-intelligence end of the scale and women at the high intelligence end of the scale both will tend to be unmarried. I'm not sure that this isn't the case, though!)
(Actualy, since the survey was of the children, not the actual couples, the statistics quoted will still be reasonable if, on the average, when a higher-intelligence women marries a lower-intelligence man they have fewer children than when a lower-intelligence woman marries a higher-intelligence man.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Don't forget that in the United States, some 60% of male babies undergo brutal genital mutilation, and nobody gives 2 shits. Female genital mutilation is thoroughly illegal, regardless of any and all cultural, religious, or imagined justifications (as it should be). Slicing off bits of babies is allowed and even encouraged as long as they are male babies.
IQ tests can be biased and based on knowledge and wisdom instead of intelligence and potential to learn or think.
For example people here on Slashdot, we are very good with computers and technology, we find managers and rich people are not as smart with computer as we are. But while we consider rich business people to be stupid, they find us to be stupid when it comes to business and business decisions just as we find them stupid when it comes to computers and technology decisions. The thing is that everyone is intelligent at at least one subject, maybe even more. Even if it is street maintenance that only an autistic person is good at, they are intelligent at that if nothing else because they really have a passion for street maintenance or whatever their interests are. Usually one is intelligent at their interests, and the average Slashdot readers are good at math and science and computers because of their interests, and the rich business people are good at investing, finances, accounting, and turning over a profit. The Dotcom busts showed us that when computer people try to run a business without any business classes or experience, they tend to fail just as bad as the business person who tries a computer business but lacks the computer knowledge.
Men and Women have different interests and are intelligent at different areas. It even goes by political party as liberals are usually better in liberal arts and science than business management and accounting, while conservatives are better in business management, finances, and investing than liberal arts and science. I think it is the right brain verses the left brain, as people like me want to try and balance out the usage of the brain to use both sides.
But my theory is that everyone is intelligent at least at something. The people that score low in IQ tests are usually smart at stuff the IQ test doesn't cover like NASCAR, the WWE/TNA Wrestling, TV shows and movie trivia, culture, traditions, social skills, etc. So one person's idiot is another person's genius so to speak.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Smart men build weapons.
Smart women know not to use them.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
how about we do a study on why the fuck studies always concerntrate on proving the current PC flavour of the month, and studies that prove unpopular truths hardly see the light of day.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Men are supposed to be the ruler - even though that has been wildly politically incorrect to say, its still coded in our genes.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
And a very narrow-minded measure of intelligence.
Take what ye can. Give nothing back!
Exactly! I'd say that the concept of intelligence is really just a human cultural convention. It has no objective reality.
Now I think I'm above average 1/2 of the time.
San Francisco Photographers
It's quite possible that the others were just out of matches....
But you do bring up an interesting point. Is IQ related to crassness? I rather suspect not. I work with some very bright engineers who probably wouldn't be able to speak if it wasn't for swear words. Having a high IQ does not put one in the enlightened arena, it simply means that one is gifted at solving problems or remembering things or synthesizing information. It has absolutely no bearing on how you live life and the quality of human being you are.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
I don't know if anyone keeps stats on the male/female membership for Slashdot, but I'm guessing relatively few women would find themselves interested in taking part in what is essentially an intellectual pissing contest. Doesn't mean they're not smart, just means they don't feel the need to beat their chests and try to be the intellectual 800 lb gorilla in the forum.
..this sounds just like a man trying to be 5 IQ points smarter than he is! Wait, can't be, that would be too ironic
These kinds of articles are always just troll bait. We now live in a male bashing society that is constantly trying to show how men are not really smart, and that women are really the smart ones. I suppose that we can say that this one isn't so bad because at least it claims we are women's peers. While there very well may be an intelligence difference between men and women, there is enough environmental difference that one is unlikely to be able to find it even with the best of tests.
The biggest factor is that if you take any group of people and split them into two groups. One gets taught that they don't have to provide for themselves, so anything they accomplish is just for their own gratification, and the other is taught that no one is ever going to hand them a free lunch, so they better figure out how they will support themselves, I think we can all figure out which group is going to end up smarter.
It is made abundantly clear to very small children that men need to earn their livings, and women earn a living if they want to. Even in today's society, little girls are informed that they can marry/sleep their way into being supported. No doubt, there will be a certain percentage of people that will end up dumb even if they believe they will need to support themselves, and some people will end up smart even if they don't NEED to be. The reason that it appears that there are more smart men then women isn't because women are not given credit. It isn't because evil men keep them down. It is because the group of smart women consist of the women that WANT to be smart, and the group of smart men include the men that WANT to be smart combined with the group of men that feel they NEED to be smart for survival. It should be no surprise that you get better results from the group that needs it for survival.
If women want to become men's intellectual peers, they need to start sleeping with men for their looks instead of their wallets. They need to make sure that starting at a young age, little girls are taught that they should pay for everything when they date men. Both young boys and young girls need to be taught that it is a woman's responsibility to financially support men, and that if a man supports them financially, the woman is a bum, and unworthy of being in a relationship.
Get these ideas instilled in our youth, and you will see more smart women and fewer smart men.
I've been watching this topic for a few hours and if nothing else, it's entertaining to see the more inflammatory posts rise and fall and rise and fall again. Someone should perform a study on it and tell us what it means.
If a man speaks in the forest and there are no women around, is he still wrong?
Right. Given a silly comment of one's own, the men say "Duh" to you, while the women say "Duh" *to each other behind your back*.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
"... Surprisingly, both men and women perceived men being smarter across generations -- both sexes believe that their fathers are smarter than their mothers and their grandfathers are more intelligent than their grandmothers. And if there are children, both men and women think their sons are brighter than their daughters."
The use of "believe is correct; the use of "think" is not.
The number of humans that can actually think, as opposed to rationalize, compared to the total number of humans, appears to be statistically insignificant.
I've seen male engineers that can barely tie their shoes and women that can write beautiful essays in perfect grammatical English and yet can not navigate across town without a GPS system. How can you accurately access intelligence when it manifests itself in so many different ways?
There's a very simple answer tho this difference that is quite probably right: the definition of intelligence used by the sample (that is, by the general population) is not the same one used in IQ tests. That, which shounds quite likely at first glance, would perfectly explain these "surprising" results. It would be enough that the laymen definition of intelligence strongly weighted skills that men have more often than women (such as those related to spacial composition, manually building or fixing things or understanding mechanical processes) while giving less weight to those more frequent in women (like managing complex processes, understanding people's mental state or recalling ordered information) and have those skills weighted differently in the technical definition of IQ, and the results could easily be as observed. Personally I find the definition often used in such tests (the capability to solve complex problems) useless. And no, I do not consider that other definitions that reflect things such as social skills or artistic abilities as valid. What is missing in the definition, IMO, is the ability to FORESEE AND AVOID problems. An intelligent person not only solves problems, is also good at not getting into them. And that's completely missing in any IQ evaluation I've seen. While I personally score high in IQ tests (130 on average, though I've been rated everything from 120 to 145) I thing I would do worse if such capabilities were considered, and I think that would better reflect my real intelligence. Not that I'm dumb as a rock, but I'm not as well adapted for this "living" thing as my IQ would indicate.
With statistics. Is there anything they can't do?
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
> His analysis of some 30 studies showed that men and women are fairly equal overall in terms of IQ Actually, when the IQ test was first created men scored higher and the test was considered biased towards men. This was then changed so that the bias would be removed so, men and women are fairly equal because the test was designed to be that way. However, men still have a greater variance than women, even in on average they're both the same.
Ridiculous. This is a great post, and nails the point of TFA right on the head.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
describes her degree as a "science degree" to avoid scaring men away. She has a degree from one of the top colleges in the world.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
It goes beyond the stereotypes, because men tend to be more physically abusive while women tend to be more socially abusive. It's much easier to get evidence of the former, and there's a bigger stigma associated with it. Women are as likely to be abusive as men, but the kind of abuse they're likely to indulge in is not so obvious to a court of law or a jury. This tracks with developmental psychology's learning about children: as boys grow toward puberty they tend to be physically agressive, while as girls grow toward puberty they tend to be socially agressive. In both cases, there are people who never grow out of it.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Supposedly George Barnard Shaw asked his wife, Charlotte, whether she agreed that men were smarter than women. She replied, "Of course, you married me and I married you."
The best article by far on what makes well educated women tick is this classic: http://www.martynemko.com/articles/men-as-beasts-burden_id1228
[quote]Are men smarter than women? No. But they sure think they are. [/quote]
The author of this article is a woman, hence introducing gender bias.
Keep in mind that tests from other eras (let's say the 80s and backwards, just for simplicity) were significantly skewed towards male-oriented views of intelligence. I'm not saying they were sexist: Just that in some cases the men writing the tests couldn't conceive how the correct answer could be other than the one they intended. We have a lot more studies now showing different methods of thinking, and a lot more respect for intelligence in social situations as well as academic ones. My mother, for example, scored 78 on an IQ test back in the 1970s, despite a grade average of A's and B's. Her most recent attempt at an IQ test landed her somewhere in the 130 range, I think. Her teacher back in 70-something told her the the test was total bunk and to ignore it, because he intended to.
It's not just limited to IQ tests, but essentially, generations of women have grown up thinking they're less "intelligent" than men... but with a very academic definition of intelligence.
If someone wants to launch a counter-study, try replacing the term "intelligence" in this study with "common sense". I'd be willing to bet the results would be sharply reversed, even among men reporting their own levels of "common sense". Just a hunch.
About people thinking their father's were smarter than their mothers: Could this be due to men tending to be older than women in marriage? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_at_first_marriage IQ varies little over time but older men might have a consistent edge over younger women in life experience, wisdom and practical knowledge.
Case in point, I just realized that "Her teacher back in 70-something told her the the test was total bunk and to ignore it, because he intended to." should come before "Her most recent attempt at an IQ test landed her somewhere in the 130 range, I think." Because with the current wording, it makes him sound like he was calling her stupid, which he was not. Now perhaps I should bring up Hitler, to really stick my foot in my mouth.
My dad's an okay guy. He's pretty with it. But I wouldn't say he's smarter than my mom (especially not right in front of her, that's just ASKING for an ass-whupping with a spiked stun stick).
Same thing goes with my maternal grandmother and my recently deceased grandfather (except saying something to the effect above would just get me killed outright, family or no...short Irish women...they pack a lot of rage into those small frames...)
I don't really remember a lot about my paternal grandmother, but I'd assume, from my grandfather's demeanor, something similar existed there too).
Seriously. Most of the men in my family are/were amiable, phlegmatic guys. The women wore the pants though...
*GOD! That's a horrific mental image!*
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Perhaps if men are perceived as more intelligent across generations including this one then maybe we need to make the test fit the definition of "smart" that both genders agree to. No, I don't mean a test that's bias towards males. Just bias towards what people across gender/generational lines consider "smart."
Speaking as an intelligent-but-warmish female from the South, my theory on guys and intelligent females is a bit different. I think it actually has more to do with how nice the guy is and how secure he is in his own abilities. I'm a third year law student and I just got married in August, and my husband is a wonderful, brilliant techie with a masters in CS, and he definitely values the intelligence aspect of our interactions, but he's also a genuinely nice person who isn't insecure about his smarts. On the other hand though, my most successful relationship before this was with a guy who was just about the opposite of my husband (except he was also a very nice guy). He WAS the equivalent of dating a hot dumb blond chick. Really good looking, and a really sweet guy, but dumb as a brick. I figure he was accustomed to people being smarter than he was, so it didn't bug him much. He was proud of me. "This is my girlfriend, the smartest person I know!" - It was really sweet. But I needed more of an equal, so I ended the relationship and wound up with a skinny computer geek who rocks my world. If my past experience says anything helpful though, I think it's just a matter of finding a guy who doesn't feel threatened by empowered females. And I don't even mean empowered like "Rawr! I am woman!" - I just mean empowered as in the ones that always do well in academic pursuits and feel no pressure to dumb themselves down to make insecure people feel better about themselves.
It was hard to find guys who were attracted to me who didn't feel threatened by my activities. It's annoying, but a lot of people still think we're in a society where the male is supposed to be smarter, taller, stronger, faster, better, etc, than his female counterpart. I was smarter than my ex, and I'm taller than my husband. Big deal. Having a uterus doesn't dictate the traits of people I can connect with.
The other thing I was told once by a geek friend was that I was more the "marrying type." That guys want to have fun with the hot blonde party chick, but they want to eventually settle down with a smart female with a good personality who values them and that they can have a conversation with. I was flattered except insofar as I WASN'T, since that meant that somehow, there was this type of female around that was only for marrying and she would thus never actually be expected to "have fun." And having fun might actually invalidate her status as being the marrying type!! Ah well, a couple of instances of serial monogamy later, and I'm married to one of the "marrying type" of guys anyway. Haha, I say to the people that wanted to wait and settle down with us after they had their fun.
I can demonstrate that men are generally smarter: More women than men believe in astrology.
I dated a woman that claimed to have a 160 IQ (I had no reason to doubt her), yet she believed in astrology. To her credit when I explained that no scientific studies have ever correlated birth sign to anything related to personality she actually accepted that there was nothing to astrology. Though this in contrast to 98% of the female believers whose minds I have never been able to change.
Sex differences in toy preferences in children are marked, with boys expressing stronger and more rigid toy preferences than girls, whose preferences are more flexible. Socialization processes, parents, or peers encouraging play with gender-specific toys are thought to be the primary force shaping sex differences in toy preference. A contrast in view is that toy preferences reflect biologically-determined preferences for specific activities facilitated by specific toys. Sex differences in juvenile activities, such as rough-and-tumble play, peer preferences, and infant interest, share similarities in humans and monkeys. Thus if activity preferences shape toy preferences, male and female monkeys may show toy preferences similar to those seen in boys and girls. We compared the interactions of 34 rhesus monkeys, living within a 135 monkey troop, with human wheeled toys and plush toys. Male monkeys, like boys, showed consistent and strong preferences for wheeled toys, while female monkeys, like girls, showed greater variability in preferences. Thus, the magnitude of preference for wheeled over plush toys differed significantly between males and females. The similarities to human findings demonstrate that such preferences can develop without explicit gendered socialization. We offer the hypothesis that toy preferences reflect hormonally influenced behavioral and cognitive biases which are sculpted by social processes into the sex differences seen in monkeys and humans.
I don't know what world you live in, but the one I live in, regardless of whether or not they go to school or have a career, most (not all) women eventually want to raise children of their own. In an ideal world, women could raise children AND have a career. We live far away from an ideal world on a place called Earth, where months out of work are a serious setback, and where raising kids well AND dealing with workplace responsibilities is impossible unless you sleep 2 hours a day.
My ass. Look, I'll agree that our definition of intelligence is fundamentally flawed, and that there are multiple facets to intelligence (verbal, societal, logical...)
But if "intelligence...has no objective reality" then nobody could be stupid. And we all know stupid people.
Since it's apparent that there's a low end to the scale (even intuitive), there has to be a high one. We just haven't found how to measure it. I'd argue that the same rule - our intuition - is the best one we have at the moment. We all know smart people. But, alas, that's not quantitative.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Fundamentally the question cannot be answered as long as we cling to preconceived notions of what it means to be a man or a woman. "Man" is a social construct -- and from a scientific perspective there is no clear way to deliniate(sp?) between male and female. You can claim genetics determines that, and I'll show you XX men and XY women. You claim genitalia, I'll reply with birth defects. Any such distinction is arbitrary, and claims to the contrary are unscientific. The either/or proposition of gender and sex are social constructs. I'd also like to remind you that there are no studies proving that intelligence has any survival advantage whatsoever.
You can show me exceptions all day to what is usually defined as "males" and "females", but that's exactly what they are -- exceptions. If you have a room with one million classical "males", one million classical "females", and an XX male and an XY female, it doesn't mean that "male" and "female" have no meaning because the latter two exist. Biology is not Mathematics. One example of a falsehood doesn't collapse the whole idea.
But you do bring up an interesting point. Is IQ related to crassness? I rather suspect not. I work with some very bright engineers who probably wouldn't be able to speak if it wasn't for swear words.
Not the point I was making at all. Crass is probably unrelated. Stupid definitely is related to an act performed for amusement which could cause serious injury.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Reminds me of the cognitive bias known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, which describes how incompetetent individuals overestimate their competence (did anybody say middle manager?) while the truly competent underestimate their competence (aka. depressive realism). Maybe competent women are more vulnerable to depressive realism?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism
(founded 95,000,000 yrs ago, very space opera)
ITT: The usual sexism
Whenever people want to give examples of important female mathematicians, my first thought is always Emmy Noether.
This was written by a woman, no doubt.
enlightening.
http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm
Understanding in general demolishes stereotypes and laughs in the face of political correctness and auto censorship. I love science....
Cheers,
Evtim
I didn't say that emotional awareness isn't useful. It just isn't intelligence. For a starters it often goes against the rational method, which is accepted as a activity of the intelligence, and thus can't be equated with intelligence. For another, it can be, albeit crudely, measured but the correctness of an emotional decision can't be proven, so it can't be used as a measure of how right a choice was.
It also might be true that you need "both sides" of the brain for each to work at its best. But I know very emotionally "intelligent" people that are absolute morons, thus emotional intelligence isn't causal of rational intelligence and at best is supportive of the rational side.
As for your example of highly intelligent leaders that can't get anything done because they don't appeal to the emotional side of things with their employees: does that prove that the leader is poorly functioning, or just that the average person behaves only slightly better than a monkey in a tree (if you make me feel good I'll pick flees off your back)? It is quite possible that the lack of rational thinking leads the masses not to follow the brilliant leader, not the lack of emotional awareness causing the brilliant leader to be ineffective.
Why is it that, over the generations - including the more recent Women's Liberated generations - both women and men perceived males to have greater intelligence than females?
And puhlease don't give any of the pathetic anti-male "patriarchy" bullshit because I don't buy into it as a reason for why one gender should be perceived as being more intelligent than the other.
If possible stick to presenting actual empirical data from actual research.
"His analysis of some 30 studies showed..." ... and this is precisely where one can stop reading. A sample size of 30 is far to small to make ANY statement, it doesn't even prove a weak correlation or a trend!! Why do so many studies get attention which have so small sample sizes? I can't belive it!
The problem with women is that while many of them are quite intelligent and -able- to draw correct conclusions and make connections, they rarely act upon their intelligence, often needing people (men) to try really hard to make them use their heads. Almost as if thinking hurt.
It's not that they can't act smart, it's that they don't like to. They tend to depend on their intuition and "hunches" ignoring and disregarding the logical conclusions completely. They can come up with an optimal solution to a problem, then apply a suboptimal one because they "like it better". Or they make completely unreasonable demands, being fully aware that the demands are impossible - possibly enjoying seeing the logical man trying to twist his brain around the paradox they force upon him, and deranging him for his inability to solve the impossible (as if it was the most obvious and easy thing in the world).
Truly evil and twisted creatures they are...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
What is the point of saying that men and women have equal IQs? IQ tests were designed so the average IQ is 100 across genders.
(Emphasis mine.)
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Men get a say where they stick their dick? Absolutely wrong. We have laws against rape. If men got the say, if men ruled the world, we'd be getting a shitload more sex than we do.
YOU control the pussy, women. And you're not letting go.
Be afraid of the man who doesn't see you as a woman: then you're powerless.
DNA studies of children in marriage show IIRC, over 1/3 of children are of untenable paternity: genetically there's no way the putative dad can be the father.
You know, for every single man that cheats on his wife, there's a woman involved (excepting same-sex affairs which unless the wife has a sex change is neithers' fault). Either a few women are REALLY slutty or women are just as bad as men.
Interestingly enough, in my family the wives are often the more intelligent ones. This is more so in the previous generation (i.e. amongst my aunts and uncles).
Given my cultural background (Portuguese) and the fact that most of my family comes from the countryside and has a low average level of education, it's interesting enough to see that while the men are "the man in the house" and supposedly make the decisions, the women do a lot of "convincing" on them and in some couples are the actual main decision makers.
Certainly in the social and cultural environment for the previous generation, it's often in the woman's best interest to not be seen by the men as "visibly" intelligent.
In my own generation, where pretty much all of us are city-folk with a degree, things seem more balanced. Certainly my female cousins expect (and often get) an environment where they are co-decision-makers.
We give our boys legos, blocks, erector/mechano, tinker toys, electronics kits, microscopes, telescopes, child size carpenters tools.
We give our girls Barbies, Littlest Pet Shop, Disney Princesses, CD Players, Bratz, hair brushes, make up, etc...
Girls have a higher "social intelligence" in most cases as spend their youth pretending to be mommies or party girls. So they learn their social skills early and attempt to mature to womanhood early.
Almost all boy toys are puzzles of some type or another. The "intelligent ones" spend their entire youths puzzling things out or attempting to figure out how to do things.
There are exceptions to both, I see it all the time at my kids' school. But on average, when you get to the school, of the children doing productive things (as opposed to kicking a ball around). Girls are coloring or making bead pictures. Boys are building and playing with mechanical or otherwise educational toys.
We categorize our children from birth and raise them differently. Women don't lack the intelligence that men do, men simply excel at the types of tasks found on IQ tests since they spend their entire childhood indirectly training for them.
It's often why in a typical middle class relationship (excluding couples with lawyers, marketing drones, pointed haired bosses etc...) that men are expected to devise solutions to complex problems. It's also why children tend to think "pappa's smarter than momma". It isn't that the women can't do it, in fact, single mothers have to solve all the same problems as the pappa does in a family. It's the fact that pappa's get more satisfaction from solving problems of those types and if women couldn't get us to do that stuff, they would probably have to do all the work in the house.
As for people talking about George W. Bush's IQ, it was Sr. that was reported to have 120, the reports I've read on Jr. had him closer to 100. Either way, on the IQ scale, they're both pretty much next to vegetables.
Look, the central fact is obvious: In nature's assigned gender attributes, Mens' core function is to impress women; Womens' core function is to judge men. Males fight and perform to their best capability and subsequently, the watching females choose the best man. The best man is always the most attractive to females. Men/males compete and women/females choose. Thats the method by which evolution has manipulated animals and humans alike and it manifests itself in our society as high performing bread-winning men and the women that choose them.
http://www.anticharisma.com/
When it comes to number of sexual partners the bell curve for men is a lot flatter than for women.
This means the average women has less partners than the average man - a small percentage of really slutty women are taking up the slack for the rest of them.
No sig today...
Spacial skills are not very relevant for the vast majority of modern scientists, engineers, developers, etc. Spacial skills are only useful for giving very young male children more enjoyment of building toys, and for navigation. Women otoh have a distinct and dramatic advantage in most memory tests, not just family members, but also chemical reactions, metallurgical properties, equations, etc. So we expect that societies that best helps women into science and engineering disciplines will develop technology far far faster.
There are basically two major cultural defects preventing women from capturing these disciplines :
(1) Mixed gender schooling -- Girls outperform boys in mixed gender schooling, but girls preform even better when competing against only other girls. So we must institute single gender schooling.
(2) Child bearing -- Women are forced to choose between raising children and high profile careers. So we must institute "free day care" for women in science and technology.
Ideally, we could have just vastly more funding of science and technology that allowed women to get jobs in any city they wanted, and thus allow grandparents to raise children. In fact, grandparents historically had an enormous role in raising children, and still do among poor people.
I'd say the easiest route would be to write up a clean simple explanation of all the ways children benefit from exposure to grandparents, and make people read it before receiving full social security benefits. You'd never be forced to work with kids, just read the explanation, but your social security benefits might be reduced if you refused to even read it.
I think the only other options besides grandparents is literally government run 24-7 day care, which might work out very well, but doesn't have the historical precedent.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
who cares about average people ? I know I don't.
Interesting people are smart and I have to say there are way more smart men than smart women.
I don't think it's genetic though although it may be partly. The main reason is that chicks don't need to be smart, most of them just land a guy and live off him. So basically they just have to be smart enough to land a guy which, being a guy, I know is dead easy. A smart woman is rare, a bit like the son of a millionnaire who is well educated but never actually needs to use his brain because he is so filthy rich.
This is all easily explained by a man's competitive nature. Why do people think men achieve anything? For the common good?
Hell no - for self-gratification. The pyramids, scientific advancements, etc can all be boiled down to a man saying "I am right" or "I am superior".
Why do men do better in game shows like Jeopardy? The drive to win overpowers their natural reservations. Women may know the answer but they lack the testosterone drenched brain that demands victory. Why did Grandpa seem smarter - because, by God, he's not afraid to tell you his opinions...on everything.
On average, women are certainly more intelligent. But lacking the hard-wired drive of men they will continue to underachieve.
Ah, that's a good point. But it also applies to my other example (so there's nothing special about the get-a-chick case), and pretty much any example you can come up with, unless money and power are goals unto themselves.
If power is your goal, you're likely to be sociopathic, or at least not be a kind of person people like hanging around. If money is your goal, you're likely a greedy bastard; again, this won't make you popular.
Having any of these as a goal unto itself and not a means seems to suggest some unhealthy obsession.
IQ tests might not be perfect, but a scale that rates morons at the bottom, sheeple in the middle and Steven Hawking at the high end isn't "fundamentally flawed". So called "emotional intelligence" aside.. You can argue until your face turns blue, but someone with a low IQ will be noticeably dumb while someone with a high IQ will most likely be noticeably smart, at least in the context of understanding how logical things work, spatial awareness, ability to learn and comprehend, and apply said learned information to novel problems.
Until you can prove that IQ tests show no (or a very weak) correlation between IQ score and the properties mentioned above (i.e. the things they are made to quantify) you have no argument and by virtue of logic have no place pushing your rubbish misconceptions on others. (sorry if that sounded a bit harsh)
...further proof that the IQ test is flawed.
Intelligence itself might be overrated. Intelligence alone isn't enough to be successful at something. Effort seems to be the overriding factor. Determined people can outstrip smart people who are lazy *raises hand*.
There was a study where they assessed the abilities of two classes of kids. They complimented one class on how smart they were and the other on how hard they worked. Before long, the smart kids were frustrated. The hard working kids where less likely to give up. They found out that they could work through things they didn't understand.
The whole thing was too near the bone for me. Through my childhood they told me i was gifted (but undisciplined). i had a tendency to assume that anything i found difficult was beyond me, and i'd quit.
Intelligence alone won't help in relationships. Smart people sometimes think they can outsmart relationship problems, or that love is a problem to be solved. It just doesn't work that way. Until i gained some serious self awareness through painful experiences, i had a tendency to annoy the shit out of people by trying to be smart/logical.
Last i heard, the membership of MENSA showed that they are not universally wealthy or highly placed in their careers.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
...so I don't trust it. Anyone have a link to one written by a man?
Many dumb people happen to be way happier than very smart people. Ignorance is bliss.
;).
;).
;).
The thing is if you are one of those super geniuses then most people would be way dumber than you. So if you want a happy life, you should use your smarts to figure out how to enjoy being with stupid people - since there are lots more of them around
And why should it be hard? Lots of people can get along just fine with dumb dogs, so what's the problem with smart people getting along with good-natured dumb humans? Just look at the dumb happy face of a dog after you say "Good dog!" to him just for fetching a ball. There are millions of animals who are stupid and yet lead reasonably happy lives with humans.
Sure I couldn't talk meaningfully with a dog or the average person about cognitive dissonance etc, but I can talk about other stuff. And some dogs just sit and listen no matter what you say anyway
I just try to talk different stuff with different people. Different people will have different interests (politics, medicine, technology, IT stuff, religion, whisky, food, playing tag).
BTW if that sexy blonde is extremely dumb compared to you, is it some form of bestiality if you have sex with her? After all scientists like to say that humans share >98% genes with chimps, and if you two shared too many genes it'll be incest
People say beauty fades etc. That's true, but the mind fades too (usually lasts longer tho). As for "character", sure seems like lots of people get crankier and more bad natured as they get older. Many can't even realize simple stuff like: they're feeling short tempered because they're hungry, and so take measures to counteract that. You'd think they'd have learnt that after being around for many decades. But no...
To me if the girl is nice and kind to someone she doesn't have to be kind to at all, she's likely to be a genuinely kind person at heart (it'll take a severe degenerative brain disease to make her unkind - while not impossible, is not as likely). So even in the times when the embers of love grow dim, she'd still be kind to me - which will make it easier to keep things going till we manage to get the flames back up.
And hopefully I will be kind to her, there's the big problem- I'm not really such a nice guy. Oh well...
Women are generally far less WISE than men, not less intelligent - until they get older. The proof of this is that they are overwhelmingly socialist (Democratic party) until the get married (+3 wisdom) and have children (+5 wisdom), at which point they statistically vote for the wise conservative party (not I didn't say Republican party since Bush & company weren't conservatives).
Sorry, to blow the curve here. My son is not dumb. However..... my daughter is going to do whatever she puts her mind to. Her brain is wired in a very argeeable fashion. She 5 and is showing interest in cursive writing, the art museum, music (she saw The Bettys on Phneous and Ferb and told me, "see daddy, girl can rock too." daddy's little headbanger). she is reading doing various math problem for fun etc.
I'm gonna have my hands full keeping her intelectually stimulated.
I wonder if men really like "dumb", or if they just don't like the competition/arguments. A smart partner may be more likely to argue with you over who is right. Heck, a smarter partner is more likely to *BE* right, which means that you will be *WRONG* more often. Most people don't being wrong - or at least have it pointed out when they are - and that applies especially to a lot of guys I know.
I prefer smarter women myself. Heck, I also prefer older women, mostly because the ones I found in my generation were either
a) Already married/attached/etc
b) Already done (a), and are now bitter
c) Gold-diggers
d) Rather unintelligent, or at least pretend to to
e) Out-of-area or unavailable
f) Had standards I couldn't meet
And yes, with (f) I'm perfectly willing to agree that my inability to find a "perfect partner" was at times because I wasn't good enough for them at the time, but when I was in my early 20's I definitely running into a lot of (c) and (d). And looking back at myself in days past, I can see why (social skills, not at the drooling-in-my-lap variety but definitely needed work). Unattractive in both men/women, and a lot of that tends to fall into the "lack of maintenance" area. A lot of supposedly hot women spend a lot of time in the maintenance area which doesn't leave a lot else in their lives. It tended to be a feedback-loop issue though. A lot of so-called nerds back then actually became a fair bit more attractive *after* dating for the first few times and learning the ropes.
So now I'm dating somebody who's older than me, and smart. She's smart (degree in Accounting, Masters in Business) and done the married to a jerk/cheater before so she seems to appreciate the things I do more than girls I had previously dated.
If I had to compare my parents, I'd have to say my father was smarter, but that a lot of it had to do with my mother simply choosing not to take the responsibility of making a decision one way or another, and/or choosing to act dumb. On the other hand my mother is probably a lot better at acting on people/emotions than my father, who is better at acting on information, etc.
I regards to "warmish" VS "hot" Women not only often undervalue their intelligence, but also their looks. I think that smart people often tend to second-guess themselves though, and assumedly they're less likely to become a ONS, which is what a lot of others who will overlook you are gunning for. Don't underestimate the hotness of a good lookin' gal with a brain.
Men don't get any say in how a pregnancy turns out, but are still required to pay up in full, even in cases where the woman intentionally got herself pregnant.
Actually, in that case they guy had his say when he unzipped his pants and didn't wrap. Unless the woman was poking pinholes in the condoms etc then the consequences are not unforseeable. For guys the consequences of such are no worse than a woman who ends up with a father-of-the-child who turns out to be a complete dickhead.
That a man who "fights back" is more likely to end up as the one in the back of squad car.
I know some pretty big guys who have had their asses kicked by women. Why? Because if they defended themselves with even the slightest bit too much force, they'd be tossed in jail. Heck, there are cases where you have some guy bloodied, bruised, and the woman with maybe a mark on her shoulder (such as from - for example - holding her off), and still it's the guy who gets arrested. Heck, even in cases where the female assailant had a bloody frying pan or carving knife, the guy calls the cops, and when they officers show up they just about cart him off before the operator tells them he's the one that called it in.
So a woman's body will get bigger for 9 months or so, and undergo some changes, some of which are irreversible. There is a real risk of medical complications too. I don't want to diminish that at all.
However, what about the rights of my body to not be subjected to 18 years worth of work to pay for a child that I may not want? It's easier for a woman to obligate a man to supporting a child than it is for a man to avoid that obligation, and a man has no say in whether the child is born and thus whether he has to work to support one. As a software engineer my biggest risks in that support are a car wreck during my commute, and a heart attack as a result of a desk job with stress. But for some people that work may have real cumulative physical effects on their body. 18 years is a long time.
tl;dr - Working sucks. Wear a raincoat.
Steven Hawking doesn't even know his IQ and neither do you so he's not evidence of anything.
I don't know what "sheeple" means but "moron" is either a person who doesn't conform to certain "normal" cultural expectations or an individual with a damaged brain due to a birth defect or accident.
You seem to have a strange idea of how science works. The principle is that the burden of proof lies with the person with the theory. The lack of evidence that an IQ test doesn't measure intelligence is not evidence that it does.
In any case, as I've said before, intelligence is a made up concept, not like mass, volume, charge, etc that have an objective meaning.
Don't know why you would need 24/7 daycare. 8-6 daycare at $7/day heavily subsidized seems to work here in Quebec. It is a hit to the budget, but, like medicare, it is one that benefits a lot of people. I'm happy to pay taxes (and the taxes just are not that high; compensate for the services you get and the only people who don't come out ahead are the people rich enough to want special services and they can afford the tax hit) to pay for it.
Not sure where all the negativity toward gender equality is coming from. My wife always did better than I did at school and now that she has given up on the pure research thing she is outcompeting the men she works with in business.
I agree the ideal is having one parent at home (6 month rotation anyone?), but the one working parent has to do really well to make it work out. It is not like having two incomes caused any increase in standard of living. Housing prices went up by an income and now most families need two incomes to live as their parents lived with one.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
"But if "intelligence...has no objective reality" then nobody could be stupid. And we all know stupid people."
Given the number of high IQ people who do "stupid" things, we may want to rethink our measures. Nevertheless, "stupid" is usually meaningful only in the context of a culture expectation or value.
Both genders, at least in bars, tend to prefer good-looking, dumb, and happy. Most guys and girls I know who pick up a lot have a fake personality they use when they talk to another attractive person they want to pick up. Lots of dumb but happy looks...
I think part of it comes down to most people wanting to believe they are smarter than the people they date (and women are willing to let men believe that they are smarter). I don't get it myself: why date someone who is not fun to talk to?
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
No. In fact men and women have the same number of sexual partners with even about the same bell curve. It depends on the type of questions you ask, and in which sequence. If you ask for instance the sex upfront, self declared women put much lower numbers than men. If you ask for the sex after the questionaire, the numbers women give is higher. And if you don't ask for the sex at all (and state so explicitely), the numbers given for both sexes match those men give on average.
Strange result, huh?
Wrong. Idealistic women think that smart people should never have need of weapons. Smart people become weapons.
Women should stay at home raise the kids.
When the US had a good economy women didn't have to work.
Now days women pretty much have to work.
I am not saying the should HAVE to stay at home but the CHOICE should be there.
It is a reflection of our economy and a political mind trick to get people agruing about equal rights in the work work place.
Every family should be able to have one parent stay home with the kids.
Americians ned to stop falling for stupid tricks that get us arguing about the wrong issues.
You're brave. Be proud!
Free Martian Whores!
As a man with an IQ of 300, it's good to know that a woman with an IQ of 160 is my peer.
Now if I could just figure out how this dishwasher works ...
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I am surprised that many of my postings on slashdot or not scored 5 by others( which I was expecting ). Sigh... This study about male ego explains it I guess.
When a thief sees a saint, all he sees are his pockets!
I once spent some 20 minutes to explain that 1) yes you can copy when using a scanner and YES 2) you do require a printer as well. Glad to know that the guy was just culturally challenged.
So this basically proved that women are smarter than men. Right? Because if men overestimate their ability, that means they are the worst kind of idiot, the kind that doesn't know how dumb they are. And if women tend to underestimate their ability, it means they are focusing on what they don't know or the holes in their knowledge, meaning they actually have a really good understanding of their ability.
Seriously though, I think a cause of this discrepancy might be that men compare them selves to other people and that is how they rate themselves and women rate themselves against an ideal of intelligence, regardless of if they know anyone that has attained that idea. So, its easier to be an expert at something if you just have to be better than the next guy. I only just recently realized that I should rate my ability the manly way when interviewing for positions (I am a girl).
Also, this supports my recent realization that everyone (men and women) believes each other's lies. We all believe the guys when they act super confident in their ability (so we have confidence in them) and we all believe women aren't as talented/smart when their body language shows that they aren't super confident. But it still makes sense that we would do this, because to some extent, an unconfident person will perform a task much too slowly for anything to get done.
The only way I can see for resolving this is to consciously decide to ignore body language, and find ways to around it. Because for a lot of women that I know, even though they aren't super confident, are still able to perform the task in accordance with their abilities, but you just can't get them to admit that they are an expert even if they are better than everyone else they know.
You said "finger" and "woman" and "gap"!
Hee hee hee!
If you have a non-geek girlfriend or wife have her explain the "rules" of fashion. She may end up thinking you're culturally challenged.
Excuse me.. who are you to tell me what "moron" means when you don't even know what "sheeple" are? =P Sheeple = sheep people. People who can't be arsed to think for themselves, who readily gobble up any random rumor and hearsay as unequivocal fact. People who aren't strictly speaking stupid, as in lacking mental capacity to learn, comprehend and understand, but for some reason I utterly fail to understand choose to remain ignorant.
I'm no English literature professor so I might very well be wrong, but I don't think "Moron" has a very strict definition? If you do something stupid and foolish, something you should have been able to see would not end well, you are a moron. In this specific case, I had a couple of people I know in mind. People who in all seriousness think the world is coming to an end in 2012, exactly like the movie 2012, because of global warming. They are morons.
Of course intelligence is a made up concept. Exactly like mass, volume, charge, etc. in that they exist but the terms are simply things we have invented to classify information around us. You cannot state that a test designed to rate a persons ability to solve a certain type of task is useless at rating people's ability to, well.. solve that certain type of task! I don't mean to be rude but if you fail to see the logical fallacy of that argument, Sir, I think you might be at the lower end of the Bell curve.
An IQ test is made to evaluate a person's mental ability within a certain set of categories, like logic, language, spatial awareness, math, memory, etc. As such, a high IQ equates to ability within those areas, and opposite a low IQ usually means your general understanding of things logical, mathematical, etc. is low.
Why do we even argue about this? It's perfectly logical.
a small percentage of really slutty women are taking up the slack for the rest of them.
Not even close to true.
There was a study in NY that was looking at herpes rates. I'm sure you've heard the "1 in 5" rate for herpes, but in NY it's 1 in 4. But don't be mislead that there are the same odds across the board. What you'll find is that a minority of men have herpes, while a majority of women do. Yes, I'm sure some "genius" is going to come here saying that women catch STDs easier than men do, but women still can't catch herpes unless they have sex with someone who has herpes!
So that either means that women are going lesbian all over the place, or the "myth" that 80% of women sleep with 20% of men has gained some statistical backing. I'm leaning towards the latter. (FYI, the herpes rates for black women and black men was 80% and 25%, respectively).
Smart men build weapons.
Smart women know not to use them.
Right, which is why a solid majority of female senators voted to invade Iraq, and one of them, Hillary Clinton, talked about "totally obliterating" Iran.
"Excuse me.. who are you to tell me what "moron" means when you don't even know what "sheeple" are? =P Sheeple = sheep people."
Hey, I thought it was a typo and I was just being nice. Sorry I'm not up to date on the list of silly made-up words.
"Of course intelligence is a made up concept. Exactly like mass, volume, charge, etc. in that they exist but the terms are simply things we have invented to classify information around us."
Really? In what physical laws is intelligence a variable?
You guys. Me woman. I've been reading /. regularly for several years, and this is my first post (to the sausage fest). I can't recall seeing a post in a woman's perspective. Most /. posts have a decidedly male tone. Don't you think? (no pun intended)
I had my boys in private boys schools, until I ran short of money. Separate-gender schooling was the best investment ever. No regrets, even if I couldn't afford to have them graduate.
Raising men's or lowering women's ego and self-esteem to meet expectations of "perceptions" may apply to other areas besides intelligence. For example, perceptions about body image (weight, age, & beauty), or when you go outside traditional maie-female roles. Double standards are found many places.
You seem to be arguing just for the sake of argument. Intelligence isn't a part of physics but again you are making a rather half-assed argument.
IQ is a measure of certain properties of a brain (or rather, a mind), which is a very complex system. Mass, volume and charge are measurements in a different system. That one system has more easily defined rules and easily measured properties doesn't in any way invalidate our way of measuring properties of another, completely different system. If that is your best argument.. well, I can't help you.
You can make whatever outrageous claims you want. It won't change the fact that if you rate someone's ability to solve crosswords you get a score representing.. *drumroll* that person's ability to solve crosswords! *GASP!* The same thing goes for an IQ test, which rates your ability to solve logical, spacial and mathematical problems, memorize and categorize, etc. to give you a score showing how good you are at solving those tasks.
Women aren't any less intelligent than men, and they think they are less intelligent because they spend their entire lives being told (overtly and subliminally) that the aren't as smart as men.