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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."
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.
You fell into the trap and pattern of sounding like a bitch.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
See, you're missing all of this. It's not like, you remove the glass ceiling and poof women are equal. It's not like, you put in a bus line in your city and people use it. People take time to change, and take an especially long time to change culture, which is why our American society doesn't elect a female president.
The problem, which this article shows in fact, is not that people are equal, because they are... rather, no one thinks that they're equal, and they then act upon those beliefs.
So, women are just as smart as men, but everyone thinks that they aren't, and act like they aren't, which causes the de facto situation to be that women are treated as stupider than men.
Another good example of this behavior is that if a bunch of people all believe in magical beings and act as if those magical beings exist, it doesn't matter if those magical beings do exist, because socially and publicly one must treat them as extant.
People's irrational beliefs still have real world consequences and power in social and political worlds. It's like why people in America will typically tell you that Ebonics is a lazy form of Standard American English, when it is actually a different grammar that has some expressions that are not expressible in SAE.
So, we're in a situation where a large group of Americans speak a reasonably mutually intelligible different language, yet are treated like they're inferior because they speak it, because the whole culture tells them that it is inferior, and they start to believe it themselves... even when it's not true.
So, get off your misogynist horse and realize that we need to change our culture before women will be treated equally, and that means taking your bigot opinions and stuffing them with the rest of the filth that your body produces.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Allegedly GWBush was has a fairly high IQ (well at least 120+) yet, outwardly at least, he may not seem it.
That's because having a high IQ (a nebulously defined quantity anyway) or being intelligent has no bearing on the ability to lead, being a puppet, or even having the ability to speak without sounding like a chimpanzee. Indeed, I find many charismatic, smooth talkers to be shocking simple-minded.
Here's to HOPING that someday that may CHANGE.
Of course, smooth-talking a bunch of medieval religious fanatics bent on getting their own weapons of mass destruction of hasten the coming of the 12th Imam is a lot more difficult than convincing a bunch of shortsighted and shallow thinkers to give you $300 million so you can buy your way to a leadership position.
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.
Indeed, that's my reaction. While an infant doesn't have the ability to store the memories of the pain or loss in a way that can be recalled later.
As for HIV...have you tried sex with a condom? It doesn't feel that good. Bareback is immensely better.
Let's not forget aboutthese guys!
Seriously though, every group out there has members that are fascist. For example, the "liberal" folks in the US congress believe that they have the right to force me to donate my money to foreign countries. They enforce that so-called right with the threat of the FBI, police, and military.
SRSLY.
You, sir, are a xenophobic idiot.
Our country is based on immigrants and immigration. Were our immigration laws saner, most illegal immigrants would be upstanding members of society. That's hard to do when you have to live your life, taking whatever job you can get to make ends meet. Newsflash - if all immigrants were legal, they couldn't be paid less than minimum wage, so there'd be no incentive to pick them over you.
You had me at least tacitly listening until you spewed your bullshit about how we will be subjugated as "concubines, whores, and slaves". That line is what made you a jackass.
Go watch some Fox News, and listen to Limbaugh. Try not to burn any crosses on your way.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Other than the invading-countries thing, I think this kind of bull is why the world dislikes Americans.
Manipulating people into sleeping with you is a nasty, horrible thing to do and leaves you unable to form a genuine, trusting relationship. Preferring asshole guys gets you abused (or, on the edge of the probability curve, gets the blood sucked from your body by a vampire). Stop doing these things and then wondering where the nasty result came from.
"Because it is possible that any particular girl can be just as smart/strong/tall/whatever as an particular boy. How do we, as a society, respect that? To not make outliers of either gender feel like freaks for being taller than women "should" be or short than men "should" be?"
I readily acknowledge that there are women who can best me in any competition in which men "should win". That doesn't mean that I can't beat 99.9% of women handily - just that it isn't NECESSARY to be weak to be a woman. As for whether they are freaks - well, that is largely the individual's perception of themselves. Personally, I respect strong women.
The problem is, when we attempt to change society to make that rare woman feel better about herself, or for that rare man to feel good about himself.
In my own way, I'm a freak. Color blind. Never could bend over to touch my toes. Until my knees became to painful to run, I could run all day, tirelessly. Other things I won't go into here. How do I feel about myself? Well - I NEVER felt the need to keep up with the jocks who played football then went out bashing whichever minority after the game.
Regarding homosexuality, you said "No one is encouraging children to be homosexual." Perhaps you missed the courses in school which tout homosexuality as an "alternative lifestyle". http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/all/home/index.html Note the advert, lower right - Santa is apparently gay. Amazing that special interest groups get clearance to throw this kind of trash at kids in school.
But, to answer your question, "I assume you mean that, genetically, homosexuality does not contribute to the propagation of the species, but please correct me if I'm wrong." Yes, that is what I meant. And, I feel that it matters. Bearing in mind my last paragraph, the homosexual community not only tosses aside any obligation to propagate the species, but they are in the schools, indoctrinating young people to do the same.
We'll just have to agree to disagree about homosexuality being a choice. Most certainly, the most militant gays have CHOSEN to be loud, and obnoxious.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Good post. Grandparents were traditionally and historically valuable assets to a family, above and beyond whatever financial backing they might offer. Today - grandparents want to retire at an early age, move to Florida or California, and let the kids worry about transportation if/when they wish to visit. A little money now and then are supposed to make up for all the other values lost.
If grandparents assume their proper roles in society, the free day care would be quite unnecessary, I think.
And, yes, I have read articles about segregated schooling. Makes sense to me. The boys benefit too, IMHO. Much of the trouble that idiot young boys get into is derived from a desire to impress the girls. Seperate them - I'm all for that. Put them into uniforms for school, too. Ban makeup, ban gang colors, get rid of dozens of distractions that hold back both male and female. Enforce some real discipline as well - though that is subject for another discussion.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br