Posted on 08/25/2005 7:36:48 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
HALF the population will dismiss this story - but a new study claims the cleverest people are far more likely to be male than female.
Men are more intelligent than women by about five IQ points on average, making them better suited for tasks of high complexity, according to the authors of a paper due to be published in the British Journal of Psychology.
Genetic differences in intelligence between the sexes helped explain why many more men than women won Nobel Prizes or became chess grandmasters, the study by Paul Irwing and Richard Lynn concludes.
They showed that men outnumbered women in increasing numbers as intelligence levels rose. There were twice as many with IQ scores of 125, typical for people with first-class degrees.
When scores rose to 155, associated with genius, there were 5.5 men for every woman.
Dr Irwing, a senior lecturer in organisational psychology at Manchester University, said he was uncomfortable with the findings. However, he said, the evidence was clear, despite the insistence of many academics that there were no meaningful gender differences in levels of intelligence.
"For personal reasons I would like to believe men and women are equal, and broadly that's true," he said. "But over a period of time the evidence in favour of biological factors has become stronger and stronger.
"I have been dragged in a direction that I don't particularly like, but it would be sensible if the debate was based on what we pretty much know to be the case."
The findings come from a study of 24,000 British students, and will intensify a battle of the sexes that was triggered last week by a BBC newscaster, Michael Buerk, who complained that life was now being lived according to women's rules.
Buerk said men had been reduced to little more than sperm donors because of the female dominance of society.
Professor Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Ulster, is no stranger to inflammatory conclusions as the author of several publications arguing there are differences in intelligence between racial groups.
He published a study in 2003 that identified a clear correlation between the levels of prosperity in 60 countries and the average IQ of their populations.
Professor Lynn argued in a letter to The Psychologist this month that differences between the sexes were explained by a link between IQ and brain size.
"Men have larger brains than women by about 10 per cent and larger brains confer greater brain power," he said.
"So men must necessarily be on average more intelligent than women."
LOL!
Takes an intelligent woman, to understand the 'logic' *LOL*
It always amazed me that we could see obvious physical differences between the sexes, so much so that we accept without question having separate sports leagues even for the best of the athletes because of the unfairness of direct competition.
(This in fact is true even for non-physical sports like billiards and bowling).
But somehow we were to believe that there couldn't be any real difference in intelligence between sexes, or races, or different populations.
Of course, the IQ tests could be biased toward the type of things that men are more adapted to.
Sorry, but this is not always true. Yes, I know where everything in the house is...but......I'm also the mechanic. Too much multitasking frustrates the hell out of me to the point that I want to scream. Oh, and I assure you...I am ALL WOMAN. ;)
If nothing else, evolution guarantees diversity. Exceptions to the rule are the normal condition. I can actually taste something if it gets in my eye.I have not met anybody else who could but I bet there are more.
This is an iteresting article.It is good to read something good about men in the news.We live in an anti-man world.All of the sitcoms and commercials try to make men look like buffoons and idiots.I am a woman and I do hate how they make men look. Since the introduction of contraception into society as an accepted thing, it has allowed men to use women and women in turn have enabled men to not be able to commit to them bec. there is no reason.A man who cannot make a committment and carry it out looks wimpy and TV and movies portray men this way .I resent it and am here to say that there are men, real menwho do not eat quiche and are smart, committed, faithful to their wives and children and I am glad to hear someone say something good about men in general.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.