Bigger Brains Make Smarter People Study Says 426
udderly writes "People with bigger brains are smarter according
to a Virginia Commonwealth University industrial and organizational
psychologist, Michael A. McDaniel, Ph.D.
McDaniel, who is a professor in management at
VCU's School of Business. He reviewed 26 previous studies comparing brain size
and intelligence and found that brain volume has a strong correlation to
intelligence. According to McDaniel, 'for all age and sex groups, it
is now very clear that brain volume and intelligence are related.' So, how
big of a hat do you wear?"
Drudge Report (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok, I officially resign.
Brain size vs Neuron density (Score:5, Insightful)
However, neuron count in specific brain areas would seem to be more significant, and higher densities would provide more neurons/volume and therefore enable a smaller brain to outperform a larger one.
Using hat size to select job applicants, as the linked article suggests, is probably not a good idea.
Re:Savants (Score:5, Insightful)
This study would probably find a correlation between number of folds and brain size.
Re:Einstein: The exception to the rule? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Brain size vs Neuron density (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Savants (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't buy it. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's mostly a literature review, which obviously attempts to use the 'majority must be right' fallacy to some mysterious end. The guy's an 'industrial psychologist,' though, so go figure.
To argue something so bold and broad that the size of the brain is an indicator for intelligence is frighteningly naive. If you leave your computer for a second and go meet a few people, you'll quickly realize that people with little heads have no problem outsmarting people with wide hats. This is about on par with 'people with big noses have big johnsons.' Don't read this publication if you're expecting any insight on anything other than a statistical analysis of random literature. You won't find any discussion of neuroplasticity here. I've a question I'd like to ask this guy: how come people 3 feet tall are smarter than you?
Jupiter is fucking huge, but let me assure you, I'd rather be back home. Bigger is not always better.
Re:Brain size vs Neuron density (Score:2, Insightful)
People with small brains (PHBs), however, are going to either ignore or misunderstand the fact that the "study" explicitly refers to averages.
I remember when sports physiologists first started using oxygen uptake data to predict endurance sport performance. A journalist was being shown the data for the American National Cycling Team and noted that the figure for Paul Deem, the workhorse member of the team, was only average.
"Well yes," said the physiologist, "but that's just Paul. He wants it more than anyone else."
This study isn't even a study, in the sense that no actual new research was carried out and thus it provides no new data.
It is a meta-study. A conglomeration of already existing studies, and thus is really only as valid as the least valid of the studies upon which it is based.
Garbage in, garbage out.
And it is pathetically easy to pump all sorts of garbage into a meta-study to derive any garbage you want by careful selection of the studies you "study." One good study is worth more than a billion bad ones.
Which brings up the question of methodology. A meta-study is only valid to the degree that it congolmerates similar studies. Differences in methodology of the included studies alone can completely invalidate the meta-study prima facie, because this fails to properly isolate the phenomenon being examined.
At best a meta-study is really only good to provide a clue as to where more study might be valuably directed. At worst they have absolutely no value at all other than getting the author published while pushing his agenda.
KFG
Nonsense! (Score:2, Insightful)
WHAT rule? (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, before I go off on them, we've made advances since then... So apparently we've got a new, rigorous definition of intelligence, that they found a unique way to measure... Wait... it's just the same old standardized tests which use the same circular logic to "prove" they test intelligence. If you take a bunch of intelligence tests and average them, you get a vector that this test maps well to, therefore this test tests intelligence.
In the article, they say that the correlation they observed between brain size and test scores means that intelligence scales with brain size, and that the correlation also proves that the tests actually are measuring intelligence. What kind of nonsense circular reasoning is this? They're begging the question of whether the test scores are truly intelligence tests to prove that brain size correlates with intelligence which proves that the tests measure intelligence...
I like how the professor is quoted as attributing all kinds of benefits to whatever intelligence he believes he is measuring, "smarter people learn quicker", without showing that this is an attribute that his tests actually test.
What bullshit. And how long until someone uses this study to "prove" that women are less intelligent than men (because on average they are smaller and thus have smaller brains), and that races like Australian aborigines are inferior because they are smaller still? My guess is about... fifteen seconds.
Einstein isn't the exception to the rule. He's the first and most obvious point to show the rule is garbage.
Where's Stephen Gould when you need him?
Re:Too bad this comes out now... (Score:1, Insightful)
Stopped clock syndrome. (Score:3, Insightful)
Given the state of the social sciences in the 1830's, I have a hard time believing that Tiedmann's research was anything but a mish-mash of bad techniques, preconceived bias, and probably blatant racism.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:too simplistic a theory (Score:3, Insightful)
Einstein is just a single data point, and possibly an outlier.
Re:WHAT rule? (Score:4, Insightful)
and that races like Australian aborigines are inferior because they are smaller still? My guess is about... fifteen seconds.
^^^ Woah - hold it right there, this type of political correctness is the antithesis of science. While there will always be groups who abuse "science" to prove some racist point, that doesn't mean that all research that makes such claims are cases of abuse, and if you believe in science at all then you cannot just offhandedly dismiss the possibility that, until proven otherwise, it might actually be true that physically smaller races have slightly lower average intelligence. Has it been proven otherwise? No. Never. Yet somehow, you seem to already have arrived at the conclusion that it cannot be true. How can you know this? What is your reproducible research that proves it? Truth is the ultimate goal - science should never be censored or impeded for the sake of political correctness, as you are suggesting. If someone wants to study the intelligence of aboriginal races in a scientifically sound manner, and produced proveable results that you didn't like, should those results be censored?
I don't know why this study seems to offend you so much. It only talks about averages - it does not mean that someone with a small head cannot be intelligent, it's still possible, just less likely on average, if the results are true. (Is your head smaller than average?) This doesn't show that people will smaller brains are going to be less intelligent - just that there is a general correlation on average. The correlation be so slight as to even have no practically useful predictive power - doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Einstein's single case doesn't "prove the rule is garbage", that's the most scientifically and statistically unsound claim I've seen on slashdot in a long time. A sample size of one doesn't tell you anything - a first year stats student can tell you that.
I agree that the idea that this might be used to e.g. put small children into 'boxes' that pre-determine their supposed potential and destiny based on head size is highly noxious, and that this could very well happen. Schools already put children into such boxes all the time based on various factors. But none of that is a problem with the science. If there is a correlation, and science can show the correlation, then it doesn't matter how much you dislike it.
I don't see any of the circular reasoning you mention, since they don't claim that brain size causes "intelligence" (as measured by their "intelligence tests") .. merely that if the standardised tests they measure do actually measure intelligence, that there is a correlation between those test results and brain size. So what they've really measured, is a correlation between brain size and the results of 'standardised intelligence tests'. They haven't proven, nor have they claimed to prove, that 'standardised intelligence tests' do measure "intelligence". "Intelligence" might be a term that is too fuzzy to measure scientifically, but the fact remains that standardised intelligence tests are still one of the best predictors of future job performance. They have practical utility, even if the science is not sound.
Re:WHAT rule? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I think the answer is yes. Intelligence of animals has been found to relate to the brain-size to body mass ratio.
As to dismissing scientific results on the grounds of 'sounds like BS' -- well, you are kinda right, it should not be done... unless you are reading the ACTUAL research paper, and not some science writers interpretation thereof.
Re:WHAT rule? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoa yerself. I'm not rejecting the study based on possible non-PC conclusions, I'm rejecting it because it is the same crap we've seen before that always suffers from the same logical fallacies. That annoys me.
The fact that there will be racist and sexist conclusions drawn from this study also annoys me, because it's the Bell Curve all over again -- crap science used to justify an "our preconceived societal prejudices are actually scientifically valid biological innevitabilities" conclusion.
it might actually be true that physically smaller races have slightly lower average intelligence. Has it been proven otherwise? No. Never.
Has it been proven true? No, never. Have people tried? Yes, repeatedly. Have the same mistakes been made resulting in the same self-confirming conclusions? Yes, repeatedly.
As long as we're talking about unproven hypothesis, how about this one: There is an inherent "intelligence" that can be measured as a single numerical value (or small number of values). This has not ever been proven. We don't even know what intelligence is. We know we have it, but like "consciousness" or "creativity" we can't define it in a way that turns it into a physical entity, much less a quantifiable physical entitiy. And so far there is no indication that this is even possible. But this study is predicated on this hypothesis being true.
I don't know why this study seems to offend you so much. It only talks about averages - it does not mean that someone with a small head cannot be intelligent, it's still possible, just less likely on average, if the results are true. (Is your head smaller than average?)
Quite the opposite. I have a large head, though I don't know how large my brain is. I think I'm pretty smart, but I know I'm very good at taking tests -- especially multiple-choice standardized tests. I have no doubt I'd fall on or above whatever curve they drew. I have no personal ego at stake here whatsoever. I'm a smart privileged white male (with a big head) -- these things always come out in my favor, but that doesn't make me less likely to view them as crap.
So why does the study offend me? Because first it is crap, and second because these studies are always commissioned, accepted (despite the flaws) and used by two groups of people:
1) Bureaucrats. Whether in business, education, or government, they want to be able to take a person and give them a single "goodness" value so they can just put everybody into a sort function and pick the top N. Instead of helping every student reach as high as they can, selectively help the "smartest" and let the inherently less smart prepare for blue collar jobs. Do away with annoying and subjective interviews; managers want a quantitative way to pick "the best". Never been proven to be possible, but it doesn't stop them.
2) Racist social conservatives. What looks like social injustice is actually just the natural order of things. Downtrodden minorities aren't really downtrodden, they're just in their natural place as inferiors as determined by our perfect and blind meritocracy. Women aren't discriminated against, they are rightly excluded from demanding jobs because they aren't as capable. These are biological facts that cannot be changed, so there is no point to social programs that attempt to address these issues.
McDaniel is clearly in the Bureaucrat camp, being as he "specializes in the study of intelligence and other predictors of job performance." He also claims, after stating several (unproven) aspects of the intelligence he is testing: "The use of intelligence tests in screening job applicants has substantial economic benefits for organizations." I have no reason to think he is racist or sexist, but I guarantee those who are will glom onto this study and refuse to let go.
This has been done
Re:Savants (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too bad this comes out now... (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe not, but we all know that neither man is fit as a leader of this nation. Though your point might be interesting, it is akin to saying "Well, you all do know that Thailand has a higher GDP than Cambodia." Well, that's just wonderful, but they're both still dirt poor. So can we please all stop defending these two parties. They are both a royal clusterfuck of aristocrats more concerned about the good of their bank accounts than the good of the nation.