How Men and Women Badly Estimate Their Own Intelligence 928
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."
If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:4, Funny)
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Funny)
Ouch.
You just spoiled my Sunday.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Or that despite having more votes than men, it's somehow men's fault that we haven't had a female President and few female Senators. Subscribing to a lower set of standards is convenient when demanding reparations, but it's not the way to actually earn any sort of meaningful respect. What happened to women a century back and earlier has precisely nothing to do with the present day.
Women aren't stupid, but there's a shocking lack of interest in actually using any of it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Here in North Carolina, women try to act dumb. Actually, there's nothing hotter than a good-looking drunk dumb chick. I met my wife in a bar, and we discussed physics and religion and still managed to get to a first date, but the funny thing is on other occasions I'd pretend to be a pilot, and she'd pretend to be a dumb blond stewardess. Actually, around here some of the guys try and act dumb, too. We've got a strong anti-intellectual culture. One thing that's a sure turn-off to a southern man is a wom
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Funny)
She does that with you too?
I thought I was special...
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
After my divorce back around 1998, I hung around a lot of bars. I find it easy and interesting to talk to smart people, even if they are huge a-holes, like most of us here on slashdot. I just can't do small talk. So, more often than not, I'd discover in a bar that I'd just started a conversation with a complete ditz. At that point, I'd switch to reading auras, where I would try and guess as many details of a woman's life based on a shimmering color only I could see around her. Of course, I'm color blin
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
As a warmish rather than hot chick, I think, in general, that the smarter the man the more he values intelligence. Or that's what I keep telling myself, anyway.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm third generation Californian (but live in NC now). As a result, I've got a lot of Mexican uncles, cousins, and such. My uncle Fernando told me when I was younger, "Intelligence in a woman is overrated." That's the excuse I give myself for marrying a complete moron in my first marriage. She is still a very sweet, attractive woman. I hope she's happy. I spent eight years figuring out what a mistake that was. Second time around, I went the other way, and I tell all my friends to look for a smart girl. After 11 years, my second marriage is still going gang-busters.
You're obviously a big geek. You post on slashdot. I can't even tell you how attractive I find that, but as you know, guys like me are in the minority. If I could give you one bit of advice... make your way to Silicon Valley
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:4, Informative)
If being dumb was her only major fault, we'd still be married. Given the choice, definitely go for a smarter woman. She had other issues, too, like massive depression. Eventually she had other guys in her bed, and that's when I cut her loose. Some guys on slashdot would go for the open relationship, but that's not how I'm wired.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
It helps that a drunk woman will actually talk to you if you try to make conversation, instead of staring at you like you're a moron or a rapist.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Informative)
Manipulating people into sleeping with you is a nasty, horrible thing to do
The women here expect you to do this and won't go on a 2nd date if you don't.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:4, Funny)
. Our kids are "FGs", which means either "Florida Gators" or "F--king Geninuses", I'm not sure which.
Aren't those mutually exclusive??? ;-)
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Or that despite having more votes than men, it's somehow men's fault that we haven't had a female President and few female Senators. Subscribing to a lower set of standards is convenient when demanding reparations, but it's not the way to actually earn any sort of meaningful respect.
To assume that it's a "fault" that you haven't had a female president or that "meaningful respect" is a serious driver is very male-oriented thinking. Thing is, women aren't defective men, they're their own people with their own motivations. Only about 20% of women are motivated primarily by extrinsic factors such as pay and status, compared to about 60% of men (source: Susan Pinker's The Sexual Paradox [susanpinker.com]. Women are far more likely than men to be motivated by intrinsic factors such as feeling that their work is doing some good.That means that fewer women reach the top because most women would rather be doing something they enjoyed. (For what it's worth, women consistently score higher than similarly qualified men for job satisfaction -- Pinker again. There's more than one glass ceiling, but we don't notice the job-satisfaction one because we choose male-oriented measures of success.
There is another reason fewer women reach the top, though: although the average intelligence of men and women is about the same, the variance is significantly higher in men. So women are right: if somebody does something really dumb then it probably was a man. But the other side of that coin, which women tend not to like so much, if that if somebody does something really smart, that probably was a man too
And for those whose mouse is hovering on the "flamebait" button, remember that this is about averages. Nothing I've said means that a woman can't be stunningly intelligent and can't be driven by money and power -- just that they tend to be less extreme and more sensible.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or that despite having more votes than men, it's somehow men's fault that we haven't had a female President and few female Senators. ... What happened to women a century back and earlier has precisely nothing to do with the present day.
What ignorance.
In 220 years, there have been 38 female Senators.
Of those 38, slightly over 1/3rd were appointed, not elected.
None of them were in office until after 1920.
Why 1920? Because until then, women were not treated as equal citizens.
Hell, there are still States that have never elected a female Senator.
I could give you other examples, but it suffices to say that the
inequalities and prejudices of the past almost always linger far into the future.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps if women (who complain about this) should get off the self-pity train and do what the rest of us do when we feel like we aren't getting a fair shake: square off, prove up and go down in flames if necessary. I'm pretty sure it was Dear Abby who said that nobody can take advantage of you unless you allow it. There's no bias against women in the vast majority of workplaces or academics. The only bias that exists is that people generally respect and trust coworkers who are straightforward in their interactions and behave in predictable (or predictably unpredictable)- and people who don't speak up because they are afraid of being shot down are not being straightforward, and doubly so when they finally get fed up and have a meltdown. It's got nothing to do with peepees and 'jay'jays.
In other words: lead, follow or get out of the way: the choice is yours.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps if women (who complain about this) should get off the self-pity train and do what the rest of us do when we feel like we aren't getting a fair shake: square off, prove up and go down in flames if necessary.
"Square off, prove up and go down in flames" is a very male metaphor (and mixed). Why do you think women should act like men? Most of us don't have the testosterone for such an aggressive approach to life.
Women aren't on the self-pity train any more than men. We would just like things to be fairer becuae we tend to like thing to be fair. That's not inferior to your competitive approach or superior either.
I'm happy to listen to men complaining about where they are disadvantaged (family law courts for example). I happy to listed to anyone who feels they are being treated unfairly. It's not a victim competition - in this world we all get the rough end in some way or other.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
"We would just like things to be fairer becuae we tend to like thing to be fair."
LOL. Yeah right. I've seen too much women backstab each other in the most vile, ruthless ways thinkable by man to believe this.
Lets stop idealization of women, okay?
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
My problem with this is that, as women aren't more intelligent than men, the ideas that women come up with aren't any better than the ones men come up with. Hence, women's impression of "fairness" may be as stupid as what an IQ=100 dolt would produce.
To take an example from my country: The women's movement campaigned extremely hard against sports clubs and gentlemen's clubs (all 5 of them in the whole nation) that allowed only male members. Most of them opened up to women members. That was 5-6 years ago. But today, when I walk on the street, I see a "Female First" women's only gym on every corner. How is such a mindblowing contradiction possible?
By women's sense of 'fair' being no better product than Average Joe's. There's no particularly strong sense or logic more than any street movement in it.
In fact, this survey should have been done with 'Wisdom' as well as 'Intelligence'. Women subscribe to the view that they are 'wiser' than men, which justifies decision making without principles or logic to it.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Funny)
You mean man up and post as an anonymous coward like you did?
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Try finding room at a shelter if you're a man that's been abused in general, especially so if the abuser is a woman. Or having to wait in line after the women have had their shot at the local homeless shelter. Good luck getting the police to protect you from an abusive woman. Or how mysteriously 1/5 of boys being sexually abused is conveniently rounded to virtually nothing when 1/3 of girls being molested is rounded up to most. Here's a hint those numbers are probably almost identical, women just don't admit that that happens to men as well.
It's really easy to claim that women are getting an unfair deal when you write off all the things which men have to put up with. Men are subject to conscription when there's a draft, women aren't. 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. Including a shockingly common occurrence for her to stick him with the tab fore somebody else's kid.
The bias isn't going to go away until, women as a group decide to grow up and take responsibility for the crap they do to men. Men have taken much more responsibility for what they've done than what women have. Blaming men for things like female insecurity over looks, is just bigoted, that's not something that has anything at all to do with men, that's something that women do to each other.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a hint those numbers are probably almost identical, women just don't admit that that happens to men as well.
Actually, guys do it to themselves by underreporting abuse because it doesn't fit with the traditional notions of gender, (citations at bottom [child-abuse-effects.com]), though I agree the numbers probably are equal, and may even be higher for boys because of the expectation that they won't report it.
Good luck getting the police to protect you from an abusive woman
Most police are male, so honestly this is another of those cases where it has to do with guys own expectations of other guys.
Men don't get any say in how a pregnancy turns out
In cases of having the kid, I only agree with you if the guy wore a condom and did everything in his power to prevent pregnancy. In cases of aborting the kid, only if the guy legally obligates himself to raising and supporting the kid. Yes, the woman gets more say 'cause it's her body, so forcing her to either abort or give birth to a kid she doesn't want is a violation of her rights over her own body. That's just a matter of how the universe assigned biological functions.
Blaming men for things like female insecurity over looks, is just bigoted, that's not something that has anything at all to do with men, that's something that women do to each other.
Both genders are at fault here. Women drive each other crazy in part because men keep making it matter. Granted, even if men didn't care, women would still fight over looks, but men are still a big part of the picture. I've got friends in a religious community-the major reason they get drama about looks is 'cause of marriage. Hell, a bunch of comments on this thread basically say "me want hawt girl."
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think he was making it out to be some sort of conspiracy. I think the finger he was leveling was more along the lines of "well, according to women none of these things ever happen".
He has a point. I recently read a lengthy article discussing the supposed "gender gap", where about 15 years ago a feminist group purchased a "study" claiming that girls were falling behind in American education - when in fact the opposite was true; girls did better in school, were happier, and more likely to go to college even then. After all the resulting chaos, that is even more true than it was - and still, women are somehow the repressed ones.
I digress, but it illustrates my point. We forced the president of Harvard to resign because he suggested that women and men were better at different things. God forbid a man attempts do say damn near anything that even timidly suggests a weakness of women - yet the very same women who would destroy that man can't seem to shut up about how men destroy the world.
There's a lack of women in engineering! Oh noes! Let's push them into it. But there's also a lack of male nurses and lawyers, and nobody seems too fussed.
IOW, there's a lot of blame for women as well. A man, let alone politician, can hardly suggest that boys/men need any help because he'd get eaten alive for "ignoring the multitude of problems women in America face everyday" or something.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:male genital mutilation (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be mutilation...but it provides strong protection against HIV, a rather deadly disease.
So do condoms. Also, the one study that showed anti-HIV effects was found to have used cherry picked population samples.
What's always bothered me is that people insist on doing it to children. If it's so helpful, then parents would naturally wait until the child is old enough to choose for himself. I've always suspected that the reason it's done to children is that it's a part of culture, and that parents know that when the child gets old enough to choose for himself, their reaction will be "Oh, HELL no.".
Re:There are reasons for misreported abuse stats (Score:5, Insightful)
It goes beyond the stereotypes, because men tend to be more physically abusive while women tend to be more socially abusive.
That's a fallacy, at least in my experience. I've been attacked just one time by a man in the last 20 years (and he's a certified nutball who was discharged from the Marines because of his temper), while I've been attacked three times by three different women in the last two years just because of something I said.
Boys learn early that physical violence is intolerable; you can't beat ALL the other kids up. Girls never get this lesson. Most boys are taught "never hit a girl". Girls get no such antiviolent learning.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not bigoted. You conveniently left out the part where spousal abusers that happen to be female are treated far less harshly than males are. And that the police rarely enforce the law when it's the women that's doing the beating.
Despite the fact that spousal abusers are just as likely to be women and that the abused are just as likely to be men, there are very, very few resources that are available fore men that are in that situation. Trust me on this, I know from personal experienc
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed. As a gay man, my ex-best female friend went through an emotional period towards me (her actions suggested that she had feelings for me and was frustrated that my sexuality was in the way of that, as we got along brilliantly in every other regard). This resulted in her entering into a violent stage out of the blue where she felt compelled to hit me, often quite hard, and she had no shame about doing it in public. It hurt a lot, and I was extremely unhappy about it and did not feel that it was deserved in the slightest. Our female friends thought that it was funny and laughed about it despite the fact that it was clearly upsetting me, and they told me that I was being too uptight about things when I made it clear that I was really displeased with the situation. My male friends were actually quite sympathetic and told me that what she was doing was wrong and that it made them uncomfortable to watch.
Of course, hitting her back was not an option, because to do so even once would make me look like a complete asshole and possibly get me in serious trouble, while she held carte blanche to smack me around on her whims. In the end, because neither she nor our female friends would take what she was doing seriously or acknowledge it as a problem, it was just easier to end all of those friendships. Good riddance. I will think twice before striking up friendships with women again. Many of my gay male friends also feel the same way, especially after living second-hand through this situation, and prefer the company of men for more than the obvious reasons.
There are so many double standards for men that I find it funny we haven't responded against these more strongly.
IQ != Intelligence (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:IQ != Intelligence (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, IQ does a remarkably good job at what it's intended to do: correlate with the sort of things we normally associate with intelligence, in the context of a statistical study. Sure, there are plenty of people who seem stupid in some ways but have high IQ; on average, though, it works well.
This is yet another case of people who know what IQ is actually supposed to be used for using it that way, and then the uninformed public complaining that it doesn't perfectly match something else.
Did you have some alternate metric that this study could have used in place of IQ that would do a better job?
Allegedly... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Allegedly... (Score:5, Funny)
If I hear that word one more time I'm gonna jump off allege.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The perception of George Bush as stupid is more a reflection of the very human need to believe that the King is not evil, and blame his advisors for leading him astray.
Re:IQ != Intelligence (Score:4, Informative)
120 is top 9%, near enough to 1/10. That's not even 2 standard deviations. For a clerk, it's on the high end. For a president, it's low, unless you want a puppet. There are roughly 28 million people in the US with a higher IQ than 120.
Well, Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I think (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Physically women will never be equal to men. It's in out genes to be able to bulk up more..
That may be genetic selection due to culture. Men don't choose women who are bigger than they are and women don't date short men.
Re:Well, Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Nearly the entirety of biological evidence is against it being an artifact of culture.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But he wasn't arguing that woman are equal; he was arguing that they are not inferior.
Huge difference, especially in context of a study that looks at perceptions.
No, "equal" is not the same as "not inferior". Sure, we're different, not equal, certain things work better in certain scenarios, worse in others (you provide your own example at the beginning), but that doesn't mean one is universally inferior to the other.
The important point here (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Variance is the key (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Variance is the key (Score:5, Informative)
Actually he does - it's in the linked article, on the first page:
"Although [men and women] are on average the same, the people at the very top and the very bottom of the IQ bell curve are more likely to be men."
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Variance is the key (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is likely true. Numerous studies have shown that women have a very average distribution of intelligence, while men are alternately either very smart, or very stupid, with far fewer in the middle.
Their reasoning is wrong.
Current scientific consensus is that it's attributable to gene
Re:Variance is the key (Score:5, Informative)
Different intelligence: (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Different intelligence: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Different intelligence: (Score:5, Insightful)
Emotional intelligence certainly can put food on the table. There are a number of high-paying jobs that rely primarily on relational finesse and emotional manipulation. Marketing/advertising, counseling, business management, negotiation, etc...
Further, emotional intelligence does other useful things such as bringing about peace between individuals, families, or even nations. While men at large would default to settle disputes through violent means, women would do it peacefully by default. This also means women do well at solidifying familial ties and promoting cooperation in communities, which is why it is now very well known that the best way to help a poor developing country is to give women what they need to be successful, as opposed to what the male leaders would request.
Re:Different intelligence: (Score:4, Insightful)
So what you're saying is that men are brutish, ugly creatures who prefer to punch each other rather than discuss disputes rationally. Well, I guess the majority of scientific consensus reached prior to the sexual revolution in the 60s was pretty bloody what with all the fistfights and gunshot wounds.
Nevermind the fact that both sexes have the tendancy to resolve disputes through violence, let's perpetuate the stereotype of woman as a "meek, caring little creature" and man as a "strong, willful monster."
Re:Different intelligence: (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a plausible hypothesis, but what strikes me as odd is that the male-dominated fields that study wars in the modern era mainly focus on the 2nd, which you consider a female interest. I see it as more of an era thing: 19th-century historians of war mostly focused on strategy, generals, treaties, etc., while modern historians are much more likely to write books on motivations, cultural factors, impacts on civilian experience, etc. Taking that approach even further, folks like Bourdieu [wikipedia.org] and Foucault [wikipedia.org] were male as well..,
Also, they don't care (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Also, they don't care (Score:5, Funny)
And I don't think anyone would disagree.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
How much more could she care less? Could she care 10% less? 50% less? Could she possible care 100% less? If she could care 100% less, it says to me that she actually cares a lot about an IQ test.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What he/she said only I'd have used a lot more swearing. "Could care less" meaning "couldn't care less" is one of the most irritating idioms in the American use of English.
Obviously (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Obviously (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, the good old days! (-:
Extroverted people are rated as 'smarter' (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Extroverted people are rated as 'smarter' (Score:4, Interesting)
The context of the perceived "extroversion" is important, I think. I'm very very introverted in most contexts. I prefer to not speak. However, in the context of a classroom in which mainly cerebral, external knowledge is the topic of conversation, I tend to be quite participatory, far surpassing verbally those normally extroverted people(particularly females).
Bold = Smart (Score:5, Interesting)
self-esteem, estrogen, and testosterone /drive (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
The concept of an intelligence measure is absurd (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't even have a very good definition of "intelligence". How can you measure something when you can't even define it?
real reason (Score:5, Funny)
Intelligence is over-rated (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
I used to think I was smarter than most people. (Score:3, Funny)
Now I think I'm above average 1/2 of the time.
Troll Bait (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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.
I'll have you know that maybe wars are won and lost based upon shoes! [history.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well duh, that's what happens when people grow up in families with 14th-century gender roles. TFA:
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:4, Interesting)
There may be more to it... Evolutionary pressure pushes men to sleep around, while women are the nest builders, even today. Guys look for young "hot" women and watch a lot of porn (I liked your link to Miley Cyrus pole dancing), because men want to leave their seed with a woman who will be around a long time to raise above-average kids physically (I'll bet her kids will be very healthy and good looking). Men rape women, not the other way around, because it succeeds in spreading their genes more widely, with nothing but a single night's work, while women have to actually birth the child and usually raise them. A lot of this may influence attitudes towards the relationship between men and women. A hot dumb drunk blond really gets my attention at the bars, and I don't think it's just me. And for a guy, I'm a nest-builder.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Informative)
The chart for females is shaped differently. It has a larger peak at a lower number than men (say, three), descends rapidly... but then flattens. When you get up to HIGH numbers of sexual partners (15, 20, 30), there are more females at that level than males.
In other words, most women have fewer partners than men; but a small number of women have FAR more partners than most men.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop right there.
Exactly what part of Miley Cyrus is "wholesome"? There's so much psycho-sexual pathology going on in the whole Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus phenomena that I'm betting there will entire textbooks written on the topic.
There will be an entire appendix just on Billy Ray Cyrus' uber-mullet vs Hannah's hooker wig.
The Miley Cyrus sex tape will be released in 3...2...1...
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
"14th-century gender roles"
Mankind didn't evolve in the 14th century. Mankind evolved over millions of years. Feminists, today, are trying to redefine what men and women are. They blame culture for all the differences between men and women. But, various drugs have measurable different effects on males and females. Similar experiences in sports have vastly different results on their bodies. No matter how much some would like to pretend that there is no difference between men and women, it remains a fallacy.
As for intelligence - I've read many an article over the years, both before and after the advent of the internet. More women's intelligence are closer to the center of any scale, while more men are found at the far ends of any scale. Meaning, an idiot is more likely to be a male, and a genius is more likely to be a male.
Granted, IQ tests reflect whatever the authors consider to be important. Design a test that places greater importance on remembering actor's names, recognizing colors, remembering details of friend's and family's vital details, women will almost ALWAYS score higher than men. Design a test that places greater importance on spatial recognition, mechanical skills, and computing RBI's and such, men will almost ALWAYS score higher.
Gender roles? Since we've spent millions of years LEARNING our gender roles, I see nothing wrong with them. They work. They have ensured the survival of our species all this time.
Go ahead - mess with the roles, and teach the kids new ways. Tell the little girls that they don't have to be little girls, and little boys don't have to grow up to be men.
Has anyone noticed that the most "modern", "advance", "civilized", and "liberal" nations in the world have a decreasing fertility rate, while the barbarians continue to breed? Has anyone noticed the invasion of those "civilized" nations taking place all around us?
Let's wait another 100 years or so, and see how this all works out. Change those roles, and experiment, while the rest of the world retains the old roles. Don't be at all surprised if the Muslims and the Catholics inherit the world. The old fashioned roles WORK! Damn fools.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Funny)
... and on Slashdot they are likely to be the same person!
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, as a man I'd argue that that's true for any man.
I *know* that I'm better at some things than a typical woman. I *know* that men are inherently better at some things than women - at the risk of making a pun, they have the balls to take risks. I've seen a lot of men try math or science and succeed, and a lot of men try math and fail. Yet, I've rarely seen women "give it their all" in one of these fields, because women don't seem to try things that they aren't sure they can do.
Yet, I *know* that when men fuck up, they fuck up big. All of the stories about some guy lighting a match to see into his gas tank, or something similar, are about men. Less extremely, you have men who overextend their superior abilities and get killed. An EE (probably) won't be able to wire your house to code - but he may try and die. Women, again, don't try what they think they'll fail.
In short, men seem to be very good at some things, and forget that they're not that good at everything else - hence the abject stupidity. Women seem to be more constant - less super-bright spots, but a more even glow. Our society can't survive without both sides of the coin. If women had no power, men would destroy society. But if men had no power, we'd all get along but nothing would ever get done.
I know I come off as a douche. Sorry; there's no nice way to say it.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Funny)
So the evil liberals and their oppressive egalitarian agenda are leading to the downfall of society and the invasion of Muslim barbarians? Did you forget to take your medicine today?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:4, Insightful)
I suppose you could be purposely obtuse and come away with that! I think it's fairly clear that if most jobs can be done by men or women and the society treats women as "equivalent" to males then most women will chose to work rather than have children. Since doing a good job raising children is WAY more work then most 20th century jobs, it's understandable. If your mom didn't have at least 2.1 to 2.3 children, assuming a developed country, then she contributed to the decline of your ethnicity. This has a number of consequences including the difficulty in funding retirement programs, like Social Security and Medicare, and replacing workers as the workforce ages.
Women would rather work? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Xenophobic? Because I dislike ILLEGAL ALIENS? Hardly. Look at Mexico. It isn't composed of just "Mexicans". There are Latinos, there are Azteca, there are Mexicans (mostly composed of "Mestizos" - a term that has gone out of fashion) and there are several of those "indigenous peoples" mentioned in the article - Mayans and others.
Mexico has been engaged in a quiet campaign of genocide against those "inigenous peoples" since AT LEAST the time of the revolution.
When those Azteca feel that it's time to move on, they will start on the United States as it's next target. Care to peruse their "Patron Saints"? Visit here. http://blogs.uww.edu/introtolatinamerica/2009/11/01/patron-saints-of-the-mexican-drug-underworld/ [uww.edu] Look closely - NONE of these saints has anything to do with Catholicism - these are the icons of death worshippers and criminals. Azteca - the people who regularly raided what is now the SW United States for victims to sacrifice atop their pyramids.
I'm all for LEGAL IMMIGRATION - that is where people apply for immigration, follow the rules, and eventually become naturalized, and swear allegiance to their adopted country. ILLEGAL ALIENS are an invading force.
Xenophobic idiot. Whatever. Open your eyes, and look at what is going on. There is conflict in this world that you don't see, and are happy to remain blissfully unaware of.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Informative)
General Eligibility Requirements for U.S. Citizenship
To apply for U.S. citizenship, applicants must:
*
Be at least 18 years old at the time of filing the Application for Naturalization, Form N-400
*
Have been lawfully admitted to the United States
*
Have resided as a permanent resident in the United States for at least 5 years or 3 years if you meet all eligibility requirements to file as a spouse of a U.S. citizen
*
Have demonstrated continuous permanent residence
*
Have demonstrated physical presence
*
Have lived for 3 months in the USCIS district or state where the Application for Naturalization, Form N-400 is filed
*
Demonstrate good moral character
*
Show an attachment to the U.S. Constitution
*
Be able to read, write, speak, and understand basic English
*
Demonstrate a knowledge of U.S. civics (history and government)
*
Take the oath of allegiance to the United States
Please see the links on the right of this page to learn if you are eligible and how to apply for U.S. citizenship.
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=ce2b2cd1f7e9e010VgnVCM1000000ecd190aRCRD&vgnextchannel=96719c7755cb9010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1RCRD [uscis.gov]
I beg to differ with you. We most definitely have a huge criminal element who comes here, with NO DESIRE to become citizens. Drug mules, money launderers, etc etc ad nauseum. Oh yeah, the human trafficers.
But, aside from the worst of criminals - most of our 20 million ILLEGAL ALIENS became criminals by reason of having come here ILLEGALLY. The United States is, after all, a sovereign nation, which has the right and obligation to limit immigration. Millions are breaking the law by being here. Hence, criminals. We don't need no more criminals - we have more than enough.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree that defined gender roles are a good idea. Ignoring the concept of sexual discrimination entirely, they by definition reduce every single person's career choice by 50%.
Also, notice how the barbarians tend to starve and die of disease a lot, largely due to their overbreeding?
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't believe you were modded up so far.
Are men and women innately different? Yes. Does that have any relevance in terms of modern society? Probably. Do their ideal roles in any way reflect their current societal roles? Not in any way shape or form.
There is one reason, and one reason only that you didn't see women in higher education before this past century: childbirth. Not child rearing, not pregnancy. Childbirth killed most women before they reach 30. Men, on the other hand, so long as they were kept out of the {mines, war, boats, etc.} would likely live to a ripe old age. These evolutionary pressures are gone, as are most of the unskilled tasks usually reserved for women. (You don't believe that, try doing laundry by hand. It's practically a full time job in and of itself.)
Keeping women in their old roles as housekeepers is a massive waste of brain power. By your (bullshit unverified) claim that women are average and men are at the extremes, it doesn't matter. In fact it's likely that genius and idiot alike are unsuited to making advances in the new era, which rely on hours and hours of work by large teams of people. Both geniuses and idiots work badly on teams.
But in any case, the issue of childbirth is the only reason for the old roles. We've solved that problem, and it's time to redefine the roles.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Informative)
^ Deary, I.J.; Irwing, P.; Der, G; Bates, T.C. (2005). "Brother-sister differences in the g factor in intelligence: Analysis of full, opposite-sex siblings from the NLSY1979". Intelligence 35:451-456.
There you go, have a citation for male IQ results having a higher variance than female.
What, you want an online ref? Here's one about math tests
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121691806472381521.html [wsj.com]
The neurological basis appears to be that males have more pruning during the final stages of brain formation. This can result in more efficient pathways, but has less redundancy.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
All I can say is, Slashdot seriously needs some women posters, because this shit is shameful.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's possible that I overstated my case. I don't intend to tell any woman that she may or may not do any job at all. Nor, men.
What burns me up is the push by the liberals to have our school systems working hard to OVERTURN all the role models we've learned. I've actually counseled young men and women that they SHOULDN'T get married and have kids as soon as they graduate from school. (Either high school, or college) I've encouraged them to explore the world, to try different jobs, to get some "life experi
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
While I agree Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper are important pioneers, I'm not sure it's a particularly large number--- you've right there, with your 2-entry list, basically exhausted the list of prominent female pioneers of geekdom, while the equivalent male list (Alan Turing, Steve Wozniak, Donald Knuth, Edsger Dijkstra, ...) goes on for a while longer. Sure, there a few others once you move down the list into "famous among specialists"--- Radia Perlman (inventor of the spanning-tree protocol), say. But you
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Even the "wholesome" teenage role model Miley Cyrus has been reduced to pole dancing.
I can't see how she was ever a "wholesome" role model. Even before she started dancing around half naked, she encouraged young girls to base their self esteem on good looks and their parents wealth.
Another statistical flaw (Score:5, Insightful)
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.)
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Funny)
But you can't figure out how to log in.
Re:You're forgetting (Score:5, Insightful)
That intelligence != knowledge
I prefer ignorant != stupid. Ignorance can be fixed by gaining knowledge or understanding. Stupid is the inability to learn.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
The problem with IQ testing has nothing to do with the science. The reason IQ is vilified is because of the unpalatable and highly inconvenient results that has been established time and time again over the last 100 years of intelligence research.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Also, if you ever made an accurate IQ test that showed one gender on top. It would never ever see the light of day.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason there's 6 billion people on the planet instead of a few hundred million is because of technology. Intelligence developed technology - therefore it has an enormous survival advantage on the macroscale.
The reason we can talk so much to each other is because of technology.
"Maleness" is a brain that develops and is modified by testosterone, resulting in increased risk taking behavior and improved mapping functions and possible a whole host of subtler changes.
Due to technology, physical strength matt
Re:Well (Score:4, Informative)
Fail? I'm sorry? You actually got a laugh out of me by using that word, in context of your post.
I'm enjoying how you cherry picked out of Wikipedia without understanding what you're cherry picking, or even reading the rest of it.
As far as social status... there's not a single study I can find supporting your claim.
From about 10 lines below where you cherry picked YOUR quotation...
The American Psychological Association's report Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns[9] states that IQ scores account for about one-fourth of the social status variance...
ROFLMAO. It has almost as much predictive power of social status as your parent's tax bracket... which is to say "extremely high".
Now, lets get to the quotation that YOU cited.
You DO understand that in psychology, a 0.6 correlation is ALMOST UNHEARD of, it's so high? By statistical analysis, that means that fully 40% of "job performance" is directly predicted by a (usually childhood) Stanford-Binet IQ score. And as you stated "Job performance" is the most direct indicator of future income. Were you trying to claim this is "fail"? Seriously?
The only numeric metric that correlates higher than IQ with future income is actually 8th grade standardized testing scores, which in several studies actually has around a .85 correlation, predicting over 70% of future income across a broad range of social and economic classes.
I'll also happily point out that the only study coming up with the 0.2 number you cited was studying UNSKILLED LABOR jobs, where simply showing up to work was a stronger predictor of "job performance", yet IQ STILL had a statistically significant (though small) impact on job performance across all social spectra.
And.... since we're quoting Wikipedia, I'll pull down some citations from the rest of the article that you conveniently decided not to quote. Note that Wikipedia doesn't cite very much of the research that's out there - it's just scratching the surface.
According to Schmidt and Hunter, "for hiring employees without previous experience in the job the most valid predictor of future performance is general mental ability."
Other studies show that ability and performance for jobs are linearly related, such that at all IQ levels, an increase in IQ translates into a concomitant increase in performance.[76] Charles Murray, coauthor of The Bell Curve, found that IQ has a substantial effect on income independently of family background.
Wikipedia goes to great length to point out varying opinions, noting that ACROSS THE BOARD, for all job types, IQ generally is viewed to have a correlation of around 0.4 to 0.6 on average for skilled occupations. That's about the same correlation that "having unprotected sex one time with someone HIV positive" has with "getting HIV".
Significant enough?
While we're on the topic, the correlation between IQ and income actually goes up substantially as the worker gains more experience. So while it may be valid to say that "experience" is a more accurate predictor of job success and income, it's also accurate to say that IQ becomes MORE correlated with income as experience increases, which simply leads to the conclusion that people who score higher on IQ tests are able to grow their income as a faster rate than those who do not. Note, I'm carefully NOT calling these people "smarter", because IQ is just one sort of test, but it is a metric that DOES have a valid, strong statistical correlation with many things.
But since I'm sure you've already decided to disagree with me, there are other things (like it or not) that IQ correlates with. This may have nothing to do with "being smart" but somehow, the test is a valid statistical indicator of these things.
People with a higher IQ have generally lower adult morbidity and mortality. Post-Traumatic Stress Dis