May 29, 2009

Are Men Smarter than Women?
posted by homunculus 14 years ago
  • ...since most of the inventions we have in the modern world are created by men, if it were left up to women, we’d be living in grass huts. Yeah, and if it were up to men, all the old junked inventions would be scattered around the front yard, with dirty underwear kicked under the bed, three day old dishes in the sink, and rings around the bathtub, thanks to the men. Now that the stereotypes are dealt with, I call BULL SHIT on this. Some men are smarter than some women; some women are smarter than some men; most men and women are of average intelligence (whatever that is); some men and women are smarter than hell. Both men and women can think, BUT! only women can give birth to children. Perhaps that is why men are driven to create what they can.
  • By nature, no. Empirically, yes.  Mmmmm, science and history!
  • Kind of hard to invent stuff when as a woman you are "traditionally" chained to the kitchen and kids.
  • Let's take a poll. That'll get to the right answer.
  • This is an old debate which will never go away. I would question several things here... how is intelligence being measured? Are there any culture/gender biases inherent in the testing? I agree with BlueHorse, and would add that women are better at multitasking (for example) than men and have their own essential sets of skills and abilities which are rarely taken into account when "studies" are undertaken to measure something as complex and multilayered as "intelligence." Consider this study, which indicates that birds have greater "physical intelligence" than chimpanzees. Hey, the rooks invent tools and use them, it can be argued. But are they really "smarter?" Depends on whom you ask. Same with humans.
  • Men and women have some differences between them biologically. There is no reason to assume that this does not apply to the brain in some way. Therefore, we can define intelligence in such a way that men are smarter than women. We can also define intelligence in such a way that women are smarter than men. Ta-da!
  • If we define intelligence as being good at inventing weapons for killing humans, or creating machines and processes that short-sightedly squander limited global resources, then I'd say men are much smarter than women. But my favorite inventing-things-lady-hero has to be Dr. Deborah Jin who created a whole new state of matter. Say it with me kids... "Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma, Bose-Einsein Condensate, Fermionic Condensate!". She created A. Whole. New. State. Of. Matter. (Now fellas, can we make a weapon out of that?)
  • Hahahah no way.
  • Ironic, isn't it? That only men have TWO heads, and that although the maxim says that two heads are better than one, still the Blues song says that the big head shouldn't have listened to the little head so much!
  • I love Maxim.
  • I love Maxine. (not really)
  • BlueHorse: Some men are smarter than some women; some women are smarter than some men; most men and women are of average intelligence (whatever that is); some men and women are smarter than hell. Both men and women can think, Some even numbers are higher than some odd numbers; some odd numbers are higher than some even numbers; most even numbers and odd numbers are between 0 and infinity (whatever that is); some even numbers and odd numbers have very large values. BlueHorse: BUT! only women can give birth to children. vacuous. kinnakeet: women are better at multitasking Comparative advantage case 3. Even where one trading partner excels in all areas, trading is profitable to both? Is that what you meant? ThinksTwice: If we define intelligence as being good at inventing weapons for killing humans, or creating machines and processes that short-sightedly squander limited global resources, then I'd say men are much smarter than women. I don't know if men run slower than Negroes. I am sure it's a shitty reply to explain that Negroes can jump real high.
  • randomaction: ...it's a shitty reply... I'm suggesting there is a link between success at warfare and success in "intelligence" tests. Men have more testosterone which makes us better at aggression (warfare) and thus competition. Women are better at collaboration, or so they tell me, since they can ask for directions when lost. Perhaps that is the first flaw in scientific studies measuring intelligence: defining intelligence as an attribute of an individual and not of a group. That definition makes us take the tests alone, which might favour men (working in our "Fortress of Solitude", natch). I wonder how different the results would be if the intelligence test was on a group of same-gendered people, and it required working together to solve a mental problem. (There's ya Ph.D. thesis, right there...)
  • I can only comment from decades of observation and personal experience, but yes, basically we are very much smarter. Men are so absorbed in being, well, men.
  • I am keeping my mouth shut on this one for fear of being branded.
  • You could Brand yourself as Skrik the timorous.
  • I LOL'd! Talk about bad science. First of all, the "researcher" (a psych prof at the U of Western Ontario) is up-front about his pre-existing bias:
    "researcher John Philippe Rushton [...] says the finding could explain why so few women make it to the top in the workplace. He claims the 'glass ceiling' phenomenon is probably due to inferior intelligence, rather than discrimination or lack of opportunity."
    We further learn that HE HIMSELF scrutinized all of those college applications to see if there was a gender-based difference in the scores. Confirmation bias, much? Unless someone can replicate these results in a double-blind study, I'm writing this off entirely. Let us not even discuss the fallacy of equating IQ scores with intelligence. The Mismeasure of Man should be required reading for everyone, everywhere, at least once a year.
  • (But hey, what do I know? I'm just a girl.)
  • ...men run slower than Negroes... WTF?
  • My reaction, too. But never mind. Pssst! fishy, I think RA was in a pissy mood. If he doesn't want to play nice, we'll ignore him.
  • What I mean there is that addressing issues of sexism and racism with more of it is counter-productive.
  • Ah - I understand now. It's like how women are smarter than humans in some ways, but not in others. Say. No. More.
  • Sorry, I mistyped that. Broads are smarter than humans in some ways, but not in others. Quite, quite.
  • *?* OK, my apologies, random. I interpreted your post as snark. Mine was intended to be sarcomastic and ironicalubel. Your comment about numbers: Saying even numbers are better than odd, or prime numbers are more flexible, is just silly, as is saying men are smarter than women, or men create more than women. Even if men 'create' more or are 'more intelligent' statistically (statistics are redickulous in this matter), so what? And what the hell is 'intelligence' or 'creativity'? Any definitions are incomplete. Then we slide into the toilet with value judgments.... I don't understand why you declared my comment on women giving birth to be vacuous. The statement was intended as metaphor. The physical act of giving birth doesn't necessarily count heavily as creativity. However, the imagination involved in raising a child, which is a task primarily (generally) done by women in most societies, damn well better count as creativity.
  • Prof Rushton, who was born in Bournemouth and obtained his doctorate in social psychology from the London School of Economics About as useful as my fine arts degree from a communications school. Which is to say, completely useless. As if his theories didn't speak for themselves.
  • Greetings, Happy!
  • hello!
  • Hey to the Scrapster!
  • wassup, gramama?