Women are smarter than men (well, duh!) UPDATED

Is that because the organs that dangle in wrinkly, little sacs between men's legs release stupifying chemicals into the bloodstream? I'm pretty there's a common, minimally invasive operation that can mitigate the problem, but you might have to go to a veterinarian to have it done. Still - a low price for higher intelligence.

Good idea. The question is when does it need to be done. The testes release andorynizing substances in utero. That may not affect intelligence.

Also, guys would just have to stop hanging around with other guys for a generation because some of this is pure cultural transmission.

Really? More women are getting higher achievements in school, so they must be smarter? So a hundred years ago men were more intelligent than women?

Seriously, what would the reaction be if the exact same results were found in another country, only it was men who were ahead? Something about the patriarchy keeping down, I bet.

Frankly, I would dismiss them both as saying nothing except who's doing well in school, which may correlate with intelligence, but is nothing like a sure indicator.

Yeah, to what degree does performance correlate to intelligence? Good question. To what degree do cultural factors come into play? Also important to take into account. The most comprehensive studies show not only that men are overrepresented at the highest levels of academia (an indicator of performance, AND perhaps culture), but that a similar proportion of male subjects appear along the same uppermost tier on IQ measurements (the best indicator of general intelligence that we have). The way that RACE lines up on these figures is even more problematic, politically speaking.

But these are at the extremes. Men are also overrepresented at the other end. There are more idiot guys that daft ladies. As for the VAST intermediate into which most people fall, we find no reason reject what Greg says about the average woman having some advantage over men, and the evidence leads us to most strongly consider the effect of cultural, not genetic, factors here.

Here's a pretty good rundown from Commentary magazine of a book that deals with the implications of these results:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-iq-controversy--b…

I've got no problem with a cheeky title like the one Greg attached to this post. For all kinds of reasons I find it handy to deploy phrases like "Women are smarter..." all the time.

Their ass doesn't look fat in those jeans, either.

Bullshit. Greg, you are an utter anti-male bigot and blathering idiot. Now, most women may indeed be smarter than you, but that doesn't give you the right to speak for all men. You're just searching for evidence to reinforce your own biases. There's no empirical evidence for women being smarter than men on average. Your use of university achievement as a measure of intelligence is laughable, which would be clearly evident were it used in another context, oh say, showing whites more intelligent than blacks.

Women are not smarter. Clues to what is really going on is given in the story you linked:

1> There are also still some subject areas, such as courses related to maths, physics and technology, where men are in the majority.

2> However male students still maintain a narrow lead in firsts - 13.9% to 13% of those who graduate.

3> The introduction of GCSEs in the late 1980s coincided with the time that girls began to overtake boys in academic achievement.

4> A science test taken by 11 and 12-year-olds in the mid-1970s had been successfully passed by 54% of boys and 27% of girls. When the same test was taken in 2003, the scores for both boys and girls had fallen to 17% - a much more rapid decline for boys.

Okay, what does all this mean? It means the following: during the 1970s, there was a push for "girl-centred education", premised on the assumption that the curriculum discriminated against girls. Maths and science were dumbed down in the new GCSE exams. Exams themselves were given less weight, in favour of coursework. In the study of literature, female-centred fiction was brought to the fore (more Pride and Prejudice, less Gulliver's Travels). These changes came about because it had been observed that boys do better at exams (relative to coursework), and do better at objective exams (as opposed to essays), and are better at mathematics and science, especially when it is tested rigorously, and because it was believed (reasonably) that "boy's own" stories alienating to girls. Result: (a) girls "outperform" boys, (b) boys become demotivated, (c) science and engineering departments at universities cannot recruit good students, because no-one has an adequate background any more, (d) science and engineering departments actually start closing. However, notice that despite all this, more boys than girls get first class degrees -- giving the lie to the tale that girls are smarter.

Touched a nerve did I?

Women also outnumber men in high status subjects, such as law and medicine.

Hey guys, Wanna get laid?
Give up that construction gig! Become a nurse!

How counter-intuitive is that?

Crap, Greg, I think you might wanna just SPELL IT OUT next time, OK??

And here's the inexplicable thing about girls: they like us. I mean really. They like us. They are all soft and bumpy and shit and they like us.

Go figure.

"Touched a nerve did I?"

Actually, though you were clearly trying to get a reaction, most of us either said something like 'Meh, yeah probably' and others just calmly explained why such intelligence measures are pretty useless. Failed troll post.

"Touched a nerve did I?"

What do you mean by that? Your inference that women are smarter than men is just dumb and ignorant. Maybe women are smarter than you, but they are provably not smarter than men as a whole. There is ample evidence (from the standardization of tests) that women are not smarter than men overall, and that the very brightest individuals, especially in areas that require abstract reasoning, are mostly men. Unsurprisingly, at the highest level of attainment, men surpass women in most disciplines, and in the more technical fields (e.g., mathematics, science, engineering, economics), where being smart really matters and is objectively measurable, men overwhelmingly predominate.

The high proportion of women passing the low-to-moderate thresholds required for admission to univerisity is entirely consistent with women being no smarter than men (or perhaps even slightly dumber), but working more steadily during adolescence. The lower the threshold, the greater should be the proportion of girls surpassing it, because variance in ability is greater among boys than among girls. However, if the bar is set high enough, a point will be reached where the boys outperform the girls, due to the same wide variance.

The pattern of girls working more steadily than boys in adolescence tends to reverse during adulthood, with women seeking "work-life balance" and valuing family above career, while men put all their energy into achievement at work. Hence, girls who seemed promising at school and university achieve little in their careers, while boys who seemed to have serious problems at school actually turn out stellar performance in their post-education careers. This pattern is well-attested, and is discussed by Susan Pinker in "The Sexual Paradox".

The sexes have different sets of talents. It should not surprise anyone that girls would rush into medicine and do well in that field (caring profession), or law (verbal skills highly valued). However, girls avoid fields where the highest levels of visual, numerical and abstract reasoning are demanded, and most fail to thrive in those fields if they enter them.

Girl-centred education is a public policy fact, and it constitutes a serious dumbing down of the education system. The predictable effect on boys is less important than the equally predictable overall effect on the economy: All countries that have adopted it will, over time, find their economies deeper in the shitter, because they are lagging behind in technology and science. This process seems already to have begun (e.g., several university science departments have shut down due to inability to recruit students, as I mentioned earlier.) Another problem is that, women are major slackers at work. The state-run National Health Service in Britain is suffering from accelerating doctor shortages. Reason: female doctors are much more likely than male doctors to opt for part-time work. If all medical doctors were women, as opposed to all men, about 50% more would have to be trained in order ensure the same level of service.

Incidentally, there is strong evidence of widespread discrimination in favour of women in the labour market in the UK (women are anything from twice to four times as likely to be invited to interview as men with the same CV, in most occupations studied - Riach & Rich 2006). I wouldn't be surprised if the same process was in operation in higher education.

I wrote:

"The lower the threshold, the greater should be the proportion of girls surpassing it, because variance in ability is greater among boys than among girls. However, if the bar is set high enough, a point will be reached where the boys outperform the girls, due to the same wide variance."

The statistic in the report on which the news story is based bear this out: the lower the status of the institution, the higher the proportion of women to men, but when we get to Oxford and Cambridge, the proportion of women to men becomes equal. Similarly, more women than men obtain middling degrees, but more men than women obtain first class degrees.

This is just an anecdote, but in my experience, I have felt like I have to do better to be considered the same as men who do the same thing. I have felt the pressure in school to just be so good that no one can deny my achievements. I have also felt that I can't mess up because it would reflect badly on women as a group. I think this describes it well:

http://xkcd.com/385/

Greg, the "emperical" (sic) evidence, as you have seen in the comments above, is wholly against your wishful-thinking view of the world--just as it was less than a week ago, when you were equally titillated by Sharon Begley's presentation of Janet Hyde's shoddy attempts at research on a closely related topic (debunked here).

Real scientists do their best to impartially follow the evidence--they do not react to unwelcome and thoroughly damning evidence against their cherished beliefs by invoking pop psych and childishly saying, "Touched a nerve did I?"

This is supposedly a science blog--at least that's what the URL would suggest.

So are you a scientist or a mouse, Greg? If the former, start following the evidence, even when it's not what you'd like to hear. If you can't do that, maybe switch your posts to religionblogs.com or something. Because the way it looks right now is that you're as much of a True Believer in what you need (psychologically) to hear, as the evidence-free religious believers whom your "Scarlet A" is meant to push back against, are.

Thanks for the introduction to Garfunkel & Oates, though. Those chicks rock!

@catgirl: "I have felt like I have to do better to be considered the same as men who do the same thing."

Madame Curie probably felt the same pressures. How did she react to them?

There are all kinds of post hoc explanations given for this like "Girls get better grades because professors are men, nod nod wink wink" and so on. What a load of crap.

Oh, that reminded me: A very bright and witty young woman I occasionally bump into at a local bar, and who was otherwise doing very well in her English-major courses, told me a couple of months ago that she was only pulling a 20 (percent) in her required science course of astronomy.

The relevance being, not that women can't do astronomy, but rather that the elderly male prof offered to bump her up to an "A" ... if she'd "bump and grind" with him.

So it ain't all crap, Greg. It does go on.

Plus, it's "nudge nudge, wink wink," isn't it? You're really not having a good week, are you?

The relevance being, not that women can't do astronomy, but rather that the elderly male prof offered to bump her up to an "A" ... if she'd "bump and grind" with him.

Thanks for the anecdote. In case you aren't aware, grade curves are pretty much standard in scientific and engineering classes, at least at good universities. In one of my classes, my teacher was surprised that the class average on a quiz was better than 50%. Also, I knew several students (mostly men because most of my class was men) who had an average of less than 50% in a class (even as low as 30% in one case) who did extremely well on the final exam and got an A for course. Of course I don't know anything about what happened to "your friend", but if a teacher did actually suggest that, she should have reported him to the dean, at minimum. Still, having a very low average and ending up with a good grade is not that surprising and doesn't necessarily require sexual favors.

Apparently several of the commenters (e.g. Bruce) appear to have missed the irony when discussing the cultural contexts here. Or else these posts just attract a lot of sexist idiots.

I wonder what percentage of middle and high school teachers are women. I'd expect women to better at teaching girls than at teaching boys, regardless of intent. Perhaps they would have done better at teaching girls all along, except for funding disparities or administrative bias?

I (XY chromosomes) did very well in school with female teachers, but I'm transgender and don't relate to most males at all. I look at a female teacher and feel as if some part of me is standing up there at the chalkboard - if I don't listen I'll be walking around without that part.

We are actually studying how best to teach girls, also. We're not studying how best to teach boys.

And what is intelligence? Are we talking IQ, or Gardner's multiple intelligences? Everyone in the psych field seems loath to ascribe any credence whatsoever to test scores or even the concept of intelligence.

i think women and men are both intellegent. Its just there attiude. Do they want to show that there smart or not. Some woman dont want to show that they r smart b/c there boy friends feel stupid and they come plain about that. Some guys just r just plane nice and say ur right no matter what to there wife or whatever even though he nos that she is rong the answer is rong. so i think both woman and man r intellegent. They just have problems showing it.

Last night I watched my neighbors boyfriend bashing another guy in the street. Cops called, bad boy ran of, good boy 'got the girl'
Funny thing is, she was encouraged all her life to become educated, and the guy she chose as her 'man' is patently 'not educated' and even anti-education in the sense that he scoffs at good conversation and intellectual banter.

Funnier thing is to watch how she manipulated him into the violence ( long story) with her male-on-male violence approving gazes, her laughter every time her 'man' called the other guy a faggot, etc., and her 'need for protection from bad men'.

Funniest thing is that she might be pregnant,and will no doubt perpetuate male-on-male violence through her approval and encouragement of it. Oh, yeah, she was raised by a single mom, too.

I imagine violence can hinder intellectual development in males.

why would you even say such a stupid thing if you say that your over looking thousands of years you stupid shit men invented everything like music art technology and dont give me this crap about women not being equal because equality does not affect one's creativity and by comparing men in colleges is just down right stupid because men score higher in i.q tests and if you belive this greg guy is actually a guy your just stupid its a woman the reason she didn't want to put a women's name is because ppl would think she's being biased

I don't know whether it's serious, but it's the funniest thing I've seen today.

what the fuck is it with the txtspk, paragraph-length run-in sentences, and other examples of illiteracy in this thread?

and also, what was the point of this non-sequitur: "Oh, yeah, she was raised by a single mom, too.". what does that have to do with the rest of the anecdote?

Ok I'm just going to put some names out there:
Albert Einstein
Thomas Edison
The Wright BROTHERS
Stephen Hawking
Benjamin Franklin
Aristotle
Archemedes
Plato
Leonardo Da Vinci
Just something to think about before posting.
Oh and I'd also like to say, have you seen teenage girls today? really smart next generation for women.

Gosh, Sean, thanks for the comprehensive list of historical smart people. And have you seen teenage boys today?

Sean, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that you have a true Super Power. Thanks for showing it off here, and for letting me know what I should check into next time I blog about something.

The bad news is that your superpower is BEING A MORON!!!!

Oh, and yes, I've seen teenage girls today. I've got one, my daughter. In her sleep she could think circles around you on your best day.

You should check out the works and writings of these women:
Barbara McClintock
Angelica Cauffman
Ayn Rand
Marie Curie
Marietta Robusti Tintoretto
Mary Leakey
Rachel Carson
Suzanne de Court
Clara Barton
Elizabeth Kubler Ross
Getturde Belle Elion
Jane Goodall
Johann Zoffany
Alison Brooks
Elisabeth Blackwell
Margaret Sanger
Maria Mayer
Judith Leyster
Margaret Mead

OH NOES!!!11!1!! My Penis is in Jeopardy and I am Just Not A Man, if Wyminz iz Smarter than Me!!!!

(I don't know what to do about my girlfriend and partner being rather cleverer than I - I am so very emasculated by it all...Since I was told by Steph, that it can't be taken away at her blog, I suppose I'll just have to forfeit my man credentials here.)

It's interesting, indeed, how touchy a subject like this is. I am female, and I will admit that I would like some compensation. What I mean by that is, it's obvious that men are physiologically stronger than women. Well, since that's the case, I would like to think that my gender is compensated with a higher intellect. But, if that's not the case, then so be it. That still doesn't make men superior or better than women. In some research, it is "de facto" that plays a large part in the I.Q. test results. Some believe that women downplay their scores while men over-exaggerate, if you will, their scores by roughly five points. And what I mean by "de facto" is, by the mind of the people. For centuries the idea that men are superior to women has been ingrained in our minds. Once Womens' Suffrage came about, women finally began to realize and make a stand towards equality. Now, the law has catered to this, and possibly a bit too much with "girl-centered teaching"; but while the law catered to women having their own pay checks as well as equal pay as men, the idea still stands in our minds that because men are stronger than women, they are better.
Men have been taught to never hit a girl and to protect women. In return for this chance at survival behind a man (because, of course a woman can't make it on her own), the woman would give thanks to the man by taking care of him. This turned into the man taking care of the household with a paycheck from a job that was much too rigorous for a woman, and the woman thanking the man by taking care of his children (where her innate talents lay) and taking care of the house he finances.
Now, I am a black belt in martial arts; I know very well how to take care of myself. Also, my build is a stronger build than the average female. So, for a woman like me to be dainty, light, etc., is almost unnatural because I have a hard attitude as well as a hard physic.
And, overall, I believe in myself as strong and smart. I also believe that there are some women out there that have larger, stronger builds than some men, and some men who are prettier than some women. Now, the new stereotype is that these type of people MUST be homosexual, but that is not the case for everyone.
Now, I beg pardon for my tangent and I will end as such: everyone has different and special talents, right? So, leave me the hell alone if I want to smoke a cigar, eat beef jerkey, and shoot my 9 millimeter Sig Saur or my 10 millimeter Glock. And don't anyone dare call a stright or gay man "feminine" because he cuts hair. I must state one last thing!
Whenever men are bullshitting together, they will insult each other by calling or insinuating that they are acting like women or being girly. I will not tolerate phrases like: "You throw like a girl!" "Now, quit crying like a bunch of girls and grow some balls!" Etc. To me, these phrases insinuate that the "girly" way of doing things is weak or incorrect. Not at all the case! Just different.

Why does it matter who is smarter?
History has shown us many brilliant men and many brilliant women.
This argument can- and probably will- go on forever, but why?
If the whole world comes to a conclusion that men are smarter than women or vice versa, so what?
We've been living with sexism for ages, and we all seem to have survived thus far; what would change? What will arguing this case over and over and over for ever and ever and ever do for any one of us?

Nothing.

As if to underline what I wrote earlier, a recent policy change in Britain has resulted in a dramatic turnaround in exam results. Boys had been lagging behind girls in GCSE maths consistently for years. This year, it was belatedly realized basing assessment on coursework makes cheating easy, and cheating is in fact rife in GCSE coursework, so they switched to exam only mode. Immediately, boys' results improved relative to those of girls, to the extent that they obtained better grades on average than girls.

Moral of the story: don't try to infer the superiority or inferiority of one sex or the other from exam results until you understand how those exams are rigged.

And don't go putting all your eggs in the test basket without knowing a little something about stereotype threat. Rigged indeed.

Men in general have more power than women, but not because of their great intelligence, as they would like to think of course. They were born with a greater stature and muscular structure and some use it to intimidate anything smaller than they are, i.e. women, children, animals: of course the easy targets.

Male children did not go to college to grow a penis - they were born with it. No choice in the matter and no grand accomplishment there either. But they rule the world like they are Dartmouth scholars because of it.

This has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. In fact just the opposite. People who lack intellectual ability often resort to brawn.

Men were not born with a bigger or more active brain. In fact there are scientific and provable studies that male brains completely shut down when they go to sleep and female brains fire from both, not one but both, hemispheres continually.

However our society leads women to believe they should be at the mercy of a man because men must be smarter? Men just had the luck of the draw to be born bigger allowing them to be bullys.

ggg

It is also a fact that more women go to college... alot more... so its no surprise that on average they have higher grades than men and more get to higher places in the university... if you knew this then you'd realize the facts you gave don't hold much weight. let it also be known that men on average do better on the SAT even though more women take it. moreover after a recient study, it was found that men, on average have an IQ 3.7 points higher that females. Thats quite an achievement being that there are profoundly more males with downs syndrome than females which are included in this study. But it was found that there is a huge amount of males with extremely high IQ's (140 and above (with 100 being an average between all sexes) than females. Also, though this has nothing to do with intelligences but anatomy, mens' brains are larger (100g av.) than females, but that's just because men are larger period; just a fun fact for you. Another study was done where 100, 2 1/2 year old male and female toddlers were put in a room where dollar bills were dropped from the ceiling, they were told that they could keep any money they caught from the air but they were not allowed to pick it up from the floor. The average boy picked 3 dollars from the air, can you guess how many the girls got on average? they got zero. And on top of that 14% of the girls proceeded to pick them up off the floor during the test.

Maybe you should get your facts straight before you make unintelligent unsubstantial statements like you've done. But keep up the good fight! FYS.

let it also be known that men on average do better on the SAT even though more women take it.

These may be my favorite use of statistics ever, ever, ever. Yes, Uranidiot, if more women take the SAT because more women are college-bound, then one would expect that women's average scores were going down because even less-prepared women are going to college, whereas the less-prepared men aren't. So those less-prepared women are bringing down the average of the women--but they're still smart enough to know they need college to make a decent living later.

This is also how one would expect your first point to work with more women in college. I'll leave you to work out the implications of the fact that it doesn't...if you can, Uranidiot.

In all seriousness who let the women out of the kitchen. Some man somewhere isn't doing his job to keep her in line. smack smack

Jason Trubeck,
Andover, Minnesota
jason.trubeck88@gmail.com
Click the link to visit my MySpace Account

Umm, that would be you who are an idiot, Uranidiot. Stephanie was good enough to deal with the issue of SATs, I will happily deal with the rest. IQ is first and foremost not a reasonable measure of actual intelligence. There is a very good reason that most kids in U.S. American schools no longer take IQ tests as a matter of course. And the follow up to that, is the group of kids most likely to take an IQ test. The reason that boys score higher, is because significantly more boys take IQ tests. The reason being, most kids will take IQ tests as part of their placement in special education programs - something that tends to include far more boys than girls. And the reason that slants so much, is because unlike especially clever girls, especially clever boys tend to have a lot of problems in school.

As for your toddler example, that is not a reasonable test of intelligence, that is a test of fine motor skills. Very few 2.5 year olds have the slightest understanding of money - telling them they can keep it is not terribly meaningful to most of them. But if you are keen on placing some intelligence to that, it is a hell of a lot easier to pick something up off the floor, than it is to pick it out of the air.

Uran-Idiot, thanks for the spew of unattributed mostly bullshit links. Care to provide references?

There is no valid IQ study that includes geniuses, people with downs syndrome, and regular people in the same statistical pool. There is no way to do that. That is not how IQ works.

I taught an intro course in the sciences with ca 500 students about 35 times and every single time the females scored, on average, above the males. I have always had very high standards as to which students (ug and grad) I would work with, and very few men have passed those standards compared to the women. One year, I had two students meet the highest academic award given at the university, one male and one female, so I suppose that indicates some equivalence. But he was gay, of course. So maybe this whole thing should be adjusted: Straight men are relatively dumb.

the only reason why women are where they are now, is that the majority of them slept with their bosses and teachers to make it somewhere in this world. Let's face it...women sleep with men in power. they offer sexual favors in exchange for power.

I agree with Uranidiot and wholetthewomenoutofthekitchen....women belong at home. THey were created to have children..so maybe they should start having children....Because women insist on being liberated the population of the world is decreasnig (except of course in 3rd world countries). In ITaly, the population has lessened since WW2 and in Russia it is the exact same. For Gods sakes women, get your asses married, have some children and cook mens' meals because in the long run you will end up doing it anyways...its wat you were created to do...

Jason Trubeck,
Andover, Minnesota
jason.trubeck88@gmail.com
Click the link to visit my MySpace Account

Greg Laden, following your logic that straight men are dumb and guessing that you feel you are smart...you must be dick sucking faggot....

Jason Trubeck,
Andover, Minnesota
jason.trubeck88@gmail.com
Click the link to visit my MySpace Account

greg laden is a fucking faggot

Jason Trubeck,
Andover, Minnesota
jason.trubeck88@gmail.com
Click the link to visit my MySpace Account

who wants a mail order bride to bake cakes for you everyday.I know I do. The best part of mail order bride is they what their told!

Jason Trubeck,
Andover, Minnesota
jason.trubeck88@gmail.com
Click the link to visit my MySpace Account

I train my girlfriend....she does what i want when i want. she sucks my cock three times a day because she is a woman and less than I am..therefore she does as I wish...She is nothing without me..she is worthless.that is all women. worthless without men..

Greg you are a fag for writing this in your blog you are not a man...

IM HUNGRY BITCHES COOK FOR ME

Jason Trubeck,
Andover, Minnesota
jason.trubeck88@gmail.com
Click the link to visit my MySpace Account

stephanie z...y dont you suck my cock baby...thats all your worth anyways...cooking,cleaning, and fucking in that order

Jason Trubeck,
Andover, Minnesota
jason.trubeck88@gmail.com
Click the link to visit my MySpace Account

Wow. Someone really can't handle being out-argued by a girl, can he?

* Physicist / Engineer Kim Ung-yong has a verified IQ of 210

* Bouncer Christopher Michael Langan has a verified IQ of 195

* Engineer Philip Emeagwali is alleged to have an IQ of 190

* World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov is alleged to have an IQ of 190

* Author Marilyn Vos Savant has a verified IQ of 186
* Actor James Woods is alleged to have an IQ of 180
* Politician John H. Sununu is alleged to have an IQ of 180

* Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is alleged to have an IQ of 180

* Mathematician Andrew Wiles is alleged to have an IQ of 170

* World Chess Champion Judith Polgar is alleged to have an IQ of 170

* Chess Grandmaster Robert Byrne is alleged to have an IQ of 170

* World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer is alleged to have an IQ of 167

* Mathematician / Physicist Stephen W. Hawking is alleged to have an IQ of over 160

* Microsoft Founder Paul Allen is alleged to have an IQ of over 160

* Physicist / Engineer Kim Ung-yong has a verified IQ of 210

* Bouncer Christopher Michael Langan has a verified IQ of 195

* Engineer Philip Emeagwali is alleged to have an IQ of 190

* World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov is alleged to have an IQ of 190

* Author Marilyn Vos Savant has a verified IQ of 186
* Actor James Woods is alleged to have an IQ of 180
* Politician John H. Sununu is alleged to have an IQ of 180

* Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is alleged to have an IQ of 180

* Mathematician Andrew Wiles is alleged to have an IQ of 170

* Chess Grandmaster Robert Byrne is alleged to have an IQ of 170

* World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer is alleged to have an IQ of 167

* Mathematician / Physicist Stephen W. Hawking is alleged to have an IQ of over 160

* Microsoft Founder Paul Allen is alleged to have an IQ of over 160

Yep, I must be dumb. Can anyone explain to me the point of posting a list of allegations about IQ, including two of women, with the tag "HmmNoWomen"? Twice?

stoopidity?

For all those who noticed the slew of offensive obnoxious comments a moment ago: Sorry about that. The spam filter has been updated and a note sent to the offender's ISP.

I'm hungry so does any self liberated women want to make me a sandwich?

Jason Trubeck,
Andover, Minnesota
jason.trubeck88@gmail.com
Click the link to visit my MySpace Account

There isnât something that IQ and intelligence tests can accurately measure. Different tests can give widely different numbers for the same individuals. In this paper they talk about how in some well-documented tests people with autism can have scores that are different by as much as 70 percentile points.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17680932

A test that canât get an answer closer than 70 percentile points is useless.

Stephanie@41: obviously Judith and Marilyn are mens' names. No women could possibly be that smart, so they MUST be men.

I still don't get why idiots like the troll above seem to think that intelligence excludes being caring. My husband is very intelligent, yet he frequently cooks food for me and rubs any sore muscles of mine. The same applies to me - I happily cook for him and give him backrubs. I thought a relationship was supposed to be about giving each other equally with whatever one can (as well as sharing and trust and so on). We just happen to be able to give each other almost the same things - especially since we're both geeks and comp sci students who enjoy nice home-cooked food.

I wonder about neuronal pruning in the first year, environmental shaping, and autism. In my practice (speech-language pathologist), I see more and more upper middle class kids with a dx of autism. They may have been considered merely 'eccentric' in the past. They may be very bright on some level, know tons of information, but have trouble integrating it and seeing the big picture. They may be emotioanally infantile and have trouble getting through the day at school (where, admittedly, conformity is the name of the game). They may have difficulty managing sensory input, and may be overwhelmed by it. These children are often from upper m;iddle class families who have provided the best in intellectual input, nutrition, etc., for their child. {and of course, all their vaccinations:|) Could it be that the neuronal pruning didn't happen as much as 'necessary'? I remember something about these children having larger brains or larger head circumference. Do these things go together possible? Ideas?

as regards the concept of equality between the

We know that male attributes have a much wider variance than female attributes. There are many more men at the highest level of IQ, ability for spatial perception, aggression, competitiveness, ability to concieve of and create complex systems, desire to take risk, desire for high achievement, desire to dominante others and the environment etc., there are also more men at the bottom, BUT those who rule come from the high end not the low end. All of these impulses are biologically based even if they may be increased by social conditioning. Would women lock themselves in a room for a month and compose the âMessiahâ, or spend a tortured night on the beach discovering what we call Heisenbergâs Uncertainty Principle or sail into the dangerous and unknown Atlantic Ocean to discover a new world, or venture to the moon ,so on and so on?????

Of course not, Mother Nature wouldnât stand for it for obvious reason(survival of the species).

Brain research over the last 30 years has begun to show how the male and female brain differ and why men have always played the role of creator and destroyer.

Although deep down in our genes men create the material culture to make themselves more desirerable to women, i.e., men compete, women choose. To expect the science department of a school like Harvard to have something even close to 50% women could only happen in an Orwellian world where standerds were lowered.

What also seems to be clear, from the record so far, is that women do not have the capacity to innovate. They bring great talents to developing what Thomas Kuhn called ânormal science,â but they have no record of creating the âparadigm shiftsâ that lead in new directions. It may be, of course, that as the feminists sometimes claim, this is because they were never encouraged to engage in these activities. But to need encouragement, to depend on models to follow, is precisely not to have a capacity to innovate. It has been men who have invented things and found challenges in nature, such as climbing high mountains or sailing alone around the world. And once men have done it, women will also do it. These remain highly notable enterprises, well beyond the reach of all but a few men, but they also exemplify the fact that innovation remains largely the specialization of white males. Women can do marvellous things with a house, but they do need the house to be there in the first place.

Women & Govenrment
Its no accident that we had the blessing of Founding Fathers not Mothers. The most fundamental role of government, as reflected in the thinkers of the Enlightenment and in our constitution, is to PROTECT not to PROVIDE. That is, freedom is seen to be inherent in allowing people to choose and pursue, with as little constraints as reasonably possible, life, liberty and happiness. The more government concerns itself with providing rather than protecting the less freedom the individual has because the only way government can provide is to tax and the more it taxes the less the resources the individual citizen has to seek his own happiness. Hence everything a citizen earns is his and he and his fellow citizens decide through their elected officials how much they are willing to give to the government to PROTECT them. Socialists and their ilk take a diametrically opposite position. They think the role of government is to provide many of the necessities of life.They think,(although they woul d never admit it here in the USA) that everything a citizen makes is the governmentâs and the government decides how much you can keep! They are willing to live a much more limited life since the Faustian bargain they accept, consciously or unconsciously is to have very diminished financial resources but a guarantee of a mediocre existence.

This is the real rift between conservatives and liberals today. This is why women in general and single women in particular vote more Democratic than Republican. Unlike most men they prefer a guarantee of a modicum of safety and have little desire for the possibilities that can accrue when one is willing to take risk. Of course this is just what Mother Nature wants since to have it otherwise would be to the detriment of children which are the hope of future existence.

The problem is if society chooses to be provided for as opposed to being protected the consequences can and will eventually be dire. Hence Liberals ask for entitlements and every type of social welfare program and ignore or even abhor the need for national defense and lower taxes.

Alexis deâtocqueville saw this conundrum 200 years ago when he said the main problem with a democracy is that people will eventually see that they can vote themselves a welfare state, at the expense , of course , of the most productive citizens!

WHAT YOU ARE SAYING MEANS WOMEN ARE BETTER IN MEMORIZING AND REPEATING WHAT THEY ARE TOLD, THAT'S WHAT EDUCATION MEANS, I WANNA SEE A WOMAN MAKE A HUMAN OUT OF HER OWN CHILD ...ON HER OWN!, WILL NEVER HAPPEN, MEN ARE MORE REALISTIC, WOMAN ARE MORE EMOTIONAL, SO THAT TAKES ME TO A QUESTION TO YOU, GREIG, HOW WISE DOES A WOMAN GET DURING PERIODS?!!?!?!? OR OTHER DISTURBANCES "UP THERE", THERE IS ALSO ONE FACT......WOMANS LUNGS ARE 30 % LESS THEN MENS, THIS MEANS 30% LESS OXYGEN TO THE BRAIN!, I WONDER WHAT'S RESTRICTING YOUR OXYGEN FLOW?
BTW "STUPID" SPELLS EXACTLY LIKE THIS, NOT STOOPID, THAT'S HOW WOMEN ARE, AND YOU.

Well, hello, Bobby, and welcome to the outside world. While you're out here, you should know that you want your Caps Lock light to be off while you're trying to communicate with others, that sentences are punctuated with periods, and that if you want to mock someone for misspellings, it helps to get his name right.

Wanting to see a woman do something, however, we completely understand. Do be warned that once you've actually seen more than one or two women, your urges may get even more specific. Don't be afraid. It's perfectly natural.

The wiring on his keyboard, or somewhere, could be reversed.

I'm going with "or somewhere".

Umm, Arthur - I would just like to point out that those at the high end of the IQ spectrum (which has been pointed out as being a rather shitty measure of intelligence) do not - I repeat, do not tend to get into positions of real power and authority. The closest they might come, is influencing real power. But real power is generally held by people who are average to slightly above average in terms of what IQ measures.

I would also like to point out that the reason we see so many men at the extremes of IQ, is because most of the people who take IQ tests these days are people who are going into special education programs - mostly males. That and because the majority of people who actually take IQ seriously are men - probably men with small peckers who really want to compensate and are afraid of large trucks...

So what then can we say of men who object to the use of IQ as the be all and end all of psychometrics?

Oh, I think we can safely say they have absolutely massive senses of humor.

No Stephanie, I compensate for my penis size with a massive ego, sorry to say...My sense of humor is possibly more stunted than my social skills...

Mm-hmm. And when are we invading Canada again?

Bahh! That doesn't count - those fucking Canukistanians totally have it coming!!! Besides, I am too damned busy right now anyways - I am taking eighteen credits this semester. Canuckistan will have to wait - for the time being...

But no, ultimately I haven't much in the way of a sense of humor - it is certainly not enough to be compensatory. My penis may be small, but it isn't that small...My ego on the other hand...

Oh, and BOBBY!!!, you should note that men are not less emotional - we are just stunted in their ability to manage their emotional input in a healthy fashion. Indeed, we suck at it so badly that we are prone to serious health problems largely as a result of it.

This is a outright lie!

The male Y chromosome is constantly evolving, the Y chromosome is the fastest-changing part of the human genome and is constantly renewing itself. While the female chromosome is in a constant state of decay.

Just look at the stupid stuff women do everyday!

If you think i'n lying google it and do your own homework.

Niether gender is smarter. It is all about typical gender stereotyping. The rural town where i live it is very common to see a guy with an associates degree in specialized technology working as a welder, mechanic, construction, maintenance, ect making maybe $40,000 if he's real lucky while his wife with an associates or bachelors degree in something like accounting, IT, billing, computers, nursing, etc making anywhere from $55,000 to $90,000 a year.

There is pressure amoung guys/boys from a young age to work in more "manly" fields, even though these jobs require a very high skill level they for the MOST part tend to pay very low wages for the ridiculous skill requirements (i know, i worked as a maintenence tech myself for the last 15 years) but they give you more respect among the other guys then say the guy that does office type professions that pay much higher. that's why kids who are very smart in school tend to get picked on all the time while the girls are pretty much free to achieve thier goals.

Guys are pretty much brainwashed into being stupid. Guys have no one but themselves to blame for continueing to make life harder for themselves. After 15 years of working in dangerous conditions for baloney pay i have finally woken up and decided to go back to school to try to make a real living for myself.

I would like to know why men often believe they are better in mathematics and science. My 3 daughters are ALL in 7th grade (1 in 6th) and were invited by Duke University, the University of Florida,and MIT to take the MATH SAT. They are all three EXTREMELY intelligent and articulate girls. And are very proficient in math.

And to regard Arthur's comment, your argument is illogical and inept. Who is to say women aren't risk taker. Who is to say that we wouldn't lock ourselves in our rooms to compose a staff of music. Who is to say we aren't competitive. You state that feminists use the "we weren't encouraged/we had little to no rights" argument to state why we didn't do those things. It is because it is true. We were not allowed nor encouraged toward greater education. We were taught to raise children and take care of households. So the feminists' arguments are valid.
And for you information, women are VERY big risk takers(Amelia Earhart anyone?). Do you have any idea how many women risked getting jailed/demeaned because they strove to succeed. Many,many,MANY women created musical compositions, aided in inventions,actually invented something (i.e the bulletproof vest, laser eye surgery, technograph etc)wrote books, created ways to do math (google female mathematicians and you'll be surprised by the numerous amount of females who created ways to do math that we use everyday). And at that day and age, YES, it was a very big risk. many of those women disguised themselves as men. And that was all back then. Imagine what women are working on now in their laboratories, in the 21st century when women have equal rights. Incredible things I bet. And what in the world are you saying that women who do go in the mathematical field mostly fail? ABSURD! We do not "fail" in those fields, mind you, and there are many women in that field also, 48.3% of the mathematicians to be exact. I would know because my own sister is a very well accomplished mathematician in system-grid coordination.
And yes, back before the 1980's women did value family over career. Guess what? not anymore. Women make 49.9 of the workforce as of August '09. Men assume that women will never be the "first" to do something. That is wrong. Since basic knowledge of the world has been established, we can only build on it. Until we find something problematic in the world. And if we do no doubt there will be women being leaders in the projects. All you lists of intelligent men are true, however you left out MANY

And it wasn't man that wanted to go to the moon. It was humanity.

I think in general men and women are of equal intellagence, but i also think that women are much more ignorant of things outside of what they have been taught. Thats why you find so many women that are very intelligent but not interested in a lot at all, men on the other hand (from my experiance) tend to be much more interested in the world around them and therefore appear to be more intelligent.

Like for example if you try to start a conversation on the second world war or the Russian revolution with a woman, they will often reply with; "thats boring" or "I'm not interested", though many of them fail to see the fact that these two subjects are some of the most interesting things that mankind could possiblly be interested in! Again that is not to say that they are dumb. There is just an idea that exists in the human race that women should be interested in gardening and cooking and stuff like that, and so as a result many women find it quite uncomfortable to get into subjects that are normally considered mens interests, like war and politics.

Will, it is possible that women on average are simply interested in a set of topics other than those that you happen to be interested in. I read a book on the evolution of dinosaurs and everything I told my wife about it she was very interested in. I read a book about the anglo boer war and almost nothing in it was interested to her.

Good that that there are so many different events of great importance to all humankind so we can all find something interesting!

Greg,what im saying is; that there is a worldwide stereotype that women are generally interested in things around the household, which im saying is not true, but many women particularly housewives start to fall into this stereotype because they believe its the social norm, just like i would believe its is not the social norm for me as a man, to be interested in beauty or fashion. Thats not to say that there are not exceptions, there are men that are into that kind of stuff as there are many more women interested in, like you mentioned; evolution and dinosaurs.

Also i chose those two examples mentioned in my previous post; the second world war and the Russian revolution, because they were both almost male dominated interests, by using those two warlike subjects i was trying to prove a point.

Since we live in an age when students are likely to hear more about Marie Curie than about Albert Einstein, it is worth beginning with a statement of historical fact: Women have played a proportionally tiny part in the history of the arts and sciences. Others have found similar proportions. Even in the 20th century, women got only 2% of the Nobel Prizes in the sciences--a proportion constant for both halves of the century--and 10% of the prizes in literature. The Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics, has been given to 44 people since it originated in 1936. All have been men.

The historical reality of male dominance of the greatest achievements in science and the arts is not open to argument. The question is whether the social and legal exclusion of women is a sufficient explanation for this situation, or whether sex-specific characteristics are also at work.

Mathematics offers an entry point for thinking about the answer. Through high school, girls earn better grades in math than boys, but boys usually do better on standardized tests. The difference in means is modest, but the male advantage increases as the focus shifts from means to extremes. In a large sample of mathematically gifted youths, for example, seven times as many males as females scored in the top percentile of the SAT mathematics test. We do not have good test data on the male-female ratio at the top one-hundredth or top one-thousandth of a percentile, where first-rate mathematicians are most likely to be found, but collateral evidence suggests that the male advantage there continues to increase, perhaps exponentially.

Evolutionary biologists have some theories that feed into an explanation for the disparity. In primitive societies, men did the hunting, which often took them far from home. Males with the ability to recognize landscapes from different orientations and thereby find their way back had a survival advantage. Men who could process trajectories in three dimensions--the trajectory, say, of a spear thrown at an edible mammal--also had a survival advantage. Women did the gathering. Those who could distinguish among complex arrays of vegetation, remembering which were the poisonous plants and which the nourishing ones, also had a survival advantage. Thus the logic for explaining why men should have developed elevated three-dimensional visuospatial skills and women an elevated ability to remember objects and their relative locations--differences that show up in specialized tests today.

Every time a women(or a man) sites ONE example of a woman doing something 10,000 men have done, 1.3., Amilia Earhart, it is the exception that proves the ruke. By the way Amelia failed in her attempt to do something men do as a matter of course!

So the issue is NOT that a particular woman might do something men can do but there will be 1000s of men at the highest levels of achioevement and a tiny fraction of that number will be women.

U. of Iowa study(biology IS destiny)

A University of Iowa study offers tantalizing clues as to why males show consistent statistical superiority to females in spatial skills. At least part of the explanation may lie in how the brain's parietal lobes are organised.
UI researchers found that a thicker cortex in the parietal lobe in women is associated with poorer mental rotation ability, and in a new structural discovery, that the surface area of the parietal lobe is increased in men, compared to women. Moreover, in men, the greater parietal lobe surface area is directly related to better performance on mental rotation tasks. The study results were published online Nov. 5 by the journal Brain and Cognition.

...The findings underscore the fact that not only is the brain structure different between men and women but also the way the brain performs a task is different, said Peg Nopoulos, M.D., a study co-author and professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine.

"One possible explanation is that the different brain structures allow for different strategies used by men and women. While men appear able to globally rotate an object in space, women seem to do it piecemeal. The strategy is inefficient but it may be the approach they need to take," said Nopoulos, who also is a psychiatrist with University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. _MachinesLikeUs
The statistical superiority of males in spatial skills and advanced mathematical reasoning leads to a higher proportion of males at the rarefied levels of mathematics and math-intensive fields of science, engineering, economics, etc. Such male superiority also leads to the preponderance of males as pilots, race car drivers, and other occupations requiring rapid spatial processing. Politically motivated polemicists often mis-attribute such occupational distributions as due to bias and discrimination.

More likely to have heard of Einstein than Currie, my ass. Making shit up is generally a sign of desperation in an argument, you know. Now, on the math test stats, you're simply out of date. And it's possible that you're unaware that early experience shapes the brain and that differences between scans of men's and women's brains are getting smaller over time.

Evolutionary biologists have some theories that feed into an explanation for the disparity. In primitive societies, men did the hunting, which often took them far from home. Males with the ability to recognize landscapes from different orientations and thereby find their way back had a survival advantage....

As an evolutionary biologist I assure you that you are misrepresenting what evolutionary biologists say, and that you are pretty much a moron.

Arthur, I don't know who Amilia Earhart, but Amelia Earhart failed in her attempt to fly around the world because one man was too drunk to remember to bring the right equipment and another man was too stupid to keep the battery alive on another piece of equipment.

My favourite thing about your blog Greg, is your ability to post a link, say very little and then garner the reactions.

Do you chart these responses somehow? A graph with x=dumbassery and y=almost diamonds and then scatter plot? If so, are the many points in top left corner resembling a Masaccio and the bottom right resembling a detailed crude picture of Donald Duck?

Or is it more like performance art and getting the audience involved?

The fact that you had to revert to name calling tells me you cant't discredit anything i said. by the way the following stands unchallenged

"Women have played a proportionally tiny part in the history of the arts and sciences. Others have found similar proportions. Even in the 20th century, women got only 2% of the Nobel Prizes in the sciences--a proportion constant for both halves of the century--and 10% of the prizes in literature. The Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics, has been given to 44 people since it originated in 1936. All have been men."

If the shaping and grappling with the material world had been in the hands of women

a) we would still be living in caves

b) we would be eating nothing but berries

c) the human population of the world be no more than 30,000,000

Men are different from women. They are equal only in their common membership of the same species, humankind. To maintain that they are the same in aptitude, skill or behaviour is to build a society based on a biological and scientific lie.

The sexes are different because their brains are different. The brain, the chief administrative and emotional organ of life, is differently contructed in men and in women; it processes information in a different way, which results in different perceptions, priorities and behaviour.

In the past ten years there has been an explosion of scientific research into what makes the sexes different. Doctors, scientists, psychologists and sociologists, working apart, have produced a body of findings which, taken together, paints a remarkably consistent picture. And the picture is one of startling sexual asymmetry.

Some researchers have been frankly dismayed at what they have discovered. Some of their findings have been, if not suppressed, at least quietly shelved because of their potential social impact. But it is usually better to act on the basis of what is true, rather than to maintain, with the best will in the world, that what is true has no right to be so.

The fact that you had to revert to name calling tells me you cant't discredit anything i said.

Well, that makes you a double moron. The fact that I "reverted" (do you know what that word means? I think not) too name calling is beause I was busy feeding the baby and didn't fee like reading all of your drivel. I still haven't. Nor will I.

I doubt I need to discredit anything you've said. From what I've seen you are doing an outstanding job of that one thing ... making yourself look like a stupid ass.

Bravo!

Wow Greg, I never knew you had so many dolts reading your blog. Why do you suppose they're here in the first place?

Amazing, simply amazing...

I dunno. I think I might be on Google or something.

The aptitude for abstract thinking:

There have been no women of genius and very few of considerable talent in chess, mathematics and musical composition and any other pursuit for which a high level aptitude for abstract reasoning is a necessary condition( while there have been many women of genius in literature and the performing arts, areas which have the least requirement for abstract reasoning)!

A greater male aptitude for abstact reasoning has been identifed in a wide range of cognitive tests and has been observed so often through out recorded history that we have the sterotype that 'men are more logical than women' and that a certain type of rigorous abstract thinking represents 'thinking like a man'. These measured observations and sterotypes measure and reflect male superiority in an aptitude that is a necessary condition for genius in mathematics and related areas and a great advantage for even the lesser ability that is necessary for the usual professional work in these areas. These measurements and observations are sufficient to explain why all those MOST gifted with this appitude are males. Ther is very strong logical and physiological evidence that male superiority in the aptitude for abstract reasoning is rooted in physiology(testosterone)!

Of course, the fact that women haven't been able to get training in many of these things at all until very recently and still don't get training in the same numbers men do is still perfectly sufficient to explain those differences. And we have clear historical records for that, rather than having to rely on black-box measurements the way Arthur does.

Arthur, over the last few decades, one edifice after another of male intellectual superiority or special ability has fallen as children are exposed to less gendered environments. The very strong effects of gendered teaching and learning environments are impressive, and this level of effect is entirely expected from what we know about how brains develop in individuals.

There are almost certainly male-female differences in brains. There has to be, becasue there are distinct differences (on average) in certain developmental processes that are as sex-related as primary sexual characteristics. To put it simply, there must be primary sexual differences in brains just like there are in bodies because those bodies produce changes that we know affect neural systems.

However, strong and persistent differences between males and females typically disappear when the developmental environment is altered.

What I find interesting is that the most likely primary sex differences ... the ones that will have overlapping but distinct bell curves even if you get rid of all of the post natal non-internal (i.e. endocrine) effects ... tend to show female superiority. The ability to process sounds equally well via both ears and separately is demonstrably superior in little girls and that is retained throughout life. Androgen effects on the brain at various stages seem to mess up boy's language abilities in many cases. Female brains are not laterally specific as male brains are, and hemispheres can act more independently AND communicate better.

This is why when you are busy doing something and your wife tries to talk to you, you get annoyed and have to stop what you are doing and then she can explain what she needs you to hear after you've calmed down. But if your wife is doing something and you talk to her she does not skip a beat and totally gets what you are saying. In fact, she may get what you are saying before you do.

if i may expand on an earlier post

abstract thinking and high achievement

There have been no women of genius and very few of considerable talent in chess, mathematics and musical composition and any other pursuit for which a high level aptitude for abstract reasoning is a necessary condition( while there have been many women of genius in literature and the performing arts, areas which have the least requirement for abstract reasoning)!

If M. Curie seems an exception there is a strong case that her contrbutions were experimental(empirical) not theoretical. That does not diminish her contributions but is consistant with the premise of the discussion here. And if you wish to argue that she was a theoretician then she is the exception that proves the rule.

A greater male aptitude for abstract reasoning has been identified in a wide range of cognitive tests and has been observed so often through out recorded history that we have the stereotype that 'men are more logical than women' and that a certain type of rigorous abstract thinking represents 'thinking like a man'. Just like tests and historical observation lead us to say that âwomen are more perceptive, intuitive and discerning of how people feel and what they might be thinking'

These measured observations and stereotypes measure and reflect male superiority in an aptitude that is a necessary condition for genius in mathematics and related areas and a great advantage for even the lesser ability that is necessary for the usual professional work in these areas, i.e., an applied mathematician vs a theoretical mathematician.

These measurements and observations are sufficient to explain why all those MOST gifted with this aptitude, i.e., abstract reasoning, are males. There is very strong logical and physiological evidence that male superiority in the aptitude for abstract reasoning is rooted in physiology (testosterone and its effect on the architecture of the brain)!

In test scores, the male advantage is most pronounced in the most abstract items. Historically, too, it is most pronounced in the most abstract domains of accomplishment.

In the humanities, the most abstract field is philosophyâand no woman has been a significant original thinker in any of the worldâs great philosophical traditions. In the sciences, the most abstract field is mathematics, where the number of great women mathematicians is approximately two (Emmy Noether definitely, Sonya Kovalevskaya maybe). In the other hard sciences, the contributions of great women scientists have usually been empirical rather than theoretical, with leading cases in point being Henrietta Leavitt, Dorothy Hodgkin, Lise Meitner, Irene Joliot-Curie, and Marie Curie herself.

In the arts, literature is the least abstract and by far the most rooted in human interaction; visual art incorporates a greater admixture of the abstract; musical composition is the most abstract of all the arts, using neither words nor images. The role of women has varied accordingly. Women have been represented among great writers virtually from the beginning of literature, in East Asia and South Asia as well as in the West. Women have produced a smaller number of important visual artists, and none that is clearly in the first rank. No female composer is even close to the first rank. Social restrictions undoubtedly damped down womenâs contributions in all of the arts, but the pattern of accomplishment that did break through is strikingly consistent with what we know about the respective strengths of male and female cognitive repertoires. Women have their own cognitive advantages over men, many of them involving verbal fluency and interpersonal skills.

I have omitted perhaps the most obvious reason why men and women differ at the highest levels of accomplishment: men take more risks, are more competitive, and are more aggressive than women. The word âtestosteroneâ may come to mind, and appropriately. Much technical literature documents the hormonal basis of personality differences that bear on sex differences in extreme and venturesome effort, and hence in extremes of accomplishmentâand that bear as well on the male propensity to produce an overwhelming proportion of the worldâs crime and approximately 100 percent of its wars. But we take the good with the bad. If women were responsible for shaping and grappling with the material world we would still be living in caves, eating only berries and the human population would be about 30,000,000. But this is just one more of the ways in which science is demonstrating that men and women are really and truly different, a fact so obvious that only intellectuals could ever have thought otherwise.

As far as Mother Nature is concerned the female role of birth and nurturing is the most fundemental and important, the male role is only iceing on the cake.

Giving birth is a revealing example. What could be more feminine than giving birth? Throughout most of history and prehistory, giving birth was at the center of the womenâs sphere, and men were totally excluded. Men were rarely or never present at childbirth, nor was the knowledge about birthing even shared with them. But not very long ago, men were finally allowed to get involved, and the men were able to figure out ways to make childbirth safer for both mother and baby. Think of it: the most quintessentially female activity, and yet the men were able to improve on it in ways the women had not discovered for thousands and thousands of years.

Letâs not overstate. The women had after all managed childbirth pretty well for all those centuries. The species had survived, which is the bottom line. The women had managed to get the essential job done. What the men added was, from the perspective of the group or species at least, optional, a bonus: some mothers and babies survived who would otherwise have died. Still, the improvements show some value coming from the male way of being social. Large networks can collect and accumulate information better than small ones, and so in a relatively short time the men were able to discover improvements that the women hadnât been able to find. Again, itâs not that the men were smarter or more capable. Itâs just that the women shared their knowledge individually, from mother to daughter, or from one midwife to another, and in the long run this could not accumulate and progress as effectively as in the larger groups of shallower relationships favored by men.

Arthur, you can always expand a prior comment, but why bother when it's already been addressed? Easier than dealing with the criticisms of it?

although i saw discusssion of related issues i didn't see any specific refutation of any specific point. if you can point one out to me i would be happy to resond

Arhur, has it occurred to you that male physicians co-opted the midwives' knowledge and claimed it their exclusive domain, thereby excluding them from further significant participation? When physicians appropriated the duties of childbirth management and refused to allow women to participate (i.e. they were not allowed to become physicians), women were unlikely to contribute new ideas simply because they had no voice and no way of obtaining one. Not because of some inherent difference in the way they process information, but because they were ignored. Now that more women are physicians I would venture to say that contributions by both sexes are roughly equal.

yes women really invented everything but men co-opted their accomplishments, - this is a common excuse for why women can not achieve greatness except in the arena of care giving and literature, although all of the very greatest writers are also men. But if it makes you feel good about yourself I think you should hold onto this fiction.

I leave with a short article about brain sex differences from the University of Iowa, a study baced up by the history of human experience.

'A University of Iowa study offers tantalizing clues as to why males show consistent statistical superiority to females in spatial skills. At least part of the explanation may lie in how the brain's parietal lobes are organised.
UI researchers found that a thicker cortex in the parietal lobe in women is associated with poorer mental rotation ability, and in a new structural discovery, that the surface area of the parietal lobe is increased in men, compared to women. Moreover, in men, the greater parietal lobe surface area is directly related to better performance on mental rotation tasks. The study results were published online Nov. 5 by the journal Brain and Cognition.

...The findings underscore the fact that not only is the brain structure different between men and women but also the way the brain performs a task is different, said Peg Nopoulos, M.D., a study co-author and professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine.

"One possible explanation is that the different brain structures allow for different strategies used by men and women. While men appear able to globally rotate an object in space, women seem to do it piecemeal. The strategy is inefficient but it may be the approach they need to take," said Nopoulos, who also is a psychiatrist with University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. _MachinesLikeUs
The statistical superiority of males in spatial skills and advanced mathematical reasoning leads to a higher proportion of males at the rarefied levels of mathematics and math-intensive fields of science, engineering, economics, etc. Such male superiority also leads to the preponderance of males as pilots, race car drivers, and other occupations requiring rapid spatial processing. Politically motivated polemicists often mis-attribute such occupational distributions as due to bias and discrimination.

Reasons for these statistical cerebral distinctions between male and female appear to center around sex hormone exposure in the womb and at other critical developmental periods. Women who are successful in the hard sciences, engineering fields, and other math-intensive vocations often have other male behavioural characteristics -- suggesting male hormonal effect at some point in development.

Race and gender associated brain differences are very politically incorrect. Researchers who study such things tempt the Academic Thought Police. The amazing new tools of study in the neurosciences and psychological sciences are simply too powerful, however, not to use them to explore our rich and diversified human landscape.'

Greg,

Someone posted it already, but I'll give it repeating.

The average female is smarter than the average male. But, the spectrum of intelligence in males is far more extensive. A man is 6 times more likely to be a genius and 6 times more likely also to be retarded.

Go to an elementary school and visit the special ed classrooms and the gifted classrooms, you will see boys largely overrepresented in both classes.

All that aside though, even if one sex was more intelligent in an absolute sense, what difference would it make?

You have a denigrating attitude towards your own sex and you champion it with such delight as if it's a wonderful thing that you suck. The fact that you have a daughter worries me even more; you need to be there as a source of support for her and an example of what qualities she needs to look for in a man.

Genevieve: Thank you for your valuable advice as to how to raise my daughter. If only I had known this before I totally screwed her up.

Bullshit. Absolute bullshit.

Don't you get it? Men are NOT smarter than women. We have been discriminated against for so long... we won't take this argument sitting down thats for sure.

Men develop slower, have less concentration in class, would rather play wideo games than study, and are overall dorks. Let me tell you- men are overly conceited, proud, and vain, and women are very humble, quiet and caring.
Did you know that if some guy almost punched me but stopped cause I was girl I'd punch him? Yes. And I'd laugh. Men are not smarter than women and they never will be. Women are more resorsful, innovative and thoughtful. Why aren't there more historic women in the past then? Because men, stupid men, decided to push us in a closet and dress us in frills and not let us do anything for ourselves. What a shame! Only now are women beginning to be encouraged to explore their world. And we do so. So don't tell me I'm dumb. You won't like the results.

What I have learned is that men are conceited stupid and can't argue. So I give up. bye morons!

men and women of age, please don't argue anymore as to who is the smarter. i guess the answer is too plain to see:

If men were smarter than women, Adam would not have eaten the apple eve gave him.

don't you all get it? if that man (adam) would not have been dumb enough to follow the woman's (eve) bidding, everything would have been all right up to now. that leaves men to be less smarter (way beyond lesser) than women!

Has anyone read Pink Brain, Blue Brain? It's about the study of the different brains between genders, written by a female neuroscientist.

Arthur, honestly, I can understand what you are trying to say, but it sounds too much like you are trying to push the idea that if only women were in the house, popping out children, and didn't try to advance themselves, that we'd be happy. That we're pretty much incompetent unless in the realm of giving birth. Who cares about that? That's a function, not a measure of female superiourity.

If anyone wants the link to Pink Brain, Blue Brain, here it is: http://www.amazon.ca/Pink-Brain-Blue-Differences-Troublesome/dp/0618393…

And Arthur, your suggestion that: If women were responsible for shaping and grappling with the material world we would still be living in caves, eating only berries and the human population would be about 30,000,000. But this is just one more of the ways in which science is demonstrating that men and women are really and truly different, a fact so obvious that only intellectuals could ever have thought otherwise"

is slightly ludicrous, because if women had been allowed the same opportunity to grow and develop ALONGSIDE men, how do we know that men and women wouldn't have developed the same characteristics? i.e. evolved along a similar path with men? And why does it necessarily have to be a world dominated by women, as your post suggests? Why can't men work together, or is that not good enough? Let's be clear here, your suggestion the society would have failed in the hands of women, suggests that women are good as nothing less than as breeding machines, and that it is perhaps better to be born male, as the feminist Camile Pagila suggests. That women are illogical, emotional, and inferior in ever single respect, and that mother nature has made us this way.

Time and time again I come across these arguments as way to suggest that hey, if only women stopped working, stayed home, or just realized their own inferiority, we'd all be in a much better place. Women STILL underestimate their own intelligence; there's even a huge study on this: http://www.newsweek.com/id/101079

I don't know the answer, or why one gender has to be smarter than the other..but the constant put-downs towards women are annoying. You guys don't like feminists, fine..but don't put down women as a group..but hey, I'm just a woman, and women aren't capable of abstract reasoning.

BTW, I would like to point out, that much of what Arthur has said, was merely copied and pasted here: http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm

Some of it the EXACT SAME WORDING! HE COULDN'T EVEN COME UP WITH HIS OWN WORDS!

Greg...Do you get paid for this? If you do, then it's really a shame because your posted "article" is not only terribly written, it's also false. The fact that scienceblogs lets you post your garbage reflects poorly on them too.

Every single statistic you claim to use was not cited in the article. Your "proof" consists of minor surveys in a small island nation that don't even appear to be complete. Also, the BBC article clearly said:

The only exception is for Oxford and Cambridge, where men and women are now level.

So your only source describes the lack of an apparent gender gap in this small island nation's elite educational institutions. Also, Great Britain's educational system has declined dramatically according to many international reports and the book "All Must Have Prizes" by Melanie Phillips.

Here's one of your fellow blogger's views that are bolstered by facts.
http://www.matthewktabor.com/2007/08/07/three-doses-of-reality-for-brit…

Here is the recent(2009) breakdown of medical school graduates by gender.
http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparebar.jsp?ind=435&cat=8&rgnhl=35

It shows about a 50/50 split with an insignificant majority of male medical students.

I think that pretty much shows your post to be retarded in its entirety.

P.S. Social sciences aren't real classes. Life sciences are though.

Luke, you seem to be rather perturbed. Is this because you know, at some level, that you are not as smart as your girlfriend?

Wow Luke, you managed to write a comment that was complete and utter bullshit, through and through. And managed to denigrate people who have nothing to do with the conversation at the same time. You may well be the biggest asshole I have run across this week and that is saying something...

Nothing like proving some boys are just innumerate like calling a population of 60 million a "small island nation."

I think the article, and 99% of the comments in response. Are wrong.
Women are not "smarter" than men. Men are not "smarter" than women. The sexes are equally intelligent just in different ways.

I'm going to generalise a bit here as I don't have the time of patience (or ability to type d/t carpal tunnel) to be more precise.

Men have difficulty comprehending things that women understand quickly, easily and completely. Women have difficulty comprehending things that men understand quickly, easily and completely. And most of the time, men and women comprehend things equally quickly, easily and completely.

Actually at the near genius level, 145 IQ or so, men outnumber women 8 to 1. Men have an average IQ of 105 to 100 for women. Women mature early, but we catch up at age 16 and from there to 21 significantly grow our intelligence. The downside to this there are more men in the lower IQ stratus than women. Could lend a good reason to that fact that men cause more crime. As far as scores go our schools measure diligence more than pure intelligence. We need more IQ testing to be sure that we are giving those that have the ability the means to excel. Not just those that have persistance, or good organizational skills of some sort. In the artical men's brains are 8% heavier too. You have to tip your at to the stronger sex here. But then, Greg, you appear to be a complete idiot. Or are you just a moron? Simpleton perahaps?

In the artical men's brains are 8% heavier too....

....sprong....

Thanks for the laugh, ed.

Ed, haven't really been keeping up have you? You must be in that lower IQ stratus.

that's what Amelia Earhart thought! if you ask me it is not intelligence because every study ever done on IQ has shown men are far more intelligent than women it's the fact that all through school things are better understood by men so they don't have to do homework to ace the test women do they get homework grades and same test scores the woman has the better grade in the class i have never met a women who can do math better than me(college math teacher) but several men left me jaw dropped. from what I've seen men learn much faster and remember much better than women. but women play a vital role in helping men with there bad common sense! and stupid stunts

I'm not a native English speaker, but I'll try my best...

Humans are not the strongest animal, nor the fastest, nor the best swimmers, nor the one with the best vision or hearing systems, and so on...

We just happen to have the most powerful brains.
And this alone, seems to compensate for everything else (I hope it doesn't sound controversial to say that we dominate this planet).

So, if woman are smarter than man, how do you explain the very fact that man has oppressed woman (with which you dismiss the overwhelming evidence of man intelligence - based on inventions).

Yes, man are stronger. But bears are stronger yet. And it doesn't seem that they managed to oppress humans.

And please don't respond by speculating on the size of my dick (it's fine, thank you)

Christianity, Altin.

Christianity allowed the mysteries to be the perview of Men Only.

Before then, it was almost entirely the women in charge of the spiritual side, men were there to be the muscle to protect or enact aggression. Women were Scary. Powerful. And not in a "smack in the mouth" way, but in a more scary psychological way.

This probably lent itself to a LOT of persecution of Men.

It may well be that patriachal religions were so initially successful for the same reasons why the Womens Movement were so successful: they were a reaction to oppression, therefore there was something to gain from its acceptance.

Aside from that, women don't normally date bears therefore the relative strength of the two different animals bears almost no relationship to the power struggle of the sexes.

Since the biggest man gets to fend off the attentions of other men, the pool of allowed social interactions will be with the strongest and most violent man.

And, though the need to procreate incurs some increased vulnerability of a man bedding a woman, less-than-full-on violence can still be a workable strategy, up to a point.

Christianity? Wow!

How long do you think Christianity has been among us? Do you really think that genetic differences between man and woman, involving different physical and mental performances have roots in such recent times? And how do you explain the dominance of man in any religion (including pagans)?

I donât want to be disrespectful or something, but what are you saying is similar to the âreasoningâ that if we leave some teenagers in an abandoned island, most of discoveries, inventions, and theories, would be produced by bullies, simply by keeping the geeks in constant terror and depriving them from âspiritual revelationsâ.

Seriously, though. Here some questions for you:

Do you think that woman have the same physical performance capabilities as man?

If you think that they do, or are even better, or that we simply donât have enough data to arrive in any conclusion⦠I would suggest you to google for the results of recent olimpiadas.

This is as good as a scientific experiment as one can get. These are typically young, healthy people, with good genes, which try to give their best.

Supposing that you either have done that, and got some enlightenment, or have come to the conclusion that simply experiencing the world gives more data than one cares to remember, my next question to you is:

Do you think that being able to run fast, or swim fast, or lift heavy weights and so on⦠has anything to do with oneâs ability to survive? For example, if an animal attacks a group of other animals (un-armed humans included), does the ability to run fast has anything to do with oneâs chances to survive?

If so, it seems that Mother Nature is not simply being âsexistâ here, but plain genocidial (females would have less chances to survive)

Itâs clear, I think, that we havenât come so long (in evolutionary terms) as âequal-independentâ individuals. Nature doesnât care so much about equality, rather, it finds its material for natural selection in diversity, and specialization is the norm.

And it doesnât require any PhD to realize that woman have more than a half of the reproduction facilities in their bodies.

If you are a reasonable enough person, I hope you would concede that there is some specialization in action here: woman have more core tasks to do to (biologically) renew the specie, and man more core tasks to do to preserve the current ones (catch food and protect from becoming a food).

And if you concede that natural selection happens in the reaction of one specie with external factors, meaning how best different individuals react to those challenges (procure food and to avoid becoming food), and if you also concede that intelligence is not simply one of our âtoolsâ in âthe business of survivalâ, but our primary one, than itâs quite clear to see why nature has selected to put this ability in males mind â those who had it were more able to impact the challenges of survival.

Males are more intelligent than females for the same reason that they can run faster, or lift heavier weights. All those abilities, intelligence especially, are determinant in their core tasks.

This thread has proven one thing, trolls are not a myth...they really exist.

"How long do you think Christianity has been among us?"

Something like 5000 years, in one of several forms. Its current incarnation is Christianity.

Do you really not know this stuff?

"Do you really think that genetic differences between man and woman, involving different physical and mental performances have roots in such recent times?"

No. Since I never said this anywhere, why did you think to ask?

"And how do you explain the dominance of man in any religion (including pagans)?"

Monkey-see monkey-do.

This is not, for most people with active brains, rocket science.

"Do you think that woman have the same physical performance capabilities as man?"

What does this have to do with your earlier post?

Nothing, that's what.

I shall ignore further stupidity in the post until it gets to something germane.

"Males are more intelligent than females"

Wrong.

You, of course, are the example of a male far dumber than a female.

"for the same reason that they can run faster, or lift heavier weights."

Sorry, as a male who can lift weights, I can tell you categorically that you do not use your brain to lift heavy weights.

I didnât insulted you (as a way to deconstruct your âargumentsâ).
Itâs clear that you are all about emotions and no reason (which makes your position quite understandable)

You know, science isnât going to remain mute for long even in these matters. And I doubt that any theory will be established simply by ignoring any counter-argument and offending those who articulate them.

Do you really think that genetic differences between man and woman, involving different physical and mental performances have roots in such recent times?

Which genetic differences would those be?

Itâs curious that you picked that as the weakest point of my argument, because if you sustain that woman were oppressed by man (explaining in this way their almost inexistent contribution in our understanding of the world), they (man) either have to be stronger, or smarter, or⦠both.

It sounds reasonable to exclude âneitherâ as an option, but you can elaborate on it if you have to.

For the sake of the previous comment I have to say here that if Christianity was the problem, we have to choose whether it was either a product of âdivine forcesâ, or human mind.
Assuming we donât have to spend any lines on the first option, we have to decide whether were males or females that invented it.
If we pick females, than they have not been oppressed at all, they simply opted out of any scientific endeavors.
If, on the other hand, males invented it, and replaced therefore any intellectual framework established by females so far, I canât see how this can be counted as a prove of womanâs intellect.

But anyway, assuming that you are more prepared to concede that there are some genetic differences that makes males have better physical performances (a few posts earlier I also proposed a (quite scientific) way to assert those differences) , rather than mental differences, my question to you is:

If the ability to survive is a direct function of oneâs performance in those abilities, how could Nature make a difference here?

Unless, itâs as much part of the design that males are more involved in challenges that require those abilities - not only for their own sake, but for their children and females as well â as part of a family, or tribe or⦠(my English leaves my short hereâ¦), as the fact that woman have to do more in the context of reproduction.

Any such ability, intellect included, has to be earned in the same way as any other ability has â by proving useful in the context of natural selection.
Intelligence is as much important in those challenges, as any other (humanâs case proves that itâs more important than any other)

And Nature, has already âmade up her mindâ to not be as ambitious in the installation of a survival system in woman, in order to leave some âgenetic budgetâ to install almost an entire reproduction system.

Obviously Iâm not claiming that any man is smarter than any woman, in the same way I wouldnât claim that any man is taller than any woman (even though, statistically speaking, they are not equal)

And a smart woman wonât become dumper simply by hearing this fact, if science (in all probability) will come to include in itâs description of the world, more than a tall woman could become shorter simply by hearing that man are (generally) taller.

NB: http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/05/the_branding_is_upon_us_veril…

men are smarter then women actually hahahahaah you guys have no idea

-.-
that aint true lil biach greg is obama a guy or a girl ask ur mum if u dont know and is einstein a guy or a girl is Jesus a guy or a girl is santa a guy or a girl so think about what u are sayin before u say it Dumb girl...
>.<

QED

oh please. to the angry commenters- it is so obvious that women are smarter than men. the fact that throughout history men continue to keep women down is the reason why there seems to be less female achievement. and iq tests and grades aside, a very very small percentage of men can tap into the sort of intuition & empathy that almost all women have. that is not measurable by a test, but it is invaluable to quality of life.

I've also read that academic achievements are correlated to someones attractiveness.
That it's a fact.

What's not a fact but probably everyone knows is that a man is much much more likely to give a woman (stranger) benefits because of her looks.

Maybe that "small" difference in how much more likely a man is to treat a woman biased would account for the difference in GPA scores etc?

I think I solved this

nicko, are you suggesting that heterosexual female professors and TAs don't give a similar benefit to good looking men? Or are you simply assuming that all professors and TAs are heterosexual males?

Yes, because performance in school directly correlates with one's intelligence.

Blog post fail.

Dave, your comment is #121. That's arguably a blog post win, although the fact that you don't know what those say suggests, perhaps, a reader fail.

Oh, I forgot, sometimes really dumb people get all A's in school and also take all the really hard courses. Totally forgot.

I can prove that men are smarter than women. It's very simple really.

Men don't shave their eyebrows off then pain them back on.

And women don't make dumb-ass mistakes like using "pain" for "paint" when trying to look superior. Nor do they subject themselves to steroids that shrink their gonads in the hopes of giving those gonads more opportunities. Your point?

Doug, did your father agree to have a chunk of your penis chopped off when you were born? You can't paint that back on.

I rest my case.

(Not that plucking out one's eyebrows and then painting them back on isn't creepy, but offhand, I know only one woman who does that and I don't know her well. In fact, I only know of her as the only person in town who plucks out her eyebrows and paints them back on.)

Most of the posters here are sexists. That includes Greg and Stephanie, as sexism goes both ways. To argue with that would only prove my point. To those of you who provide statistics instead of personalised remarks, while I respect your efforts, I can't help but feel that it is only a worthless gesture.
I believe that every person has unique traits, without being restricted to your gender. For example, the media paints almost all men as sex-obsessed, arrogant dogs. I am a male who intends to keep my virginity to the grave. I don't really care what kind of retorts you will undoubtedly use to counter that, what you do is your right, and not my business.
I am, however, sick of being oppressed just because I am male. The law and the media have both overcompensated, now favouring women. The basis of feminism was equality, not superiority. I don't want men to dominate society either, I just want equality. But I doubt that it's a possibility. Society will continually overcompensate, as the oppressed obtain their goals and then begin to hunger for more.

it's really sad to see this kind of sexism persevere. it can seem amusing at first to think that women are smarter especially after the role society has put women in for so long, but if a simple answer with shallow proof helps you continue your prejudice, then go for it greg. let us all know when it's time to segregate water fountains based on sex. what absolutely pathetic pseudo-science you're perpetuating.

Well,as a female i have researched the male/female brain differences for some time.
I noticed that a male's brain has just more potential than a female brain.

Its just the path of evolution.

And so far our illusion that we are smarter is cause we are more good with grades,the reason we get better grades its cause we are hardwired to be VERY dependent on society and our primary goal is how we look in a society ,thats why we work so hard at school and trying to achieve that "perfect" life.
Also is not right to compare people under 21 in intelligence,cause it is afterwards that a male brain fully develops.

We dont have the high abstract reasoning men have,its plain obvious,and us recalling some mathematician females doesnt do any good cause they were very few,their importance could be filled with any other mathematician etc.

BUT!!! That high reasoning level differences in everyday life DOESNT SHOW UP,a non-scientist researcher male can't say "am a guy am smarter"
thats doesnt hold ANY power.
This difference applies ONLY to high sciences and original art.
NOT IN EVERYDAY LIFE.

For example if a Ferrari and a go-cart race in a speed limit of 10Miles per hour then both Ferrari and Go-Cart would be at the same speed,this level of thinking accounts for more than 99% of our life.

If the race was at 200Miles per hour then Ferrari would obviously win,but that level of thinking is LESS than 1% of our life.Aka the research sciences,and original art or something really innovative.

The main difference is INNOVATION.We can learn what men found and invented but we can't create ,at least it EXTREMELY HARD and if achieved it doesnt even compares to a man's innovation.

BUT!!! LESS than 0.000001 (possible even less) of MALES actually ACHIEVES that.
If you count all inverters,original artists,real philosophers etc(the people that made our world) you will see it is an EXTREMELY small portion of the total males.

Its like being proud of your football team you support and take credit for their successes,while at the same time you can't even walk 5 minutes without getting tired.
Mentioning Einstein and other figures so you can appear smarter wont work,cause your not the DAMN EINSTEIN.

I dont wanna feel that am betraying my gender but rather am defending objectivity and science.

Don't choke on your Adam's Apple, "Martha"

@Richard,i know,i get that alot.
Some people call me overly logical.
I seek objectivity not convenience.

Martha, people call you overly logical for indulging in the naturalistic fallacy?

@StephanieZ believe me, i spent too much time on this.

I hope i find something else that will change my mind thats why i still looking from time to time but i also cannot ignore something because it makes my gender look less intelligent.
Well you call my logic flawed,what is your counter-opinion?
I mean how can we deny that todays world is 99.9% based on males,at least i can't.

Martha, it would be helpful if you provided references to actual research rather than just your strong opinions.

I mean the Technological and Artistic world we live today.
How can you argue with that,we all learned it from history.
Men oppressed women,they didn't had education etc.
So they only way to survive and have better life was to develop keen sense and social skills,they are perceptive but in interpersonal level,at expense of the male's abstract thinking.
That did evolution,and because of that we are like this.
Well,my evidence for this is the same they got on gravity,its everywhere,its you and me ,past and present ,i can't ignore gravity cause i might die falling of a cliff.

Wow.

Well, Martha, the point of my post is the fact that women are smarter than men as being utterly ubiquitous.

Ubiquitous \U*biq"ui*tous\ ([-u]*b[i^]k"w[i^]*t[u^]s), a. [See{Ubiquity}.] Existing or being everywhere, or in all places, at the same time; omnipresent. -- {U*biq"ui*tous*ly}, adv.

Like gravity.

Of course, there are exceptions.

If you didn't liked my previous post then:

Now i ask you to answer this question.
Did or did not males developed the technology you're living in today?
Yes or No? with or without why.
Please dont evade this question.

No.

The technologies that our species evolved with and used for millions of years and that made us human ... the use of stone tools, wooden tools, and cooking ... were probably invented by females. After that, other technologies may be considered an extension of that.

Often, technologies were invented and developed and maintained by females ... such as pottery or cooking ... and then only when an elaborated version of that technology that would allow males to show off was available, the males took it over.

And, to prove it, I know a female with a great rack of ribs, and tomorrow I'm going to take them and barbecue them. There may be underground storage organs of plants consumed as well.

I'll rack of ribs you!

Martha doesn't make sense.

No,apparently i dont make sense..

you win, women are smarter because Millions(yes,not thousands)as you say years ago women invented everything,even hunted ,men stayed at home and played video games.
And thats why todays woman is smarter.
If you exclude the fact that no matter how educated a woman is she can't invent or think something original in high sciences or even philosophy.
But yeah.
Cool logic bro

Deic, that is not what I said. Have you read the post, bro?

@Gred

Yh,Martha actually explained her theories,you dont explain your theories you guess 100% you dont even bother to make silly explanations.

You guess it was female that invented.Why? what makes you believe?
You guess that women invneted cooking and pottery,why because it is more "feminine"?
Did women invented washing machines? did women invented hairdryer? did women invented ovens?
NO.

On the other hand we have all the evidence in the world that men did it,for example all todays scientists,philosophers etc,the medieval,the ancient,all thousands of men not even comparable with women,
and those few women that actually did thought of something,did invented of something they couldn't even compare to a man's accomplishments.

Your theory is the biggest insult to human logic,after reading your last post i dont consider you a human ,you're an animal,you dont belong in my race or my gender,becaues you DONT HAVE LOGIC.

You're wrong: men are more intelligent.
You're right: men are more intelligent.
why?
I'll you because you're too stupid to get it that you proved bothways am right.

You actually said "men took over it" that means after thousands of years those that "took over" the technology they used their brain to construct,invented etc etc and the more you use it the more evolution "upgrades" thats why todays men are so intelligent.
Like nobel prizes which in order to get it you HAVE to find something new ,only 2% of women got the award on hard sciences and if you look that 2% you'll noticed almost all of them shared,or was part of a team that won it etc,NOT by themselves.
Women have NOTHING to do with innovation,original thinking etc.
Deal with it.

You guess it was female that invented.Why? what makes you believe?

Belief is the wrong word here. I'm a scientist.

I'm going on the work of Bosch et all with the chimpanzees of the Tai Forest, Goodall's work with chimps at Gombe, Wrangham's work including his summary of chimp cultrures published in various places, work mainly by Japanes scientists with various primates, all indicated that male hominoids almost never do anything like this, but that females do it frequently.

Then, I'm extending this idea to the work by Laden (that's me) and Wrangham on the chimp-human split, in which the use of embedded (underground) resources was a key element, and putting this together with Kappleman's and Hunt's work on embedded resources, all, again, suggesting female-driven technological evolution. Hrdy talked about this as well in "The Woman that Never Evolved" and elsewhere.

From there, we go to Wrangham's work with me, Jones, Pilbeam and Conklin-Britain on the origin of cooking. We make a strong argument that females were the inventers of cooking and the main cookers for the course of human evolution. this is further expanded and developed by Wrangham in his recent book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.

Greg, are you really being lectured by someone who keeps asking, "did women invented"? By someone who doesn't understand how property rights affects the issuance of patents? By someone who doesn't even know (and can't be bothered to Google to find out) that a woman invented the circular saw and the dishwasher? Who can't manage the math to figure out that an award that usually goes to teams of scientists will almost never go to a team of women when women are as drastically underrepresented in sciences as they were at the time most of these discoveries were made? Who can't even figure out html tags?

Ooh, boy.

a woman invented the circular saw and the dishwasher?

ROFL

Actually, this commenter's prose was hard to read. It's all Greek to me.

Check wiki and you will see that saw machine is bullcrap.
I dont see why you compare a washing machine with male's inventions,any male with average IQ could do it,if he cared,one century later someone cared and build an actual machine.

Thats stupid,women was misrepresented almost everywhere,how does that have ANYTHING to do with their intelligence today? you see so many women have academic "success" but do they think or invent anything? BARELY ,A JOKE compared to men.

Wheres the proof women are smarter?

You contradict yourself.

So far the only thing that you proved was the a woman is not completely retarded.
Thnx for the info.

Still not even close to men.
You dont get it do ya.

Deic, you don't get many dates, do you.

@Enoch,its ok m8,you'r brain can't think of anything better to say.
I dont really expect to understand,you're no different than theists :ignorant,brainwashed,morons,narrow minded,0 logic.

I know ,i always play easy games,its like playing chess with animals,i always win but they dont know it.
But oh well,i need a pass time.

OP either troll posting with multiple accounts
or a woman that posts with multiple accounts

Chose one and gtfo of my internet

Deic, do you also think that women belong in the kitchen when they aren't there for a man's sexual pleasure (or fetus-bearing)?
You sound like a stereotypical misogynist.

And, Greg, it's about damn time you admitted I am smarter than you ;-)

Jaf

No,that is you making an assumption.
Women can do great in things already known,i was talking about abstract reasoning,innovation etc its all written.

Jaf,why do you think ur smarter than Greg? am not saying ur not,everyone is smarter than Greg,but why exactly?

If women are supposed to be smarter, than why do men on average score higher than women on IQ tests and why are all the smartest people men?

Four Names: Newton, Einstein, DaVinci, Gallileo.

Beat that!

This is bulshit. NO woman has ever made a new theory or maths formula, president of a major colege or awarded a significant noble prize.

http://www.livescience.com/health/060908_brainy_men.html

Just a scientific study, proving the IQ of women vs men. Sorry but women are not smarted then men. Thank you =).

Real Proof must be a guy. Not even smart enough to read the second section of the article he links and see that the explanation there matches the one already given in comment 35 here.

Maybe he readed it but did not understanded it.

I know plenty of women than whom I perceive myself to be far smarter. Likewise, I know may men than whom I perceive many corresponding women to be far smarter. One cannot say that all men are smarter than all women, nor can one say that all women are smarter than all men. For example, to propose that all women are smarter than all men, one must by extension propose that all women are smarter than Stephen Hawking. Are all women smarter than Stephen Hawking? I think not. What about brain-dead women? It seems to me that brain-dead women are not smarter than any man who is in full possession of his faculties. Similarly, it seems to me that brain-dead men are not smarter than any woman who is in full possession of her faculties. I apologize, but I must conclude that you are incorrect. Unless, of course, you mean to say that women on average are smarter than men on average, in which case I must conclude that you may or may not be correct because it is impossible to conduct an IQ test on every person in the world, even simultaneously, and be done before anyone else is born, and it is therefore impossible to calculate the average intelligence for each sex, and it is therefore impossible to compare them.

Furthermore, even if it were possible to conduct an IQ test on every person in the world simultaneously and be done before anyone else is born, the test would be ineffective because IQ is not an accurate representation of intelligence. In fact, as far as we currently know, intelligence cannot be quantified; therefore, the statement holds that it is impossible to compare the average intelligences of two genders.

Pantsman, obviously, we are speaking of averages here. Overlapping bell curves.

One does not have to test every person in the world to measure this. One only needs twenty years of testing males and females in the same class between two and five times a year.

But you're a guy, so you probably would have a hard time understanding this. On average.

Actually, you would have to test every person in the world to compare the quantities with complete accuracy. Twenty years of testing males and females in the same class between two and five times a year is insufficient if you want to be able to know the truth without making any assumptions. This is one of the shortcomings of science: by engaging in a scientific study, one must assume three things: that one's senses are not lying to him/her, that one is not crazy, and that just because a given event occurred over and over again under the same controlled conditions means that it will continue to occur over and over again under the same controlled conditions forever. None of these assumptions can be proven without using themselves, as demonstrated thusly:

1. To prove that your senses are not lying to you, you must have access to the experiences of other people. To access these experiences, you must use your senses, but if your senses may be lying to you, then you don't know for sure that your senses aren't just lying to you about the experiences of other people as well.

2. To prove that you are not crazy, you must utilize reasoning, as with any proof. However, if you do not assume that you are not crazy, there is no way to prove that whatever brand of reasoning you are using actually works.

3. To prove that just because a given event occurred over and over again under the same controlled conditions means that it will continue to occur over and over again under the same controlled conditions forever, what would seem the most sensible thing to do would be to look to history as a source of times during which the principle has shown itself to be true. However, by assuming that looking at history is a good way to predict what will happen in the future, you are actually assuming what you're trying to prove.

Take a good look at number 3. By assuming that the research you've cited, which was conducted in the past, says anything about the present or future, you are making the assumption shown to be unprovable in good ol' number 3 right there.

Essentially what I'm saying here is that if you can't use the past to determine the present, then you can only use the present to determine the present, but it's impossible to conduct a thorough and conclusive study on the present conditions fast enough that by the time it's over, what was the present will still be the present and not the past; if we don't assume that the past necessarily effects the present, then we can't assume that the trend will continue even when the past wherein it originated is no longer the present. We can't even conclude that the past influences the present because we've seen the past influence the present before, because we would be using the theorem that the past influences the present to prove that the past influences the present, which would be nonsense. Besides, we'd also be relying on our experiences, and our senses may have been deceiving us. Hence, women may have been smarter than men on average at some point in time, particularly the near past, but we can't know for sure that that trend continues into the present, nor can we conclude it through reasoning, because we'd have to assume that the trend of trends continuing into the present continues into the present, which would require assuming that the trend of trends of trends continuing into the present continuing into the present continues into the present, and so on.

Forgive me if I'm showing myself to be a bit difficult to understand; I'm autistic, so I have a great deal of difficulty expressing my thoughts in ways that other people are capable of understanding.

I should also mention, if it matters to you, that my personal underlying bias is that men and women on average exhibit approximately equal intelligence, or that perhaps they fluctuate, one being more intelligent for a time, then the other, like yin and yang, spiraling into one another's fields of being, over and over again, forever. I have no evidence for this bias; that is why I call it a bias and not fact. I guess I'm just trying to point out that in case it matters, my point is that men are just as intelligent as women, not that men are more intelligent than women, which I don't believe they are.

And that is how you kill a discussion with a strong foundation in science: merely present the argument that science requires a priori assumptions that cannot be proven and in fact can be proven to be incapable of being proven.

Or you post on an ancient thread when everyone's paying attention to an election. You're welcome to claim that nothing is knowable, that the past doesn't predict the future. You don't actually live that way, though, so it's pretty pointless as an argument. You demonstrably don't believe it yourself; you came back assuming this thread would exist today because it existed two days ago.

Indeed. I make mistakes. I'm human. I hate humans. I hate myself, too, so I'm not really a hypocrite... I'm a lot of crappy things, but I've got to at least hand it to myself that that's not one of them. Also, my intellectual beliefs differ from those upon which I act. Again, I'm human. Freaking humans. Most intelligent species on the Earth my ass. I can see right through all the arguments I'm reading on this site, and yet I can't see my own ineptitude. You know wwhat, I think I really just don't have anything better to do than find some provocative subject on which to pointlessly defend my values against people whose opinions I ordinarily wouldn't give a shit about.

Nonetheless, I fail to see how being too human to live by my beliefs invalidates them as beliefsa. To me, a belief is something to think by, to use in philosophical journeys.. The rules I live by, on the other hand, really don't seem to be my choice. The only power I have left is power over my own thoughts.

And one more thing that I forgot to say (yes, I forget to say a lot of things): I'm not claiming that the past doesn't predict the future; I'm claiming that we can't assume that it does because it's unknowable. In real life, I base my decisions on my instinct, not what I know, but when the decisions hold value to me, such as decisions regarding my treatment of my fellow human beings, I switch into basing them on the one thing I know (that everything [except the said one thing] is unknowable), which usually leads me to indecision.

Ah, USA - the world of fagots, negros and horse-ugly man-hating feminist cunts. Thank god, that the majority of the World now hates you and your country is in a decline! You are going the Roman Empire way, but a lot faster.

Ironically, horses have been used as a standard of beauty for centuries. Perhaps you should use a different term, Michael. Perhaps "bigot-ugly"?

Most controlled studies indicate that male and female intellect is more or less equal, but with different probability distributions and different allocation across types of thought.
Absolute intelligence is, to the best of our ability to tell, a product of the number of connections in your brain. Women have a slightly lower brain mass, but this is more or less exactly balanced by having a higher mean number of connections per cell in some specific zones of the brain. The differences in network topology lead to slight differences in styles of thought, but as the total connection number is equal there is no absolute advantage.
At a societal level, there is of course a distribution of intelligence amongst individuals. This variability is partly due to genetic variability and partly due to upbringing, both socially and academically. Generally speaking, the mean intelligence is higher in girls but FWHM is larger in boys: that is, an average girl is slightly smarter than an average boy, but as a tradeoff a highly intelligent person is more likely to be male due to the broader shape of the distribution curve.
The similarity in connection density implies that there shouldn't be any real separation in the mean intelligence, however at least a portion of the separation seems to come from the prevaling masculine/feminine cultures favouring studious behaviour more in girls and disruptive behaviour more in boys.

In any case, the intelligence curves neatly explain why most nobel prizewinners are men but why girls continue to get slightly (to moderately in some locations) higher grades.

Also, Stephanie Z its obvious that you are Greg etc.
You're a female but thats ok.
It would be better if you didn't attack the person directly.
Like the autistic guy above, you were sarcastic/ironic all the time.
He just expressed his opinion in the most peaceful he could ever do.

Why can't you just answer without being so aggressive?

Please if you're about to answer with comments that have sarcastic tone then dont answer at all.

If you dont agree with my post please explain why in a peaceful manner.

Actually, anon, the intelligence curves do nothing but compensate for a larger number of learning disabilities in males, as I explain here, on my blog (which you may note is not Greg's blog): http://almostdiamonds.blogspot.com/2010/05/creating-genius.html

As for the rest of your comment, why are you asking me about being aggressive instead of all the guys continuing to show up on this thread being nastily dismissive of women and women's intelligence? And what exactly was sarcastic in my (one) comment to "the autistic guy"? I told him he was wrong about why he didn't receive a response and that he didn't believe the epistemological argument he was making.

No, wait. If you are me, that that's MY blog!

while the girls are achieving better grades in schoool why has nobody asked if the education system is gender biased towards female students? There is loads of evidence but cannot be proven because it will be a "sexist" hypothesis....

Very funny, Smithy. People make the claims that one ethnic group or 'race' is smarter than another, or that males are smarter than females, and rarely ask if the educaitonal system is biased. But now, you are suddenly asking. Why?

My experience, having administered objective tests to students taking my classes over many years of time, is that the girls perform as a group, on average, better than the boys. All the boys and girls are in the same room for lecture, getting the same material, and the tests are blind graded. No bias is really possible unless somehow in my lecture I speak girl better than boy, or the text is somehow girly and not boyish in some strange way.

Also, look at it this way, Smithy. I'm thinking your' a guy, right? Now, think of the five other guys you know best, and think of the five girls you know best.

The girls are smarter, right? Of course they are. Case closed.

eseye combine idee yo pou we saw ka fe ak bagay misye a

The first counterargument you suggested to Smithy's idea was that when the intellect of men was proposed as superior to that of women, nobody called into question the supposedly unbiased nature of the educational system, yet now that the opposite concept is being proposed, people are all over the idea of the educational system favoring the gender claiming to be displaying greater intellect. Immoral as it may be, this is no counterargument to Smithy's case; the morality (or lack thereof) in arguing a point is irrelevant to the point's logical validity (or lack thereof).

As to the second counterargument, the bias at play may not be one that is shown in the grading of work; perhaps women are simply learning more in class and therefore producing and completing work of higher quality. The bias may be in *what* is being taught. It is possible that women have natural tendencies to understand different kinds of acquired information than men, and that more feminine information is being taught than masculine information, thus leading to a greater level of comprehension in women on average than in men. If this were in fact the case, even those from whom the bias originates would be oblivious to it if it was not known what information was comprehensible to a male mind and what information was comprehensible to a female mind; such ignorance may easily be created by an unconscious base assumption that men and women learn in the same ways.

As for the final counterargument, you didn't wait for Smithy to respond. How do you know that the men he selected weren't smarter than the women he selected? Frankly, even after he selected them, how would *he* know? He may not be qualified to analyze the intellect of others. His methods may produce inaccurate results.

Pants: The "first counter argument" was not a counter argument. It was a statement. Are you refuting the statement or just using it as a smoke screen?

Regarding the second counter argument, fine, I'll agree with your point. Women are not smarter than men. Men are smarter. But when women are in college, perhaps women are simply learning more in class and therefore producing and completing work of higher quality. But they are still dumb-ass bitches. I love that. Women are not as smart as men, but they just learn better and test better and are overall ... smarter and stuff. You're not the first person to make the argument here, but you did manage it with fewer misspellings.

Regarding the third counter argument, I have no idea what you are talking about.

I am refuting the statement, but that is because I thought you were using it as a counterargument. If you were not, then I have no qualms regarding the statement.

Okay, so you agree that women are not smarter than men. But where on Earth did you get the idea that *men* are smarter than *women*? You haven't provided any evidence. Honestly, given the way you argued that, I'm less compelled to believe it than I am to believe that women are smarter than men. Given the amount of evidence I've seen from personal experience, I'm more compelled to believe that men and women possess approximately equal average intelligence than I am to believe eiither of the other two theories. Onto a further explanation of my actual point: my speculation was that men have a different style of learning than women and perhaps understand different information than women do, and that this style of learning is not being accommodated sufficiently, nor is the said information being sufficiently taught. In this frame of thought, if masculine learning were being unfairly promoted rather than feminine learning, boys would be doing better than girls, and if the two styles of learning were promoted alongside one another, noth genders would thrive. You somehow interpreted this to mean that feminine learning is more efficient than masculine learning. Perhaps it is because I am stupid as you say (if indeed I am), but I fail to see the correlation between these two concepts.

As for the last thing I said, I was referring to when you instructed Smithy to pick his 5 closest male friends and his 5 closest female friends and compare their intellects. I hope this clarifies matters.

Okay, so you agree that women are not smarter than men.

Ah, well, honestly no. Women are clearly smarter.

But where on Earth did you get the idea that *men* are smarter than *women*?

I don't think that, no.

I'm less compelled to believe it than I am to believe that women are smarter than men.

Well good, because the latter is true. Obviously.

Onto a further explanation of my actual point: my speculation was that men have a different style of learning than women and perhaps understand different information than women do, and that this style of learning is not being accommodated sufficiently, nor is the said information being sufficiently taught.

Very, very unlikely. We don't need to speculate or guess. Our system of education was developed in a patriarchal setting. The only studies I know of that have found gender biases demonstrate biases against girls.

As for the last thing I said, I was referring to when you instructed Smithy to pick his 5 closest male friends and his 5 closest female friends and compare their intellects. I hope this clarifies matters.

That will be interesting.

Ah, well, honestly no. Women are clearly smarter.
And:
I don't think that, no. (in reference to But where on Earth did you get the idea that *men* are smarter than *women*?)
Compare:
Regarding the second counter argument, fine, I'll agree with your point. Women are not smarter than men. Men are smarter.

I smell a contradiction. Maybe I just left the oven on or forgot to take out the garbage or something, but I'm pretty sure I smell a contradiction.

Very, very unlikely. We don't need to speculate or guess. Our system of education was developed in a patriarchal setting. The only studies I know of that have found gender biases demonstrate biases against girls.
First off, even if our system of education was developed in a patriarchal setting, it makes sense that men would exercise bias against themselves in education; they may have selected topics that they found difficult in order to ensure that only the most intelligent men would understand the material, which would in turn ensure that only said men would perform important jobs. This strategy may or may not have worked, but it makes sense that it would have been implemented. As for bias against women in the educational system, it seems to me that said bias was present in the form of insufficient information being allotted to them rather than information that they cannot comprehend. Recall the women's revolution that took place alongside the growing drive for emancipation of slaves that sparked the Civil War in our country; let's take a look, for example, at the Seneca Falls convention. The speakers here at one point listed many of the common arguments given by men against the education of women in matters of law. At least one such argument stated that women possess too great a natural propensity for law, and that if women were allowed to learn law, they would overthrow men using legal logic. I would say that this idea was at least partially correct, given that we're able to have the argument we're having now without someone calling you out for being cross with your natural superior or something stupid like that. When there was an educational bias against women, it wasn't that the information that women had a greater propensity than men to collect wasn't considered valuable; it was that women simply weren't permitted to collect it, and when they attempted to collect it, they weren't supported in doing so, and therefore more often than not fell on their faces. This is a different matter entirely; the educational prejudice against men back then was one that was self-induced: they forced themselves to learn how to deal with things using a female way of thinking instead of learning everything from their more natural male way of thinking. Since the two educational prejudices were of different kinds, they would have coexisted despite being oppositely directed.

Also, look at it this way, Smithy. I'm thinking your' a guy, right? Now, think of the five other guys you know best, and think of the five girls you know best.

The girls are smarter, right? Of course they are. Case closed.

What I'm referring to is this. You asked him to pick five close male friends and five close female friends and compare their intelligences. Which friends he thought were more intelligent is completely irrelevant if he is assumed to be fallible in this decision.

One more thing: my opinions and I are probably not the best source of information on this topic; I am sixteen years old and therefore do not yet possess an adult education in history, biology, neurology, craniometry, anthropology, psychology, or any of those other -logies and -metries. Nonetheless, I am confident in my use of logic and philosophy; if they cannot be trusted as science can, nor then can I, but if they can indeed be trusted as science can, then my ideas grow greatly in merit. Whether you trust logic and philosophy is up to you. If you only trust logic and not philosophy or you only trust philosophy and not logic, or you trust neither of them, I suggest you ignore me.

You know what, my IQ is 138. I'm not a genius, but I'm in the gifted range. When I was a child, I was tested for several cognitive capabilities, and my scores were consistently far off the charts. I've been complimented quite a few times on my piano playing, but I've never had a lesson in my life, formal or informal, just my own solitary pursuits. I reproduced the mathematical formulas of Pythagoras in a few hours without even knowing it. I am miles ahead of my peers in my math and science classes despite having been taught no more than they have, possess the blackbelt rank in taekwondo, possess an intuitive understanding of grammar, and know the Racket programming language backwards, forwards, and any old way. I am an avid artist, creative writer, and composer, and I have received acclaim from multiple people for my works in each of these art forms. Those who know me often consider me a beacon of wisdom and look to me for advice. Why, then, do I feel so empty and unaccomplished that I have to come here and defend my opinion? Do I perhaps feel patronized? Why did I just tell you all that, anyway? Was I perhaps seeking gratification of some kind, some sort of acknowledgment that I was smarter than you, that I was better than you? How could I be so infantile, so immature, as to fall into the same trap I so cautiously sought to avoid, to respond to condemnation with condemnation, to respond to insult with insult? Why am I asking you these questions? Am I perhaps requesting psychoanalysis? And if I am, why am I psychoanalyzing myself? Don't I know that that sort of thing never ends well for anyone? Why am I asking myself what I know? Shouldn't I know the answers to these questions? If a tree falls in the forest and nobody ever experiences it or its effects on its surroundings in any form ever again, did it really fall? Am I insane? No, wait, I know the answer to that one: of course I am. Does it really matter? Does anything really matter?

Furthermore, why does it really matter which sex is smarter? Let's suppose that women are smarter than men. Does that mean that men should be treated with any less empathy than women? Does that mean we're less sentient than you, less capable of emotion, somehow possessing less of a soul? Does it mean that now you get to treat us like animals and kick us around? If so, why? Is this revenge for the sexism you so long endured? Is this revenge for how the men of yesteryear withheld your education, your physical comfort, even your property and children? But how can you blame us for that sexism? After all, the men alive today are not the men who so brutally oppressed women back when they were so brutally oppressed, nor are the women alive today the women who were so brutally oppressed back then... Even if there are men alive today who still oppress women and withhold from them the rights they deserve as human beings, those men cannot represent all men, nor can the men who do not oppress women and withhold from them the rights they deserve as human beings. Decide what you will regarding the comparison of male intellect to female intellect, but I smell a storm coming, and no matter how hard it rains, I will settle for no more and no less than pure gender equality. I will defend this equality with philosophy, logic, and, if necessary, violence. All human beings, regardless of intellect, morality, mental stability, and any other conditions, deserve the same rights. I will stand by this belief for as long as I live, and, if it shows to be possible, longer. You cannot move me. Science cannot move me. Nothing can move me.

... That was me pretty much completely pouring out all of my emotions. You can go ahead and laugh now if you want.

As for bias against women in the educational system, it seems to me that said bias was present in the form of insufficient information being allotted to them rather than information that they cannot comprehend.

You don't need to speculate.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CB8QFjAB&url=http%3…

http://www.edweek.org/login.html?source=http://www.edweek.org/ew/articl…

http://books.google.com/books?id=lwEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=K-12+…

http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=3D90E5278CDD51A2121…

http://www2.edc.org/WomensEquity/pubs/digests/digest-math.html

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/how_to_get_more_women_in_mat…

As for bias against women in the educational system, it seems to me that said bias was present in the form of insufficient information being allotted to them rather than information that they cannot comprehend.

You don't need to speculate.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CB8QFjAB&url=http%3…

http://www.edweek.org/login.html?source=http://www.edweek.org/ew/articl…

http://books.google.com/books?id=lwEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=K-12+…

http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=3D90E5278CDD51A2121…

http://www2.edc.org/WomensEquity/pubs/digests/digest-math.html

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/how_to_get_more_women_in_mat…

Okay, first, I don't care if I don't have to speculate. I don't really feel like going out and searching for "evidence" to "prove" my point, since I don't really believe in that sort of thing anyway. I'm not asking you to believe what I'm speculating even though I haven't provided any evidence. I'm asking you to consider it possible as an alternative explanation of the evidence and to value your fellow human beings enough to refrain from mistreating them and discriminating against them on basis of gender in the future until information of absolute certainty is uncovered that cannot be interpreted in any way at all except that women are smarter than men. I believe that we as a gender have already learned our lesson or are nearing that point. Therefore, the only reason I can fathom as to why you would want to mistreat us and would therefore seek justification for doing so is revenge. Revenge solves nothing. If anything, revenge will reproduce the problem; if females call us stupid and oppress us, we'll eventually rebel, and, as an all-too-common folly of human nature, the rebellion will not only free us but also produce a prejudice against females for being so immoral as to oppress us, and then we'll oppress them, just like in the old days. And then they'll oppress us and we'll oppress them and they'll oppress us and we'll oppress them, over and over and over again. Is that what you want?

So I was right then. The evidence you're presenting appears to back up my statement that:

As for bias against women in the educational system, it seems to me that said bias was present in the form of insufficient information being allotted to them rather than information that they cannot comprehend.

It's not that they couldn't understand the information if it was taught to them with the same attention and care as that with which it is taught to males; it's just that they aren't being given that attention and care. If indeed the subjects being taught in school and the methodologies being used are mostly subjects and methodologies that contribute to feminine thought patterns more than masculine thought patterns, it makes perfect sense that once given the same amount of attention in school as males are given, females would surpass them regardless of comparative intelligence between the two sexes (unless men are actually much smarter, which, given the evidence, I really don't think they are). I have already given my reason for believing that feminine thought process subjects would have been selected in a patriarchal society rather than masculine thought process subjects: males find feminine thought process subjects difficult; therefore, they would have reasoned that anyone who can understand them must be smart enough to have a job.

I am very opposed to discriminating against people, and I am very skeptical of alleged innate differences between people divided into categories (gender, "race" etc.)

Nonetheless, I do very much appreciate the fact that you're taking me seriously enough to consistently refute my statements despite the fact that you think I'm stupid. That really means a lot to me. Thanks, Greg. Just so you know, that wasn't sarcasm.

From here I can't say anything about you being stupid or not. I don't think you've fully appreciated the context of this conversation ... what goes on here on this blog, what I've written about gender differences, other comments, etc. and I don't think that you've addressed the gender difference issue with the understanding that it is very heavily researched and considered.

But that's fine, this is a blog, not an oral exam for your masters degree in sociology or something.

You should read through the comments on this post and see what kind of pattern is there. It's really quite interesting. I'm seriously considering a somewhat edited version of this post together with comments as a publication of some sort.

I am very opposed to discriminating against people, and I am very skeptical of alleged innate differences between people divided into categories (gender, "race" etc.)
Didn't notice this comment before. Anyway, that's good to know. Now I feel certain that the information you've found won't be used for discriminatory purposes... Well, not by you, anyway.

From here I can't say anything about you being stupid or not.
I'd rather this not be a relief to me for the sake of my own ability to believe that I am a good person. Nonetheless, in all honesty with myself and others I am relieved.

I don't think you've fully appreciated the context of this conversation ... what goes on here on this blog, what I've written about gender differences, other comments, etc. and I don't think that you've addressed the gender difference issue with the understanding that it is very heavily researched and considered.
I understand that it is very heavily researched and considered. I have read through the evidence presented. I have read through other studies as well. However, when new information is discovered that may impair the capacity of members of one group of people to feel empathy toward members of another group of people, I will do everything in my ability to prevent the information from being interpreted in a manner that encourages this impairment. Compassion is the single most important resource consumed in the creation of well-being, and it is quickly dwindling. Please, let's not do anything to make it dwindle any more quickly.
...
On the other hand, we Aspies do have a tendency not to look before we leap. Maybe you're right; maybe I missed something.

But that's fine, this is a blog, not an oral exam for your masters degree in sociology or something.
You're right. Perhaps I'm underestimating (lol, almost wrote "misunderestimating"; damn you, George W. Bush; damn you and your grammatically and semantically incorrect yet incredibly catchy use of language) your influence on the world. Then again, perhaps not. I know you've certainly influenced me, though probably not in the direction you intended to influence people, if you intended to influence people at all. You seem very popular with those who agree with you, and definitely far more popular with those who do not. I'm not so sure that what is said here will not one day hold more value than an oral exam for my hypothetical master's degree in sociology.

You should read through the comments on this post and see what kind of pattern is there. It's really quite interesting. I'm seriously considering a somewhat edited version of this post together with comments as a publication of some sort.
I see patterns such as the following:
- The general tendency of males to argue that males are intellectually superior to females.
- The general tendency of females to argue that females are intellectually superior to males.
- A majority of dissenting opinions, possibly due to a majority of comments written by males.
- The general tendency of male writers to fall into one of the two following categories:
-- Type A: Uses profanity and/or makes explicit ad hominem cases. Often does not thoroughly read the previous comments. Often continues to assert himself in much the same manner, even after his comment has been refuted, and may not even address the rebuttals.
-- Type B: Uses relatively well-constructed sentences. Does not explicitly insult the writer of the argument to which he is responding, but may do so implicitly, either deliberately or as a failure of self-restraint. Often stops commenting after either being ignored for a sufficient period of time or receiving (and probably subsequently internalizing) a rebuttal.
- The tendency of the comparative qualities and quantities of male and female input to the conversation to convey the very conclusions of the conversation: notice how the apparently female input was better constructed than the male input in general, but the generalization could not necessarily be trusted because there were so fewer female comments than male comments.

Are any of these patterns similar at all to the ones you noticed, or am I just hallucinating again?

Whoops. When I said underestimating, I meant overestimating. Derp.

As for your "objective tests" to students taking your classes over "many years of time", who can testify to that?

I do believe you just called me a liar. Did you? You have five seconds to apologize before I delete you.

Times up.

I did not call you a liar. But it has been stated several times that a scientist does not base their facts on the word of one person alone. That was an actual question, not an underhanded way of calling you a liar.

No, you demanded proof that I really did administer midterm and final exams to students over and over again and typically (as in always with the large intro classes) had higher scores among females than among males. That is an observation I've made that you apparently would prefer not to believe. No, your suggestion that I am telling you a lie is not at all underhanded. It is quite overt and unmistakable.

I only want some sort of reference. Is a job resume calling you a liar by asking for you to list references? What kind of scientist asks you to believe their word alone? I don't even know why I'm bothering with this.

Third, my comment, to which you refer, was that I have personally given tests to large groups of students taking the same class over and over again. As it happens the testing results software gives me the results by gender, and it is perfecdtly normal that in these large samples the average score for the girls is higher than for the boys, and that is how the test results have come back without exception.

How the fuck, if I may ask as politely as possible to conjure up on a fine Saturday morning, do I provide you with a reference to that?

You started out by calling me a liar. Now you are calling me a "bad scientist" because no one has ever published a peer reviewed paper on the test results of Anthropology 1001 at the University of Minnesota. WTF?

Go. Away.

Language is boundlessly subjective: any comment can be interpreted as anything; therefore, any comment can be interpreted as a personal attack.

As for your "objective tests" to students taking your classes over "many years of time", who can testify to that?

This could be interpreted in many ways. To someone who was raised in a culture wherein whenever they questioned an established idea, they were rewarded for their novel idea with ice cream by the one who initially established the idea, this could be interpreted as a personal request for ice cream; then again, I suppose that this explanation is highly improbable given the fact that the comment was posted on the internet, whereby physical objects cannot yet be transported as far as I know. I suppose you could buy him an ice cream on amazon.com or something, but that probably wouldn't work well because it would melt before it got to him; besides, I'm guessing that neither of you come from any culture that fits the above description, anyway.

It could also be interpreted as a personal attack, a statement that you are a liar. There's nothing particularly wrong with that, either, except that internalizing the comment can then cause emotional pain, making the only option that prevents emotional pain be to not internalize it, the consequence of which is impaired empathy for the person who initially made the statement. I guess that doesn't matter much if you're planning on never communicating with the person again. I, for one, have interpreted plenty of things as personal attacks myself. It's only a human decision; we interpret things that could be interpreted in many ways as personal attacks because deep inside, we feel that if they are personal attacks and we don't interpret them as such, then we are endangering ourselves. It may not even be a feeling in some individuals, but it's always there as a reaction developed through evolution for the purpose of protection. If a caveman saw something running at him that was probably a tiger with jaws open but didn't look exactly like one and could be a number of other things, would he not club it in the head anyway?

This isn't a rebuttal, by the way. I don't rebut. I don't debate. I don't believe in debates. This is just a comment like any other, except a bit more confrontational, but I assure you that despite the confrontational nature of the comment, you have nothing to fear, as despite your controversial beliefs (with which I still don't agree) formed by the paradigm of science (with which I'm not sure if I agree), you seem pretty awesome to me. Peace. c\\//m

Pant: I don't know about the ice cream part but there is an aspect of the personal attack you need to include. This is my blog. I reserve the right to summarily delete or disemvowel personal attacks just like I reserve the right to shout "Get off my lawn" out my back window (the front lawn is not worth yelling about) or slamming the door in the face of someone who rings the doorbell just to attack me (rare).

But in this case I think there is just a total misunderstanding. For example, I don't think Third understands the term "objective tests." (Objective tests are tests that have a style of questioning that can be scored by a computer, like multiple choice. They are not "objective" in any other sense. ... only in the sense that a person does not have to read some prose and try to figure out if the student gets a certain concept or knows a certain fact.)

I reserve the right to summarily delete or disemvowel personal attacks just like I reserve the right to shout "Get off my lawn" out my back window (the front lawn is not worth yelling about) or slamming the door in the face of someone who rings the doorbell just to attack me (rare).
Indeed you do. I respect that right. Oh, how I respect that right. Especially the lawn part. I love doing that. It makes me feel so... old. Like that guy in Up. GET OFFA MAH LAWN YEW KIIIIYUDS.
Random fun things aside, the question is as to whether you want to exercise that right. Or rather, that was the question. Now it's fairly clear to me that you do want to exercise that right, so... Take it away. Knock yourself out. Or don't. Or whatever.

But in this case I think there is just a total misunderstanding. For example, I don't think Third understands the term "objective tests."
Ah, yes, misunderstandings. In the same way that there are three primary colors of light and three of pigment, from which all other light and pigment is formed, there are two primary evils in this world: fear and ignorance. I might be missing one. I'm not sure.

Greg, you're absolutely right. This is your blog, and you have the right to delete personal attacks and such. If you truly believe that I called you a liar, then I apologise. It was not my intention. I'm not trying to challenge you, Greg, however, when I go to a blog supposedly dedicated to science, I want to see something unbiased and science-based. I mean, what kind of scientist asks you to depend on faith?

Third, you are still telling me that the only thing I'm allowed to do on my blog is to make reference to peer reviewed research. That is not appropriate. Many many conversations in science happen that involve elements that are not specific references to peer reviewed science. Instead of imposing your unrealistic and inappropriate expectations on this blog, why not take the opportunity to see first hand how real scientists think about and discuss the issues that interest them?

Also, you are also telling me that when I make the statement that I've given a test to students in a certain class dozens of times and find that girls do better than boys habitually, that the only way you can believe that is by a leap of faith. How is that not questioning my honesty?

Third, if you want your beliefs not to be based on faith, then don't believe anything. Science is based on faith, as I've demonstrated above. Logic is based on faith. The very composure of your mind is based on faith. If you want to believe something, it can't not be based on faith.

Women are more intelligent than men? First-off Brainiac, anyone with even a bottle cap full of grey matter knows that any form of "education" is merely a loosely accurate representation of one's ability to repeat on a test something that's spoken to them, or they've read in a book. It isn't a measure of intelligence at all. Someone repeating something isn't any more impressive than hearing my tape-recorder repeat it to me. As far as your own little report here is concerned: Congratulations... if your test results reveal anything, they reveal that women can repeat things that have been told to them. This trait has obviously been honed from years of gossiping about inane, bubble-headed b.s. to one-another.

If you really want to know who the more intelligent gender is it should be as obvious as looking around you. Look at what you're reading this on. Do you think a woman invented the screen? How about the computer? How about.... everything that makes your life worth a crap? That's right... 99.8% of every patent that was applied for that was deemed a "useful product" was created by a white European male. From the Airplane the Wright Brothers invented to the internal-combustion engine in your car. Men have discovered countless ways to make life better for society as a whole.
Now name a famous female inventor... Name ANY WOMAN off the top of your head that invented ANYTHING. Yeah... they're really contributing to the advancement of society with all that advanced knowledge they have on us.

The only thing women create out of nothing is drama, and problems. They're incapable of coming up with anything of any use. They're weak in both body and mind and are unable to even remain faithful to one partner in a relationship. They're utterly useless but it's okay... because they're pretty.

The only true justice in this world is that women age. After they have, and their looks have left them... only then do they realize their actual worthlessness. I'd rather be intelligent and mechanically-inclined than attractive and useless.

On a final note; do you see how easy it was to prove my point without having to resort to "I'm better because I can lift more than 50 pounds over my head"? If you want you can add that one too. It's the reason why not only are men responsible for inventing everything that makes our lives worthwhile... they ALSO HAD TO BE THE ONES TO BUILD IT ALL TOO. This entire blog has proved nothing other than the fact that you are ignorant enough to believe that because some self-important, pompous professor says something, or puts a number on a piece of paper that it suddenly makes it a fact. Forgive me, but instead of your erroneous test-results, TRY LOOKING AROUND YOU. Not only are women less-intelligent than we are.... they're damned near useless!

YA misogynist dick has discovered his voice on the Internet.

That's your response? Did you take that straight from one of your college textbooks professor, or were you able to form that thought without having your hand held? Obviously this entire blog is an ill-fated attempt to score points with the fairer gender because you're at a loss to effectively debate my previous post. Looking at the time or your reply it's also painfully apparent that you dutifully check this blog as soon as you get out of bed in the morning to see if anyone will give a nod of approval toward your baseless, sexist opinions. Either that, or you're a man born with an extra female chromosome who's just a few dollars shy of a sex-change and is more concerned with his own opinions rather than acknowledging anything based in fact. Calling me a dick is hardly going to effectively dispute anything in my afore mentioned statements. You could eat an entire bowl of them before breakfast and it isn't going to stop the planets from spinning, the oceans tides from changing, or the fact that you're as ignorant as you are arrogant. To recap:

Your 'Fact'- "A teacher gave a girl an 'A' on her test!"

My Fact - "Men gave the teacher everything else"

As far as your opinion of me is concerned... look at the subject of this blog. If you're actually as out-of-touch with reality as the beginning of it implies, why would anything you have to say about anyone matter to them?

BTW... are you related to Bin Laden?

Scott, why should Greg spend any more time on you? You can't even be bothered to read the comment thread before repeating assertions that have already been refuted in it. In fact, I think the only part of your "argument" that hasn't already been covered is its boring, unoriginal nastiness. And frankly, that part should be allowed to stand all on its own. Under your name.

Are we seriously this fucking childish? I'm a man, and I've seen plenty of intelligent men and women in my life. Is this not the 21st century, and we still happen to think that anatomy is the only thing that influences intelligence?

It may to some degree influence intelligence, but unless you're mentally retarded or Will Hunting. For the most of it it's somewhere in the middle. In my own experience I have an extremely good memory, and in this entire semester I have studied maybe 5 hours in total and am on track to get somewhere between a 3.2 and 3.5GPA.

It probably has a lot less to do with the fact that I have a dick and a lot more to do with the fact that when I was 2 years old my grandpa began going over numbers with me and addition and subtraction by 3. I also used to play Go-Fish, and Memory with him a lot. I played with legos and kinex too. I didn't get placed in front of the TV. I guarantee this has way more to do with intellect than anything else.

But instead of coming up with something constructing lets just shout hurtful and sexist bullshit back and forth at each other. And honestly who gives a fuck which sex is smarter, I don't care if women overall have better grades, than I or other men do. Is there some kind of competition I never heard about that's been going on since I was in pre-school to do better than women?

I made a few errors too, and there isn't an edit option, lets see how long it takes for some troll fuck to come correct my spelling, because that something constructive.

ThisIsBullshit: I agree. We need an edit option. I hope we get one.

Scott, being a dick about it does not make you not a dick. You're still a dick.

Also, this: Your 'Fact'- "A teacher gave a girl an 'A' on her test!"

is incorrect. The objective tests were given objectively, by a trained staff, and graded by a computer.

Not only are women smarter than men, but women usually see a the trap before they fall into it, and men almost always fall into it then get all sexually insecure about it.

I love this thread.

Ugh, I don't like these posts, not for their content, which of course, authors should be allowed to publish, as their content is not contribution to anyones repression.
HOWEVER I do believe:
People who use the arguments of more men have discovered this and that etc. This is grossly invalid. Until the 60's, repression on women was so strong, no women would be allowed to education to enable her to become such a scientist. 99% of the time these arguments are belittled by our sexist and oppressive society, that they become completely irrelevant.

Men and women are equally smart(lack of a better term during rant). Say what you want about the way brains function, if womens brains did not have this same capacity, how did Marie Curie manage to research physics in such depth she saved hundreds of lives, she surely wouldn't have been able to if women are biologically/neurologically disadvantaged.

Females are proved to have better grades in school, which I believe to be true, but IMO this is because of puberty, where women have become more mature by senior years, allowing more focus for schoolwork.

Men earn more because of societies oppression of women. Women are taken far less seriously in industries such a law, science and engineering, therefore have less opportunities for employment and promotion.

The question is of society, not science.

Please excuse me English is not my first language

I Stumbled across this page while looking for some good info on intelligence and difference between males and females, I read every comment and must say its very funny, and makes for a good laugh.

"The objective tests were given objectively, by a trained staff, and graded by a computer."

That comment makes the entire debate, or article etc useless. Anything graded by a computer has to based largely on multiple choice, if not completely.

Regurgitating facts on paper does not make a person intelligent, actual comprehension of the data sets those facts are based on is essentially what would make a person intelligent.

Objective testing, has never been good benchmark for actual intelligence. Anyone who has actually done real generalized IQ test knows just how little of the exam is based on common knowledge and facts, and how much of it is based on logic and problem solving.

In short memorizing does not equal intelligence, tell a dog to sit enough times and eventually it will be able to do it on command.

Yes and no

That comment makes the entire debate, or article etc useless. Anything graded by a computer has to based largely on multiple choice, if not completely.

yes, that is what "objective test" means.

Regurgitating facts on paper does not make a person intelligent, actual comprehension of the data sets those facts are based on is essentially what would make a person intelligent.

They were not regurgitated facts. It is quite possible to design objective tests (mainly mc) that do better than that, and that is what we did.

I did not mention this in the piece, but I get the same results with ALL of my classes, and most are based on essays and papers. But those men who cant' stand being members of the stupider sex will just complain that I biased the grading. Thus, my emphasis on objective tests.

In the end, men will always insist that the only valid tests are the ones that show them to be smarter, and anyone who disagrees with that, well, the men will just scream at them.

"In the end, men will always insist that the only valid tests are the ones that show them to be smarter, and anyone who disagrees with that, well, the men will just scream at them."

I am a man. Explain to me, therefore, why it is that I reject the validity not only of tests that cause women to appear smarter than men, but also of tests that cause men to appear smarter than women.

What am I even saying? I'm not a man. You're not a woman, either. Noone in this thread is a man or a woman. Women and men don't exist. Due to genetic differences, hormone regulation occurs differently in everyone, and as for chromosomes, although the vast majority of chromosomes seem to be either XX or XY, there exist many chromosomes that are deformed; from this perspective, even a pile of dust in the corner of your living room could be considered a chromosome, but one so ridiculously deformed that you wouldn't know any better. Sure, one could point out that most people fall fairly close in terms of hormones and chromosomes to one sex or the other, but since differences still inevitably exist, no matter how small, how can we say for sure that any given person is exactly male or exactly female? And if we cannot determine *that,* then even if we know that women are smarter than men, how can we say for certain that any given person is exactly smart or exactly stupid? And if we cannot determine *that,* then what use is the knowledge that "women" are smarter than "men?" If there exist exceptions to the rule, then it is a stereotype to apply it to everyone. I refuse to state that stereotypes are bad, because maybe they aren't, but in any case, they are very painful. It hurts to be represented as something with which one does not identify. It hurts to be stigmatized as an oppressor when one does not oppress. It hurts to be stigmatized as a leader when one does little but sit back and watch. It hurts to be stigmatized as a belligerent, rowdy, impenetrably apathetic soul when one is introverted, cannot bear the sight of a bee's head being crushed with a hammer, and desires peace more than anything. In the very same respect, it hurts to be stigmatized as unintelligent when the tests say that one is more intelligent than 98% of the people one will ever meet. What hurts more, however, is that this message is preached by people who know just how much it hurts. They want us to be in pain. They want us to be in pain because they see us as the men who did horrible things to them in the past. I say this to all women, and for that matter to all people, in a manner that I hope to be reassuring: that I have never born malicious intent against you; that there is no need to attempt to cause me psychological pain, because I am your friend. I believe in rights for all people, including all "men" and all "women." I believe in gender equality not only in a political respect but in a social respect. I believe in gender equality in all respects, because I know that there exists an infinite number of genders, and because two is not infinite, that number is not only two. It follows, therefore, that I believe in your rights. I believe in your inalienable right to a sense of well-being. No matter who you are, I believe in *you.*

And, Greg Laden, I believe in you, too. Regardless of whether I believe the things you say, I believe that you have every right to believe the things you say, and that you're doing a hell of a good job defending it. I believe that everyone who's posted here has every right to believe the things they've said, but I can't say for certain that I believe that they're doing a very good job defending those things.

I am a man. Explain to me, therefore, why it is that I reject the validity not only of tests that cause women to appear smarter than men, but also of tests that cause men to appear smarter than women.

You are different from other men, Pantsman.

First of all I admit that there are some stupid men. Second when you say that there are a high rate of educated women in the UK university thats not worldwide if your facts are true that is. In my opinion I do think that women are smarter than men we tend to be more rational and forward when women are more passive on matters. We don't think things through sometimes a woman always does that the difference. You can criticize me if you want or call whatever you want but I can't accept that all men are stupid comment.

Does it really matter who is smarter? Men are superior in some ways, women superior in others, its a fact of life. Not to mention there are countless ways of measuring intelligence, to the point its near impossible to actually determine the smarter gender. So women outperformed men in a given experiment? Men outperformed women in 10 others, and then men were squashed in 20 more, and so on. Its inevitable that each test will be riddled with bias, so determining the answer is a pointless waste of time. Maybe we should just say to hell with math and history and replace them with sensitivity and sandwich making class.

BN: I agree with replacing Math with Sandwiches and all, but I think you may have glossed the tenor of this post. But that's OK, so did everyone else who commented on the post! (but not those who commented on the comments [except those who commented on the comments on the comments])

ARTHUR! Personally, I would not mind it if the world population was 30,000,000, I mean there wouldn't be so many diseases and there also wouldn't be the problem of starvation in third world countries. As for "still eating berries" do you really mean this? Because if you do, I am speechless! Also, for thousands of years, men have oppressed ANY progress women have tried to make! I mean only up until recently were women allowed to vote and in some countries still women AREN'T in fact allowed to vote. Women have next to little historical trail because we weren't allowed to, has that ever occurred to you? Or any other man who tries to claim that women are less intelligent than men just because there aren't as many great women in history as there are men. Since forever women have had the idea that they are inferior to men, implanted into their heads. Men have productively held women back in terms of furthering their intellect. Women were burnt alive, at a point in history because they were "thought" to be WITCHES, WHERE IS THE INTELLIGENCE in that? Women have had to fight for their right to be equal to men which is ridiculous. Women weren't even allowed to be educated, they were the last to have a bath in the family just because they were females and even now in some places they are the last to eat in their family. Come on boys, stop trying to hold us down, because in the end we are all people. I believe that people attract what they think and feel to themselves and what is intelligence really? How can we measure something when both sides are so biased anyway? I admit I am biased in this matter, since I am a female myself, however I'm quite happy to say that we are all equally intelligent, because there are stupid men AND stupid women.

They are not smarter than men. Men invents stuff and what do women do? Laze around at work.

Actually Jordon, since women are expected to do everything including housework, looking after children and bringing in an income, they don't really "laze around at work". I think your imagination is playing tricks on you. Or maybe you're blind when it comes to seeing the world as it is. And "men invent stuff", of course they do but so do women, we've just been held back for the past...forever? Yes.

1.Woman do better in verbal tests than men, have their corresponding parts of their brain larger, fact.

2.Men do better on spatial tests than women and have their corresponding parts of their brain larger than women, fact.

3.Men have higher levels of testosterone which makes them competitive and willing to consume hours to achieve something while women wont bother, fact.

4.Scientific breakthrough require much more spatial ability and obsession which men more of both.

5.Women are more social dependent, they value it more, thats why you can have plenty non-social males but virtually no non-social females, low grades equals to low social status, thats why women will have higher grades and higher number of academic entrance.

6.Even if women not only are more represented in academics than the past but they recently surpassed the male population, but still no achievements whatsoever compared to males, fact.

While the average intelligence is same, the part where males exceeds just happens to matter more.
Its part genetic part environmental, women emphasize more on different things than men, different priorities.

The old liberal excuse where males held back women does not hold up in any 21th century study as i explained above.
The old conservative excuse women being less intelligent is empty as of the liberals.

There is no "less intelligent/more intelligent".
The OP needs to grow up so do feminists, so do liberals so do conservative people, racists etc.
We certainly do not live in a fairy tale where everything is equal.

PS. if you disagree with these dont blame me, blame the countless studies that have done by scientists/researchers(including women) that indicate and agree with these.

Before you address to me read this.
http://tinyurl.com/43hms57

Thanks for your perspective. Of course, if I'm right, it might be hard for you to understand this.

Ah! Beauty knows her
And Her Feminine Adoration in softness
Does tell em what if I lose the Ocean
But has this Drop form Her
To ask one or more to come
And if she decides to run for the Charles
Be it,smarter as They now know her
Silence and Waiting as I Call In
To Suggest in her Suggestions
One word:"Jot'em"

Thought this thread, was going to be serious for a minute,till I read the reciprocative post's from Greg Laden,where he mostly tries to insult men who comment.I mean just take a look at post,226,"of course,if im right,it might be hard for you to understand this." O snap,that's a good one Greg,except if you are right, it might be hard for you to be right.C'mon Greg, don't be an oxymoron.
The only thing being insulted is your intelligence,this coming from a man who ironically has a, PHD.
But then again,Anthropology,is just the slower, half-witted brother of a,Historian.

Whatever the reason for his conviction,perhaps a sincere gesture to women's intellect,(try saying that with a strait face) or,flaterring women in a bid to get his dick wet, who knows?(maybe a women).
but keep up the great work man,some people actually find your jaded blog captivating.
Overzealously defending the small, perplexed mind of women,and the accrued hatred of your fellow man, will see to it that you go down in history as a great man,albeit more like, Hitler, than Einstein.
You see it really doesn't matter what women do or think, because when they push their luck to far one day, they will find out just how superficial women's liberation was, and how transient it can become.

Before I go just a quick word about comment one (where Greg,having lost his balls in a, unfortunate accident,found very amusing) about men's genitals being "wrinkly little sacs that release stupifying chemicals", (FYI stupefying, the correct spelling)otherwise I think, that's a Harry Potter, spell or something.Fair enough it is wrinkly, but
it's also low maintenance,doesn't leak every month,and doesn't look or smell like the Rafflesia flower.

WTF, thanks for the reasoned and helpful remarks! You prove the point that men are at least as smart as women!

Men are smarter than women. Women are given huge advantages, like free of being pestered. Anyone who force a male and a female of the same age and conditioning, free of sexism, male/female chivalrism, male and female 'purposes' propaganda, etc, will know that the male will do better.

P.S. If you are a feminist, I will kill you. I've enough of you shittalking feminists who proclaim all males unstable.

P.P.S. First of all, the female has four times the advantages of males. Every teacher is a feminist female (one strike against males) who think people should be emotional, not practical (another strike against males). The feminist teacher will try to discriminate as much males as possible (one strike against males) and help the females as much as possible (yet another strike against males). That feminist teacher completely allows chatting among females but not among males (yet another strike against males, as this will cause the females to have combined brainpower). The feminist teacher has made school a hell for males and a heaven for females. No wonder males prefer playing computer games than learning. I've learnt more through the internet than my school ever taught me. Seems like if males and females are given the exact same conditioning, the males will be triumphant after a test. All the girls have more brainpower than Sir Issac Newton.

Jordon, you're fourteen and don't even have a clue what a feminist is.

Jordon@230: Ahahaha! AHAhahaha! Ha ha... heh.

Oh crap. I just realized what this means for future generations. I was so hoping ours would be the last generation with rampant misogyny.

Jordon, for a girl, you make a pretty good argument.

Man, it is awesome that you decided to say women are smarter than men!

Except, it isn't true at all. All stats show men's IQ's to be higher. Men win more Nobel Prizes, lead more governments, invent more products, and generally do more to advance human society.

So, although I love women--please stop pretending we are equal. We aren't--and you know it.

Shawn, you spelled your name wrong.

Greg, you're trying to communicate with someone who thinks that stating one group is superior to another is "pretending we are equal."

Two years later, and this thread is still amusing.

That's some staying power you've got there, Greg.

(...for a man, I mean.)

There was discussion at Scienceblogs a while back about automatically closing off comments on old posts, because they are often the target for spam.

No way. First, there are posts like this one, the Energizer Bunny Posts. Then there are those posts that while ignored since 48 hours after being written are still good and should still be read and commented on, like an old book on an old book shelf in an abandoned house ... never know when someone is going to show up.

This is wrong. There are people who are saying men are smarter than women, because of a little test. No sex is smarter than the other, believe me. People may say, or whatever, that women have smaller brains, or men's brains are more hollow, BUT NO MATTER WHAT! It doesn't matter! We have different places, in which we are stronger. Men make better mathameticians, and women make better teachers? What's the point of saying one sex is smarter than the other? Tests don't spell out intelligence. That's a bunch of bullshit. And the reason men were smarter a hundred years ago, is beacuse they were educated better. Get over it.

Women do better than men because they are dumber. A evolutionary brain disorder found in most smart children, which I call 'repetitive relearning', cause the cerebellum to have control over learning, thus decreasing the knowledge input percentage (out of what the teacher output knowledge). This 'repetitive relearning' also applies in work too, so women do better because they are dumber.

"Jordon, for a girl, you make a pretty good argument"

I am a boy. Yet, the fact remains that a stupid person's brain have positive IQ, and there are more girls in the world than a genius' brain power (IQ test). About "All the girls in the world have more brainpower than SIN", I mean all of them combined. My IPad secretly deletes that part away, probably because it malfunctioned. It keeps malfunctioning. I can't let my eyes off it, or it will delete a letter, a word, or some words, or even the whole post.

"Jordon, you're fourteen and don't even have a clue what a feminist is."

A feminist, according to a dictionary, is a woman who fights for women's rights to be equal to men's rights. Yet, if the dictionary's definition is accurate, there are no feminists. In reality, feminists want to get more rights than men.

P.S. If this post had any errors, spelling or whatever, it is because I typed it out in the iPad.

No, I didn't mean that a girl is smarter than SIN, I mean all of them combined, and girls like to chat.

I am not a girl. I am a boy.

The iPad I used have errors, so it may only send half of what I typed. It may not even post the message, so I have to retype it and may miss certain important points.

I know what a feminist means, but I don't feel like typing it out now, since there was an error.

Sorry for that major inconvenience.

My iPad sucks at posting.

Oh shit! The iPad scammed me. Could you delete this post and the one directly above me?

P.S. Yes, I am Jordon Ong.

Greg, I'm guessing that by the tone of your responses and your blog that you are either anti-male or you are gay. Most people don't usually trash their own genders. I won't ever say that women are smarter than men because I don't believe that, however I also believe that men are not smarter than women. It all boils down to the individual and if we spend too much time crunching numbers and relying on statistics we get distracted as to what really matters. Saying women are smarter than men is a blanket statement, and unless it applies to everyone, it is also unimportant. So lets leave all the misogyny and radical feminist ideals back in the 50's. I respect women and it is my understanding that they respect us as well.

Just scanning this blog. Boy, some men really don't like being told what women have been being told in reverse for, like, 5000 years.

So misogyny and radical feminism were fifties things?

The comments on this blog remind me of when I was 11 and told my misogynist stepfather, who was training to be a psychologist, about some articles I'd read in Psychology Today. The first claimed that women have a poorer sense of the passage of time than do men. "Ho-ho!" he chortled. "That's true." The second claimed that women were more emotionally resilient. "No way!" he howled. "Where is the evidence? That's a bunch of bullshit," etc. When I pointed out that he'd accepted the first article's assertion without question, he replied, "You don't know when to shut up."

How many times have some of the male commenters here easily accepted some study or line of reasoning demonstrating that women are less logical, less brilliant, more dependent... something that fits your assumptions and your self-image as men? Then a man makes an assertion of female intellectual superiority and you attack him, claim he's actually female, he's a "fag," and a self-hating male, and some of you resort to childish attempts to offend through male-dominant sexual imagery - putting women in their place? You're really kind of thin-skinned, for a guy.

Helen, the misogyny and feminism remark was not meant to purport that it does not happen today. I was mostly referencing the time where men did everything as far as getting careers, making laws, holding high office positions, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that the way it was until about the sixties and seventies? And you are absolutely right. We don't like being told that we are inferior. I'm sorry that women have been treated poorly but I don't understand why anyone thinks it's ok to bash any gender. There are somethings that each gender does better than the other. But as I said it boils down to the individual. When I was younger there was a girl in my class who was stronger than most of the boys. There was also a boy who was smarter than everyone else in our class. So to say one gender is better than the other would be incorrect no matter which side you pick. And lastly I made the statement about the author being gay and or anti-male because I thought it was odd for him to say that women were better than men if he was a man. I don't know. Maybe women are better than men. Maybe men are better than women. I think we should get off of trying to convince one another of which group is better and focus more on trying to be the better individual.

Nobody is bashing anybody. I have had thousands of students, a large percentage taking fair objective tests. On average the girls have been smarter than the boys.

Sorry guys.

Also, one more thing. After scanning the comments section of this blog I honestly have to be ashamed of my own gender. You guys aren't really doing us much justice by trying to prove that you are better than women. It is kind of sad. I'd expect that in a blog concerning the intelligence of men, that men would try to make themselves sound smarter. Usually acting like an idiot does not help your case when you are trying to prove that you are smarter...I can kind of see what Greg meant now. I only hope my comments aren't coming off as uneducated and pathetic as the ones I have read...

My favourite intellectuals,

http://www.ftvthumbs.com/

Greg Larden- My opinion

I think at first point, there are a lot more dumb males than dumb females and that really contradicts the point of avarage in this 'theory'. I think that history has given us examples of men being more practical as a whole and women being better at coping with more than two brain tasks etc. The whole idea of being smart is complicated in my opinion as I don't think gender is down to intelligence as any individual can be extremely smart on their own compared another person. That isn't proving it though is it. Nevertheless, you have a good debate, - reasonable evidence, though I wouldn't really calling good test results as the only factor of intelligence. Think of how our brains process information, how they capture facts and daydream and what sort of questions go on inside the head. In that perspective, we don't know who is more intelligent, -how are we going to ask every person on Earth that and let alone have the tools to do it.

So to conclude, I think that we can only justify ourselves. Don't go comparing genders because in the psychological point of view, we have our advantages and disadvantages. I don't know how you can find every single person on earth and compare the gender using 'smartness'. Don't use averages and test results!

Kind Regards,
Lord

This is not a theory, it is an observation. The point of an average is to address variation so your pointing out that there is variation certainly does not invalidate the use of an average.

Only people who are really stupid or really dishonest use history as a guide given the patriarchal nature of our past (and present, but it was worse at many times in the past). Do you know that the top universities in the western world did not admit women for quite some time? So which is it, are you stupid or dishonest?

Yes, being smart is complicated. But when someone points out that "males are better than females in X" people like you keep your mouths shut. When someone points out "females are better than males in Y" people like you can't handle it and spew the sort of misogynist (that means woman-hating) sexist (that means biased) crap that you have graced us with in your comment. This a widespread pattern.

Reasonably good use of Google Translator, though! I'm thinking original language was Albanian. Yes?

Greg, how come it seems that most of the time when people comment you label them as stupid. Granted it must be annoying to have everybody preaching to you about your blog, I can sympathize with you on that. But was it really necessary to call Lord dumb? The foundation of his argument may not have been the most sound or the most educated as it related to stories from history versus science but I wouldn't go so far as saying that he is stupid. And by the way I realize you make a valid argument. On average women seem like they are smarter than men. The only person in my family who ever graduated college was my mom and I will be the second.

If women are smarter then men, why is it that men has invented almost everything?

Are you sure of that Henry? It is likely that "women" (females) invented stone tool technology, which became the major technology that we know of for milions of years. Females probably invented cooking. It is not to much of a stretch to guess that women invented agriculture. Very likely in fact. Later, when men established a technocratic patriarchy, women still kept inventing things. For example, the use of radiation. But with this patriarchy in place men kept women at home and kept them out of the loop. Out of fear of their smartness, most likely.

you spelled stupid wrong..... So what were you saying about men again?

Greg i'm pretty sure,I dont have nothing against women, but in facts I'm very sure that men have invented almost everything,cars, airplanes,trains,tv,ect. when you say women probably invented cooking you're just guessing right? is not a fact? man invented how to start a fire , so how can you imagine a women cooking with out fire? so my point is that even if women were smarter then men, they're not smart enough to be perseverants, men more likely have bigger brain,and higher IQs than women, which may explain why chess grandmasters and geniuses are more likely to be male.

Actually, henry, it is almost certainly a fact. This is my area of research. Do you really think men invented how to start a fire? Highly unlikely.

Women have larger brains in relation to body size and better formed connections between the left and right hemisphere and far, far fewer problems at the lower end of intellect. Our remedial readings classes are filled with boys, almost no girls, for example.

I dodn't know what a perseverants is.

Before you make arguments that label entire groups of people as not as smart as you, you ought to take notice of the fact that it is not OK to pull made up facts out of your ass.

Plus if we look arround us, women now dont have an excuse specially in this country U.S.A They have more opportunities to prove weather they're smarter then men, and if we look among us, men still have a big adventage,in everyway,eventhough studys shows that female have more higher grades then males, but at the end what happens, where are they? are they still studying? or are they still in school? you get what i'm saying? at the end i see more successfull men then women.

Henry, is this the first time you've contemplated this leaky talent pipeline (that's the general term for it), or have you simply always been content to assume it's because guys are smarter? I ask because there is a wealth of information available to you about why this happens--assuming you really want to know the answer.

Henry thats not a very valid argument. I'm not taking any side on this but women and men are equal nowadays I believe. Men no longer hold the advantage. There are some fields of work that are predominately male or female such as nurses mostly being female, or construction workers being mostly male. Either one could switch and do the other job if they were trained and prepared for it. I wouldn't put so much stock in your argument regarding men vs women in the job market, especially since the job market is suffering today as both men and women who graduate college are finding it hard to get a job. Another thing that is funny about that is that one can be "overqualified" to flip burgers. So if you just finished med school and want to work in the hospitals, you can if there are jobs, but if there aren't any, McDonald's wont hire you because you would be too smart. Not that this pertains to the argument, just an interesting fact I learned recently.

I agree, like i said i dont have anything against women, what i dont understand is why men are always ontop,in this category,i was searching for the smartest people of the world and above all,is a men, which is Kim Ung Yonga, three women and the rest are men this are facts, now doesn't that tell us something? i'm an artist didn't finish school, never went to an art school, but yet i have a talent born with that gift, that doesn't mean i'm better then a female artist, i undestand that, infact i will feel stupid if i approached a female doctor and told her i was smarter then her, when i'm just an electrician, I think men and women are intelligent, but men is more perseverance, this is based on what i see.

I live with two females my wife and daughter, my wife is smarter then me in somethings, like in spelling words, but when it comes to finding adresses or puting something together i think i'm smarter there, but if women were more perseverance i think we wouln't be having this conversation, so my point is there is no such thing as men being smarter then women or women being smarter then men, so in other words if your smart but not perseverance you aint going no where, if you have both you're intelligent

An another thing i wanted to say to you logen, i'm here to learn about this, to give my opinion, but don't understimate me based on how i write, or spell this might be your field as a good speller or writer, but if you came to my field as an electrician you will feel stupid, so dont critisize a person base on how they write or spell that doesn't mean a person is dumb,i know a man that never finished school cant spell for crap but yet he have a boat nice house, and a chain of restaurant, he started with a catoring truck and now he owns like 5 restaurants what do you call that? a dumb man because he didn't finished school? so dont critisize a person your putting your self low thats not smart thats why women think we're dumb hahahahaha

I'm a bad speller myself and I am generally in awe of electricians. I myself never went to college.

Henry -

...but if you came to my field as an electrician you will feel stupid...

Actually, I would not, do not. With plumbing you need to understand that shit flows downward and to be careful about fire - the latter isn't even an issue with the advent of PEX. With electric you need to understand that electricity flows both ways and how to figure the load you can reasonably put on a given circuit. While it is a little more complicated than that, the ability to read code requirements will generally get you through.

I am studying neuropsychology and linguistics, though I did spend most of my adult life doing repairs and renovations. It didn't take me very long to figure out electric - or plumbing for that matter, though the latter actually required rather more practice (took a few dozen sweated joints before they rarely leaked). If you understand some basic principles and can apply them to real world applications, very little is likely to pose a serious challenge.

I would note that I was a fairly heavy drug user when I picked up plumbing and electric.

Henry I believe you took what I was saying the wrong way. I don't think I ever criticized your spelling or writing style and if I did I'm sorry that doesn't sound like something I would do. I was saying that you can't really judge smarts based on the job market or anything for that matter. A lot of the jobs that require degrees are being occupied by both recent graduates and older men and women therefore theres less space in those fields than that of a fast food chain. You might actually find a law school graduate working a lower end job because they can't get work, even though their are too overqualified for that job. Some places won't hire based on the fact that someones overqualified which I find ridiculous. I have respect for your profession as an electrician because I would probably have 40,000 volts of electricity surging through my body because I cut the wrong wire or something. I do agree with you on perseverance. Intelligence isn't worth anything without having the desire to use it just like it doesn't matter if you are the hardest hitter in the world but you can't land a punch.

I believe you were an electrician, what you think about wiring a 4 way switch, or trouble shooting? Now if i ask you this, i guess it will be easy for you tu figure it out,

3 questions
1:if you have 2 hot wires, and they're sharing a neutral and is going to a junction box, what do you have to be careful off when you take those wires apart, while they're still hot?
2.in the main panel you have 2 main wires coming in, each carries, 110 volts, in other words you have A and B circuits
whats the purpose of the A and B circuit strip when your're rewiring a house, or even installing two new circuits in an existing panel?

3. whats the maximun 90 bends you can do in a flex line?
this is very importan to an electrician to know

to bad for you, you took drugs my friend, you had your reason, in my life i have never use any kind of drugs or drank alcohol, is unbelievable but is true, i always had the mentallity to be a leader not a fallower.

In my youth i used to hang arround really heavy drug users, crack heads, you name it!! but in my mind was senseless using drugs never found a reson for it, till this day still dont under stand why people make their life misserable using drugs dont make any sense.

In plumbing is not just about which way shit flows, there is also very important steps in about venting your lines or how many toilets and shower you can vent in 1 vent line, is also required to know many codes and you have to keep them in mind, in construction this are the most valuable fields

but this is not about construction, is about to really know if women are smarter then men,

and i havent heard anybody come forward to tell me or answer my question of why a man is ontop of the list on the most intelligent person of the world, when this blog is claiming that women are smarter? and yet i've being told that my arguements dont make sense, resently they have evaluated the most smarter person of the world, 3 women and 5 men.
Stephanie please give me that informtaion it will be interesting to read it.
IT WILL BE VERY INTERESTING TO KNOW WHY MEN ARE ALWAYS ONTOP

Logan i guess I'm a bad reader too, i guess when you said "ass" that clicked my brain, hahaha i just missunderstood, you are right sorry for that, we're here sharing opinions, some agree some dont thats just part of the balance to keep the world interesting.
"Is like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope and that enables you to laugh at life's realities".
I didn't write this quote but is fantasctic and true.

Logan i guess I'm a bad reader too, i guess when you said "ass" that clicked my brain, hahaha i just missunderstood, you are right, sorry for that, we're here sharing opinions, some agree some dont, thats just part of the balance to keep the world interesting.
"Is like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope and that enables you to laugh at life's realities".

One of these days Imma compile all the comments on this post that were written by women and all the comments on this post that were written by men and have some kind of contest between the two compilations.

One of this day you should invite MR. KIM UNG YONGA,to come and interchange opinioms maybe we can learn somthing fundamental, because this is not getting any where. he'll be laughing at all of us calling us dumb fucks,

Greg how would you feel if you had the smartes man of the world asking you the simple question, who is smarter men or women? What would be your answer? dont you think that he'll be like duhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

Henry -

Oh, I was most certainly not an electrician - the only time I ever did any wiring for money, was when it was very minor and was part of a bigger job I was doing. I have wired a few houses, but those were for friends or for trade (more accurately, some were for friends and trade). My point was, I am not ignorant of your trade.

To make my point rather better, when I was doing remodeling and home repairs, I also moderated a support group (for a few months) for people recently diagnosed with HIV, did some children's programs through Portland, OR community centers and did lay substance abuse counseling - the latter while I was still engaging in fairly rampant substance abuse myself. The former I did because someone asked me to and knew that I was more than familiar enough with people with HIV to moderate the group (though the point was that it should be moderated by someone who has had the experience of being diagnosed with HIV). The children's programming I did because I had time that I thought would be fun to spend with not only my son, but with other kids he might make friends with. And the latter I did because I understand the psychology of addictions and harm reduction extremely well.

Mind you, I am a high school drop-out who was working the trades and was somewhat controlled by my substances of abuse. That didn't mean that I ever found ignorance an acceptable state of affairs, in the context of things that interest me - or which are important to me. I was rather better educated than many, if not most college grads when I dropped out of high school and have continued to voraciously consume new knowledge and ideas since.

This is important, because it is important not to sell yourself short, or assume that because someone is better educated than you, they are smarter than you. For that matter, don't assume that they are all that significantly more knowledgeable than you are, about their own field. There are a lot of hacks who barely scraped by and you may well understand their field a lot better than them.

By and by, I am very definitely more a leader than a follower. I started engaging in substance abuse because I have comorbid neurological problems.* I wasn't always so confident about this, but when I actually started being treated for my non-substance abuse related mental problems, the substance abuse cut out almost immediately. I mean I don't struggle with it, don't have a problem staying sober - most of the time I don't want to get fucked up and on the rare occasions when I think it would be nice, it is essentially nostalgia.

Back around to this discussion, what I think you're missing is that very few men would say anything if the assertion that men are smarter than women was made in front of them. Unless of course they were agreeing with it. And unfortunately there are all too few women who would argue with it and too many who agree. But the moment someone asserts that women are smarter than men, people - mostly men, crawl out of the fucking woodwork to argue how wrong that assertion is.

To be clear, I think that "intelligence" is such an ambiguous concept, that making assertions about any group being more intelligent than another is absurd and for the most part making assertions about individuals is nearly as absurd. I've known a lot of people who, due to any of a variety of characteristics, most others would assume aren't very clever, who are absolutely brilliant. That would include you - there are a lot of people who make the assumption that simply because someone isn't as articulate as they are, that person must be less intelligent. That's a fucking stupid assertion to make.

So when it comes down to it, I think making the assertion that women are smarter than men is absurd. It's just that my reasons for thinking that have nothing to do with beliefs in the intellectual superiority of men. Indeed, in the context that most people seem to judge "intelligence," it has been my observation that women tend to be rather more clever than men. Every woman I have ever seen, who has been offered the opportunity to really express her intellect in the context of science, engineering or business has performed considerably better than most men in the same positions.

For that matter, every woman I have ever seen doing electric or finish work has performed better than most men in those positions. I am very capable with tile and inlay work, though I am not nearly so fast as folks who do it all the time - mainly, I assume, because I have never done it all the time. So on a particularly strenuous tile job, I had brought in a woman to help me - mostly, I intended, with the cutting. The problem was that this was a rather complex patterned mosaic and I kept making a particular mistake repeatedly - if you saw it, it would make sense.

The woman who helped me finally asked if I wouldn't mind letting her have a go. I figured she couldn't have any worse problems with it than I did and was happy to let her have at it. She had no problems with it at all, because she could actually visualize the entire pattern as individual tiles and could see exactly which tile would go where, to make the pattern come together.

While not all of my experiences hiring women to work on jobs with me have been like that one - indeed none have, they were always better than most of my experiences hiring men. I worked on high end jobs, almost exclusively and having people who could look at a job and if not perfectly, do very well at visualizing what the end result should look like. I have worked with two men, out of at least several dozen, who were as capable of this as any of the five women I have worked with. They were also capable of visualizing each step along the way. Even in the cases where they were essentially doing grunt work (which was what nearly everyone I ever hired did for me - I mostly worked alone and if I needed skilled labor, I would trade hours with other guys who were doing teh sort of work I was doing) this made the jobs run a hell of a lot more smoothly. When the person working for you can see what it should look like, even if all they're doing is moving manure around a yard, it is going to go a lot easier.

* I am not, btw, excusing my behavior - I seriously fucked up due to my substance abuse and accept full responsibility for my fuck-ups. I am just trying to explain it, because too many people moralize addiction and though addictions have many causes, they are never that simple.

I do agree this is not getting anywhere. At the end of the day people will still have their same opinions no matter how much you or I try to convince them otherwise. Everyone has their niche and as I have expressed many times, it comes down to the individual. If there is a man and a woman that I'm looking into hiring and they have the same qualifications I'm going to look at the more subtle things about them such as personal hygiene and their attitude.

Sorry Henry, I forgot about your "questions." They were all rather absurd, though ironically, I actually have a circuit in my living space (due to my brother's fucked up wiring) that shares a ground with another circuit. The non-grounded circuit was an existing light circuit and though I explicitly told him not to tap that line for the lights in my kitchen, he used it anyways - though he kindly tapped it and ran 14/2 to the actual fixture. So I didn't know he had done that until I replaced a ballast and finally decided to troubleshoot the circuit. Tapping the circuit that he was supposed to tie into to begin with would have required trashing a great deal of my ceiling and a wall - so we just dropped a ground down to an outlet that was in the same wall cavity and tied to it there.

As for four way switches and troubleshooting, I know what a four way circuit should look like and if pressed, I am sure that I could actually install one. But my general preference would be to have an electrician install it. Being capable isn't the same as being nearly efficient enough. Unfortunately, I am all too familiar with troubleshooting. My brother wired nearly half of my living space and screwed a hell of a lot of it up. He did some really weird shit and the whole mess is complicated by my dad's decision to use metal studs (I am now an only parent of two boys and a student, so we built an apartment in my parent's basement). My brother was all about making the romex stretch and this meant that the frame actually cut through the insulation on a couple of circuits. This meant ripping into one wall and running the circuit out of the box and into another outlet on the circuit and means that we only have two functional outlets in the bedroom.

I have spent all too many hours fixing his mistakes and oddities (he installed a GFCI for every outlet in the kitchen - running each one off the one before and screwing up two of them). He also tried to use existing two strand in a couple of places, grounding outlets to the frame. This became a problem because one of his outlets that was grounded this way had the ground come into contact with the hotwire and another circuit in the same wall was grounded to both the frame and the box - so we had five walls that had current running through them. We were extremely close to ripping down a hell of a lot of drywall, when a friend who was helping me actually figured it out - I'm not bad with troubleshooting shit, but he's exceptional, especially considering he's a painter by primary trade.

I have to be honest with you, this post is by far the most retarded piece I've ever read when it comes to
presenting an argument that women are "smarter" than men. What really cracks me up is this little gem:

"among the smartest people there is no emperical evidence that women are underrepresented"

Well, given any academic or intellectual discipline, the vast majority of important contributors have
been and still are MEN! The is no "patriarchal conspiracy" to suppress or ignore all the women who
contributed to the advancement of knowledge and ideas, there simply aren't nearly as many as the smartest
people in this world are obviously men. Intellectual potential, and actual contributions are not as neatly correlated
with academic performance as you would like to believe. Your argument against the alternative hypotheses as to
why women are currently more successfuly in American schools than men is pretty much a moot point my friend.

-Anton

duwayne, the answer for my questions is ubsurd?, or you just couldnt figure it out what the hell i was talking about? when you confront someone in a subject like this about electrical, if you know the answer you will definately answer it right away, if you dont know, the first shit that comes throught your mind is making a stupid comment like this one "They were all rather absurd,i didn't ask you for your opinion about my questions, i asked you to give three simple answers that you probably didn't know, you wrote almost an intire story about a trouble shooting at your house , but yet couldn't answer three short questions, perhaps i should answer my own questions to refresh your mind.
The answer for question #1 is never separate neutrals in a junction box when you are sharing that neutral with two hot wires. wasn't it simple?
The answer for #2 the purpose for A and B circuits in a main panel is, if you're sharing a neautral with two hot wires, you have to make sure that line #1 is on A, line #2 has to be on B, this is so that you wont overload a circuit.
and final question was the easiest one of all, yes only 3 90 degree bends you can do on a flex, this is a code

IN OTHER WORDS ABSURD BUT YET HARD TWO ANSWER

DuWayne, I think you've been outsmarted.

I suspect Henry is a girl pretending to be a boy. I say this because Henry seems pretty smart.

Duwayne my point is, you said that you wouldnt feel stupid if you enter my field as an electrician, i was just trying to prove my point, there is a lot of so called electricians outhere, but they don't know shit, and i'ved seen splising wires togetehr without a proper box, taping wires together inside metal conduits by so called electricias, and so on, i'm not here to teach how to do electrical, or who knows more, my point is that everybody has their on capacity to preformed what ever they want, as long as they're perseverance, a female could be an electrician they could be framers anything they want, but the fact is that they don't put their skills in acctions, i heard a lady here saying she was in martial arts, but yet if we put that women in a ring with a man in the same category she will get her ass wooped, thats when reality kicks in wether women are smarter it could be a fact but is still a big question there , anybody can speculate but fundation is a key for any conversation, if you build a bulding without a fundation is going to fall. in other words no matter what people thinks about women being smarter , if is based on a just college exams and someone theory i belive it doens't count is not based on anything just an especulations. actions speak louder then words,

All right, I must plead ignorance, I thought you were fucking with me.

How exactly would one separate a single neutral wire?

When would you actually share a neutral with two hot wires? That seems rather absurd, because I have never come across a situation where one would do that. (my experience is almost entirely with residential)

Are you talking about flexible conduit? If so, I have never heard it referred to as "flex line." Also, I only ever use flexible conduit in situations where I won't have any nineties - if I am making turns I use hard conduit every time. If I use flexible conduit, it is for situations where, for example, you might be running across a joist cavity that has a round duct running through it. I really don't care for how flexible conduit looks and am neurotic enough about appearances, that I concern myself with shit no one else is likely to see - or if they do, they won't really see it.

That said, I rarely do anything that requires conduit. I wire garbage disposals and insta-hot fixtures with conduit and actually replaced the wiring and installed conduit in a crawl space that had been invaded by racoons - one of whom chewed through the romex and made quite the mess of things. I also installed the conduit for and pulled the strands for a secondary box in a detached garage, but flat refused to actually connect the damned thing. I am willing to do many things on my own and again, I know how to wire a secondary box - but that is one of those things that I just won't touch. Knowing how to do something, doesn't equal having the ability to do so safely.

All in all, I rather embarrassingly have to, indeed, admit my ignorance about aspects of your profession. That doesn't detract from my actual point though. It is all too easy to assume that because someone else appears to have a greater understanding of a given subject, because that happens to be their field, doesn't mean they actually do.

And i'm not trying to kiss gregs ass but what i'm going to say is base on this blog, The reason greg made this blog is because he is a teacher, a field that i dont know shit about, i'm an ignorant in this erea, he says he is being a teacher i don't know if is a school, college or the university, he is defending his way of thinking base on facts that he has experience through out his carreer with female students, so in a way i agree with him thinking like that, thats just something he backs up is not that he hates men, in his mind this is a fact based on his experience, is like if someone came and told me how to wire a panel and dont know shit about electrical, and start telling me that their is no need for a gronund rod in a panel when i know perfectly that it does need it.
so wether he is right or wrong in his mind, he is right and no one is going to change his way of thinking about women being smarter then men, hes talking base on his experience

...but they don't know shit, and i'ved seen splising wires togetehr without a proper box, taping wires together inside metal conduits by so called electricias...

And that rather nicely meshes with my point, as I have seen this sort of work and replaced that sort of work - work that was originally performed by licensed electricians.

anybody can speculate but fundation is a key for any conversation, if you build a bulding without a fundation is going to fall. in other words no matter what people thinks about women being smarter , if is based on a just college exams and someone theory i belive it doens't count is not based on anything just an especulations. actions speak louder then words,

You're missing the point, the issue is that it is rather easy, based on the same sorts of "evidence" we used to look at and assume that men were smarter than women and assume that women are smarter than men - at least now. The same comparison can be made of the "evidence" that would imply that men are better than math at women.

When Greg wrote this post, there was a big meme going around about men being better at math than women (and being generally smarter than women). The so called evidence that supported that assertion, was the same sort of evidence that Greg uses in this post to support the assertion that women are smarter than men.

Take a look at Anton Feichtmeir's little tirade up above. He is making the bald assertion that MEN!!1 are smarter than women and using absolutely ridiculous reasoning to do so. Men are smarter because they have accomplished more and the accomplishments of women can't be weighed against those to argue that that is not true. That is what his comment boils down to.

I believe that you've involved yourself in this conversation on good faith. So I want to ask you this question in good faith, not as an asshole. You have made several comments on this thread now, over the last couple of days. When was the last time you argued against the assertion that men are smarter than women? It is made far more frequently.

duwayne are you acting dumb or your just dumb? do you know the reason for a junction box? what the whole purpose to have a box in an electrical field? isn't it yo make splices? so basically if i said three wires one neutral and two hots, is abious for any electrician to know what i'm talking about, and when i said seperate is almost likely im talking about taking that plastic little thing so called WIRE NUT twisted together with the wires,duhhh or do i have to send you a picture of how a 4s box looks like or junction box? whats the whole purpose to have a junction box when you run a straight conduit or a homerun? or perhaps to a cealing light box? and actually that too could be use as a junction box, so read very careful my question before you make a remark. junction is a anything where to ends meet or starts, am i correct, or perhaps something that makes conecctions,

In a perfect world!!! yes conduit is the perfect word for flex. But in this case as long as i been working in cosntruction we use that word "line" as pipe line, copper line, galvanized line, string line, flex line, if you havent worked on this field please dont try to correct me, you're making your self look dumb,

Henry -

I am not trying to correct you, I was trying to figure out what you are talking about - after admitting ignorance.

On lingo, I have noted - having worked in eleven regions of three states, that lingo varies a great deal with geography. If I asked you to grab the pic off the truck and you came back to tell me you didn't see a pick axe, I wouldn't say you were dumb because you didn't realized I meant the engineered plank on my ladder rack.

When I have heard electricians I have worked around refer to "line" in the context of electric work, they are talking about some sort of conductive line. If they are talking about conduit, they call it conduit, or in the case of a northern MI electrician , pipe. When I asked if you meant conduit, I was asking in good faith and my assumption you were talking about some sort of conductive line is why I assumed you were fucking with me with your questions.

...so basically if i said three wires one neutral and two hots, is abious for any electrician to know what i'm talking about...

And I told you I am not an electrician, subsequently admitting ignorance. Not something I have experience with - at least with junctions.

and when i said seperate is almost likely im talking about taking that plastic little thing so called WIRE NUT twisted together with the wires,duhhh or do i have to send you a picture of how a 4s box looks like or junction box?

Sorry, I wasn't reading clearly enough.

Greg, you are absolutely correct. Women in your classroom ARE smarter than the men...in your classroom.

Men earn more advanced degrees than women, men get higher grades in their junior and senior years of college, and men have a higher average IQ than women (by 3.7 points).

This is also interesting--taller people have a higher average IQ (about 0.4 points per inch). Men are, on average, 5 inches taller than women--which would theoretically translate to an additional 2 IQ points based off of height ALONE.

Oh yeah, more women drop out of college than men.

men have a higher average IQ than women (by 3.7 points).

I am not impressed by your cherry picked data. See Neisser et al. Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns. 1996. Am. Phychologist.

Regarding career and degree related biases, there are lots of sources I could refer you to which show that this is not a difference between males and female's abilities, but rather, bias against females in the system. You might start wiht Cox and Harquail's 1991 study "Career Paths and Career Success in the Early Career Stages of Male and Female MBA's to get a handle on the literature. (Check out the citation therein).

Now, I have a question for you: Why is it important to you that men be perceived of as smarter than women?

Hello again. Thanks for your reply. History is written by the victors, I am no Vitor, right! So you can't say that I am using history to my advantage, History is just a story and a legend. However for you to regard me as 'Stupid'/Dishonest, which I am clearly not, offends me. You cannot use the 'term' intelligence. Intelligence IS A THEORY, it is, as I said before, how the mind would process information and knowledge. Everyone has completely different intelligence as our brains are all diferent (evident by our different behaviors), it varies on the PERSON, not the gender. I think a lot of the people here think about smartness as this 'I can work out puzzles or, I got a very high test score ect' It is not . Yes, I agree with you, women had no chance to be in universities but now in the modern day, we will develop new methods (Like brainchemicals that, when unbalanced, cause OCD and Depression, perhaps measure that and find out if Men or Women have a different balance etc so they do 'better' at tests) and find out who is the best 'test-wise'. My opinion has actually changed. I am now on nobodies side. I can only advise that using things like "You are stupid" or "Revatalise that sentance" is just using aggression to prove your argument. I do agree with your statement about history.
Thank You

BTW Greg, WHAT evidence do you have that women "probably" invented stone tools?At least 90% of inventions, both ancient and modern, are the work of us MEN.

True, true, Men are good inventors, though it's a bit of a gerneralisation to say that this means they are smarter, as indicated in my post, Smartness isn't always tests and creativity. So yeah. Greg needs to be a bit more positive if he's going to create a post about Women being 'Smarter' than Men and then going up to every male who posts and saying (Unless they confess to being less smarter)they are not smart. You used averages in the test, but averages don't work in real life- You could find a cure for a disease and find that the average person had no side-effects when one of two- even more may have side effects. I'm only being nice to you at the moment, greg. You know you're wrong and there is no such thing as proving intelligence by difference of gender,only the person. The rate that intelligence differs between an individual is probably the rate that every human is born and humans are being born every second, Greg. I suppose you'll reply with a "Of yes and the average blah blah , you idiot" considering your posts in the past.

I agree with 'Lord', the point is, if you are making judgements about saying someone is smarter, what you are doing is picking an aspect about a person on average or what they do or how they do something in a situation and using that as evidence to judge them. Anton he is isn't using evidence, he is using lies.

It seems suspicious to me that if women are more intelligent than men they have allowed themselves to be "oppressed" for so many centuries.

Greg needs to be a bit more positive if he's going to create a post about Women being 'Smarter' than Men and then going up to every male who posts and saying (Unless they confess to being less smarter)they are not smart.

I'll change my tune the minute a man who is not a drooling idiot comes up to the plate!

agree with 'Lord', the point is, if you are making judgements about saying someone is smarter, what you are doing is picking an aspect about a person on average or what they do or how they do something in a situation and using that as evidence to judge them. Anton he is isn't using evidence, he is using lies.

OK, smarty pants. Give me links. Give me links to YOU saying the same exact thing on a blog post which makes the claim that men are smarter or that there are, say, race differences in intelligence.

Give me links showing that ANY of the multipalleted morons upstream in this thread every went ANYWHERE and got all indignant about someone putting down women, blacks, mexicans, or anyone. Just one link.

It seems suspicious to me that if women are more intelligent than men they have allowed themselves to be "oppressed" for so many centuries.

Oh look, comment of the month award material!

I present no evidence to back this comment, it's just based on personal experience, but...
I think it's quite possible that women are just more practiced at complex thinking than men. It goes along with nearly every single situation you could ever find yourself in being remarkably more complicated for you than for a man. Getting ready in the morning involves (for some, anyway), a cleansing routine that is both exfoliating and moisturizing (god forbid your skin isn't free from blemishes and wrinkles), shaving EVERYWHERE, hair care and makeup. You have to plan teeth brushing and shaving "down there" around lipstick application and the morning squat. Breakfast is a calculated affair of measuring calories and comparing diet charts (again, this does not apply to every woman), and don't even get me started on wardrobe selection, never mind finding a fashionable handbag that can still carry a briefcase worth of stuff. Travel routes have to planned around chosen footware and likelihood of harassment or assault (yes, those are every day concerns for us). Our day is filled with the need to out-perfrom our male counterparts just to be considered equal, while constantly weighing the expectations placed upon us against our rights or entitlements. Someone cracks a sexist joke and you must engage in an instant yet involved debate with yourself over whether to risk being called an over-sensitive "Feminazi" for calling him out, or laughing along to prove you're "one of the boys." You have to ask yourself if wearing the heels and hose confirms to the male standard of female attractiveness, or if you should embrace your choice to wear whatever you damn well want. Do you eat a salad for lunch? You must keep your figure, but you don't want the others to laugh at you for being "girly". If you have a genuine disagreement with a female co-worker, you have to navigate the situation without hearing the "catfight" calls. Do you brag about how much you love the Daily Show, or do you admit to watching "Sex and the City"? "I'm a woman, and I HATE that show," someone says, as if you're somehow holding women back for liking it. As if there's a new expectation- the homemakers of the future will be "just like the boys!" Are you falling into the patriarchal trap by adhering to the female norm? What is the norm, anyway? What do you say if your friends invite you to a pole-dancing class? Is it okay to be attracted to a hot guy, or does that make you a slut? And it's not even the end of the day yet...
This is just the tip of the iceberg of the constant processing and calculation that must occur inside the female mind at all times just to navigate the world. And this is on the good day.
My impression of the male version is "wake up, shave, shit, eat, drink coffee (though he probably got more sleep than she did), go to work, be king of the castle all day long and assume that everyone is like me, be completely accepted for who I am, go home, eat whatever I want, sleep." I'm sure there's more to it than that, but you simply don't have the constant deconstruction of yourself, your life, and your place in society as we do, not to mention the same day-to-day worries. Standards are different, expectations are different, and we have to work four times as hard just to keep on equal footing.
They say the brain is like a muscle, requiring excercise to keep in tip-top shape.
With this kind of constant overwhelming use, woman should quite frankly be geniuses.

With this kind of constant overwhelming use, woman should quite frankly be geniuses.

That's been my experience.

Alright, This time I've given time to read your whole blog, I think that you are tired of all these posts from random people to be honest. I mean no offence. I am a respectful person, from England (Not USA!) and reading your comments seems to be like you're attacking people personally, not debatably. Of course I WOULD AGREE with the fact that there are more 'dumb' men that women, that may re-enforce your argument but when it comes to being a genius, I'm going to have a little go at science. Now, there are SOME ways of comparing gender intelligence of a genius. Generally, people with asperges syndrome have more extensive knowledge on one area (I have asperges, very complicated disorder with unnoticable symptoms)and have a higher IQ on average (Above 75 is a definate), and overall, Men give greater signs of Asperges and... (http://www.autismtoday.com/articles/Aspergers_in_women.htm) The majority are males. Though this shows nothing, intelligence wise (As it is IQ), it proves Men could be better at IQ. Don't listen to all these idiots saying 'What about Einstein', listen to the people who think through what YOU say.

***It seems suspicious to me that if women are more intelligent than men they have allowed themselves to be "oppressed" for so many centuries.***

***Oh look, comment of the month award material!***

No need for banal antagonism. If you have a counter point to offer, I will listen and consider it.

Really, Johnny, you can't think of a single group held up as an example of high intelligence that was ever "oppressed" for centuries? What a guy.

No need for banal antagonism. If you have a counter point to offer, I will listen and consider it.

A counter point to blaming the victim: How about NOT blaming the victim?

Well, it makes more sense to me that women have different interests than men. If male oppression was the answer to the lack of female pioneers, it would mean that all women, across all all cultures, and for all of our recorded history have been oppressed. While this is most certainly true of some cultures, I have a hard time accepting it is true for all.

Most women, throughout most cultures,throughout most of our recorded history have met with some degree of oppression, so you may be onto something there Johnny!

Johnny, what is your basis for saying that? Have you read any ethnographies, studied anthropology, reviewed the data in the Cross Culture Survey (HARF)? Or is it just something you don't think could/should be true?

If male oppression was the answer to the lack of female pioneers, it would mean that all women, across all all cultures, and for all of our recorded history have been oppressed.

That's a total non-seqitur: the conclusion does not, in any way, follow from the premise.

Oh, and pointing out how ridiculous your arguments are is not "banal antagonism."

I wasn't arguing with anyone, Bee. I was stating my opinion. And when someone responds to an opinion presented in all civility with a patronizing tone, it's interpreted as antagonism. Patronizing another party has never positively contributed to the free exchanger of ideas.

Greg, it's been my understanding that many of the important advancements in science and technology have been made by men. Advancements as simple as the wheel, or bow and arrow, or as complex as psychoanalysis. I am not saying that women have contributed nothing towards our technical advancement. What I am saying is that it's been my understanding that men have contributed more. I suspect this has less to do with women being prevented from exploration, and more to do with the differences between the activities men and women naturally gravitate towards.

To blame men for the lack of female inventors is about as silly as blaming women for the lack of male nurses, wouldn't you agree?

Johnny, who decides what constitutes an "important" invention? How long have women had the education and freedom of movement and association to contribute the shiny inventions instead of the simple, practical ones? What prompted you to jump into this discussion without checking whether your ideas had already been addressed in the nearly 300 comments before yours?

Johnny Oldschool: You really cannot engage in this discussion without full context--at the core of it is "white privilege" and particularly 'white female privilege.'

http://www.womanist-musings.com/2011/03/stop-denying-white-female-privi…
"Feminism is such a white thing that black women are now calling themselves "womanists" just to get away from it.
Here is a link to a womanist website that discusses the general difficulties weigh in in with white female privilege, and those who maintain that pedestal for them--it really can be exhausting.

When I first saw the thread on Feministe, I had to think about whether I had the strength left to engage and what the effect for me would be. In the end, I chose to bow out because I felt exhausted. I felt I could do so without guilt, because I know that it is only a matter of time before something similar happens again and WOC have to spend their precious time educating White women, while they do their best to pretend that they cannot hear what we are saying. Whether it is Feministe, Feminsiting, or Jezebel, this will happen again and again and again. It happens because White women refuse to challenge their privilege, and it happens because blog moderators refuse to take a stand."

And when someone responds to an opinion presented in all civility with a patronizing tone, it's interpreted as antagonism.

A stupid opinion is still a stupid opinion, and deserves to be exposed as such, no matter how civil the tone in which it's stated. Crying about our tone -- without addressing the substance of what we actually said -- is just another way that liars and idiots change the subject when their assertions have been disproven. There's no civil way to criticize blatant stupidity -- at least not in the eyes of the blatantly stupid.

And besides, why should we listen to lectures on manners from soomeone who's still stuck on the same "boys are better than girls" nonsense most of heard in grade-school?

Crybaby tone arguments aside, though, the numerical disparity between male and female inventors can easily be explained by diminished opportunities for women in societies that any honest student can see have been male-dominated. If you really can't see how that works, you might as well stop trying to pretend you're any more educated than your fellow misogynist troll who's now trying to tell you how to argue. (White female privilege is unchallenged because "blog moderators refuse to take a stand?" Are you fucking kidding me?)

Um...Raping Bee--you are the most stuck on stupid troll I have encountered on Gregs blog ever. And you have had some competition, believe ME.

Didn't they teach you how to read over in aging white reformed drug dealer school?

Those words that you wrongly attribute to me are actually the words and property of womanist-musings.com

Maybe some of your "black female friends" which you mentioned somewhere in the discussion about RW might like that blog...( I am still laughing my ass off at someone who needs to back up their whiteness by having quintessential 'black friends'.....didn't Seinfeld cover that?)

So wrong again--I am coming to expect that from you.

And Johnny Oldschool--it is well worth cruising around Greg's blog here--you will find that Bee is a male rape proponent ( meaning he advocates for the rape of men), an ex-communist, a desperate man trying to impress the young ladies ( go read his blog for fun--he can't even construct a paragraph, and everything he talks about is just some form of re-statement of something that has already been said a million times), and a sycophant.

To whit: :"what we actually said" ...

Notice how "he" is a actually a "we", a collective consciousness raising entity in his own right. Er...in "their" own right.

Stephanie Z, an important invention is something which causes great advancements in quality of life, causes humanity to progress towards order, or otherwise changes the landscape of humanity forever. I'm sure you will agree that something like the transistor has had more of an impact on us than the automatic dishwasher.

Raging Bee, you said "Crying about our tone -- without addressing the substance of what we actually said -- is just another way that liars and idiots change the subject when their assertions have been disproven."

Well, that's precisely how I felt when Greg responded to my original comment with "Oh look, comment of the month award material."

Well pornonymous, it's rather disturbing for me to learn that anyone could be a proponent of sexual violation. Nobody deserves to be a victim of abuse. Ever.

...you will find that Bee is a male rape proponent ( meaning he advocates for the rape of men)...

Do tell, porno-boy -- where, exactly, will we find that?

Raging Bee, I am also interested where we would find that. However, the fact that you ask for proof as opposed to saying such an accusation is sick and disgusting is already telling of your character.

So, Johnny, how would you compare the transistor to agriculture and cooking?

However, the fact that you ask for proof as opposed to saying such an accusation is sick and disgusting is already telling of your character.

Compliment taken. Besides, I don't have to point out how sick and disgusting porno-boy is; it's been self-evident for weeks now. Not sure why he's so fixated on me...infatuation maybe?

Johnny: Just for fun, let's see if Raper-Bee will find it himself--- I am pretty much over doing his homework for him.

The guy has the initiative of a slug in any discussion that requires thought, and he has zero social skills--and waaaay too much hostility boiling inside him.

And he certainly does not connect the dots between fact and fact--he still owes me the duty to refute the entirely clear, and entirely substantive link between "slavery" and the US prison system--which was virtually non -existent before 1865.

His more ludicrous manner on the topic of boys being sexually abused, men being raped, etc, prohibits any and all discussion about the topic. Rape culture 101: deny male victimization; silence male experience--much of which leads to the creation of "what is a rapist."

Sexual abuse of boys, by the way, is a proven link to lower achievement, if not actual measurable intelligence.And has anyone seen the achievement gap lately? Girls girls girls, while singlemoms, et al raise boys to be cannon fodder.

Old White Former Failed Drug Dealer/baby raper/wutever-u-are: here's the clue--over one of the RW threads where you basically doubted that my personal history of abuse wasn't "valid because I am male," or merely because--in your eyes who has never met me before, and who will never know me--is that I am not "worthy of validation"

THIS IS RAPE CULTURE PERPETUATION, 102 and 103, assault, or re-victimize the victim of assault; discredit said victim of female initiated sexual abuse.

YOU ARE A PROPONENT of rape culture at large, and men specifically. They invented Viagra, and the prison system so guys like you can walk around and feel virile, and capable.

Massive logic fail--and cowardice on your part: men who empathize have a better chance of changing rape culture than men who re-victimize. You are one of the former.

Stephanie Z, I was comparing the transistor to the automatic dishwasher, not agriculture and cooking. I think we would both be hard pressed to attribute the cultivation of plants and the searing of meat to a specific gender.

oooops. That was for4mer, in the sense of cowards with failed logic switches in their brains--er....you have a logic fail drive, like all deniers of violence against men...

Raging Bee, I was neither insulting nor complimenting you. I was simply saying that when someone is accused of something which is not true, they usually respond with outrage. When someone is accused of something which might be true, they usually make an effort to cover it up.

I am not drawing a conclusion as to either. I am only offering speculation based on trends I have seen.

Johnny: Just for fun, let's see if Raper-Bee will find it himself--- I am pretty much over doing his homework for him.

So now it's MY job to provide evidence to support YOUR pathetic accusations? What a fucking joke. You got nothing and you know it. Case dismissed.

Also, I did not doubt your personal history because you were male; I doubted it because you were clearly incoherent, insane, and therefore unreliable. And you prove yourself more so with every comment.

You sure you want to be seen near this guy, Johnny? Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas.

Johnny--this was said to you up there:

"And besides, why should we listen to lectures on manners from soomeone who's still stuck on the same "boys are better than girls" nonsense most of heard in grade-school?"

Does that accurately describe your position here? Do you in any way think boys are better than girls? I didn't read you that way.

And again, in regards to Raper, there is tis sgort, but repetitive history there, it goes like this: the little bitch makes gross, hostile, inflammatory statements to people the first time he ever opens his mouth to them!

Then he demands "evidenc" and proof, etc--but when proof is provided says "you're not reputable, so I won't look at the evidence!!"

He's actually unhinged, and not at all worth arguing with--he doen't have a discussion switch, only an attack, argue, dominate by ad hominem attack switch. A rape culture proponent. His "rape switch" is sublimated and becomes an "attack men switch".

All that, of course, over the internet, so he doesn't get hid false teeth kicked out, because in person, he would be an utter coward.

And he is a law and order Joe Araipo supporter.

Hey Bee: you are the line I personally draw with violence. You have asserted the same thing, post after post after post: but I am not here to waste one more digit or fingertip "on demand" because some former criminal in Arizona 'demands it." in a dialectic stick-up.

But feel free to correct me of I am wrong about you--here is YOU: "is that your argument, huh, huh??? I'm not gonna talk about it/ do the research/ read the statistics you provided...blablabla." and then two weeks later--same comment, and you still don't DO THE HOMEWORK.

But you make the same claim. Don't you get it? Let's back-up"

I am not here to flatter you and I certainly am not going to babysit or coddle your lies--again. If Johnny wants to, he can find it, or ask for proof, and I will get that proof for Johnny.

But I really see don't see you--and your abusive language, and demands for attention-- as worth the effort. Your verbal violence alone is as Johnny notes,not at all properly outraged--but plenty enough for me to get the complete picture of you.

Greg, you're on Google, and now you're on other sites, so you're not going to have a peaceful debate. Now, first is first, a Phd is a great achievement, you've got one, you are also teach (Obviously as a proffessor). When someone says, Dr Greg, these are my opinions in my test results, I have done well I think... do you reply with, DON'T ASK FOR OPINIONS, THEY ARE FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE SO CRITICAL THAT THEY THINK THINK THE WHOLE WORLD IS IN THE PALM OF THEIR HANDS. I HAVE PLENTY OF EVIDENCE, IN THE NEW YOU SEE IT.
You wouldn't say that would you, so don't say it here.

Johnny: if nothing else? Just notice the "homo-erotic/hom-phobic" subtext of Rapers language when he says "You sure you want to be seen near this guy, Johnny? Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas"

Kind of, um, really--really--weird how he sees you and me in his mind, 'layin' down together', ain't it?

Lord: um...wut?

Raging Bee, you said to Porno, "Also, I did not doubt your personal history because you were male; I doubted it because you were clearly incoherent, insane, and therefore unreliable. And you prove yourself more so with every comment"

From my perspective, your accusations are very similar to his. You both insult each other with an antagonism that solves absolutely nothing. I see no flow of information between either of you. I see attacks, not exchanges.

Johnny, I tried to tellya'--his endless shit isn't worth wading into. Here's the first thing I ever heard from him/it.

@497 here http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/07/women_in_elevators_a_man_to_m…

You're welcome to wade in, but from minute one, it was verbal assault after verbal assault--not an attempt ever to create dialogue, only attempts to 'control' or silence dialogue.

Later threads were all Raping Bee demanding proof and not following said proof; demanding more proof etc.

Let me give you a scenario: you're walking down the street, whistling. Some dirty asshole jumps off a park bench and says " your whistling sounds like shit. " Followed shortly thereafter by " shut up" followed by several more shut ups.

And the dirty asshole FOLLOWS you.

Or, imagine verbal assault. On some level, most humans are capable of discussion, while others use conversation to assault you-- a deep need to be 'right' rather than to conversate.

Every exchange with this sort of person is actually a choice you make to be assaulted, or to walk away from an assault.

There are plenty of other examples since that initial exchange, but that is what he is-- a verbal stalker.( read that post--I tried to get rid of him rather quickly)

But you will note in that post, I rapidly recognized what type of person Bee is, and this ain't my first buffalo hunt, and having literally taken a few bullets along the way. So, I kind of recognize dead ends, and dark places--like his one way street of dialogue--and I enter them armed, and quite ready.

Put another way, and in reference to his inference of homo-erotic narrative above: in the gay community they have the idea of tops and bottoms, and in the BDSM community there are doms and subs.

Raping Bee wants really really badly to be a dom, because he demands things, rather than asks for them; and then as in the case elsewhere (like the civil war and slavery post) , he doesn't follow through on information provided, and says " you aren't trustworthy! You're information is no good! ( I mean, who could possibly refute that the prison sytem was started to house freed slaves, and poor white 'race traitors'?).

Dealing with him on any rational level leaves this really icky feeling. and you will note from the link above, he started it.

Case closed.

But I still want an answer from my last posts to you: are you being fairly characterized with that statement above about boys and girls?

Really, Johnny, you just want to look at the evidence you want to look at so you can keep your idea? Try again. We have plenty of evidence, from gendered invention of tools in our close primate relatives to gendered roles in hunter-gatherer societies that affect time use and interaction with plants, to think that women invented agriculture and cooking. What evidence do you have that men invented it?

Stephanie Z, I have none at all, nor did I claim to have any. You seem to think I am locked in a "male vs female" struggle here, and as a result you have rampantly spun off my original topic.

Said original topic was not who first practiced agriculture, nor was it a claim that women have contributed nothing to the development of civilization.

You're right, Johnny. How would you compare agriculture and cooking in importance to the wheel and the bow and arrow, and where is your evidence that either of those were invented by men?

Of course there's no exchange of information between porno-boy and me -- he has no information to offer, and he's clearly unhinged. Go ahead and read the thread he cited, and you'll see what's been obvious to us for weeks now. If you think there's anything I need to apologize for there, go ahead and cite it. I can stand by everything I've said, so I'm not exactly quaking in my boots here.

Oh, and as I predicted, the wanker who calls himself a "pornoriented amateur rapeologist" can't produce a quote from me to support his charge that I support male rape. Do you really think an "exchange of information" is possible with an asshole like that?

Oh, and why should I respond with "outrage" to porno-boy's charges? There's nothing "outrageous" about a person who is clearly mentally ill and has zero credibility making wild accusations that have no relation to reality. It happens every day, everywhere. All I have to do is ask the loony for evidence, and watch him flail and fail.

Wait, Greg makes money from this blog? Oh Jesus Christ...how could I have fallen for that...I'm guessing there are ads all over the page or something. See, I'm using the ad-blocker extension for Firefox, so I wouldn't know.

Well, I'm out. I don't much want to contribute to a money-by-controversy scheme. Or as I call it, "Fox News tactics".

Funny how Johnny finds an excuse to bugger off AFTER his opinions have been debunked...and he realizes just how embarrassing his only friend here is...

And just when I was going to suggest he actually read up on the topic: http://www.amazon.com/Mothers-Daughters-Invention-Revised-Technology/dp/0813521971

Sorry folks, Golly Gee (aka Gator) has been banned for sockpuppeting and offensive name calling. He's gone now.

JohnnyOldschool: Don't go! Please don't go! Your comments were so wonderful that every time you made one I made ten dollars! Please don't go!

(Don't worry, he's not going anywhere.)

(Btw, what I was saying earlier is, I expected Greg to be more logical instead of attacking people.)
To be honest, I have nothing here either. All I can say is that just because of 'evidence' and test results, one does not simply conclude.
Lord
or should I say
Cake!

And now, finally (or shall I say, "once again") there's proof:

Female students are ahead of men in almost every measure of UK university achievement, according to a report from higher education researchers.

A Higher Education Policy Institute report shows that women are more likely to get places in the top universities and go on to get better grades.

Women also outnumber men in high status subjects, such as law and medicine.

All of this is also true of people from Asian or Ashkenazi backgrounds, when compared with people of different ancestry.

("I see you trollin', I'm raisin'..." â«â«)

from gendered invention of tools in our close primate relatives

This sounds interesting. Do you have some references?

I don't know what's worse about this post: the nonchalance with which the author substitutes "having better grades" with "being more intelligent", or the fact that he, apparently, would celebrate the discovery that intelligence isn't equally distributed among human beings.

Toto, here's one article with a couple of examples. There are more out there if you read about chimp tool use.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070222-chimps-spears.ht…

Here's another article discussing a similar trend for female innovation in both chimps and bonobos: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/bonobo-tool/

Raping bee looking desperately for someone to "quote him"--YET AGAIN. You really need help, you Joe Araipo rape apologist.

. Stumble over to his blog, and you will see that he has trouble quoting himself, much less constructing a parapgraph.

Dude, stop trying to be relevant--your just an echo anywhere you go.

Stephanie: thanks for the links about bonobos and tool use. I fully agree that women invent tools--just look at the Swedish Sex Purchase act--a legal tool that gender feminists use to control the sexuality of other women, and take food from the mouths of children.

And by that kind of logic, it might well be possible that women invented the club--to get men to comply with their biological drives toward procreation.

Toto @336 : Is it true that women as a whole get to the top? You left out the ubiquitously privileged white female. I mean when was the last time you saw a black woman heading up these institutions?

But why pick on the Ashkenaz? You have a bias against Sephardim in the every day workplace, or do you believe that they all somehow just magically appear in Hollywood one day making movies about race and class and gender stereotypes?

"http://pornalysis.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/the-swedish-sex-purchase-act…

And by that kind of logic, it might well be possible that women invented the club--to get men to comply with their biological drives toward procreation.

What, men never got sexually aroused until wimmin threatened to club them? Laughable troll is laughable. In a sad sort of way.

Gee, thanks. But any criticism of my sense of humor coming from you is like the heckler in the audience who, once invited on-stage, finally stands up and knocks the table over because he is too drunk.

I mean, who can beat you in laughable analysis?

Meantime, what do you think about one of those modern tools that was entirely invented by women--the Swedish Sex Purchase Act? It's either a shot gun wedding, or a club...maybe neither.

But I am sure that you--a Joe Arpaio supporter--has a good sense of bonobo justice, right? I mean--pink underwear? You rape supporters never stop cracking me up.

Cooking,cooking,coooking and washing,washing,washing, thats all stephanie has being saying all along, is there anything else beside cooking and washing? stephanie when you get in your car ask yourself who made it, when you go to a famous restaurant go to the kitchen , you will find men cooking, when you get on a airplane ask yourself who invented it, when you walk on a sidewalk ask yourself who made it, when you walk in your house ask yourself who made it, when you sit on the toilet to take a shit ask yourself who made it, when you whipe your ass and your pussy ask yourself who made that roll of paper, when you use your computer ask who inveted it, when you log in on your facebook ask who invented it.
When you listen to music think about men, when you talk on the phone think about men, when your car gets fucked up think about men, when you open your refrigeator think about men, when you wash your dishes think about men, what the fuck have women provided for us? just fucking drama and blah blah blah. open your eyes and look arround you,

Soon i will invent a link for ztephanie, ztephanie you can backup your theory base on fucking links, but is that the truth? if someone makes a post about and indian shitting gold nuggets you probably will be the first one to go and find out if is true, you really think what you see on the internet everything is true, "actions speak louder then words",your fucken links don't mean shit,i believe on what i see, i believe on what men have done for the world,i belive in facts not theory, i dont give a fuck if women are better in school then men, that doen't mean shit to me, even to this day everything i use on a daily bases was invented by men.

Yeah, dude. Good luck going without that food. But if you're all gung ho about your computer: http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/lovelace.html

Sure, dude, and the next time you find yourself trying to impress someone with your manners or your education, just remember who taught them to you. Oh wait, you never learned any of that mushy girly stuff, did you? Who (if anyone) potty-trained you?

Oh, and as for who made all our stuff, just remember there's lots of women working in factories these days too. And mines.

...what the fuck have women provided for us? just fucking drama and blah blah blah.

Yeah, societies where women have no rights and no power are SOOO much more advanced than here, right? That's why you're packing your bags and moving to Afghanistan, right?

...i dont give a fuck if women are better in school then men, that doen't mean shit to me...

That's probably because you don't give a shit about education. Which is why you can be safely dismissed as an ignorant hate-filled fuckhead.

HOHOHOHOHOHO another stupid link, "good luck without eating food" is that all steph? Is that all you can say? what other link do you have to support your theory?

Raising bee, i know alot of people with diplomas educated sitting in their fucken house waiting to get a job,a female friend came to my house one day and told me "do you know that i have a diploma in chimical field", and guess what she is? she is a realty agent, so what the fuck is that diploma doing hanging on her wall? education aint shit when you're not sussescfull,and yes!! i dont give a shit about education especially when i didn't need education to get where i am now, "money talks bullshit walks" what good is education when you're not sussesfull, don't call people ignorant cause everyone is, even the smartest people in the world are ignorants in some fields, so stop being so dumb because you're ignorant in many ways too, fuckhead, or are you going to tell me that your the smartes fuckhead in the world? I speak spanish, french and english,how about you? can i call you ignorant because you can't speak spanish or french? so lets see, i'm not educated but yet speak spanish, english and french i think i'm ahead of you, RIGHT?

By the way raising bee remember you're in the internet an intertainment, you can hide the truth about yourself, here you can bee the worst fucken lair in the world you can be anything you want,you can be a fucken fake hero, you're not going to offend me in anyway, at the end, all i read is another dumb fucked who wants to impress people based on your own way of thinking,none of yo mothefucker put food on my table, you can be tha smaterst mf of the world that shit wont do me any good at the end i dont give a fuck if women are smarter then men all i know as a fact that men are sussesfull and powerful in manyways, women can argue their entire life about them being smarter but at the end it all falls in history and the present men are ahead in manyways untill this day period.

here is a short list of the inventors, enjoy , by the way most are women hahahaha http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inventors

And most wiki editors and blog commenters with crap grammar are male. Your point?

This post is about how women are smarter than men. Which is true.

This post is NOT about how men are stupider than women. Which is also true. But I do plan to write a post about that some day. For now I'm still collecting data.

...By the way raising bee remember you're in the internet an intertainment, you can hide the truth about yourself, here you can bee the worst fucken lair in the world you can be anything you want,you can be a fucken fake hero, you're not going to offend me in anyway, at the end, all i read is another dumb fucked who wants to impress people based on your own way of thinking,none of yo mothefucker put food on my table, you can be tha smaterst mf of the world that shit wont do me any good at the end i dont give a fuck...

Wow, you're sure spending a lot of time insisting I'm not worth your time. Get under your skin that much, do I? You're so upset you can't even take the time to spell my pseudonym right.

(And yeah, I can lie here. Got any proof I'm lying?)

What a bunch of spoiled rotten brats!

From what I've read here, most of you brainiacs have never bothered to learn about women's history. Let me fill you in a bit-

First of all, who do you think was taking care of the house cleaning and cooking for all those great inventors? Take a guess- women! And don't come back with "so and so wasn't married!" Yeah, well- mothers, sisters, and aunts took care of all that, if the man was not of the "station" to have a paid (or indentured, or enslaved) woman taking care of those details.

Instead of inventing things, women were washing all the clothes of the household. Not with a washing machine- with a board in a stream or lake. How did they dry the clothes? Whaddya think, the men were all "thank you, let me take these sogging, heavy garments and *help* you? (See, men *help* when they do housework- women just do it, it's their job, they should be grateful for food.) Nope. After using a wash board, they got to wring out the clothes and then hang them to dry.

Now let's see, what else is going on? Oh, right, the children! Men definitely couldn't be involved with that. So while doing the housework, for instance, the women had to watch the children. And I don't mean one or two. It could be a dozen, if the family was lucky enough to not have any children die of the harsh conditions of the past.

Well, you might say, don't have so many kids, then! But that wasn't under women's control. Even though condom-like devices existed, and even though tracking a woman's cycle could go quite a way towards limiting the size of family, women weren't allowed to use them. Until the 1970's, it was legal in this country to rape your wife. Still is, in most of the world. Remember a year or two ago, the American backed leader of Afghanistan pushed through a law that permitted the rape of wives. How could a woman refuse to have children, if her husband insisted on sex without any device, and without regard of her menstrual cycle?

Single women were prohibited from sex, but often shunned by family members. They weren't just not allowed to have sex with a man, a hundred years ago all of a woman's earnings went to a male relative. The woman's entire life was in the hands of either her husband or her brother or some male relative. Much like in women in the Middle East, or South American today.

Women didn't just have to turn over their earnings, making them entirely dependent on male relatives while the men were living. They were not permitted to inherit *anything.* No land. No house. No farm, no livestock. If a woman had 10 children- after being pressured into marriage at 16 and then made pregnant over and over again (and having to breastfeed unless she was of the higher status through marriage or otherwise, and could support a wet nurse), if her husband died it didn't matter what work she'd put into the farm. All of the property- including anything her parents might have given to her husband upon marriage- was gone. It went to a male relative. Perhaps she was lucky enough to have a grown son inherit. If not, she was at the mercy of her brother-in-law, her husband's father, her own brother. It didn't matter what she'd done at that house. It went to a man, leaving women destitute and struggling to support children. In my own family, a relative had exactly that happen to her, the death of her husband, and she had to give up 3 of her children to an orphanage because she was unable to get work and did not immediately remarry.

Can any of you straight white guys even begin to empathize with her, understand perhaps why women have not been able to fulfill their potential? While the men were inventing stuff and building (women were too, you just don't hear about it, like you don't hear about women who've fought in all the wars), women were at home *raising* you boys and taking care of you and seeing that you made it to adulthood without dying. Children are often our reason for being pliable and unwilling/unable to challenge the status quo. It's not from lack of intelligence. It's because we are always thinking of *you,* our *children,* first. And we don't have the time to overthrow this sick system because we are already busy taking care of you, cleaning, cooking. That doesn't mean we aren't intelligent or creative. We are just *busy.*

Were the men participating in the housekeeping and raising of the children? In some families. But as this country has moved from farming, more men had to work in manufacturing or other jobs that took them away from their families. But try to remember- most of the time, the woman took care of the housecleaning and the children. But yet, they also often had paid work, though wages had to go to their husbands. It's a grand middle-class myth that women didn't have to work in the past. Women have done piecework from home, looked after other peoples' children (like after their mothers died in childbirth, after they took the huge risk by choice or not, to endure an entire pregnancy), worked in factories (the recent Triangle Shirtwaste fire anniversary is a pertinent example).

Through the ages have women kept the house, been pregnant numerous times, done all the cooking and looked after the children, while they also worked at factories or on the farms or at home with a needle and thread, by the light of the candle while the family slept. The exhortations here that women are too lazy to have jobs, or that they should go back to their kitchens when the vast majority of women work in their own kitchens both before and after paid jobs, just prove that you guys have no clue what kind of support and sacrifice women regularly make. I don't know any women who haven't worked, and I mean your mothers, too. Believe it or not- and the woman in your life, should you have one- keeping house, watching the children and cooking for the famiy is work.

It is not easy. And it keeps women from lazing over a blank page and dreaming up a poem or a novel. Women hunger now, and always have, for time to pursue our own dreams and make a difference. Through most of history, women have also sacrificed those dreams and accepted that they may have to sit back and just watch their children reach their goals instead.

Have a little respect and empathy for your mothers. Women work so hard and get so little appreciation or thanks for it. There are *so many things* that your mothers wanted to do with their intelligence and their time, but they couldn't find a way to pursue their real dreams and take care of their homes and their children. There are *so many women* who had no choice, who were not allowed to speak, who ended up homeless because there was no man to protect their interests. What a horrible thing to see that a group of men can just erase all of those women, just because they didn't have access to the materials they needed to put their invention out there. Women had few legal rights in this country- gaining the vote in 1920, finally being able to have credit in their own names (my mom made the money and also couldn't get a credit card without my father's name on it). Around the world, female fetuses are being aborted or baby girls killed. That's not even mentioning the horrors of sexual assault on women and little girls as yong as 3 months old. Think of all that potential brain power being lost just because people value boys more and think they are smarter and worthier than daughters! What a horror it is to read a thread like this, with man after man piling up to insist that women can't possibly be as intelligent, inventive, or thoughtful as men. The suggestion that girls may be smarter (but we've been kept down for thousands of years because we are physically weaker most of the time to most men) throws men into a panic. It can't be true! It just can't!

Well, maybe you should think of what this world would be like if girls and women didn't have to spend their whole lives taking care of men, trying to look pretty enough, etc. There is so much being lost by this worldwide misogyny. And for anyone to argue that this must be natural, that this is how it's meant to be- no it isn't! The sexes complement each other. Love and cooperation matter, so much can come from that. But instead, you all are wasting lots of time and energy tripping over each other to remind the world that you are smarter, because if you're not...

Then what?

Oh and PS- You men invent everything? Then use spell check, for chrissakes!!

Well while you're trying to prove some bizarre idea of how men are stupid compared the to 'smart' woman, have a think about what you are trying to prove. Clearly it would take more than a teaching doctor using test results and academic evidence to prove that women are smarter. Firstly I would like you and your fangirls to understand that you are getting into something that is not worth getting into. Last thing to do is to attract chauvinists to argue with. They are idiots. If you are just an attention seeker, you know the word, Troll, oops just said it. I just needed to say this. I'm outta hear now! Got better things to do eh!

"Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood".

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.

"Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege. "(eztephanie and chasing bees)

(Wow, you're sure spending a lot of time insisting I'm not worth your time. Get under your skin that much, do I? You're so upset you can't even take the time to spell my pseudonym right.

(And yeah, I can lie here. Got any proof I'm lying?)

Posted by: Raging Bee | August 20, 2011 11:33 AM

"It's good to be clever, but not to show it."

"Clever people(ztephanie,chasing bees) master life; the wise illuminate it and create fresh difficulties. "

"Clever women are good, but they are not the best."

"You tried, and you failed, so the lesson is, never try."

chasing bees!!!!
"Don't criticize my mess unless you'd like to become part of it."

This shit gets more funny everytime, chasing bees "gets under my skin" on her own thoughts!!!(is funny i'm trying to make fun of her so called "pseudonym" her comeback is i'm not spelling her "pseudonym". right.
Chasing bees, oops is raging bee, are you stupid or just pretending? or are you judging me based on your own actions? I'm not upset, I know the truth of life I know the facts of life, and I accept, I get pissed when I read ingnorant people who try to convence others based on their own fantasys, not reality.

Yes is hard to accept truth sometimes, but reality is base on history, is base on facts not theory, reality is not based on some crackhead teacher making up storys in a blog hahahahahahahaha.
like I said is hard to accept reality, but is easy to see arround and judge what is going on in this world, and to understand why men was picked to be genious, perhaps i could help out and wake you up from your dreams, is it that hard to figure out why men was picked to be the head of everything? and yes women was ment to be loved not to be understood, and yes women were ment to have kids and to cook for their man while he works, thats how it was ment to be, wether you like or not, thats why men work hard, thats why you see construction workers as men, thats why you see lots of men as bosses, women are trying to brake that cicle.
Ask yourself, how this world will be with out men, I can't even imagine, everything was ment for a purpose, thats why there is a difference between men and women, men have dicks women have pussys, men can't have babys, women can, thats reality, even if women where smarter but they have a big disavantage, phisically they're not strong enough to overpower a men's phisical strength, now combine both and the result is (men) thas reality. we can have millions of smart women but their priority or their instinct is to raise kids to be at home cooking because they cannot be sussescfull in hard phisical work.

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE,WHEN YOU SEE A HOMOSEXUAL HE IS A MAN REGARDLES HE WAS MENT TO BE A MAN, WAS BORN WITH A DICK THAT HOMO DECIDED TO BE GAY, PRETENDING TO BE A WOMAN, SAME AS LESBIANS, THEY WERE MENT TO BE WOMAN NOT A MAN,THATS REALITY, PEOPLE WANTS TO CHANGE REALITY BASED ON THEIR FANTASYS, AND NOW DAYS GAY PEOPLE WANTS TO CONVENCE THE WORLD THAT BEING GAY WAS MENT TO BE LIKE THAT, BUT THE TRUTH IS THERE IS ONLY MEN AND WOMEN PERIOD.
SAME SHIT WITH WOMEN WANTING TO BE SMARTER THEN MEN, WHEN I SEE ABOUT HISTORY OR EVEN TODAY! MEN OVERPOWERS WOMEN IN MANY WAYS, I SEE IT, I SMELL IT, I HEAR IT, I FEEL IT,

wiseman--no more crack for you, o.k.? And while you're at it, stay off the cough medicine, the Listerine, and your mothers perfume.

You seem to be suffering a "Raging Bee effect"--which is best described as "relapsed lunacy," or "semi-compre3hensible, rageful gibberish" attacks.

The symptoms are all there.

And really, this shit is hilarious :"First of all, who do you think was taking care of the house cleaning and cooking for all those great inventors? Take a guess- women! And don't come back with "so and so wasn't married!" Yeah, well- mothers, sisters, and aunts took care of all that, if the man was not of the "station" to have a paid (or indentured, or enslaved) woman taking care of those details."

Yeah--all those women, takin' care of the menz--the ones that weren't dying of gangrene on some battlefield, going blind from syphillis, shitting themselves with scurvy, or begging alms in front of a church; or working 14 hour days behind the ass of an ox, or spending weeks at a time pulling stumps.

Thank da gawd! Fo dem wimins Lawd!!

pornolysis hahahahaha sorry loser i don't drink i don't smoke,I"m drug free, bitch.
I can see you're giving me a prescriction of your own medicine, so tell me, when did you started using your mothers perfume, were you coughing while you were writing? How much coughing medicine did you took while writing back to me?
it seems to me that you're a hand reader, you can feel my sympthoms through my writing, wow amazing , we have a new inventer here hahahahhahahaha. someone saw me suffering trhough their monitor!!!,
"rageful gibberish attacks"? what a dumb fuck, is that how you discribe it? are you judging me based on your own actions too?
What ever i write! i write it with one intenttion! intention that only my self knows, if you describe my writing as rageful gibberish attacks, thats your definition, not mine, what you read is what you see, the definition you give it is based on the capacity of your little brain, get me?.
are you a female? it seems to me that you don't get the part, or you havent read everything i wrote about women,
yes while men works women are at home cooking taking care of their kids, thats how it has been ever since
i have being living in this world, thats an instict that women were born with ,some women are trying to change that cicle, but is going to be worthless trying, women were born with that instict, since day one, women were ment to be at home cooking washing clothes, men were ment to work hard, and to protect the family , thats an instict we were born with , and like i said it wont really matters wether women are smarter then men , at the end instinct takes over.
What don't make sense to me, is why some people wants to flip things over, everything has a purpose in life, most men are capable of lifting heavy stough, something that most women can't do, most women are capable to speak on the phone while writing on their keyboard, most men were born with the instinct to protect their family from strangers, they will face anybody with rage to protect their love ones, thats a men reaction, in the other hand most women will try to hide to aboid confrontetion fear takes over, thats an instict , we can't change that, so if anybody wants to convence me that women are smarter then men i have to see it to believe it as far as i know as long as i have being living i have seen more smarter men then women more sussescful men then women thas just a fact.

Wow, TWO incoherent wankers insulting each other over...nothing. I'll just leave you two to go at it and get back here...whenever...

wizeman: Raging Bee is a perfect match for you--all that crack-head wisdom--you two make a great pair!

Actually I am just enjoying the battle of the Titans here--wondering which one of you is more drunk/high/ off their meds.

You guys are like pees in a poo, a perfect set of bookends--except maybe your arguments are a little better in structure, and less full of relapsed rage.

HIm on the other hand has clearly relapsed and is back on the crack--his own.

Carry on!

pornolysis it looks like you know the feeling of being on crack,i wouldn't be able to tell you the reaction of it, because i never used it, i can see you are very familiar with this drug,
And chasing bees can't say shit anymore, shehe gave up so easy, and what happend to eztephanie is she still looking for more links hahahahaha, fuck!!! why this bitches are so stubber? they try to convence people that women are smarter, but with out proof, all they can say is " women were cooking and washing cloth for the genious men" why are this bitches so fucken retarded they can't see whats arround them? is fucken 2011 and i still see the same shit women still doing the same shit they were doing back in the days, wake up motherfuckers and get a life hahahahahahaha i enjoy insulting this ignorant bitches it feels so great

by the way where is gren binladen? this fucker is probably somewhere outhere looking for a blond wig to put on, this bitch reminds me of a friend who had a blog and he used to have imaginary friends, using differents nicknames and he loved talking back to himself. stephanie, pornolysi, chasing bees, greg laden hohohohoho

Where am I? Just sitting back watching you prove Greg's point for him. Have fun.

Just come across this thread. Hilarious. 2 years old and it just gets nuttier. Some fine examples of trolliteracy and ignoramics. Please never close it down, Greg.

I especially enjoyed the weird comment by someone at one point that implicitly equated physical strength with intelligence.

The ALL CAPS misspelled rant that shows a total misunderstanding of sexuality and gender identity was very late in coming though. Kid, I am disappoint.

wizeman: "why this bitches are so stubber" What is stubber, wizeman? It isn't in my dictionary. Is it in yours?

Does your computer have spell checker on it, or are you too young to know what spellchecker is? Because you write like a hillbilly whose attention span is barely long enough to drag yourself away from your mothers tit long enough to write.

Oh--and please do come back here--often! Raging Bee needs the conversation with someone who is at its level ( and BTW Raging Bee is male, approximately 50, is a reformed drug addict, and the police--who set him straight after he mended his ways many years ago--are his bestest friends)

pornolysis, what a weak comeback, now your're checking my spelling? thats shows me how retarded you are, using spell checking? what a dumb fuck hahahahaha typical ignorant, sure i can use my spelling check but i don't feel that retarded, you should be a book writer, anyways i'm not, hahahaha, from now on you gonna have to use your spelling checker or you gonna have to go over and over reading your shit to make sure your keybord didn't fuck up, oops i forgot you have google spell checker hahaha.
pornolysis you know how i figure you? if you're a woman, i figure you, blonde, with a perfect writing, but dumb as fuck, hahaha if you're a guy i figure as the typical guy installing a tire backwards on his car, or putting motor oil on a transmission, or the tipical dumb fuck who downloads google spell checker to make himself look like a professional writer, you proved my point on what i told chasing bees, here in the internet you can pretend to be anything you want,I'm not trying to pretend that i'm smarter then anybody else, or to prove that i'm the best writer, i just want to prove my point, that there is no such thing as females being smarter then men.
females and grega binladen, are looking at life trough the wrong end of a telescope, fantasy is a necessary ingridient in life, it wakes up your barin cells.

another thing pornolysis i'm surpriced you havent corrected me about misspelling your nick name.

I couldn't have said it better than you did, wizeman:
"I'm not trying to pretend that i'm smarter then anybody else, or to prove that i'm the best writer, i just want to prove my point"

You just proved it--again! Now go back, and take your meds, Raging Bee--this sockpuppetry is just superficial, and so 2004.

This statement is from my own personal experience at both the university level, and in the workplace. It does not apply to all women, or even all men, as it is a general observation of what I have witnessed (but true, to the best of my ability). More women graduate because they have it much easier than the men. Men are expected to support themselves while away at school, whereas the majority of women are still "daddy's little princess" and are coddled financially and otherwise. Although women by and large may make better students, eager to jump through hoops and parrot whatever is found in their textbooks, most will never develop even a modicum of common sense or be able to think their way out of a wet paper bag (even with a Ph.D)! Additionally, if and when these women actually find their way into the workplace, they usually just go through the motions and try to avoid anything men would consider as actual labor. The women I worked around put in as few hours as possible while constantly doing their shopping on-line and sending e-mails to co-workers which had little or nothing to do with the task at hand. In other words, males may not "buckle down" when it comes to what some of them may view as useless studying, but the roles reverse after school - when a tangible reward (money) is placed in front of them. By that time, women are burned-out, but have a fancy-looking piece of paper which entitles them to believe that they are no less than geniuses - leading them to look down upon others who may not have enjoyed the advantages which they had. In short, their higher education is often nothing more than an expensive waste. That does not go for nurses or the other ladies who truly care about putting in an honest day's work, but you will often find that the most caring and best female employees are those without advanced degrees. Universities cannot teach good work ethics, give people a pleasant personality or endow them with a fully-functional conscience. If an employer expects quality work, they will do well to hire a man - the highly-educated women leaving today's diploma mills think that the effort expended to obtain their degree was the last they'll ever have to make.

WOMEN RULE THE WORLD,INCLUDING THE DOOR MATS THEY CALL MEN. THANK YOU GREG FOR YOUR ENLIGHTENING ARTICLE! :) KICK SOME MALE ASS, ALL YOU SUPERWOMEN!!!!!!!! ;D

I think we are all at same level. Female had no time to envelope, because their life were decided by men till ONLY recently. If you call me a feminist, because I brought up this argument, then well be it. Because it like ignoring the slavery of black people and say they always had a free will (in fact in several countries, black and women got right to elect almost at the same time, says already everything).
If you realism how fast we catching up, you will know that we always had the potential, but never the chance to use it.

Fact is, men have more selfconfidence. They are more competitive. That's what makes them successful in business. But its not in their nature. Their nature is "to win over the competition". If you consider the fact, that they did it with women for million of years, don't be surprised that you lack selfconfidence. If you get told over thousand of years, you are dumb then you will most likely end dumb(read "Andorra"). That's called psychological repression. Worked on Jews during the WWII, (if you wonder, why noone of them tried to fight back) and on black people, during the slavery as well.

Men may lead NOW, when it comes to inventions (not SAT tho anymore, sorry to disappoint you), but with the speed we catching up, I doubt you will hold this position forever.

Women are more team orientated. Statistic showed that, a man alone shows an awesome performance. However if men work together, their performance slows down. They rely on eachother, thinking the other will do the job. Women on the other hand show low performance alone. In team they show way stronger performance, because they want to help eachother. In average each of them, got slightly better results than the single-man-performance. Now you can interpret the results this way: Women has generally less self confidence. They don't know what they are capable off. They underestimate their own power and will (Quote of UK institute: "women, across the world, tend to underplay their intelligence, while men overstate it".)
The main cause is the men. I myself grew up in an environment, where I got told, men are smarter than women (Quote of UK institute: "Surprisingly, [both] men and women perceive men being smarter across generations", "If there are children, [both] men and women think their sons are brighter than their daughters."). However the facts talk for themselves. They are not, never been and never will.
Im not stating men as the bad one, but the nature says all: The physical strongest one (not mental) were leading the group. Since men had a stronger build, they took the part of the potential leaders. Any critic to it wont affect them.

Wee have not enough selfconfidence yet, but we are at it. The difference between the men and women is at the moment: Women move forward. We manage to work and to take care of family successful. This is unpreventable. However the men changed only slightly on this part. We learned and adjusted to fast for them. In fact how much of us do same things as men nowadays, compared to men doing the "females"-? Not even worth to mention. That's why they still hit with the fist, saying the women should do only "female" things, because the nature made them so. Unfortunately I doubt it was the nature. Cause I never saw nature talking to me. Most likely it was a man, who yelled and used the science to their own advantage. Maybe they didn't learn anything of EVOLUTION yet either. The fish didn't grow legs out of nowhere. Its most likely because he "wanted" to run over earth and needed it for survival.

Dear men, if you really want to count as smart again, I suggest you to move forward and rethink your position within the society. I don't need your "hunting abilities" anymore. I can earn so much money as you now either. Its time for you to make the compromise, not always us.

As for Male brain being bigger than female: As I know we both have totally different brain. They look different, they think different, so you basically comparing a sausage with a mixer. However if you claim to rely on this stats, WHALES brain is bigger than yours, but it doesn't make him smarter :)

PS: Sorry for my english, not my mothertongue.

Olga go back and keep washing dishes, you said women move forward? what the fuck is that? am i living in a different world, i must be in in another planet because i dont see women moving forward, is that your imagination? or you just speaking on your on behalf? here in my planet i see the same shit i'ved being seeing eversence i had knolege of whats arround me, i still see women in the same positions, did you had your eyes closed while you where writing? you must be dreaming because in my real world women are developing the same way.
there is one thing women dont understand, from day one, men were ment to be men and women were to be women and each one with its on purpose, if you want to chance what has being stablish is another thing but women is caractirized to be like fragil glass , and its purpose in my planet is to comply with its duty at home , like taking care of their kids, washing dishes, ect, men were ment to work hard to bring food to the table, so how can your dumb ass compare a men with a women, you said that women can perform the same way a men performs? you're are wrong my dear, you probably have never carried two five gallons buckets full of concrete one in each hand, if you did you wouldn't be making comparations, but you can try lifting them and tell me how far you can get with them, when you have a chance to wake up from your dream and scape from your world , i invite you to come to my planet its called, earth, here you will find reality, you will see lots of men performing unlike women cant perform.
Yes, here you will have your eyes opened, you will experience reality OF LIFE, you will find men and a lot of them working hard the same way like back in the days.
MAYBE IN YOUR FANTASY WORLD you control the world maybe men are delivering babys, maybe men are breast feeding,or perhaps bleeding from their vaginas, hohohoho, maybe women are sweating like dogs, working really hard to bring food to the table, don't you get it!!! women and men are not equal, in your fantasy world you might be smarter them me, but in my world i could be smarter then you, but remember i live in planet earth where men have been sussesful in every category when it comes of being smarter, even phisically, men are one step ahead, wake up and smell the coffee!!, it sure smells good,
by the way when you wake up from your dreams, make sure you fall ontop of inflated matress full of feathers, because for sure you're way up in the sky dreaming.

nature dont talk to you but instinct does, duhhhhh, is like a man trying to be a woman or a woman trying to be a man, that has been for centurys and is not going to change, women have there instinct of beeing a mother, men has the instinct to protect the family, i mentioned it before, the instinct of a mother in a robbery is to hide and protect her child, the instinct of a men is to grab a weapon and protect the family, i could use a lot of examples, but is not worthit, women are hard headed they think their smart,they think their one step ahead but they always stay behind, and why? thats their instinct, trying to make a woman understand something is like hitting a brickwall, they think they know everything but they don't know shit,

Olga there is a lot of things you dont understand about men, sure we can't breast feed a baby , sure we can't bleed from the vagina because we dont have one, i don't know where did you get the idea of saying that men don't work in teams, i could tell you this i'ved seen females working in teams and believe me!!! there is always drama.
Whats so hard of baby sitting? whats so hard about washing dishes? whats so hard about giving a bottle to a baby? whats so hard about changing dipers ? men can do all the above i'ved done it, but the instinct of a mother is not the same as the fathers,
another thing i dont get, is that you also mentione that women are moving forward, hmmmm where is that? I'ved been 30 years in the United States and i still see the same Environment among us, lots of nurses, lots of teachers, lots of secretarys,waytresses,cashiers,social workers,but i hardly ever seen a female painter, electrician,engineer,contractor,freeway construction, rail road constructions,bridge constructions,truck drivers, i'ved seen lots of female desingners, i could mention all men careers in which women are not capable of being susccesful, but i'ved seen lots of men, as teachers cashiers,social workers,so how can you compare?

Another adventage men has is being smart and strong, women might be smart but they're weak, if you convine both of them in certain ocassions is really helpfull and depending in a situation, what good would it do to be smart in a situation where you are capable of using your brain but force is needed, thats why man will always be ahead of women there is a big adventage, too bad they don't see it that way, thats why women can't understand, and trust me i live among two women and there has being ocations that i needed help with something, and they can't even think or help, is frustrated so for me is funny when a women tells me that women are smarter then men, and i ask them based on what, and the answer that i get is, "we are smarter to hide things from men" , "we are good liars" "we can do two things at the same time" " we can have babys" " we are slick" isn't that stupid? you call that smart? now if i asked a female doctor is a different story but when they speak plural thats when they mess up.

Great story and easily provable.

Be honest, now: who's smarter, your Mom or your Dad?

Case closed : )

My mom. What about you?

How about my son and my daughter. Obviously, my daughter. At least at the moment.

Women aren't smarter than men. Men aren't smarter than women. There are plenty of sexist pigs who will tell you the latter is true, but as we can see from this conversation there are also plenty of sexist pigs who will tell you the former is true. Sorry Greg, but you're not better than the sexists of yesteryear. You're just more self-righteous about your sexism because you think women will like you if you deprecate men. How pathetic. You're just as much of a self-serving scumbag as those who are sexist against women.

I should also point out that you have a very simplistic understanding of intelligence. I'm certain women, on average, are more intelligent in certain ways than men, on average, and vice-versa. However, the claim that women are smarter than men because they have higher levels of achievement in UK universities is silly. The most famous genius, Einstein, had problems in school. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg, some pretty brilliant people, all dropped out of college. But they were idiots, right? Clearly, you don't have a firm grasp of intelligence if you think achievement in university determines whether you're smart or not. Perhaps you're not so smart yourself. At least that would fit with your hypothesis.

Also, religiosity is higher in women than men. If you were sexist against women rather than against men, I would not be surprised to see you claim that this means men are more intelligent. Fools like you try have preconceived prejudices that you try to make the evidence fit. Whether that prejudice is against women or men makes no difference.

How cute. On the Asperger's spectrum, sense of humor is the first thing to go. Shortly thereafter, sense of proportion.

Rachel, thank you for your comments.

Greg, thank you for your trite dismissal of my criticisms.

Rachel, it was not a trite dismissal. It was my way of being more polite than you deserved. This blog post was originally written very tongue in cheek. I mean, seriously, go read it again. I'm a fucking scientist who studies human behavior and I wrote a one-off blog post on how women are smarter than me because I noticed this on test scores. I knew, and this should be obvious to my regular blog readers, that this would incite one after another of the kinds of comments we see on this thread from guys who are offended by the whole idea and who spurt out inarticulate babbling arguments about how it just can't be true (did you read any of the comments).

What you said in your comments is mainly correct (but not entirely ... for instance your mention of religiosity in women v. men is uncritical and not entirely accurate).

You are staring satire squarely in the face and sternly telling it to get serious.

And now you are telling me that I need to take that seriously.

You are in fact the first person on this comment thread that I've not dismissed and that is because I'm making certain educated guesses about you that tell me you are a person I'd rather have as a "friend" (internetually) than, say, well, most of the random hit and run commenters among the dozens represented above.

Good for you for fighting the fight.

If you want something that is not a satire, try this: http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2009/07/the_natural_basis_for_inequal…

Again, thanks for your comments.

-g

So this was just a troll meant to stir up the MRA types?

Rachel, sorry I didn't get to your comment earlier. For the last several hours I was hanging out with bunch of amazing brilliant women. And some guys, but they were kind of stupid! (You know who you are....) :)

I would say MRA types are a subset of the men who take exception to the idea that they are not masters of the universe. But basically, yeah.

54
I wonder about neuronal pruning in the first year, environmental shaping, and autism. In my practice (speech-language pathologist), I see more and more upper middle class kids with a dx of autism. They may have been considered merely 'eccentric' in the past. They may be very bright on some level, know tons of information, but have trouble integrating it and seeing the big picture. They may be emotioanally infantile and have trouble getting through the day at school (where, admittedly, conformity is the name of the game). They may have difficulty managing sensory input, and may be overwhelmed by it. These children are often from upper m;iddle class families who have provided the best in intellectual input, nutrition, etc., for their child. {and of course, all their vaccinations:|) Could it be that the neuronal pruning didn't happen as much as 'necessary'? I remember something about these children having larger brains or larger head circumference. Do these things go together possible? Ideas?

I do think women are smarter about lifes decisions.and alot of other things.and we tend to remember alot more. Men have less blood flow to their big head which has the brain.They are thinking with thier little head most of the time. :D

Women need help to do so well in university. Look at all the affermative action laws and all those female only scholoarships. There is a difference between being intelligent, and having the ablility to memorise what is being shoved down your throat.

bob, would you care to back that up with some data? Do you have a wife or girlfriend? Maybe she can help you with that.

Question! Why does it matter whether men are smart than women or women are smarter than men? Men and women can do almost the same exact things! And score about the same on tests and both are in high ranking jobs etc. Greg all you have done here is just try to annoy people on something that really doesn't mean anything accept to maybe ELEMENTARY SCHOOL KIDS! is is really a childish topic to write about. There tons of women I know that are smarter than me is something like math but I'm smarter than them in something like history, sports, nonfurry animals etc. Really we are all the same in a way. We are all human!

Anonymous, I agree!

Sorry to comment again but Greg aren't you a male? Why are you going against your own gender? Do you wish you were a woman or something? It doesn't make alot of sence to me.

Thank you for agreeing I don't mean to insult you with my second comment is just curious as to why you dislike your own gender so much, and the wishing you were a woman was the 1st thing that came to mind.

My gender is unrelated to any gender related truths, assertions, observations, facts, etc.

However, if you would like to see examples of men arguing that men are better than women where clearly they are doing so only because they are men, read through the comments above!

If men weren't around you wouldn't have houses to live in food to eat fresh water and clean countryside. Us men do all the dirty work whilst most women are too scared of breaking a nail or getting their clothes dirty.

YEAH! Women have NEVER done physical labor in the history of anything!
They're too fragile and weak and useless and stupid.

There's a reason why Rosie the riveter was a cartoon, they couldn't find a real woman who could do real work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_the_riveter#Westinghouse_poster

/Sarcasm

Michael, in typical tropical forager societies (and this represents all of humanity for most of our existence on the planet) the women built the houses.

In most societies around the world women do far more of the physical labor than the men.

Hmm I have read alot of the older comments and alot of them do say alot of the same thing but all make valid points, as do you. If you go up to about the 2009 comments you will see a guy named jack and he makes a very good point. He says that through high school and beyond slot of males are pressured into certain jobs that take alot if hard labor but don't pay very high and alot of males are pressured into doing things they wouldn't normally do that would take away from school time like skipping class. Females on the other hand usually aren't pressured to do things that are hard labor but low paying jobs. If they are pressured at all it's usually to study and do really well in class. You see, peer pressure plays a big role in how well a male or female will do in school and onto jobs. Another thing that has affected alot of males as early as the mid 90's is video games. How often do you see females play video games? The amount that does play is growing but still hardly any if them. For males mostly now adays play a decent amount of games and that takes away from studying and from going out to get jobs.

Hmm I have read alot of the older comments and alot of them do say alot of the same thing but all make valid points, as do you. If you go up to about the 2009 comments you will see a guy named jack and he makes a very good point. He says that through high school and beyond slot of males are pressured into certain jobs that take alot if hard labor but don't pay very high and alot of males are pressured into doing things they wouldn't normally do that would take away from school time like skipping class. Females on the other hand usually aren't pressured to do things that are hard labor but low paying jobs. If they are pressured at all it's usually to study and do really well in class. You see, peer pressure plays a big role in how well a male or female will do in school and onto jobs. Another thing that has affected alot of males as early as the mid 90's is video games. How often do you see females play video games? The amount that does play is growing but still hardly any if them. For males mostly now adays play a decent amount of games and that takes away from studying and from going out to get jobs.

I agree masculinity I think it's to make women feel better and to try not to think that they may be being discriminated again in jobs ( which really isn't true anymore)

WOW some of you guys are jerks i mean come on girls can do every thing a guys can or do better at it. like me and my older brother kick box and guess what i kick his ass every time i mean i get a bloody nose of broken ribs but i still win,

Greg, you being sexist makes your entire argument invalid. Your article is also stupid. I look forward to your a) childish response or b) ignorance.

You know why that is? Because the education system has changed in to the learning ways that comfort the female learning progress more, while it lessens male progress.
It is becoming a well known fact that education plays more in to how women think than how men think, so when women leave college with better qualifications, it's not suprising. This isn't because women are "smarter" but because men don't have the extra edge; education teaching them by their mind sets.
Yes, there are far more stupid men that there are stupid women, but there are far more smart men than there are smart women. Men hold thetrophy for being the dumbest and the smartest when it comes to comparing the two genders.
You also have to take in to consideration what qualifications these women are leaving college with. They are likely to be leaving with education that is art, music, drama, child care, foreign language etc. Where as males are more likely to be better in maths, science, engineering, and science. Take a little time to think what ones are more important...Exactly.
Take in to consideration that the males in history tended to do better in education than males today in education. Now only to the simple minded/feminist minded people would think "Males are just stupid, hahaha", it isn't the case. Males haven't changed, the education system has. Males progress a hell of a lot better when it involves competitivness, and the education system has taken out nearly all competitiveness out of the education system, so once again, no wonder males aren't doing as good in college if females have the education system suited for their mind sets.
Males from a young age grow up in an education system that has changed to fit women minds, so when the male child is brought up in such an education system, not only is he less likely to achieve better, he is also less likely to want to achieve better, which explains why so many males don't enroll to colleges, because they have already been brought up in an education system that they are sick of, and don't want to go back to such way.
Do you ever think why males are always playing video games and tend to be really good at them? That's including games that involve strategy? It's because the gaming enviroment is a competitive one, one that makes males strive to be better, and so they can go from being bad at gaming, to being very good. Why is that, I ask again? Because of the competitive enviroment that gaming brings, including the online gaming competitiveness. And like I said, this involves strategy games. Males tend to be very good at such games, and why? Because being the best at it, being competitive about it, makes them want to do it, makes it a task (level/mission in gaming sense) to overcome. Where as today's education system doesn't have any of that.
The people with the highest IQs in the world are mainly men, with four men being the highest, and a woman coming in fourth.
Let's not forget that the majority, by far, of inventions and studies that furthers our species and is more important for our species, come from males. Even today, males are responsible for the progression of technology and science, far more than women.

Like I said. There are more dumb males than there are dumb females, but there are more smart males than there are smart females.

Greg, you are absolutely correct. Women in your classroom ARE smarter than the men...in your classroom.

Men earn more advanced degrees than women, men get higher grades in their junior and senior years of college, and men have a higher average IQ than women (by 3.7 points).

This is also interesting--taller people have a higher average IQ (about 0.4 points per inch). Men are, on average, 5 inches taller than women--which would theoretically translate to an additional 2 IQ points based off of height ALONE.

Oh yeah, more women drop out of college than men.

cant tell if troll or stupid

men select women because they are sexy (more sexyness means better at making babies- wide hips, neonatalish face, big tits)

women select men because they can make cash (cash making ability is directly proportional to cunning, intelligence, aggresiveness, athleticsm in varying amount depending on environment)

this has been happening for thousands of years natural selection/evolution makes men smart, strong, fast etc etc and women have big tits and arse. men tend to prefer women who are dumber than them so women have evolved to be dumber than them -- natural selection.

on top of that there is a crap load of evidence eg. majority of inventions/science is done by men. you keep bringing up fire and stone tools as women inventions and dont provide any solid evidence. even if women did invent fire it was most likely an accidental discovery and the women involved had no idea wtf just happened. it was really a matter of luck rather than creativity. the understanding of combustion, atoms etc etc and the theories and testing of the theories was done by men. inventing of stone tools and fire does not really suggest high intelligence. abstract though, things that require shitload of brainpower like fluid dynamics, microprocessors, semiconductor devices etc etc is all done by men.

Personally, I don't think that either gender is smarter than the other. I believe there are many different factors to decide one's intelligence and many scienteists cannot even agree what factors to consider. There are many smart men and many smart women as well as many (too many) men and women who are not so intelligent. I think that there are more men on extreme ends of the bell curve and more women towards the middle, balancing out over all. Not saying you are wrong or right, just innocently giving my opinion. I'm also disgusted by a lot of these hate filled comments that I am seeing. So many sexist people here , and it is going both ways.....

@ Rachel- Women are more innovative??? Give me a break, who invented the wheel, the car, TV, Radio, Internet, sports, those are all man, women?? panties, Proactive, Bikinis, & Dildos!!!!

This is why feminism pisses people off, Greg. FYI, I am a male valedictorian of my high school class. According to your standards that should be foolproof evidence that men are smarter than women right?

-_-

Feminism pisses you off because you have one data point and I have thousands?

I graduated at the TOP of my college, number one, a class of 10,000. The second ranked person in my class was a woman. The two of us went up on stage to be congratulated by the Regents in a big huge ceremony at graduation. So I should conclude that men are smarter than women.

But thousands of test scores later .... that's not how it turned out.

I'm sorry, but after the first paragraph, I knew this couldn't be taken seriously.

Firstly you base overall intelligence on fifteen year olds, a moment where males are most at their energetic levels due to puberty, and so on. Science is used while ignoring science? Nice....

Yes, in the current system of the education system, women are doing better. A simpleton would conclude from there "well, women must be better", someone with half a brain would ask "why?"
There are so many books and information out there that shows why women are doing better than men in education, and it has nothing to do with women being "better", it has to do with how the system works in favor of women more than men.
I won't go in to detail about the primary reasons, as I would be here all day and it would be easdier for you to look it up on Google, however some other reasons are this:
-Lack of male teachers - Boys do better with male teachers.
-Female teachers, on average, grade boys lower than their respectful score.
- Lack of mobility that demotivates boys from further education.
- More men drop out.
- More women go to education.

When you consider all the reasons "why" this is, you realize that it's not that "women are better", it's that the system works better for them, and that society has no plans on helping men in this subject, so it will continue.

Back when men were seen as smartest due to education and more men going, it was seen as sexism and because of all the background reasons for it...Now that the genders are reversed we scratch that way all together?

"There are all kinds of post hoc explanations given for this like “Girls get better grades because professors are men, nod nod wink wink” and so on. What a load of crap. Women are smarter than men on average, among the smartest people there is no emperical evidence that women are underrepresented, and among the dumbest people in the world …. well, those are mostly guys."

So, hold on. When there is reason to suggest men are smarter, it's a load of crap, which just a look at history shows that, yet you say most of the dumb people are guys, based on...Nothing.
So hold on, something that can actually be shown is "bullcrap", yet something you show no evidence for is "true"? I can't see this as anything more than a mangina trying to suck up to the female gender. I rarely use the word mangina, however it really does seem accurate here.

Your "proof" is not "proof" to see which is smarter, and I explained why that was due to the education system and all the other aspects.

This was not "proof", this was not a "study". You have no actual reason to suggest what you are claiming.
You have made a claim by simply looking at the conclusion.

What you have done is the equivalent of only looking at the conclusion of the race, so the person you seen that one must of obviously been better, yet by viewing the actual race you could see that the winner started half way through the race before anyone else.

For someone that was viewed as top of their class (I read on of your other comments), I am surprised that someone such as that was incapable of understanding this basic thing a twenty year old could.

1) Till women are behind in a field, it is due discrimination and oppression .
2) When (after lot of cajoling , special extra marks, giving more attention to them programs , pressure on everybody to push women more and more forward) women score more in a field, then its because they are inherently superior.
=> What a crappy logic

I might as well create nonsense junk-science too. Men can pee on walls, upright. They see parabolas from their earliest childhood and as they change their aim, the parabola transforms in the expected ways. This leads them to an intuitive understanding of gravity, functions, 3-D spatial relationships, leading the way to space exploration and space construction. But don't worry, we'll always construct pressurized rooms for the women so they don't hurt themselves.

Women pee in a kind of skunk-spray that teaches them nothing.

Thank you for that contribution.

LOL @ how the woman is the arrow - universal symbol of man - with a head arms and legs.
double LOL @ how the 'man' appears to be a chalice, the universal symbol of woman... turned to the side crying like a bitch.
But what do I know? I'm just a stupid man with a mesely 187 IQ.

Girls outperform boys in education all around the world so it's safe to assume this is not linked to system, religion, race etc.

Anyways I don't know who is smarter by default, perhaps this isn't even linked to general intelligence but more to attitude and other traits, but from my experience I've noticed that boys ( and later men) are just lazy and overconfident while girls ( and later women) are more ambitious, self-disciplined and goal-oriented.
Even in relationships and marriages more often than not it's the woman who is planning everything and making all decisions, men most of the time are pretty much clueless of what is going on around them. I don't want to sound sexist, but these indeed are my objective observations, I see this practically everywhere around me.

I love how the author feels the need to debate people's comments on this over four years after it was written. If you're reading this, which it seems is entirely possible, why is this still relevant to you?

Greg, I understand from your comments that you intended this to be satirical. I just want to emphasise that the disengagement of boys from education is a very serious problem and one that has been largely ignored by society for decades (although thankfully this is changing). The reason some people (not just men) get irate about comments like yours is that many people who say things like this really mean them. Rather than making pointless blog posts why don't you join us in trying to fix a very serious problem.

Robert, the post is part satire.

Most of the irate reaction to this post is from guys who prefer to coast on the coat tails of male privilege and prefer to not question the out of date but still common assumption that males are better than females at anything they decide to claim to be better at.

There is an issue with boys drifting from education, in some areas, but the same is true for girls as well. For example, STEM education.

I spend almost all my time in science communication or education. I am sorry if that does not meet you expectations.

Thanks for your response Greg. My research has led me to believe that the problems facing boys in education are quite different from those experienced by girls (eg, wishing to enter STEM).

I don't agree at all with your generalisations about men. Whenever anyone mentions male privilege I suspect they are looking up at the top of society. Look down, you will find men there too. As usual reality is more complex than can be encapsulated in neat concepts like 'male privilege'. Men and women both experience gender related problems in society. The problem is that while women's issues are widely recognised and discussed, men's are often marginalised and dismissed. It has been this way for decades and perhaps for much longer. FWIW the worst offenders in dismissing men's issues are (perhaps surprisingly) men.

Anyway I suspect we will have to agree to disagree on a few points such as the seriousness of the education problems facing boys, and whether or not men (as a group) have issues worth addressing.

I was not looking at the top of society at all. In fact, I'm surprised you would think that is what I meant.

I suspect we disagree on more than a few points. I view the MRM with active disdain.

"The reasons are obvious and straight forward."

Such is the scientific rigor of the social "sciences."

Rick: That was actually endocrinology!

Ask your wife or girlfriend, for instance, she'll tell you. As suggested.

wtf?

Not Really.

The idea that girls are smarter than boys by default, and that boys are just pigs for attention and recognition, is nothing but bullshit and pseudoscience. And any girl who actually believes that jabber jabber, is likely a pig herself.

wow.. this is one of the most stupid article i've ever read. i wonder if we'd ever had gotten past the stone age had men not invented and discovered what they did. now that every other thing has been brought up to the surface where females can scratch, they are equal. wait they are superior... wow ... you don't judge that by grades i suppose.

Sabal, you'd be one miserable dumb-ass if you had to live without the things that women have invented over the ages.

Well, you'd still be a dumb-ass anyway, probably. Proving that women are superior if you're the male to compare to!

The amount of effort put into this is amazing
"Ah fuck, if I find a good reason to say women are superior, maybe I'll get laid!"
Ah, you pussy.
Get a fucking brain, become James Bond and kick men's asses and spank women's asses.