My dearest, most darling blog bff, Sheril,
I hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me for not replying to you yesterday. You wrote me a lovely note asking for my opinion on an email that you received from a reader asking about the centuries old controversy, and recent study, of whether boys are smarter than girls. I promised you a timely response and I can only hope you will accept my sincerest of apologies. I promise that, when next we find ourselves together, I shall provide the brownies, Pinot Noir, and Growing Pains.
However, I hope that when I explain, you will understand why I have been delayed. Poor Dr. Isis has had a small heap of manuscripts on her desk to review for publication in her favorite journal. Some of them were very good and advance our field substantially. I am giddy to see them in print. Some of them, though, were not so good and it seems the most common issue with them was the lack of proper experimental controls.
This led me to think about your reader's letter. You see, my initial reaction was to Photoshop something hilarious, make some flippant comment about someone stroking something, say a bad word, and then call it a day. I mean, this is how I roll. But, then I got to worrying that I might offend some poor, defenseless reader who stumbled accidentally on my blog as a result of Googling "hot cougar professor bones males student" [sic] and I realized that, if I did so, I might actually hurt the feminist cause. This made me feel sad and emotional. Or, I might just be sad and emotional because of the timing of my cycle.
So, I decided that, rather than appealing to the common decency of people and point out the obvious fuckwittitude of suggesting that there is an intellectual disparity between genders, I would evaluate the scientific merit of suck a claim. Here's what I think:
I think one of the biggest confounders of any of these studies is the fact that forwardness and debate -- characters typically associated with intelligence -- are devalued in women. The most common positively-reinforced traits associated with womanhood, politeness, demureness, and ladylike behavior, when assumed by a subject, will hinder her ability to ever be seen as "intelligent."
So, what can I tell your reader? I can tell her that any study anyone can cite demonstrating an intelligence difference exists is irrelevant because it is impossible to ever complete that study properly.
At least, that's what my husband says.
Best,
Isis the Scientist
Comments
I am of the opinion that this doesn't happen nearly often enough, regardless of the situation.
Do you actually use that phrasing in your reviews? I'd kill to see the reactions to such.
Posted by: Ranson | May 28, 2009 11:47 AM
This is still a major problem even among intelligent and educated women. I very recently met a woman online and in our first conversation as we were discussing things, she mentioned that she did have a PhD, but that “she wasn’t that smart”. Later she volunteered that she didn’t know why she made that statement.
When we met, she mentioned that for some men, being a smart woman was a turn-off (to which I was completely dumbfounded and could only express shock and horror). She has two daughters, and was a little horrified when the oldest was selected to be placed among other gifted students. She was even more horrified when her youngest daughter was selected for that also.
In conversation it became clear to me that she is very smart, but also very conflicted about it, and that that conflict derives from early exposure to an environment that taught and lived the sentiments in 1 Timothy 2.11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection 2.12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
Unfortunately for me, men who like smart women are a turn-off for her. I only hope her daughters can break out of that cycle, I think it is too late for her.
Posted by: daedalus2u | May 28, 2009 11:58 AM
As your loyal follower who blogs about the Grateful Dead, I lead you to youtube for a lovely little song called "Men Smart, Women Smarter".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is7FKcywuhI
Posted by: seeree, PhD | May 28, 2009 12:23 PM
Given this bloke's history of trying to find data to support his racist and sexist biases, I believe that the Observer Effect has likely played a rather damning role in his data collection.
Posted by: Toaster | May 28, 2009 12:32 PM
Your critique is focused on the inference that the measured difference is innate -- you say that lots of things about the ways that boys and girls are raised could result in a difference in intelligence test scores. But that concedes that the observed difference in test scores is real, and just disputes where the difference comes from. I think you're giving him too much.
A pretty substantial body of previous research has found no difference in measured general intelligence between men and women. If I was reviewing this paper, I'd start by asking whether the finding is even real -- not just disputing its interpretation.
Posted by: Sanjay | May 28, 2009 12:44 PM
Women are also pushed to develop different facets of their intelligence through social interactions, and those typically aren't the same (logical/mathmatical) as those measured by a typical IQ test.
Looking for innate differences in intelligence due to gender is a rather poor idea in any case, unless you can link intelligence to the X and Y chromosomes (he didn't) or to sexual selection (correlates from anecdotal sources, but that isn't data). The variation between individuals in their innate capacity for intelligence, simply from genetic differences within the species, is enough to fry any attempt to seriously study this.
Posted by: IST | May 28, 2009 1:43 PM
Maybe he was trying to provide a public example of the converse of your question? If you attempt to make authoritative conclusions from a data set with a nearly infinite number of confounding variables, and while trying to measure something whose definition seems rather protean, you are either clinically stupid or trying to make a point. If you can't be a shining example, after all, then at least you can be a terrible warning.
Of course, it's also possible that he simply forgot the numerous refutations of The Bell Curve (rule 1: if you can write a very large book while ignoring gaping logical flaws in its argument, either logic isn't your strong suit or logic is irrelevant to your point). Those who don't learn from history...
Posted by: Hap | May 28, 2009 2:21 PM
About the closest thing you could get to something resembling a control would be to study people who were born hermaphrodites but whose parents/doctors chose one gender for them at birth that was actually not their closest-to-physiological gender. Then study how "intelligent" those who were raised as males but technically female became, and vice versa. However, that study would still have such a small sample size that attempting to make claims based on the outcome would still be dumbassed, and it's a pretty harebrained idea in the first place. Just like everything that guy has published.
Posted by: Arlenna | May 28, 2009 3:00 PM
I was in the room when Rushton first tried out his race correlates with penis size and inverse correlates with intelligence "finding" at an AAAS meeting in SF a couple of decades ago. Hilarity ensued as the SF Chronicle's invaluable David Perlman (one of the hardest working folks in science writing...) proceeded to rip him several useful new bodily orifices.
In other words, concur with Toaster @ #4...while the appeal to authority is always fraught, conclusions based on an appeal to the inverse of same are pretty damn safe. If it's got Rushton's name on it, it's wrong to a pretty good approximation of wrongitude.
Posted by: Tom Levenson | May 28, 2009 3:25 PM
...
"You see, my initial reaction was to Photoshop something hilarious, make some flippant comment about ..."
I was still laughing at that whole paragraph as I read through the rest of the post; I am sure I missed any salient points you made.
I better wait until the missus is home to tell me what I should think about the post and this male/female intelligence conundrum. That is how this household rolls.
...tom...
.
Posted by: ...tom... | May 28, 2009 4:57 PM
I thought that it was obvious that these tests, whatever they are called, are calibrated to predict future success in the workplace or in academia. How else do you measure intelligence except by measuring abilities which correlate with success in professions which are acknowledged to require intelligence? Which means, whatever else they measure, they must be measuring to some extent the ability to succeed in social groups where males are in a majority. That is, after all, the world we have been living in since IQ tests were invented.
For that matter, the ritual of testing itself owes more to traditions of male status competition than to any gender neutral human activity. Putting competitive males in head-to-head competition is akin to giving them all performance enhancing drugs. It doesn't improve their intelligence, it can smell pretty awful, but it does encourage them to work hard.
I attended an entertaining public lecture last night where Gerald Edelman and Marvin Minsky offered very abbreviated presentations on "The Computer, the Brain, and the Internet". In the midst of describing neural darwinism, reentrancy, and brain based devices, Edelman asserted that women, on average, have twice as many fibers crossing the corpus callosum as men do. He offered no interpretation, simply stated this as a fact and continued his presentation. I see Wikipedia is uncertain whether this difference even exists.
So, 2x on connections between hemispheres, whatever that means, according to a Nobel Prize winner, versus -3.63 IQ points, whatever that means, according to a full professor at the University of Western Ontario.
Posted by: rec | May 28, 2009 5:02 PM
I know one man I'm smarter than.....
Anyone who tries to ask this question is (1) trying to raise a shitstorm or (2) wants to be ridiculed. He has obviously achieved #1, and I'm glad to help with #2.
The truth is we need to judge individuals, not classes. Groups (or classes) can be averaged, but the range within the classes are likely to show complete overlap, with perhaps small shifts in the central tendency, much as shown in this "study" (I use the term for lack of a better one).
What ever happened to the important questions, like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Hmmm... sounds like a PhotoShop project!
Posted by: Pascale | May 28, 2009 5:47 PM
Well, Isis,I wish I had had a similar stamp when I was still grading papers!!! Many times my hand got sore writing out those similar words.(Maybe not with 'rejected', but 'resubmit' or something appropriate). It would have saved me much time, so that I could have pondered questions like this in more depth while my mind was still much younger. On both boys' and girls' papers, approx in equal ratios.
And then, the absolutely shiningly brilliant papers (although fewer) were also approx equal M/F ratios, over 17 years. The only factor was, the best ones were usually from mature-age students. Aha - an extra variable that is difficult to account for in an experiment.
d.
d.
Posted by: d. | May 28, 2009 6:28 PM
[OT] Psst ... Isis, S. Rivlin is dissin' you on PZ's blog:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/more_on_what_we_can_expect_fro.php
Please hop on over and bitch-slap him; he's getting up everyone's ass.
Posted by: MadScientist | May 28, 2009 8:25 PM
Sol Rivlin is a troll who is angered because I kicked him out of the sandbox. I have discussed my displeasure with the Catholic church's views on women. I said then, and I will say again, that misogyny in any field doesn't mean that one closes up shop and leaves the game. I write more about misogyny in science because this is a "science blog," but I have also written critically of my church. I suggest Googling "Pope."
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | May 28, 2009 9:27 PM
Rivlin DISGUSTS me. I'm not the least bit surprised that he's snowing under a Pharyngula comment thread about Francis Collins as head of the NIH with more of his ironically misogynist and OFF-TOPIC drivel about Dr. Isis's alleged denial of misogyny in the Catholic Church. Dude needs to start his own bloody blog . . . oh, wait, that'd require minimal awareness of blogging etiquette on his part . . .
Posted by: Juniper Shoemaker | May 28, 2009 10:32 PM
Carlie's ripping him a new one:) Like Pascale, I know lots of women who are smarter than a certain d00d!
That stamp could really save me a ton of reviewing. And I think my Editor in Chief will fall over laughing if I used it.
Posted by: jc | May 28, 2009 10:48 PM
Oy, I hadn't heard that Rushton had moved on from his attempts to prove that white people are smarter. Goody goody gumdrops. (She said with considerable sarcasm.)
I dealt personally with Rushton a few times back in the day--when I worked at the American Anthropological Association--and I can attest to the fact that he's got a lovely British accent and he's very polite when you speak to him.
And then you get off the phone and realize that you need to go scrub your brain and ears out. ::shudders::
Oh yeah, and his science is dreadful. Every time I read one of his papers, my hand itched for my red pen.
Posted by: Mara | May 29, 2009 7:44 AM
Given the fact that a bunch of science literate people believe Rushton produces questionable science, the real question is why does he keep getting this crap published?
A: Controversy sells.
This is why the media is covering this asshat and not LTOD.
Posted by: Pascale | May 29, 2009 10:24 AM
I know I'm not the one being slandered, but I don't really know why I (or anyone else) should care what SR says. Whatever his professional and personal qualities, he seems to have a very aggressive bee in his bonnet about Dr. Isis and CPP, and given that he hadn't said much worthwhile here in a long time (at least before he was banhammered), I don't understand why his criticism should be more highly respected than that of random Internet sports commenters, daytraders, or John Kwok; his comments were approaching Dennis Markuse territory.
SR needs to find some other hobby - maybe a friend could get him hooked into online gaming so he can get his aggressions out in a more socially acceptable manner. If my wife's dad didn't have dibs on my PS2, he could use it when/if I get another machine.
Posted by: Hap | May 29, 2009 10:36 AM
Wow, SR's gone somewhere far, far away from rationality. At least he's chosen the appropriate arena in which to make comments - being annoying on Pharyngula is sort of like covering yourself in raw steak, jumping into a dog pen, and poking a sharp stick at the pack of mistreated pit bulls there. It isn't going to end well for him there.
Posted by: Hap | May 29, 2009 11:30 AM
Ok, I'm seriously depressed right now and kind of cranky. Yet Sol and his run through the dog-pen is just fucking hilarious. Like serious fucking meltdown on a par with an infamous troll from Ed's blog (as well as many others), who actually did start his own blog - to bemoan being banned from Dispatches and Panda's Thumb...
Posted by: DuWayne | May 29, 2009 11:40 PM
I've always been a little puzzled as to why, at this point in history, anybody would care whether or not there was an innate difference in aptitudes between males and females. We know for sure that even if there is a trend one way or the other, individual variations would far outweigh it. We also know for sure that gender discrimination is still a humongous problem affecting all sorts of different fields to a greater or lesser degree. So... why would it matter if there were a slight difference in average aptitude???
The only conditions under which I could see anyone even caring is if at some hypothetical point in the future, the general consensus becomes that gender discrimination and gender conditioning has been virtually eliminated, and yet for some reason there were still a significant disparity in the numbers of men and women going into a particular field, for example. At this hypothetical point in the future, then I could see there being value in trying to tease out all of the confounders and try to see if there is any sort of innate difference in aptitude that might explain the ongoing disparity, or if there were still some hidden conditioning that was causing it. But that scenario, I think, is pretty unrealistic...
As things stand right now, even if I leave aside the sexist motivations and questionable methodologies for a moment, I still just don't see any reason why we would care even if there was a difference. I mean, if I am trying to figure out how much force it takes to move a 2-ton boulder, I'm not going to try and compute the air resistance, because that would be stupid and pointless. By the same token, if I am trying to explain disparities between gender in the year 2009, I'm not going to try and measure a difference in innate aptitude, because that would be just as stupid and pointless as trying to measure the air resistance experienced while slowly moving a 2-ton boulder.
Posted by: James Sweet | June 1, 2009 10:10 AM
Recent study? It's from September-2006 !!!
@rec: "For that matter, the ritual of testing itself owes more to traditions of male status competition than to any gender neutral human activity."
Anyway... the proof that men are smarter than women is that stupid, caddish men repeatedly convince graceful, supposedly-intelligent women to marry them.
Posted by: Ron | June 4, 2009 11:46 AM