Just the facts ma'am: men are smarter than women. O RLY? RLY.

The Independent (UK) gives us a few interesting factiods:

• on average, men are 5 IQ points smarter than women.
• There are twice as many men than women with IQs of 120 or more.
• there are 30 times as many men than women with IQs of 170 or more.

This is from 22 surveys sampling 20,000 university students. Hard to argue with that.

I do not simply gloat, the article fails to mention that there are more men than women on the low ends of the IQ spectrum as well. What does this mean? Well, for starters, it must mean that there are more women than men of average intelligence, although the difference need only be quite small to compensate by the small fraction of the population found in the wings of the distributions. I'd be curious to see the numbers.

But most interestingly, it means that diversity in intelligence is greater in men than in women. Anyone with half a clue about evolution knows that diversity is the key. Without it, evolution stalls and the creature dies when its environment changes. 'Strikes me that this is reason to value the male of the species, not just for his smarts, but for his promise for the future. Of course, you could always resent them for it.

Inevitably, the Independent has to have the usual ass-covering: "The results of both studies were a shock to me. I find prejudice abhorrent." To me, that's a non-sequiteur. Good science is not prejudiced. He goes on: "There has to be some female compensating factor" because the facts don't match his prejudices. What? Yes, he has prejudices, but can't see them. His prejudice is that men and women are equal in all things, and now he finds they aren't. He argues women have better communication skills, which may be, they are known to talk more, but then he says "women work harder than men and are more conscientious so they do things technically correctly. Men are often quite original but deficient in what is technically demanded." When it comes to keeping the house clean, it's possible he has a point, but, for example in the machine shop, where precision and skill are paramount, men hold the ground. Surely there's a reason for that.

At least he finishes with a note of reason:

"People should have equal opportunities but if you want a society where everyone feels satisfied you're not going to find men and women doing the same things in the same proportions. It would help if we recognised that."

Wow. Men and women are different. Who'd've thunk it?



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