Gender & intelligence

NonnyMouse1337 You are making sense to me. It's difficult to say how much of the similarities in intelligence between men and women is down to evolutionary advantages and how much is down to the limitations in sexual dimorphism that can be achieved with one sex chromosome. It may not be known which genes are responsible for intelligence but it is incredibly unlikely there is one gene responsible for intelligence. While there is a majority genetic component to IQ (even if we don't know all the genes, you can study families and twins), there is also variability.

I don’t see why it’s a bad thing to admit there can be some differences? Why do we have to force everyone to be the same instead of celebrating our differences? It’s well established that pregnancy changes a woman’s brain, resulting in improved social cognition and reduced grey matter. After a woman has given birth her hormone levels during her monthly cycle may remain lower for the rest of her life. She may also exhibit foetal microchimerism - mums who’ve had boys may have Y chromosomes in their bodies or even their brains, sometimes for the rest of their lives.

The answer as far as it goes is there isn't much consensus on this. Though I've never se or heard anything that suggests that women are less intelligent - the closest maybe being the variability stuff Gronky mentioned.

There do seem to be some developmental differences between male and female populations in children that relate to their cognitive abilities.

I generally think this is not a subject to hang one's views of equality on. It could very easily go either way, it's quite possible there are differences. I'd hate to think that would make a difference to anyone's egalitarianism or anything lie that.

Well first, you have to define intelligence, then you have to compare males and females of the same personality, character profile. Then you have to focus on a particular area to compare against.

I agree that often males and females tend to process knowledge differently and I have found this to be the case in research I've carried out. But I have not seen any evidence to support the blanket statement that men are more intelligent than women. I'd rather have a more specific conclusion, eg when comparing males and females with equivalent personality and character profiles, in their performance with IQ tests..... or whatever area.

You're right, Gronky. There are trade-offs between different traits. An increase in one type can cause a decrease in another.
Would there not be a baseline though? Intelligence can vary among individuals, but on a population level, you need roughly similar levels of capacity for intelligence or traits linked to intelligence between males and females to ensure future offspring either maintain the baseline or increase it further over time. Am I making sense?

From an evolutionary perspective, the best chance of survival for offspring depends on the parents being as 'fit' as possible. This includes not just genes, but intelligence. Males and females that are physically fit and intelligent will pass on those traits and advantages, either directly or because their skills maximise strategies for survival.

An interesting thing about evolution is that it lacks foresight: it can only determine what 'works' well in the circumstances presented to the organism. Intelligence, physical strength and other factors aren't universally beneficial but more of a trade off. For example, novelty seeking behaviour may be beneficial in terms of exploring novel food sources/acquisition but can also be detrimental if it results in risky behaviours. Equally, physical strength is a benefit in confrontations but comes at the cost of requiring more nutrients to maintain it.

Prof. Sophie Scott put up a video recently.
Getting brain sex wrong.
vimeo.com/414833798/description

From what I can remember of her presentation - there are small differences on average. If you use a small group in a study, then it can seem like there are large differences; however, when you expand the research group, then these differences go away.
Brain differences are much more significant between age groups, rather than sex. Yet people tend to focus on sex differences.

From my own personal view, as I'm not well read on this topic, the idea that women in general would be less intelligent than men makes no sense at all. From an evolutionary perspective, the best chance of survival for offspring depends on the parents being as 'fit' as possible. This includes not just genes, but intelligence. Males and females that are physically fit and intelligent will pass on those traits and advantages, either directly or because their skills maximise strategies for survival. The human species would not have expanded as widely as it has if one half was less 'fit' than the other. We are an incredibly versatile and intelligent species that can survive in most environments.
Although it's a politically incorrect and contentious area, there seems to be some evidence of heritability of intelligence / IQ as I understand it. Of course, like anything else, the environment plays a big role too. But it makes more sense from an evolutionary perspective for both parents to have as much capacity for intelligence as possible in order to maximise the chances that their offspring will inherit those traits too. I can't see how humans would have gotten this far if it wasn't the case.

Very generally, there are differences in some distributions but these can't be used as deterministic predictors for a given individual. More simply, you can't use averages to make specific statements about someone with no measurement.

In terms of raw intelligence, different studies produce different distributions because there is no objective measure of intelligence but, very broadly, men do show a greater variability than women in studies that demonstrate a difference. In other words, it's possible that there are more male geniuses but, if there are, there are also more male idiots and it's hard to say what exactly constitutes a 'genius' or an 'idiot'. The term to search for is 'male greater variability' but this will likely produce studies biased towards confirming this hypothesis.

Gina Rippon