Most Intelligent: Your Mother or Father?

[EatsBrainsAndLeaves]

So who is most intelligent amongst your parents - your mother or your father?

My father. Sadly my mother's intelligence is thwarted by a general lack of common sense, compassion and ability to empathise with anyone except herself. She is certainly not unintelligent, but my dad is intelligent AND wise which I think are two different abilities....

My mother without a doubt although she lacked a good education. She was very intuitive, great emotional intelligence, logical and very good with words, puzzles, crosswords. She seemed to soak up information and although she never read very much non fiction she had a head full of general knowledge. She was also a very good judge of character. She was a book keeper.

My father went to Grammar school, officer training school, navy career followed by Civil engineering. He is 81 and still on the ball. Great with maths and very interested in current affairs, economics and politics but lacks emotional intelligence and has no capacity to read people. Both were socialists and my father felt that women should be independent and strive for a career.

EatsBrainsAndLeaves - "instead it asked people who was most intelligent - their mother or father. About two thirds of people said their father. Of course statistically, it should be about fifty fifty. So about fifty per cent saying their father is more intelligent and fifty per cent their mother."

I might just be a bit crap at statistics, but I really don't understand why it should be 50%. Unless everyone gets partnered up and has kids. But lots of people are not parents.

I not convinced that people automatically assume their father is more intelligent than their mother, isn't it just as likely that he actually IS more intelligent? There might be a lot of super intelligent single women and idiot single men out there.

People consider intelligence when they choose a partner, even if they don't do it consciously. (I'm single so I don't necessarily know what I'm talking about here). Isn't it unlikely that exactly half the population would choose someone more intelligent than them and the other half someone less intelligent?

Or did you mean "should" as in, the world "should" be this way - but it is, in fact, not?

Did that post make any sense at all? I think not...

Yes it did make sense. You are saying maybe in reality fathers are more intelligent than mothers, because the more intelligent women stay single or childless. It is certainly one interpretation of the study, and a very controversial one.

I don't think beans intended to be quite that controversial, Brains. I think she's just questioning the basis for the statistics to argue that parents are representative of the population as a whole.

The question isn't actually about parents but about perceptions of intelligence within men and women. However, as the results would be instantly invalidated if you simply asked the question 'do you think men or women are more intelligent?' couching it as a personal reflection on one's own parents enables some of that bias to be broken down.

Assuming that it is accepted scientifically that 'intelligence' has the same distribution between high and low in both men and women (noting all the comments above about what defines intelligence) the remaining skew in the answer that more people believe their father to be more intelligent than their mother is either accounted for by a gender bias or other factors, like only less stupid men reproduce and so parents are not a representative sample.

Sorry, I do understand the point that parents may not be representative of the population as a whole.

No the question isn't about parents at all, but is simply a way to try and as you say, overcome some of the inherent bias to asking people's perceptions of the differences in intelligence between men and women.

Maybe most women are at least intelligent enough not to choose very unintelligent men as the fathers of their children. I think its pretty well established that men and women do apply different criteria when looking for a mate (so, if you're a woman, being intelligent is nice but you need glossy hair and childbearing hips or whatever it is)

Social intelligence: my mum.
Academic intelligence: my dad.

Grimma I think you are on to something there. Biology and evolution have to have some input into the results. Maybe it is as simple as "women are more inclined to seek an intelligent partner whilst men put it further down the list of what they look for in a partner".

I don't think that has anything to do with biology and evolution worldgonecrazy. Jut plain old misogyny. Also what we define as intelligence is a patriarchal definition so obviously it has been men who have traditionally benefited from it.

More intelligent? My brothers would say my dad (he is a professor in mathematics), I would say my mum (a linguist, very "quick" mind IYSWIM, she does not get maths but is very sharp). I am not as intelligent as either....sob

I reckon it's also partly because we've been socialized to think maths and science are 'harder' than languages and humanities. So, we're all probably seeing typical 'male brain' (though I'm really not sure I believe in it!) skills and attributes as more academic/intelligent than 'female' ones.

My dad is more academic than my mum (he was a physicist) but my mum has a much higher EQ and is an excellent problem solver and manager so has had a much better and generally better paid career than my dad.

DH's mum is brilliant academically and has done very well despite leaving school at 16 because there is no point educating girls. She's just finished her PhD at 64. DH's dad is lovely but not clever.

DH and I are academically pretty identical - same university and degree class, both postgraduate qualms etc. DH is much more careful and thorough than me but I am sharper and have a much better memory...

My mum is very good at maths and could engineer solutions to practical problems brilliantly. She has no emotional intelligence though she thinks she does.

My dad is brilliant with language and is very adept at seeing how people are feeling. He is also very logically minded and good at seeing solutions to problems in committee type situations. He however doesn't see himself as intelligent.

My mother, although it would be a close run thing. They worked best together as they think in complementary ways.

My dad is much more intelligent than my mother . Worked for gov ,making stuff . My mum worked in an insect zoo ...now she's a nurse.

But my sister is in another league ....but she's lazy . So she paints pictures of dugs . She could have been a surgeon or an engineer or worked for NASA ..

Self taught reading , at 3
Could do high level Maths at 10
Passed her exams without going to school ...she was truant half the time and still got them .

My ds is very clever too .

Asd runs in the family .

My mum is considerably more intelligent than my stepdad, intellectually, socially and emotionally. Yet she has spent the last 30 years pandering to his fragile ego - everything from speaking like a complete idiot when they are together in company, to avoiding promotion as it would upset him to be overtaken in his career (they work in the same profession).

This fucks me off mightily. I guess it is a generational thing?

My DF is definitely more intelligent than my DM. My DS is definetly more intelligent than his sister.

My DH always believed his DF was more intelligent than his DM but he wasn't. I think she played her intelligence down to as not to hurt his poor masculine pride.

I wasn't trying to be controversial - but I was saying what EatsBrainsAnd Leaves thought I was saying! I think fathers are generally more intelligent than their partners. (I have no evidence for this claim). I definitely don't think this is because men are more intelligent than women. The study is interesting, but it can't tell us anything about attitudes to male/female intelligence if there is actual bias in the sample.

So why do you believe that, beans? Genuine question, not trying to have a go. Do rich, stupid men have a better chance of success in relationships (success here being defined by producing offspring) than poor, intelligent ones?

My Father is much more academically minded than my Mum, but my Mum has always been 'smart' and more practical and organised.
DP's parents are both highly intelligent, and maybe Mum has the edge. MIL was highly successful in a prestigious career, ran the home and is a cordon bleu cook!

DP and I are fairly similar but he has better retention of information than I do, he is good at spatial matters and I am the logistical expert! However, since having a child I do feel less intelligent - I'm not sure if it's the lack of sleep or just the shift in priorities and change in general to life. I have less time to read and just think.

My pet theory, also untroubled by any real evidence, is that partners are usually of equal intelligence but the women often willingly occupy the role of 'less intelligent partner', via their choices of career, personal interests etc etc.

My mum. But my dad's an undiagnosed adhd eccentric genius in his field, but just a bit difficult to communicate with, iyswim.