Talk:Sex and intelligence/Archive 1

Gender or Sex?

wouldn't it be more accurate to title this article "sex and intelligence"? --Rikurzhen 07:46, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not a linguistics expert, but I chose "gender" because the word "sex" can be confused with "sexual intercourse", and I wasn't sure if the meaning of the title "sex and intelligence" would be clear. AndyCapp 19:48, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Gender is something other than sex (gender is a social construction, sex is a biological construction), and most people past the fifth grade can say the word "sex" without necessarily thinking it has to do with intercourse. The irony is that you probably think it is "sex and intelligence" but in reality it actually is "gender and intelligence". In any event, the current page is ridiculously POV (brings up things without bringing up criticisms), so I am adding a NPOV tag until this gets worked on a bit more. There is currently no suggestion on this page that there is an entire set of scientific and sociological studies which argue against every point made here. --Fastfission 01:21, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

If 'gender' only refers to the social construct, then shouldn't this article be moved to Sex and intelligence (considering people won't confuse it with sexual intercourse)? - Jacottier 01:39, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Gender is the identity, sex is the biology, roughly speaking (the biology is less concrete than that, but that is somewhat beyond the point). It depends on what one means. I'm assuming it is the biology which is implied here, though "Gender and intelligence" (or "Gender and test scores") would be interesting as well. If one was truly worried about people confusing it with intercourse one could say "Biological sex and intelligence", I suppose, though it is somewhat redundant. If you look at the page on gender, it goes into more detail. --Fastfission 21:01, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

fasfission, clearly from neglect, rather than malice/bias. But moreover, if differences in male/female ability are more biological than social in origin, then "sex" is the word we are looking for. On that point alone, merely choosing gender and intelligence over sex and intelligence is an built in bias. --Rikurzhen 02:23, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Well, it is clearly bias of some form, though I did not assume it to be malicious. Bias can come from lack of exposure to certain debates, too. Anyway, I think what you are trying to say is, "If this page is about the debate over biological differences between males and females, then sex is the word we want. If it is about social differences between males and females, then gender is the word we want." The little joke I was making is that most of the so-called biological differences between males and females are social in origin (so "gender" would be more accurate in an ultimate sense). Anyway, that was just a little joke. Yes, what you are meaning is "Sex and intelligence", if you want the page to be about the debate over whether there are biological differences in intelligence between men and women (the NPOV notice is because the page doesn't actually even acknowledge there is a debate). --Fastfission 21:01, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, this is clearly little more than a stub right now. However, the problem is that we can't talk about biological differences and social differences in isolation, because their interaction is clearly a part of the equation. --Rikurzhen 00:16, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Discussion of brain size really needs to be improved or removed. We're interested in physiological differences in the brains of human males and females. This isn't limited to raw size (which is a horrible measure of anything) but relative volumes, and densities of different brain regions. --Cypherx 10:12, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

POV tag

I've re-inserted the NPOV tag (its original additions were discussed above so the line that "no reason was given on talk" was either untrue or just lazy). To reiterate the reason, it is that this article does not at all even indicate that there is an entire body of scholarship built up around the notion that studies of sex and intelligence, much less the conclusions are heavily flawed, much less present this point of view. The article as it currently stands presents the research in a very one-sided manner, does not present criticism, and does not indicate that there is very little consensus in the scientific community on this issue. (I'm not an expert on the literature in this topic, so I'm not able to add it all in myself. However I'm well aware that it, and the "debate", exists). Until this is added to the article, it cannot possibly be considered of a "neutral point of view" on the subject, and should be appropriately flagged. --Fastfission 02:20, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Fastfission, I added a prestigious study which found no differences in mean IQ by sex. I think this more or less balances the POV. Certainly this topic has not been fully fleshed out here. But what's missing is more detail than major POVs. I'm not seeing a major not-NPOV problem any longer. --Rikurzhen 03:23, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think one study balances things out, especially since all of the other studies are presented as fact without any hint that they might be debated within the scientific community. The clear case one gets when reading this article is "oh, they've done lots of studies, all leading towards a single conclusion, except maybe one study" which is not, in my experience, a valid representation of the work done in the field. It is lacking detail AND a major POV -- and so the POV tag should remain, as a "work in progress" sticker. I'll try to look up a bit more on the overall debate if I have the time and try to contribute to balancing things out a bit. --Fastfission 15:41, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

With regard to average differences in overall IQ, Deary et al. (2003) [found no mean difference] is the only study I know of that can claim to be fully representational, and even so they have to go to great lengths to argue their data is good. Maybe we need to focus more explication on that study. --Rikurzhen 17:13, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

Wow this is a really POV article, just like the other "IQ and" articles which are loaded with select source discriminatory rhetoric. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.190.212.45 (talk) 23:05, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Study

Here [1] is an interesting study. I didn't get time to read through it, but if anyone wants to read through it and add a summary into the article, go ahead. Dd2 03:42, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Removal of NPOV tag

I removed the NPOV tag because (as of the state of the article on July 13, 2005) I don't see any evidence of bias, the article is simply stating the current state of the available knowledge and I fell does it pretty accurately. - DNewhall —Preceding undated comment added 17:53, 13 July 2005 (UTC).

I support this. The article still needs a lot of work, but the NPOV tag was a poor (and misleading) way of saying that. ���Arbor 19:54, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, that wasn't why it is placed. But anyway, I think it does a better job now of portraying this as a topic still very much in debate. --Fastfission 21:38, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Irwing–Lynn and Blinkhorn

a new study by Paul Irwing and Richard Lynn says that men are about 5 IQ points more intelligents than woman. Heres a link: http://women.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17909-1749346,00.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomazrui (talk • contribs) 23:10, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

The study is in the British Journal of Psychology [2] and is amazingly flawed [3] --Coroebus 13:35, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. Googling, I found a PDF of Blinkhorn's comment here: [4]. (To be honest, I find Blinkhorn's comments less than impressive. This is one of the cases where reading the opposition's argument convinces me of the veracity of the original paper.) Arbor 15:40, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

The paper fails to meet standard methodological criteria for meta-analysis and Blinkhorn's point about excluding the largest study that covers nearly half the subjects in the meta-analysis is damning. The use of median effect sizes in a meta-analysis that includes sample sizes from 100 to 10,000 is similarly ridiculous. Consider their statement "Contrary to these assertions, our meta-analyses show that the sex difference on the Progressive Matrices is neither non-existent nor 'trivially small' and certainly not '1-2 IQ points either way', that is, in favour of men or women. Our results showing a 4.6 to 5 IQ point advantage for men is testimony to the value of meta-analysis as compared with impressions gained from two or three studies." This is actually completely false, their own data shows that there is a 1-2 IQ point difference (in favour of men)! The only way they can reach a figure of 5 IQ points is to do away with any attempt to correct for study size and take the median effect size, thus ranking tiny studies of scores of people the same as large studies of thousands. It is sheer intellectual fraud, and I'm quite surprised it was published in that form. --Coroebus 16:32, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

In any case, I think Blinkhorn's response is sufficiently well-published (and even spawned a Guardian article) to warrant inclusion. I did this, please clean it up or change it. Arbor 17:36, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I think I'll clean up the article provoked controversy bit as it appears to be referring to a story prompted by the Lynn paper, so it should really be included with that.--Coroebus 18:02, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Blinkhorn is responding to the paper that says that male university students have higher avg. iqs than female university students. Lynn has also published OTHER papers that say that adult men have higher avg. iqs than adult women. The article doesnt make this clear. Qvkfgmjqy 20:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Fascinating article

I've always wondered about the physiological reasons why men seem more logical than women, but women seem to remember little details about past events better. --Atrahasis 16:59, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I thought this wasn't a page for debate? There are also studies that show, for example that women who are taught skills like spatial ability(ie female engineering students) do just as well as men. Fathers just don't generally take their daughters with them when they go to work on the family car. Unfortunately I can't find the links to those studies at the moment...--Veltis 82.181.132.194 (talk) 09:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Merge from Mathematical abilities and gender issues

By chance I found Mathematical abilities and gender issues, which has a large intersection with the present article. I suggest merging them hither. Arbor 08:50, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

References

This article could do with the references being sorted so that they are referred to from the text. --Coroebus 18:09, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Einstein

Any reference for this claim?

"Scientists used to believe that intelligence was directly related to gray matter. This belief persisted until Albert Einstein's brain was made available for study by a select group of neuroscientists."

--Coroebus 08:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Reading or Writing? - 'Evolution over time'

"disadvantages to men in reading. They suggest the male advantage in measures of typical male vocations is not predictive, but that the other strong differences are. Thus, they claim to be concerned about the relative disadvantage of men in writing"

I think this is actually measuring reading comprehension (not writing ability), but do not have full access to the article it is citing. Clarity from one who does would be nice. --24.16.251.40 22:11, 8 June 2006 (UTC) (Formerly 24.22.227.53)

mistake?

"men averaged IQs about 8.4 points higher than women, while women averaged memories about 7.5 IQ points higher than men"

have i misread this because it is late, or is there a typo somewhere? --Carbonrodney 12:48, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure sounds weird. I don't have quick access to PAID, but a trip to the University library should find you the article in question. This would be worth cleaning up. Arbor 13:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

SAT

the SAT has a self selection bias, there is no point in keeping it here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Qvkfgmjqy (talk • contribs) 16:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Since the SAT is not an IQ test nor appitude test(so says the College Board), why would it be mentioned here? Just curious of your opinions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.23.230.81 (talk • contribs) 01:39, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

wendy johnson's work

this paper is the latest in a series by wendy johnson. it confirms and extends the main points in this article. should be useful. --WD RIK NEW 01:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Wendy Johnson and Jr., Thomas J. Bouchard, Sex differences in mental abilities: g masks the dimensions on which they lie, Intelligence, Volume 35, Issue 1, January-February 2007, Pages 23-39. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2006.03.012)

Abstract: Empirical data suggest that there is at most a very small sex difference in general mental ability, but men clearly perform better on visuospatial tasks while women clearly perform better on tests of verbal usage and perceptual speed. In this study, we integrated these overall findings with predictions based on the Verbal-Perceptual-Rotation (VPR) model ([Johnson, W., and Bouchard, T. J. (2005a). Constructive replication of the visual-perceptual-image rotation (VPR) model in Thurstone's (1941) battery of 60 tests of mental ability. Intelligence, 33, 417-430.; Johnson, W., and Bouchard, T. J. (2005b). The structure of human intelligence: It's verbal, perceptual, and image rotation (VPR), not fluid and crystallized. Intelligence, 33. 393-416.]) of the structure of mental abilities. We examined the structure of abilities after removing the effects of general intelligence, identifying three underlying dimensions termed rotation-verbal, focus-diffusion, and memory. Substantial sex differences appeared to lie along all three dimensions, with men more likely to be positioned towards the rotation and focus poles of those dimensions, and women displaying generally greater memory. At the level of specific ability tests, there were greater sex differences in residual than full test scores, providing evidence that general intelligence serves as an all-purpose problem solving ability that masks sex differences in more specialized abilities. The residual ability factors we identified showed strong genetic influences comparable to those for full abilities, indicating that the residual abilities have some basis in brain structure and function. Keywords: Sex differences; Residual mental abilities; Verbal and spatial abilities; General intelligence; VPR theory; Genetic and environmental influences

scotland study

WP:V applies --WD RIK NEW 01:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Why did you post this? Is there a problem? futurebird 02:30, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Just about the citation needed tag. A citation really is needed. It's not obvious that age matters, and so the claim that it could needs to be attributed/sourced. --WD RIK NEW 02:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree, but I'll see if I can dig somthing up. futurebird 02:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

There must be a mistake in the page, it says they found mean IQ scores in the 160s. 24.224.219.169 (talk) 20:56, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. Perhaps the 6's should be 0's? That would make the scores feasible. Paul Magnussen (talk) 22:57, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Good source

Posted by an ip user to R & I, could be used here:

Lave (1988) Showed that housewives in Berkeley California who could successfully do the mathematics needed for comparison shopping were unable to do the same mathematics when they were placed inside a classroom environment.

We need to dig up the name of this paper.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Futurebird (talk • contribs) 00:27, Feb 11, 2007 (UTC)

Hi Futurebird I think this is the source you're looking for "Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life (Learning in Doing)" by Jean Lave, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1988) 0521357349. There's also a 2003 imprint from Cambridge UP. Lave also co-wrote "Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)" in 1991 (also Cambridge UP) ISBN: 0521423740. I hope this helps--Cailil 21:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!!futurebird 03:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Article name

Hmm, it seems this article was originally at Gender and intelligence, but for some reason, that's apparently objectionable. I am somewhat dubious of the objection that gender is a social construct, because that usage seems limited to a technical group, but I don't insist on that title either, I just think this current title is also not ideal. It could as easily refer to the act of having sex and how it relates to intelligence. Maybe a change to a different title entirely? Whatever is done though, somebody ought to edit IQ though. FrozenPurpleCube 03:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Agree. A better title in is order. futurebird 21:37, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Disagree. Everyone has had a biology class in junior high, and if they didn't make it that far in their schooling, they can always, *gasp*, look in the dictionary. "sex. noun. 1: either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as female or male especially on the basis of their reproductive organs and structures". Or they will understand from the context after reading the very first sentence of the article. Give people a little more credit.

Then again, it could be more clear without switching 'sex' to 'gender'. How about Intelligence differences between sexes? --Danny Rathjens 22:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

to add

Higher face recognition ability in girls: Magnified by own‐sex and own‐ethnicity bias futurebird 21:37, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

concerning SATs

I just took an SAT and I must say that it seemed for more angled toward women. Many of the problems had to do with the need to overthrow glass ceilings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.85.161.120 (talk) 02:21, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Irrelevant source

The link on the bottom does not work.

"A recent report by the National Academies in 2006 found that female performance in high school mathematics now matches that of males, and expressed that if biology were the basis of the change, then major evolution has occurred in the past decades. In addition, the report found that there were lower numbers of women in the mathematics and science fields than there should be even when studies based on biological differences, childbearing demands, and hormonal differences were looked at. The report concluded that women were the subject of unintended bias in these fields. National Academy"

Quantitative abilities: female have an advantage in quantitative abilities in the early years of school. This trend reverses before puberty, after which time males maintain an advantage.

Therefore, females score higher on quantitative abilities in math since mathematics education in the United States is biased to females (see reform mathematics, since it is about rote memorization and quantitative ability. Americans score very low compared to other countries.

A few decades are too short for natural selection. 71.175.60.251 15:54, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

"Comparing Groups" Image

The graph REALLY needs a caption. As it stands, it illustrates almost nothing comprehensible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DMCer (talk • contribs) 04:02, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

If one reader feels more explanation is required, then more explanation is indeed required.

In the prior section of the current article, a theme from studies in sex differences is introduced. This theme is a frequently repeated pattern of male respondants being statistically over represented in both the lowest and highest ends of the spectrum of scores.

The diagram illustrates various ways such results may be conceptualized. Mathematical formulae could be introduced into the caption to concisely describe what is pictured, but a few well chosen sentences would probably aid a wider audience.

Please feel free to suggest a concise caption, or a more terse description than the following.

Some differences between individuals vary in a simple way, like height and weight. If these differences are represented graphically, they often form a bell shaped curve, more technically known as a "normal distribution". The tall part of the curve represents the high number of people with average measurements. The tails of the curve (or lips of the bell) represent the much smaller number of people with extreme measurements above or below average — the tallest women or heaviest men, for example.

Tests of mathematical aptitude produce taller, narrower "bells" for women, and lower, flatter "bells" for men. Although the average of both groups often favours men (in this particular measurement), there will still be more men at the lowest scores than there are women. Conversely, there will be more men than women at the highest scores also.

The importance of understanding the distribution of the whole groups is that it suggests that the large number of men with very high scores is not due simply to a male aptitude for mathematics, but rather to greater extremes in male performance.

A hypothetical example with numbers. Imagine 100 women and 100 men were given the same test of mathematical ability and scored results recorded to the nearest 10%. A very extreme form of the pattern is like the numbers below.

Score	00%	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%	70%	80%	90%	100%	Total
#Women	0	0	0	5	20	50	20	5	0	0	0	100
#Men	1	2	2	5	10	15	30	15	10	7	3	100

In other words, university tests have shown that both nerds and dorks occur in greater numbers among men. ;)

Part of our problem in understanding the diagram is not being German. The "bell curve" is just above and to the right of the 10 on this 10 Deutsche Mark note.

Conclusion

Some people like tables of numbers, others like diagrams, others like words. Some like all three, and others dislike thinking at all. I'm imagining that you are much better with words than I am. Please help by providing a caption that summarizes the above. :D Alastair Haines 08:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

X chromosome as the cause

The article states: "The observed differences in the variability of skills between the sexes can be explained genetically: many brain-related genes are located on the X chromosome, of which women have two copies and men only one. A mutation in one of these genes, whether positive or negative, will thus have a higher impact in males than in females (where the second, presumably non-mutated copy will mitigate the effect of the mutated one)."

I have removed these sentences as recent research shows that one X chromosome becomes deactivated in women in most cases. Ie the notion that females use 2 X chromosomes and men 1 is in general not true. The research does show that some genes on the inactive X chromosome in women actually do remain active but they are believed to be few and the results are unclear at this time. I read about this on http://www.livescience.com and if necessary could find a citation. Robert Brockway 14:42, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

As a side note, this would mean our understanding of sex-linked diseases such as red-green colour blindness is not as good as we thought it was :) Robert Brockway 14:47, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for using the talk page to explain your revert. I wish more people did that.

Very often new research shows old to be incomplete, and occasionally wrong. Sometimes the state of knowledge remains incomplete and there are arguments either way. There are a couple of simple Wiki protocols:

1. Where there is more than one documented opinion (i.e. an editor's word for it is not enough) all opinions are to be recorded.
2. Cited material is not to be removed without consensus (i.e. sure some people think the world is flat, but minority views are not to be given undue prominence, so long as it's documented that they are minority views).

10 April 2007 is hardly old news. Then again, journalists are not biological experts, and sometimes they get facts from the wrong place. If they do, no problem, we cite the more complete and accurate source. NYT is normally good. 10 April is not out of date. It's a good source.

There are two issues here. One is that male and female brain development is demonstrably distinct, with measurable effects on abilities. That variation is clearly documented and beyond dispute. However, there is a second interesting phenomenon that Baron Cohen in particular is exploring ... male performance in many areas shows greater variation within the male population alone, irrespective of whether the aptitudes being measured are ones where men normally score worse than women, or better than them.

Yes, the old belief was that women only had one active X chromosome, and indeed, although this has been shown to be an imperfect understanding, it is close enough for most purposes. However, remember humans and chimps are 90 something percent the same genetically, but the small percentage of differences adds up to a lot of changes. As far as I'm aware, gene inactivation is still very much an area of active research. One thing that is known for sure is that the genes are not perfectly inactive. I'm sorry, but you will have to cite something recent that addresses the issue directly. Alastair Haines 16:20, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

In female mammals, one X chromosome is randomely inactivated in each cell, at the blastocyst stage (when the embryo concists of about 100 cells). This means that in a female, at the cell level only one X is active, but at the organism level, both X are. This explain why females do suffer less from recessive X linked diseases. --Emma Bavory (talk) 22:08, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

This is the most relevant spot I could find to put my comments on my change to reflect the fact that men outnumber women in all rather than many high-IQ societies. The S.D. of men is greater than women and Mensa is the least selective major high-IQ society, therefore all more selective high-IQ societies have an even more predomenently male membership than Mensa. I have observed this personally in the memberships of all high-IQ societies to which I have corresponded (Mensa, Triple Nine, Prometheus, Ultranet and Mega). Enon Harris 75.89.34.191 06:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Sex Differences in Science and Math

A paper was recently published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest that has relevance to this topic. The abstract can be found here and additional related resources can be found here. Cheers, JTBurman 03:50, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Category:Sexism

I think adding this article to Category:Sexism could be highly misleading and PoV. Comments? Gwen Gale (talk) 03:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Implausible numbers in Variance section

"The average IQ scores by sex were 27.82 for girls and 162.36 for boys." That can't be right. Cognita (talk) 00:40, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

My edits

I have editted Brain Size & added a Conclusions section to the article. I am new to wikipedia, but am doing this for a project for an honors class at NC State University. I have tried to be as unbiased as possible. Thank you. Shameisendless (talk) 02:46, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Gender-related Reversed Asymmetry of Intelligence

I read the transcranial doppler study referenced in the article. The statement that "during RPM tasks of general intelligence ..., for successful resolution of RPM tasks, women used a left hemisphere strategy while men used the right hemisphere," is a pretty close paraphrase of the conclusions that the authors of the article made. However, I didn't find the data to warrant the strength of conclusion that the authors made. Specifically, while their data did show statistically significantly greater blood flow to the left than the right hemispheres in females during correct trials, and the opposite in males, their effect sizes were on the order of 0.1 standard deviations, which suggests to me that both males and females used both hemispheres in slightly different ratios. I'm going to tone down the language somewhat by adding some clauses like "more likely to." --jtoomim (talk) 10:29, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

That part urgently needs some formatting, it's just a huge text block --Cancerbero 8 (talk) 18:38, 20 July 2008 (UTC)