"It is widely accepted that there are no inherent gender differences in mathematical ability or intelligence" Sunday Times Jan 21 2018 p5.
"Differences in intelligence have long been a topic of debate among researchers and scholars. With the advent of the concept of g or general intelligence, many researchers have argued for no significant sex differences in g factor or general intelligence[1][2] while others have argued for greater intelligence for males.[3][4] The split view between these researchers depended on the methodology[1] and tests they used for their claims.[5]... Some studies have concluded that there is larger variability in male scores compared to female scores, which results in more males than females in the top and bottom of the IQ distribution.[8][9] Additionally, there are differences in the capacity of males and females in performing certain tasks, such as rotation of objects in space, often categorized as spatial ability." Sex differences in intelligence Wikipedia Jan 21 2018
What the ST article probably meant is that it is widely accepted that this topic cannot be rationally discussed in the popular media.
This is a highly contentious issue, but surely society would greatly benefit from knowing the answer. For individual researchers, however, their careers and reputations could be trashed by studying this topic. I heard a very highly cited professor of psychology say that his wife had begged him not to give the lecture that turned out to be a straightforward literature review of cognitive sex differences.
I am posing the question here as RG is one of the very few places that topics like this can be sensibly discussed.
Dear Anthony,
I also have a question, how they can say “no inherent”? Is there a way other than psychological measures for doing this research? I mean, are there some studies for measuring sex differences in younger children or infants with biological or genetic methods (or something similar)?
I think your answer was given in the question. You can design tests and run statistics to support any pre-conceived notion that you might have. Science can be scammed. In my opinion this case is the worst of all possible worlds. The answer will depend on what questions are asked. The answer will depend on how they are asked. If some questions are interviews, then it will depend on who asks the questions.
However, to start please clearly define intelligence? We keep trying to define intelligence such that humans are and animals are not. Soon we might have to start thinking about how to define humans are and machines are not. If we cannot get a clear answer to these simple questions, how can we expect to differentiate between sexes?
This is a dangerous issue. While some might view it as a purely scientific effort, it quickly becomes an issue in social justice. The "superior" often treat the "inferior" worse than they would treat their animal pets. Inferiors can be bought, sold, killed, raped, starved, poisoned, and it is all legal.
In the Wikipedia article sex differences in intelligence there is a heading "Researchers in favor of males in g factor." Point 1 under this heading sounds a great deal like racial efforts equating head size and intelligence. The introduction in the first citation might help.
http://philipperushton.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/iq-race-brain-size-rushton-kamin-south-african-j-of-psychology-9-1998.pdf
http://people.psych.ucsb.edu/gazzaniga/michael/PDF/Brain%20size,%20head%20size,%20and%20intelligence%20quotient%20in%20monozygotic%20twins.pdf
Physiologically there are brain differences; the medical literature shows that. The question is whether they have any mental relevance. This is a political question. The answer depends on whether you have imbibed the feminist kool-aid or not. One thing is certain -- women are not simply men with a different set of equipment. The differences are to be celebrated.
"Point 1 under this heading sounds a great deal like racial efforts equating head size and intelligence."
There is a consistent moderate correlation between brain size and intelligence within families, so nothing to do with race. A correlation coefficient means that there is a probabilistic relation between two variables -- it indicates how similar and dissimilar the two variables are. Thus there is a correlation between height and sex, but this does not mean that all men are taller than all women, or that one variable is a proxy for the other.
The presence of physiological differences was not the issue. The issue was sex differences in mental abilities. It is not necessarily a political question, though it rapidly becomes one regardless of kool-aid.
A part of the history of this question has everything to do with race. Look at the "History of the debate" section in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence. I don't know exactly where the question started, but I first encountered it in relation to race. I expect that the outcome and goals are much the same -- if not by the researcher asking the question, then by the people funding the research. If both parties are in fact innocent, then it will be used by those reading the articles.
It is not hard to go from a simple question about IQ to a justification for any social system no matter if that system involves race or sex. In this debate about IQ, I don't recall the "superior" side arguing that the standard deviation in the IQ scores made the mean difference trivial, or that the smartest living individual of the inferior might be smarter than all currently living members of the superior.
I strongly suspect that the question is unanswerable. I think that it is an impossible task to develop an IQ test that will produce a meaningful single number divorced from experimental design issues and the social/cultural background of both the person being tested and the persons doing the testing. Resources devoted to this task would be better spent elsewhere.
"The presence of physiological differences was not the issue. The issue was sex differences in mental abilities."
So, mental abilities do not have a physiological basis??
"In this debate about IQ, I don't recall the "superior" side..."
And who is this superior side? The ethnic/racial groups with highest mean IQ are the East Asians and Jews. The supposedly racist IQ researchers are mainly "inferior" Caucasians.
"I strongly suspect that the question is unanswerable."
Indeed, introducing the irrelevant and contentious topic of race so clouds the issue as to make in unanswerable. Politics and science do not mix (qv Lysenko).
I would suspect that mental abilities would have a physiological basis, but a physiological difference does not therefore equate to a difference in mental abilities.
The "superior" side is the one who writes the history books. The one that has the moral power of Law, or God, or a gun on their side. It is the one that society says has power over the ones that do not have such power. The chains may be physical, economic, or social.
Race does not cloud the issue. It is simply one way that people have used this sort of research question. If you were able to prove that the average female was 3.4 IQ points lower than the average male, would that then justify the position of females in your society? If it turned out that females were 3.4 IQ points higher than males would you give up your position in your society to allow the superior to assume their rightful place? If not, what difference would induce you to change your position? Would 80 IQ points work? What I expect is that you would fight this finding by arguing that the IQ test forcing you into a inferior state was invalid, and you would think of a long list of justifications.
I simply do not see anything good or useful arising from answering this question, even assuming that such an answer exists. If God came down and said "here is the answer" I would not be surprised if M>F or F>M depended on race and possibly things as simple as diet. If F eats more foods high in nutrients A, F, and M then F>M when both are on similar diets. However, if F of this race is on her ideal diet, and M of this other race is on his ideal diet, then they are equal. Given the source, you know that this answer is based on the underlying distribution, not any given population arising from that distribution. So where do you go from here? Even if your interest is purely idle curiosity, I guarantee that other people will not take it that way.
"a physiological difference does not therefore equate to a difference in mental abilities."
Again, there is a fundamental problem with the word equate. You will find no one in the primary IQ literature who espouses this crude reductionism. (If anyone knows of any genetic determinist, living or dead, please submit their names to my RG question on Determinism).
"If it turned out that females were 3.4 IQ points higher than males would you give up your position in your society to allow the superior to assume their rightful place?"
All discrimination, positive or negative, is , in my opinion, quite unethical. If all positions in employment were based on merit, no further action need be taken. Males will dominate in some professions, females in others.
Here is an example where females naturally gravitate to the top by virtue of superior linguistic and interpersonal abilities:
Female writers dominated 2017's literary bestsellers, figures show
Topped by Margaret Atwood, the UK’s Top 10 bestselling authors of literary fiction last year features only one male writer, Haruki Murakami
"Even if your interest is purely idle curiosity, I guarantee that other people will not take it that way. "
So any research that can be misused or misinterpreted by racists (and anti-racists!), nationalists, bigots, etc, should be trashed on principle, or actually banned, as it is effectively is in many places.
"So any research that can be misused or misinterpreted by racists ..."
I can see useful applications of many things that can be misused. Nuclear power gives us energy and bombs. Genetic research gives us monsters or cures diseases. So what is the useful outcome from answering or trying to answer this question?
If the answer is along the lines of "research does not always have to have a direct application," I will agree. However, such research is usually of no interest to all but a few academics. It does not make the news. It does not get out of academic circles. In the history of this question, whether it be related to sex or race, I see no benefit.
So what benefit do you see in answering this question that overcomes the obvious misuse that such an answer will facilitate?
"If you were able to prove that the average female was 3.4 IQ points lower than the average male"
Whilst I am not completely up-to-date on this, Lynn has studied this in depth and I see no reason to doubt this conclusion of his (for adults, not children), other than the fact that this will make many people uncomfortable and so should be suppressed. I agree no particular or specific policy is mandated by this finding. However, I don't see how we can possibly understand the salient underrepresentation of women in some (but not all) professions or academic areas if we choose to ignore this crucial fact.
There is a huge amount of scientific studies that abusing (or misinterpreting) their results, it’s not impossible. These probabilities shouldn't stop scientific researches. Sex differences in neuropsychological abilities is a very important field of study in psychology that can support other psychological researches (e.g., in sampling) or can help us especially in education and our requests from each gender. An interesting point is that when it seems that males are better in some abilities, females sound better in some other.
Best Regards,
"So what makes Lynn the bible on this topic?"
There is a definite correlation between brain size and IQ. Whilst not large, I do not know of exceptions to the rule that any group with reduced brain size also has lower mean IQ. Women, on average, have smaller brains than men, so the strong a priori presumption is that they will have slightly lower IQs (on at least some measures). Lynn has shown great courage in reviewing the literature on this contentious topic, concluding that there is indeed an IQ difference (in adults). It is now up to others, and good scientific manners, to show where he is mistaken in this.
Incidentally, I would have welcomed the opportunity to hear what Lynn had to say on sex differences in IQ at the 2016 London Intelligence conference, but this was not publicized for reasons which are only too obvious given recent events.
After 2 days, no example of any group with smaller brains but no reduction in IQ has been submitted.
There is an instructive historical example of the relation between IQ and brain size. 50,000 years ago brain size in humans was, quite improbably, larger than today. Rather than say this was an uninterpretable curiosity, and that we can never know how intelligent people were then, take a look at ancient cave art. Drawings of horses there can be easily scored on a modern Draw-a-Horse IQ test, where the artists score in the superior IQ range.
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