« Election Day | Main | The HD Election » Math is Hard!02 Mar 2008 10:03 am Like Spencer Ackerman, I'm having trouble believing this was actually published -- it's a long argument by Charlotte Allen in The Washington Post in favor of the proposition that women are dumb. That's no exaggeration, that's what the piece is about. Plus: frenology: Men's and women's brains not only look different, but men's brains are bigger than women's (even adjusting for men's generally bigger body size). Presumably if we left Allen out of the sample, things might look different. Comments (136)
Women really are worse drivers than men, for example. A study published in 1998 by the Johns Hopkins schools of medicine and public health revealed that women clocked 5.7 auto accidents per million miles driven, in contrast to men's 5.1, even though men drive about 74 percent more miles a year than women. I wonder if Allen realizes that the last clause of the last sentence there makes no sense. The accident rates are "per million miles driven." That women drive less miles, if anything, would suggest that it is experience driving not gender that correlates to accident rate. 
Bigger brains? **** She still wins that contest.
It's pretty obvious that women do, on the average, fair more poorly than men when it comes to various spacial skills (parallel parking etc..) and are more prone to minor car accidents. That said, men are much more likely to die in a car accident. Is dieing smart?
Isn't it phrenology?
How is this anti-Clinton advocacy? He's pointing out the idiocy of a shockingly sexist piece in the WaPo, which happens to make idiotic criticisms of Clinton's campaign.
Ummm... aren't a lotof animal brains bigger than human brains? Like, um... elephants? Elephants r sm@rt!
So women clock .6 more accidents per miles driven. Probably has a lot to do with where they drive. If men drive 74% more miles than women per year, it's sure not because they're making the runs to the grocery story, the school, carting the kids to various activities and doing the domestic errands. Men are doing the long distance driving while most accidents occur within a few miles of home.
Here's my favorite part: It's accidents per million miles, why does it matter that women drive slightly less? In fact, it makes perfect sense. Men should be slightly better drivers if they drive 75% more. Moreover, I'd be willing to bet that men long many more miles on the highway and a similar amount on surface roads -- where all the accidents occur. Hence, men and women probably have roughly equal incidences of accidents when stats are adjusted for driving habits.
Well, from everything I've read, the skew of innate mental skills (verbal vs. spatial) between men and women *is* considerably different. So I can't see how it's considered "sexist" to point out this simple aspect of reality. Similarly, there's a significant innate height difference (around 4 inches) between men and women, across pretty much all ethnic and demographic groups. Same thing for various body-fat ratios. Is pointing out these aspects of reality *also* sexist?
Oof. So many things wrong with this article. To add to those listed above, brain size is not an indicator of intelligence.
It's not "frenology", it's "phrenology". Also, this is not an example of phrenology anyway. Phrenology is the study of the bumps on ones skull to reveal aspects of one's personality. It's bunk science. It is, however, a misuse of a general principle of neuroscience. Species with more complex behaviors and social systems have a larger brain to body ratio. Humans have the highest brain:body ratio among mammals. Apes have a very high brain:body ratio, along with dolphins and whales. The correlation is typically very high when comparing across species or groups of animals. The misuse is that Allen is making is that she's comparing within species. During the eugenics era, there were scientists who felt they could demonstrate that various races had smaller brains, and therefore inferior intellects. But they often failed to account for smaller body size. In addition, some of their data was dubious at best. A lot of this has been excellently summarized in Stephan J. Gould's The Mismeasure of Man. Others attempted to do the same thing with men vs women. I'm not absolutely certain, but the notion that men have a higher brain:body ratio is weak at best. I'll look around, but I'm pretty sure Allen is wrong.
Anthropological studies have shown that brain size isn't directly related to intelligence, even in primates. Neanderthals had bigger brains but ended up dying out while Homo sapiens ended up thriving. Although I guess this kind of argument is moot for those who don't believe in evolution. But that brings us to a whole other argument...
Isn't it phrenology? Frenology: the study of the frenulum- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frenulum By alluding to frenology here, I suspect Matt is, Nabokov-like, making a point about men's brains v. women's brains which is simply too subtle for undereducated readers like me to fully understand. If only I too had gone to Harvard! ;P
Yup, average women are shorter than men, because we have been selecting for shorter women for a long, long time! Hey, but you have to believe in evolution to understand this stuff.
Also, let me add: chicks have always dug me for my big brain.
This would be the Charlotte Allen who complains that because of feminism flight attendants aren't pretty anymore. She's just a ridiculous person.
I guess if Shelby Steele got a sex change, he would be named Charlotte Allen. This reminds me of when Coulter was saying women are stupid and their opinions shouldn't count. The Washington Post seems to be a in decade-long mission to destroy its own reputation.
In hominids, smaller brains usually correlate to greater intelligence.
"Yup, average women are shorter than men, because we have been selecting for shorter women for a long, long time!" Disagree. I think we've been selecting for a combination of beauty and muskrat skinning skills.
This would be the Charlotte Allen who complains that because of feminism flight attendants aren't pretty anymore. She's just a ridiculous person. But, but, but..."Charlotte Allen lives in Washington, D.C. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and other publications."
The key to success in getting published on women's issues is insulting other women. Charlotte Allen, Linda Hirshman, Caitlin Flanigan. Editors don't publish serious feminists much; they're apparently after catfights.
This is par for the course for the Post as of late.
Found this: Peters M. Sex differences in human brain size and the general meaning of differences in brain size. It's older, so I can only look at the abstract. But it says this: Contrary to commonly held convictions, there is no clear association between brain size and body parameters in humans. Within sexes, once age and health status are controlled for, there is no significant association between brain size and body height for females. For males, body height accounts for no more than .04% of the variance in brain size. The relation between brain weight and body weight is even less clearly defined. Nevertheless, there are large and significant differences in brain size between the sexes. If no adequate body parameters can be found that scale to brain size within the sexes, the marked dimorphism between males and females makes it even more difficult to find a common set of parameters that allow evaluation of brain size differences between sexes. Within and across sexes, there is no convincing link between a limited measure of behavioural capacity (IQ) and brain size. This leads to the more general question: Why would one expect such a link, and, if it is not found, what does this mean in the context of general theories of cortical function? Will keep looking for actual data...
Charlotte Allen ... a future writer for the Atlantic, to join Caitlin Flanagan and Lori Gottleib? The editors can get her to write a piece on how the irrationality of women should bar them from voting.
Some commenters on the WaPo site are suggesting this is ironic/satire. I'd like to believe that, but it's not very well done if that's the case-- thoughts?
A very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.
Jonah Lucianne is Chrlotte Allen.
The key to success in getting published on women's issues is insulting other women. Charlotte Allen, Linda Hirshman, Caitlin Flanigan. Editors don't publish serious feminists much; they're apparently after catfights. I wonder to what extent this is a function of age, both of the editors and the readership. A lot of the issues that get raised seem to me to be ones that are, if not settled, then tabled for the duration(often enough because most people recognize that we aren't anywhere near technically skilled enough in the relevant field to start seeking broad social answers from such inquiries, or because the only (questionable) answers available are at the margins and therefore not all that relevant).
Neither head size nor brain size determine intelligence, in men vs. women or among the world's "races." Cranial determinism is dead. See this: http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/rushtonpdfs/Lieberman2001CA.pdf
"I wonder to what extent this is a function of age, both of the editors and the readership. A lot of the issues that get raised seem to me to be ones that are, if not settled, then tabled for the duration(often enough because most people recognize that we aren't anywhere near technically skilled enough in the relevant field to start seeking broad social answers from such inquiries, or because the only (questionable) answers available are at the margins and therefore not all that relevant)." Mmmm... Catfight...
God, I love wingnut sarcasm. So stupid, so clueless, yet so arrogant. Allen writes an article filled with baseless generalizations and containing almost no meaningful data, save that which she botches (like the accident rate thing). We tear it apart and a right-wing nut shows up to say that because there are actual physiological differences between men and women that we are wrong to point out the logical errors on Allen's article. And does so with the most arrogant, sarcastic tone possible. This demonstrates everything that is wrong with the conservative brain, which I believe is markedly smaller and more skewed to delusion than the liberal brain. Though I have no evidence to support that. And if you quarrel with my baseless assertion, I will simply respond with sarcasm.
My favorite part: The theory that women are the dumber sex -- or at least the sex that gets into more car accidents -- is amply supported by neurological and standardized-testing evidence. . . [and three sentences later:] While the two sexes seem to have the same IQ on average (although even here, at least one recent study gives males a slight edge), there are proportionally more men than women at the extremes of very, very smart and very, very stupid. Indeed, standardized testing results showing that men and women have the same IQ on average is ample evidence that men are smarter than women. Good thing we don't count anecdotal data in judging sex differences in intelligence.
I also refuse to believe that women watching Grey's Anatomy (which I only got into because my dad liked it so much) or screaming "I love Obama!" is more embarrassing than men dressing up as female hogs for football games or spending their time and money on World of Warcraft.
Katie, what if you're dressing up as a hog to watch Gray's Anatomy? I'm half surprised they didn't blame everything on a wandering uterus. "I knew that uterus was around here a minute ago. Where could have that fucker wandered off to again?"
Hm. So it looks like the reason there are the same number of guys and gals with the same IQ on average is because the really dumb guys cancel out the really bright guys. The only real problem I see with that is that the really dumb guys are running the government and the really dumb women are writing stupid stuff is what used to be worthwhile news media.
I always thought that women may get into more accidents because cars are designed for the average height/weight combination of men. Where exactly is a place for my handbag? I know I can carry eighteen drinks in my car, but where do I put my bag? Really. The Post is no longer allowed in my house. If my husband wants it, he has to DRIVE to get it.
I wonder... Is Allen talking about the female brain, or the conservative brain? In all seriousness, the problem here is the usual one you get when science meets politics. Pols should stay out of these debates. The science here is not at all clear. Men's brains may be bigger, but so what? If brain size (adjusted for body size, of course!) were the end-all be-all of intelligence, then Sperm Whales would run the universe. But Allen is at least right about one thing... what science exists does suggest that women and men think differently. For example, when men and women are asked to solve problems, brain scans show that women tend to use more of their brains. What does that mean? Let me be clear, NO. ONE. KNOWS. It could be that men tend to specialize more than women, or it might not mean anything. Its a subtle distinction but an important one. And that's why things go wrong when we mix science with politics. Pols lack the subtlety needed to correctly analyze data, interested as they are in advancing a position. Allen selectively picks her data to support her position and then interprets that data in the "best" possible way. Allen should shut her yap and let the experts figure these things out.
I guess Tweety's swooning over the manliness of GWB, Grandpa Thompson, McMaverick is evidence that he's actually a fragile-brained female in disguise?
That Charlotte Allen has come to this point is not surprising -- when one considers that women have been swayed by "sweet nothings" whispered by unscrupulour men for centuries, and that despite so-called feminism, the tendancy is still strongly evident with the Obama craziness makes one wonder if it is genetic. And Katie, the difference between women screaming "I love you " to Obama and dressing as female hogs is, the former is done in all seriousness and the latter is done in all silliness. I am a woman and while I do not advocate rescinding the right to vote for women, I can understand Coulter's words of frustration when so-called feminists continue to support Clinton even though definitive evidence exist that he nothing but a disgusting sexual predator.
One legal point - she's right about the link between feminism and flight attendants not being sexy. It was a decently famous employment law case brought by feminists against Southwest Airlines. Southwest had a hot ad in which a buxom babe delivered the line (paraphrased) 'what's the one thing that the other airlines don't have?' 'Me' as she sashayed away from the camera in very tight shorts. Employment action was brought by feminists against Southwest for its discriminatory hiring practices (only hiring the young and beautiful): feminists won, with looks not being held to be a compelling enough business reason to discriminate.
"I am a woman and while I do not advocate rescinding the right to vote for women" Given the demographic voting tendencies over the past generation, I advocate rescinding the right to vote for men.
Is "I love you" done in all seriousness and hog-dressing Redskins fans done in all silliness? I realize that the effects of politics might be much greater on the world than the effects of sports, but I think people approach the two with much the same gleeful attitude. (And, for the record, I know many men who do indeed love Obama [and even a few who love Clinton] with a love that can only express itself in the form of graphic t-shirts, face-paint, and internet memes. Ditto sports fanatic ladies.)
I wonder if Allen realizes that the last clause of the last sentence there makes no sense. Of course she doesn't, Brian. She's a woman. She's dumb.
Finally the Clinton campaign shows some brains! It's obviously a subtle attempt to energize the sympathy vote for her. Seriously, without the synergy of legacy male sexism and female outrage towards same, where would Senator Clinton be? Damned and forgotten as an incompetent loser, just like Obama would have been if he had lost eleven straight races and insulted the people of every state that didn't support him. The only thing that could make a sane person sorry enough for Clinton to vote for her is an article like this.
It's pretty obvious that women do, on the average, fair more poorly than men when it comes to various spacial skills (parallel parking etc..) and are more prone to minor car accidents. That said, men are much more likely to die in a car accident. Is dieing smart? Posted by Taisa "fair" should be "fare" So much for assumptions that gender automatically bestows superior verbal skills.
I've flown on EVA (Taiwanese) and there must not be any antidiscrimination laws at work and the flight attendants are almost all women, and they all seem to be young and pretty. The service is fine, but not as good, I think, as it would be if it would be if they didn't all have to be young and pretty. They don't get an opportunity to get a lot of experience, and it shows a bit.
@Nitwit.
Where's Larry Summers when you need him?
Hilarious article.
Allen does demonstrate that at least one woman can't hand the subtle mathematical concept of "per" when she writes "A study published in 1998 by the Johns Hopkins schools of medicine and public health revealed that women clocked 5.7 auto accidents per million miles driven, in contrast to men's 5.1, even though men drive about 74 percent more miles a year than women."
Where are the accomplished women artists and scientist? When it comes to creativity women really don't have it. Larry Summers only hinted at the reality. they are not dumb, just think in very conventional ways. Even when it comes to women's domains like cooking, men seem the more daring and creative chefs. Any I'm getting tired of these haggard stewardesses (yes, that's the correct term) If you're on a transcontinental, do you really want to ring for someone's sullen grandmother to bring you a bottle of water? Her legs are swollen and she has a chip on her shoulder, but she's got seniority and thus has a right to work all the best paying routes - the ones she's most ill-suited to work. The non-US carries do such a better (non-PC) job of it.
I thought the article was a scream. The low rent cultural studies approach--in which sociological insights are gleaned from popular television shows--was a scream. The building sense of outrage in the comments over at the Post is a scream. The sentence that counts "per mile driven" twice is a scream. The reliance on a talk show host for the "five women fainted at Obama rallies" statistic: a scream. The Post outlook section thinking itself brave and provocative for running it-- come on, that's a scream. The way the outraged reactions prove to the editors how "provocative" they have been, as against, say, how idiotic they are... is, you guessed it, a scream. It's a scream the way you can't tell at times if it's a parody. The take-the-bait feminist reaction (Flanagan, Gottlieb, now Allen) is a scream. If Deb Howell does a furrowed-brow ombudsman column about it, that, I am quite sure, will be a scream. In conclusion, I thought the article was a scream.
Got to be satire.
Wait, I've read a bit further, and it's actually hurting my head with its stupidity and ugliness. Could it be designed to exemplify its own thesis?
Jozef nails it i think...i speak somebody who is doing a lot of flying right now and hating American carriers above all...
Oh, darn, I forgot the exemplify-its-own-thesis double helix part. That's a scream.
Is Charlotte Allen related to George Allen? Is this her macaca moment?
Ironically, this piece was published the same weekend that the NYT magazine section published a LONG screed that boiled down to: "boys are doing worse in school than girls. Obviously, we have to fix the schools." When boys do better than girls, it's obviously proof of inherent male superiority. When they do worse, it's just as obviously the product of an unjust competitive environment that stigmatizes normal male behavior, preventing them from expressing their inherent male superiority. That's not to say that the schools are being fair to boys--for all I know they're totally screwing them over, which would be bad. But frankly, Larry Summers didn't seem to assume that it was the system that was broke when it was women doing worse, so I don't understand why we should automatically make that assumption when the shoe is on a boy's foot instead of a girl's.
When boys do better than girls, it's obviously proof of inherent male superiority. When they do worse, it's just as obviously the product of an unjust competitive environment that stigmatizes normal male behavior.. Didn't the Ivy Leagues add more vote to verbal scores over quantitative as soon as it dawned on them that a fair selection process would lead the Harvards and Yales to become Universities of Chinese and Indians? First they came for Asians, etc.
The low rent cultural studies approach--in which sociological insights are gleaned from popular television shows--was a scream. Oh, now don't go blaming cultural studies for Charlotte Allen, Jay. The tradition of Raymond Williams and E. P. Thompson has nothing to do with wankery on this order. Besides, there's really nothing wrong with suggesting that (for example) the profusion of makeover shows and competitions (from Survivor to Idol) might actually mean something, culturally speakin'. But there is something wrong with writing a very stupid essay on women's stupidity. Personally, I think this is a pretty vindictive piece of work on the part of the WaPo. It's as if they're saying, "you want more women in our pages? fine -- see how you like this."
Should we be surprised that K-Lo loved the piece? http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODFhN2VhZTY2YzYyZDY4MjYxNjg0ODMwNWJhMWQ3ODc=
The WP obviously wants thousands of women readers to cancel their subscriptions. It is grooming the next Ann Coulter and aspires to be not the rival of the NYT, but WorldNetDaily. Sheesh. I've read this kind of thing from Vox Day.
If it's any support for the op-ed as satire angle, the Outlook editors channeled Todd Rundgren's "We Gotta Get You A Woman" ("they may be stupid, but they sure are fun") in their print edition page jump headline.
Oh, now don't go blaming cultural studies for Charlotte Allen, Jay. Nah, I wouldn't do that. I'm a James W. Carey disciple, in addition to Raymond Williams, M.B. They and their work are blameless when it comes to accounting for such an article. I just think it's funny the way writers try to make large cultural statements and give as evidence the popularity of a television show where the statement can be seen "in action," as it were. (Whereas if the show got cancelled the next season the statement would be cancelled?) It's crude cultural studies, low rent analysis, a parody of criticism-- lame, but funny lame because the Outlook editors have just enough education to go for it.
it's not a satire; you can tell by the "rueful", "I wish we weren't dumb, but we are!", tellin-it-like-it-is tone.... And guys--cultural studies ain't the only problem here--you gotta like the potted literary history that moves directly from _Pamela_ to _Fear of Flying_! Anybody for a mash-up?
it's not a satire; you can tell by the "rueful", "I wish we weren't dumb, but we are!", tellin-it-like-it-is tone.... And guys--cultural studies ain't the only problem here--you gotta like the potted literary history that moves directly from _Pamela_ to _Fear of Flying_! Anybody for a mash-up?
Gee, the article *I* read was a semi-satirical piece bemoaning the fact that lots of women voters are reacting to Obama like schoolgirls at a 'Backstreet Boyz' concert. But hey, if you want to read some major anti-feminist thesis into it, go right ahead. Just remind me again--what qualifies you to comment on women's issues?
Well, I read the whole thing, and I kind of enjoyed it (being female). The thought about screaming around magnetic politicians made me wince. I did that many years ago when I got close to Bill Clinton. Sure, I was pretty young, but that's no excuse (cringe). I was really out of control then. By and large I relate to what she's saying. I often wonder why I will take solace and refuge in obsessing about things like mineral makeup and theories of the afterlife. It seems like a tonic to the high-stress, day-to-day insult of making a living. It's all about escapism with me -- plugging in to Bob and Ray every evening while playing solitaire mah jong. How pathetic! I too don't understand why I just don't relax and enjoy my innate abilities. Yet, the innate abilities she attributes to women (tenderness, home decorating skills, a love for chick lit) are absolutely lost to me. I have never been any good at organization and home decorating. In fact, I felt nothing but quiet contempt toward Hillary Clinton when she said she liked to relax by cleaning out her drawers at home. How dull -- and yet, how admirably pragmatic. I am more like Obama -- happier with a messy desk. I like his thinking much more than Clinton's. Women, like men, are really much more restrained by their temperament than anything. I think Obama must be an NT -- cool, rational, visionary ... if I do say so, rather like myself. All in all, I don't see why this essay makes people so angry. Having said that, I don't relate to what she says is common amongst most women. I couldn't even understand the essay last week here in The Atlantic about "settling" for a guy, as much of it seemed predicated on television shows I have never seen. I've never seen a single episode of Oprah or Sex in the City, so I had virtually no familiarity with the author's (apparently common) pictures of domesticity. I am out of step with the contemporary woman. I would much rather watch old movies. Last night I burst out crying while watching "Penny Serenade." Just like a woman.
Nice comment, Dylan. Thanks for sharing your feelings. We all appreciate that, in some ways, you are like the author of the linked piece--and yet, in many ways you are very different from her. Oh, by the way---what's your point?
I thought the point was: life does not run along tracks the culture war lays down for National Review writers and Washington Post editors.
The Rove strategy on the right keeps on ticking. I loved the Allan article for its symptomatic expression of the pathologies that have been loosed on the right. Demonizing immigrants, and thus alienating Hispanics, wasn't enough. The right has known for a long time it has a gender problem - turns out women aren't stupid enough to vote for smug, privileged conservative whackos. So the new idea is: must be women are dumb and ugly! Ah, boil down the GOP party. Boil it down to its poisonous essence, the inbred group of racists, warmongers and apocalyptic religious cults. I'm looking forward to this process, to the day when Oklahoma, Alabama and South Carolina are the only jewels left in the GOP crown. Excellent.
That's not what phrenology is.
Also, let me add: chicks have always dug me for my big brain. From an evolutionary psychology point of view, intelligence was an advantageous reproductive trait because in hunter/gatherer times, women would be highly attracted to the men who would sit around the communal fire and recite mathematical proofs, and thus they had more descendants. And let this piece of mathematical illiteracy: A study published in 1998 by the Johns Hopkins schools of medicine and public health revealed that women clocked 5.7 auto accidents per million miles driven, in contrast to men's 5.1, even though men drive about 74 percent more miles a year than women. serve as a lesson to this troll who claimed that the humanities were "real education" while sciences like math were "just voc-ed."
I don't think anyone else has commented on this sentence in Allen's article, so I will. "The only good news was that women tended to take fewer driving risks than men, so their crashes were only a third as likely to be fatal." Women have 11.8% more auto accidents for every million miles driven, but men kill three times as many people. This is incontrovertible evidence that men are better drivers. Or that the author is demented.
Women have 11.8% more auto accidents for every million miles driven, but men kill three times as many people. This is incontrovertible evidence that men are better drivers, et al. As Hope Muntz points out above, you guys are attempting to impose linear patriarchal standards on the freer, more deeply felt mathematics that governs "women's issues." Much like the related field of "GOP math," "women's math" eschews the cold, hard clinical fact-based approach to reasoning in favor of a deeper, more complex and flexible approach to truth. And--as noted by Ms. Muntz--if you have a penis you're not allowed to call bullshit on it.
Y'know, Barbie claims she never really said that math was hard -- just it was beyond her Ken.
Didn't the Ivy Leagues add more vote to verbal scores over quantitative as soon as it dawned on them that a fair selection process would lead the Harvards and Yales to become Universities of Chinese and Indians? The entire college admissions process - extra-curriculars, "character", essays, etc - was created in order to keep the Jews out: Chronicle H. Ed. article. Changing the rules again to keep another "model minority" out seems about right to me.
Amazing how auto insurance companies see the situation differently..... I expect that if one were to compare driving ability of both sexes who have driven the same amount, both men and women would be equal.
Here, let me translate Charlotte Allen's windy load of you-know-what into straight-forward functional English: "Barack Obama sux, 'cause I read somewhere that some women think he's swoony and women are real stupid, and so does Hillary Clinton, 'cause she's a woman herself! So vote for John McCain!!!"
"And if dudes are so smart, why do women blatantly get better grades than us in school?" School-age girls mature earlier and are better at sitting still, following directions, etc. Women are probably as smart as men, on average, but the intelligence distribution for men probably has fatter tails. So there are probably more male knuckleheads, but also more male geniuses. This may explain why the sciences, math, engineering, etc. are dominated by men.
This may explain why the sciences, math, engineering, etc. are dominated by men. No, a distribution cannot explain anything, it's just a description.
I just think it's funny the way writers try to make large cultural statements and give as evidence the popularity of a television show where the statement can be seen "in action," as it were. (Whereas if the show got cancelled the next season the statement would be cancelled?) Hmmm, good question. Brand new zeitgeist? Sorry for misreading you the first time, Jay--
No, a distribution cannot explain anything, it's just a description. What an incredibly stupid statement.
How is that a stupid statement? You think saying, "Hmm... I wonder why there are so many men in prison and so many men winning the Nobel Prize... ah yes, it's because their intelligence distribution is fatter-tailed" is a real explanation rather than a re-statement of the facts?
Tempest:teapot. I realize that the article was dumb.I thought so when I read it: the old answer for the brain size argument was that the largest brain ever recorded belonged to a clinical idiot. But THIS is the priority of the blogosphere? We have a constitutional showdown. They're deploying killer robots in Iraq. We're at loggerheads over Big Brotherish surveillance. The economy is melting down, despite the most florid euphemisms of the financial press, and THIS is the grand debate over the nature of gender in our society? Tempest:teapot. Let's prioritize: First we worry about saving the world. Then we bury trivial fluff under an avalanche of self-righteous, passionate rhetorical flummery. Thx.
But THIS is the priority of the blogosphere? We have a constitutional showdown. They're deploying killer robots in Iraq. Why do you think this happened? Part of the reason is because we have such a petty, ignorant, stupid press corps, a fine example of which is this particular article.
I often wonder why I will take solace and refuge in obsessing about things like mineral makeup and theories of the afterlife. Not a joke? Please.
"Isn't it phrenology?" That's just Matt demonstrating in solidarity that women are smarter. As for the general argument, I think this is an overuse of the concept "intelligence" which, outside of a detailed explanation of how human brains work in terms of neuroscience, is a non-concept. Basing estimates of intelligence on specific social or cultural or simply physical activities like car driving is just idiotic. No measurement of "intelligence", absent a precise and correct neurological model of how the brain actually works and works in support of human survival, is worth a damn. Human males and females clearly are going to have significant neurological capabilities. Without a complete knowledge of those capabilities, it can't be clear which are more "important" in which contexts. The same applies to any neurological differences which might exist between ethnicities, which is why arguments over whether whites are "smarter" than blacks are so brain dead. The whole question is an example of human stupidity. Try to find out the reality first before speaking. Or in simpler terms, if you don't know what you're talking about, STFU.
And add to the complete lack of knowledge of neuroscience a complete lack of knowledge of how evolution selected for the brain capacities each sex or ethnicity might have. It's pointless to bitch about the brains evolution handed us over the last half million years unless you have the technology to change them. Which, fortunately, we will have over the next fifty years. But trying to change female brains so they have fewer auto accidents would probably be a pretty stupid project. Better to change the brains of people who think that would be a good thing so they're less stupid. And finally, also keep in mind that all of these "measurements" are on a Bell Curve - the question is always how many of any characteristic are on each segment of the curve relative to any other characteristic available. Without a precise knowledge of that, your conclusions are going to be wrong again. Chimpanzees. Jesus Baron Von Christ!
Re: "frenology" [sic] Matt, when it comes to the human sciences, it's better to keep your mouth shut and be suspected of being ignorant than opening your mouth and removing all doubt. Stephen Jay Gould devoted a lot of space in his 1981 bestseller denouncing IQ research, The Mismeasure of Man, to claiming that 19th century researchers into the relationship between brain volume and smartness cooked their data. For some reason, lots of people have considered this a crushing rejoinder against 21st century IQ science. In truth, the old scientists didn't cheat, but even if they did, that doesn't seem much more relevant to today's research than asserting that modern astronomy is fraudulent because astronomers used to believe the sun went around the earth. Well, it turns out that Gould was not only irrelevant, but wrong -- the old physical anthropologists were right about the correlation between brain size and brainpower. If Stephen Jay Gould were alive today, he'd spinning in his grave: "Big-brained people are smarter: A meta-analysis of the relationship between in vivo brain volume and intelligenc" by Michael McDaniel of VCU in 2006. "The relationship between brain volume and intelligence has been a topic of a scientific debate since at least the 1830s. To address the debate, a meta-analysis of the relationship between in vivo brain volume and intelligence was conducted. Based on 37 samples across 1530 people, the population correlation was estimated at 0.33. The correlation is higher for females than males. It is also higher for adults than children. For all age and sex groups, it is clear that brain volume is positively correlated with intelligence." http://www.people.vcu.edu/~mamcdani/Big-Brained%20article.pdf That's not a huge correlation, but for female adults it is 0.41 and for male adults it is 0.37. It's usually said in the social sciences that a correlation of 0.2 is low, 0.4 is medium, and 0.6 is high. These brain volumes are typically measured with MRIs or the like. The correlation between IQ and hat size is quite low, although it is positive. Gould was a classic example of the kind of charismatic egomaniacal workhorse scholar who has done so much damage going back to Marx and Freud. You can get quite rich these days telling the intellectual class what it wants to hear. From a news report on the malpractice suit filed by Gould's widow against his doctors: "The lawsuit does not specify the damages being sought, but says that Dr. Gould earned $300,000 a year from speaking engagements alone, that "a seven-figure income was his norm" and that when he died he was about to enter into a book contract for more than $2 million."
As for sex differences in brain size, after correction for body size, there remains a small advantage for men on average. The cause remains unclear, although it must have some Darwinian functional use since brain tissue is extremely expensive in terms of calories required and the physical problems caused by larger skulls (they're harder to get through the birth canal; big skulled people are more top-heavy and thus more prone to fall over, etc). This is mysterious because men and women average very similar on IQ tests (although, of course, as Larry Summers pointed out, there are far more males than females at the far left and right tails of bell curve). The cleverest suggestion I've heard for the larger male brains is Greg Cochran's: that the extra volume is used for 3-d thinking. By way of analogy, the second biggest chip in your PC is typically the video chip that does 3-d calculations for gaming. Males, of course, average over a half-standard deviation higher on tests of 3-dimensional thinking. But, I haven't seen any tests that would support this hypothesis.
the old physical anthropologists were right about the correlation between brain size and brainpower...."Big-brained people are smarter: A meta-analysis of the relationship between in vivo brain volume and intelligence" by Michael McDaniel of VCU in 2006." In a related study, a "meta-analysis" of studies exploring the "link" between "race" and "intelligence" would probably indicate that a majority of such studies--surprise, surprise!--find a positive correlation! If scientists weren't so committed to unbiased analysis of experimental data, you'd suspect they were embarking on such research with the intent of achieving a specific result. But of course that could never happen.
It is obvious that Allen wrote the wretched piece, and the WaPo published the wretched piece, because they wanted a new way to slander |
You're taking your anti-Clinton advocacy a bit far here, no?
-----
The muskrat beauty pageant item is the WaPo story you should be blogging about today.
Posted by Petey | March 2, 2008 10:13 AM