When I first read the post I thought that I had a lot of thoughts and that it was a shame that there isn’t a way to schedule a comment to go live when Comments were turned on. That way I could write a comment with my Thoughts still fresh. But then I considered the effect on you of having a deluge of comments, like some cartoon character opening a closet door where a pipe has been leaking all night. Moreover, I have now forgotten most of my Thoughts about the post, which is a relief to me and a lighter burden on you. However, unfortunately, I do recall two things. First, please, if you would, write about how IQ tests are re-normed. I seem to recall reading that not re-norming would have skewed the curve to the right, up until a few years ago, when things started to go the other way. Whether that is correct or not, I think you could explain clearly about the process of standardizing standardized tests. Second, I know you reprinted and existing graphic showing occupation after graduation plotted against sex, but I found that the left-to-right orientation of the bar chart was misleading—it kind of implied a hierarchy of occupations. Reading the chart upside down had the same effect, though with the favored occupations reversed. I would love to know if my initial impression was odd. I would like to know, too, if there was another way to present the data that would be as clear and simple. Thanks!
Thank you for writing on this delicate topic in a way that is neither insulting to women nor blind to obvious discrepancies. Now, if you could explain WHY men are more likely to be represented at the extremes, I'd be very interested.
I often morosely observe that it's hard to find women are really weird; women seem much more "normal" to me as a group. I wonder if this is related, or if my observation is simply false.
Your observation is likely related. Women for a whole bunch of evolutionary reasons tend to be "agreeable" and to follow consensus. Men don't have those evolutionary reasons and tend, as a result, to be more rebellious and "disagreeable"
The general explanation I've seen for this is that women have to band together for survival. A woman who has been kicked out of the tribe is almost certainly going to die. A man, on the other hand, is more likely to survive on his own.
IQ tests were designed for the French Education to double screen those who were not educable for skilled roles and those suitable for advance study. They are not reliable at either extreme. For the population, this does not matter.
For the bright individual (say >2.5 SD) g intelligence does not work. Most men at the extreme end of intellectual giftedness are extremely incompetent in other areas. One of the original uses of monasteries and universities was to provide such with a sheltered workshop and keep them outodf the gene pool.
The more noxious, midwitted argument is that math is wrong because feelings. Incorrect. The math is a modelthant, as you note, pragmatically works.
In the American cultural sphere IQ tests became widespread as a result of the world wars. The govt needed a reliable quick & dirty way of selecting officer candidates from those who could simply follow instructions (and those who wouldn't/couldn't). Traditionally officer education took several grueling years that was unable to keep up with mass mobilization.
The above is what I was taught in 1st year Psych... I remember seeing samples like:
If you see a dying plant what would you do?
A water it
B ask a superior
C nothing
Etc - they were quite funny from the modern perspective. Then after WW2 this mass-quantification approach spread to American industry and mainstream education system.
Your observation about the extremely gifted men is apt, as it is a historical norm for brilliant men like Newton & Copernicus to have lived childless lives. Their reproduction was intellectual rather than biological.
I remember racking my brains over that very Q! My ultimate conclusion was A is correct - since you are given the key information that the plant is dying and an implied objective of keeping it alive.
My own mind went off on a tangent like: what kind of plant is it - a weed or a useful one? So how do you know if keeping it alive is a desirable goal - so you should ask the officer? Then I realised this was a "nerd response" of thinking far too deep about a simple thing.
I'd say they wanted to weed confident quick decision-makers from ditherers, so maybe "excessively smart who think too much" people were intended to fail as well...
Perhaps the correct answer is C. Maybe they want officers who will mind their own business and not do anything they weren't ordered to do that doesn't directly have to do with their mission. Maybe there really isn't a right or wrong answer.
Male/Female differences is an extremely touchy subject and its difficult to have a good-faith discussion about it. I've been there - once discussed this hypothesis with my therapist (a self id's feminist), we get along really well but it was like discovering you'd accidentally strolled into a minefield.
Its a subject that needs really good intellectual discipline and reminds me of the mis-understandings about evolution that many fall into. I'm referring to the non-teleology of that process - the outcome is the "result of whatever survived" rather being directed to some gain. In other words these differences between IQ distros may be the outcome of some other selection process, consider how a prehistoric caveman-clan would be better off with one genius and 99 blokes to do the heavy lifting than a 50/50 split.
Your use of earthy language to explain the shortage of large animal vets is the kind of writing I love - it was a slam dunk, a Catlin Clark three from DOWNTOWN. I suspect that vet shortage was even true in the fifties when our vet from Hanover NH was a specialist in calving problems in cows - mostly breech births - and flew all over the US and Canada to turn the calves around before it was too late. His rubber glove went up to his shoulder and he used silver chains to turn the calf around. That said, I learned about IQ when my incompetent shell-shocked totally PTSDed sixth grade teacher (Spent the war in the Pacific on an escort destroyer waiting to torpedoed for years) delegated everything he could to me including marking the IQ tests. It was clear to me as a child that IQ was not everything. There were 130s from poor families living with addicted and sexualy abusive parents and very ordinary IQs from more middle class families. Some below par kids were clearly better people than smarter and more sociopathic kids. I had a high IQ and the SATs at the end of High School showed I had slightly better verbal ability by about 20 points out of a theoretical 800 in those days. I am better with language generally than I am at learning foreign languages. I get math but have not developed it a lot. I have some special knack for language developed by my mother teaching me how to read Middle English that allows me to literally hear multiple echos in words. For example, I prefer "Holy Ghost" to "Holy Spirit" because I hear the German word for spirit "Geist: embedded in the English "Ghost". I understand why it was changed. I am a better mechanic that I am a driver - I never was tempted to become a big-rig driver. But...most of all this is an important post because it is corrective of some ideological presuppositions that ignore real differences between the sexes in the long term project of learning to work with each other.
I specifically remember the two with the lowest and the highest number. 136 and 140.
I don’t know if any of the test results are accurate because I’ve always had problems taking tests. It is for the same reason I have problems with most things in life. Extreme anxiety and severe attention deficit. Compounding my problems are the facts that my brain seems to process thoughts extremely slowly and that I’ve always had the worst memory of anyone I’ve ever met, which makes it very difficult to recall most things I have learned. All of these things make it very difficult to finish taking tests within the allotted time. And these problems only get worse as I age.
Thank you for yet another thoughtful and thought provoking post. All you say is true and I write that with some amount of confidence, based on years of experience with people all over this world.
I think a good deal of this is how we are as a species. Different people have different abilities and levels to cope with the widest range of situations. While we are competitive as individuals, we are also cooperative and complementary in groups. Without this I think we would have failed miserably as a species eons ago. Biological differences have entered into this with childbirth and child rearing as you point out, but it also does not prevent creative skills and skills and intelligence from shining thru, unless you are a blinkered, phillistine idiot who cannot see the obvious. I have a theory that constant exposure to PowerPoint rots the analytical parts of the human mind, which might explain your colleague’s situation. I suspect your client was just an idiot however.
“But if we gave awards for being unusually stupid, men would win most of those, too.”
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Well, actually we do. They are called The Darwin Awards and while they are informal, they are very final, as I am sure you already know.
You're welcome! This model has been very freeing for me. The greater breadth of women (on average) is the most significant thing, I think. There are tons of women who are capable of Fields Medals. They just tend to choose something more fun and family-friendly (86% of women still have at least one child by age 40). And thank goodness for choices. They're the necessary conditions for happiness.
This sort of thinking was what got James Damore in trouble at google all those years ago. I hope no woke idiots can connect it to your employer and complain to the DIE group in your company's HR department.
Probably the worst thing feminism and related activism has done is try to suggest that men and women are 100% alike except for their gonads. I'm glad to see women like you stand up and say the obvious in public because, as Damore found out, if a man says something like this he is immediately demonized. (And yes I'm very well aware of the irony of this situation).
I do however strongly suggest you not do the race version of this, even though it is also obvious that different strands of humanity have different physical and mental strengths and weaknesses.
When I first read the post I thought that I had a lot of thoughts and that it was a shame that there isn’t a way to schedule a comment to go live when Comments were turned on. That way I could write a comment with my Thoughts still fresh. But then I considered the effect on you of having a deluge of comments, like some cartoon character opening a closet door where a pipe has been leaking all night. Moreover, I have now forgotten most of my Thoughts about the post, which is a relief to me and a lighter burden on you. However, unfortunately, I do recall two things. First, please, if you would, write about how IQ tests are re-normed. I seem to recall reading that not re-norming would have skewed the curve to the right, up until a few years ago, when things started to go the other way. Whether that is correct or not, I think you could explain clearly about the process of standardizing standardized tests. Second, I know you reprinted and existing graphic showing occupation after graduation plotted against sex, but I found that the left-to-right orientation of the bar chart was misleading—it kind of implied a hierarchy of occupations. Reading the chart upside down had the same effect, though with the favored occupations reversed. I would love to know if my initial impression was odd. I would like to know, too, if there was another way to present the data that would be as clear and simple. Thanks!
An excellent point about the graphic. I have a three day weekend — I may redo it.
Thank you for writing on this delicate topic in a way that is neither insulting to women nor blind to obvious discrepancies. Now, if you could explain WHY men are more likely to be represented at the extremes, I'd be very interested.
I often morosely observe that it's hard to find women are really weird; women seem much more "normal" to me as a group. I wonder if this is related, or if my observation is simply false.
I may try my hand at this, but it will take some time. I’m much more comfortable writing about mathematics than genetics.
Your observation is likely related. Women for a whole bunch of evolutionary reasons tend to be "agreeable" and to follow consensus. Men don't have those evolutionary reasons and tend, as a result, to be more rebellious and "disagreeable"
The general explanation I've seen for this is that women have to band together for survival. A woman who has been kicked out of the tribe is almost certainly going to die. A man, on the other hand, is more likely to survive on his own.
I am dead if there's a crisis, I guess - although I'm married and have children, so maybe I have a chance.
IQ tests were designed for the French Education to double screen those who were not educable for skilled roles and those suitable for advance study. They are not reliable at either extreme. For the population, this does not matter.
For the bright individual (say >2.5 SD) g intelligence does not work. Most men at the extreme end of intellectual giftedness are extremely incompetent in other areas. One of the original uses of monasteries and universities was to provide such with a sheltered workshop and keep them outodf the gene pool.
The more noxious, midwitted argument is that math is wrong because feelings. Incorrect. The math is a modelthant, as you note, pragmatically works.
In the American cultural sphere IQ tests became widespread as a result of the world wars. The govt needed a reliable quick & dirty way of selecting officer candidates from those who could simply follow instructions (and those who wouldn't/couldn't). Traditionally officer education took several grueling years that was unable to keep up with mass mobilization.
The above is what I was taught in 1st year Psych... I remember seeing samples like:
If you see a dying plant what would you do?
A water it
B ask a superior
C nothing
Etc - they were quite funny from the modern perspective. Then after WW2 this mass-quantification approach spread to American industry and mainstream education system.
Your observation about the extremely gifted men is apt, as it is a historical norm for brilliant men like Newton & Copernicus to have lived childless lives. Their reproduction was intellectual rather than biological.
I wonder if they preferred an officer who would water the plant or ask a superior?
I'm the child of a rocket scientist. He should have confined his reproduction to the intellectual realm.
I remember racking my brains over that very Q! My ultimate conclusion was A is correct - since you are given the key information that the plant is dying and an implied objective of keeping it alive.
My own mind went off on a tangent like: what kind of plant is it - a weed or a useful one? So how do you know if keeping it alive is a desirable goal - so you should ask the officer? Then I realised this was a "nerd response" of thinking far too deep about a simple thing.
I'd say they wanted to weed confident quick decision-makers from ditherers, so maybe "excessively smart who think too much" people were intended to fail as well...
Perhaps the correct answer is C. Maybe they want officers who will mind their own business and not do anything they weren't ordered to do that doesn't directly have to do with their mission. Maybe there really isn't a right or wrong answer.
Male/Female differences is an extremely touchy subject and its difficult to have a good-faith discussion about it. I've been there - once discussed this hypothesis with my therapist (a self id's feminist), we get along really well but it was like discovering you'd accidentally strolled into a minefield.
Its a subject that needs really good intellectual discipline and reminds me of the mis-understandings about evolution that many fall into. I'm referring to the non-teleology of that process - the outcome is the "result of whatever survived" rather being directed to some gain. In other words these differences between IQ distros may be the outcome of some other selection process, consider how a prehistoric caveman-clan would be better off with one genius and 99 blokes to do the heavy lifting than a 50/50 split.
Intelligence is such an interesting topic. I certainly differentiate myself from most men by being good in both math and writing / communication.
I am not as strong in mechanical aspects and have less curiosity trying to understand machinery.
Yet, I still believe that how we think also differs between men and women. I have no clear evidence but my own anecdotal observations.
Thanks for a great analysis.
Your use of earthy language to explain the shortage of large animal vets is the kind of writing I love - it was a slam dunk, a Catlin Clark three from DOWNTOWN. I suspect that vet shortage was even true in the fifties when our vet from Hanover NH was a specialist in calving problems in cows - mostly breech births - and flew all over the US and Canada to turn the calves around before it was too late. His rubber glove went up to his shoulder and he used silver chains to turn the calf around. That said, I learned about IQ when my incompetent shell-shocked totally PTSDed sixth grade teacher (Spent the war in the Pacific on an escort destroyer waiting to torpedoed for years) delegated everything he could to me including marking the IQ tests. It was clear to me as a child that IQ was not everything. There were 130s from poor families living with addicted and sexualy abusive parents and very ordinary IQs from more middle class families. Some below par kids were clearly better people than smarter and more sociopathic kids. I had a high IQ and the SATs at the end of High School showed I had slightly better verbal ability by about 20 points out of a theoretical 800 in those days. I am better with language generally than I am at learning foreign languages. I get math but have not developed it a lot. I have some special knack for language developed by my mother teaching me how to read Middle English that allows me to literally hear multiple echos in words. For example, I prefer "Holy Ghost" to "Holy Spirit" because I hear the German word for spirit "Geist: embedded in the English "Ghost". I understand why it was changed. I am a better mechanic that I am a driver - I never was tempted to become a big-rig driver. But...most of all this is an important post because it is corrective of some ideological presuppositions that ignore real differences between the sexes in the long term project of learning to work with each other.
I’ve taken at least three IQ tests in my life.
I specifically remember the two with the lowest and the highest number. 136 and 140.
I don’t know if any of the test results are accurate because I’ve always had problems taking tests. It is for the same reason I have problems with most things in life. Extreme anxiety and severe attention deficit. Compounding my problems are the facts that my brain seems to process thoughts extremely slowly and that I’ve always had the worst memory of anyone I’ve ever met, which makes it very difficult to recall most things I have learned. All of these things make it very difficult to finish taking tests within the allotted time. And these problems only get worse as I age.
Thank you for yet another thoughtful and thought provoking post. All you say is true and I write that with some amount of confidence, based on years of experience with people all over this world.
I think a good deal of this is how we are as a species. Different people have different abilities and levels to cope with the widest range of situations. While we are competitive as individuals, we are also cooperative and complementary in groups. Without this I think we would have failed miserably as a species eons ago. Biological differences have entered into this with childbirth and child rearing as you point out, but it also does not prevent creative skills and skills and intelligence from shining thru, unless you are a blinkered, phillistine idiot who cannot see the obvious. I have a theory that constant exposure to PowerPoint rots the analytical parts of the human mind, which might explain your colleague’s situation. I suspect your client was just an idiot however.
“But if we gave awards for being unusually stupid, men would win most of those, too.”
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Well, actually we do. They are called The Darwin Awards and while they are informal, they are very final, as I am sure you already know.
Wow Holly. You just taught me so much I didn't know. This is going in my saved pile. Thank you.
You're welcome! This model has been very freeing for me. The greater breadth of women (on average) is the most significant thing, I think. There are tons of women who are capable of Fields Medals. They just tend to choose something more fun and family-friendly (86% of women still have at least one child by age 40). And thank goodness for choices. They're the necessary conditions for happiness.
This sort of thinking was what got James Damore in trouble at google all those years ago. I hope no woke idiots can connect it to your employer and complain to the DIE group in your company's HR department.
Probably the worst thing feminism and related activism has done is try to suggest that men and women are 100% alike except for their gonads. I'm glad to see women like you stand up and say the obvious in public because, as Damore found out, if a man says something like this he is immediately demonized. (And yes I'm very well aware of the irony of this situation).
I do however strongly suggest you not do the race version of this, even though it is also obvious that different strands of humanity have different physical and mental strengths and weaknesses.