Do men or women perform better on IQ tests?

[Revtim]

Or do they score about the same, on average? Is there some easily accessable place (i.e. on the web) with IQ test statistics?

[Czarcasm]

Just check the I.Q.'s of the females and the males on the Straight Dope board.
Here's a hint-How many really stupid postings by females have you seen lately?

[the first supraliminal]

My IQ is 186. I'm a man. Can any of you ladies beat that?



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[Nickrz]

::Handing the women a large stick::

[TheIncredibleHolg]

Isn't Marilyn Vos Savant the person with the highest known IQ (247 or something)? Of course, Cecil trashed her several times, and he's known to be the world's smartest human being, so his IQ must be higher. I just don't think the exact number has ever been computed. I guess it would exceed the scale.

[TheIncredibleHolg]

Ooops, I forgot to relate my statement to the OP: Yes, men score higher.
a) A man (Cecil) holds the absolute record.
b) No matter how dumb the rest of us men may be, our average is higher thanks to Cecil alone.

[Revtim]

TheIncredibleHolg, thanks for answering the question, do you have a reference? Hopefully, something web based? My web searches turned up jack-squat.

[Revtim]

Gaudere, you did a hell of lot better than I did (finding stats), thanks.

[HeadlessCow]

In NH, the tests used to study the ability of students showed that the avergae for boys and girls was almost equal but that the boys had a wider range of scores than the girls.

[handy]

Men should be smarter because they have a larger brain size. However, women know how to make more of what they have.

Shucks, how would you even measure it? Don't men write the blasted IQ tests themselves so they are biased so men score higher?

[Gaudere]

IIRC from my psych books, women tend to score better on standardized written tests and get better grades in school.

Here's the best I could do for a cite online:

http://www.leconsulting.com/arthurhu/index/aintell.htm#gender


BOYS AND GIRLS ARE *NOT* EQUAL IN INTELLIGENCE http://www.seattletimes.com/news/nation-world/html98/boys_040398.html
\clip\98\07\boys.txt The Seattle Times Company Friday, April 3, 1998
Thank heaven for little boys? by Megan Rosenfeld The Washington Post

" Diane Halpern, a psychology professor at California State
University in San Bernadino, recently surveyed current studies of
differences between male and female intelligence. She found that
women do better in tasks that test language abilities, fine motor
tasks, perceptual speed, decoding nonverbal communication, and speech
articulation.

Men are superior in "visual working memory," tasks that
require moving objects, aiming, fluid reasoning, knowledge of math,
science and geography, and general knowledge. At the same time males
have more mental retardation, attention deficit disorders, delayed
speech, dyslexia, stuttering, learning disabilities and emotional
disturbances. "


Women's superiority in language abilities may explain the difference in scores; most tests given are written.

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"Eppur, si muove!" - Galileo Galilei

[Gaudere]

here's a slightly better quote, although (sigh) it does not say what study it got it's info from.

..is it not odd that IQ tests are never accused of being sexist? Men and women have nearly identical mean IQs.

James TOOLEY, 1995, Times Higher Educational Supplement, 7 vii.

http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/Brand/quotes/q08.html

This one at least sounds like it knows what it's talking about:

One way to see this is to look at the history of gender differences in IQ. On Terman's original (1916) Stanford-Binet, the average score for women was about 10 points less than for men. Twenty years later, the political climate had changed. The 1937 version was standardized for sex. Some questions were added and some dropped, equalizing the means for men and women. Presto! All of a sudden, the tests showed women to be as "smart" as men. Testmakers could easily use the same procedure to eliminate average differences between black and white people, or between the working class and the capitalist class.


http://www.plp.org/pamphlets/riwc.html
racism, Intellegence, and the working class.


H'm, perhaps I was wrong that women tend to score better on IQ test, although I am still pretty sure that they score better on standardized achievement tests. Man, it's a bear trying to find stats on this on the web.

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"Eppur, si muove!" - Galileo Galilei

[TheIncredibleHolg]

Revtim, I found the cover text of one of Marilyn's books. It states that her IQ is actually 228, so I was a bit off. This may not be quite authoritative, but it's from the horse's mouth, so to speak:
http://www.cut-the-knot.com/books/vos/back.html
BTW, there are so many web pages making fun of Marilyn and her goofs! I'm definitely not a feminist, but I do wonder if that would happen to a man?

I've also collected the links to Cecil's columns dealing with Marilyn. I've marked them as trashed (T), acquitted (A), and draw (D):
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_187.html (T)
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_189.html (D)
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_198.html (A)
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/960126.html (A)
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmouth.html (T)
So maybe she's not all that bad. Who else would achieve 50% when arguing with Cecil?

[handy]

Maybe Marilyn is a man.

Come on,you really don't think that a person born would be called 'Savant,' do ya? :-)

[NanoByte]

According to this, it's her mother's maiden name (http://idt.net/~mkollar/Intellectual%20Stimulation/thoughts/others/03.htm). I had thought it was her husband's name. So it means smart-ass vixen in Dutch or Walloon or something?

Ray

[Pete]

I took the hyperlink TheIncredibleHolg gave...cut the knot something or other. I looked at her examples of common statements she proves wrong in her book.

It seems to me that those points are pretty easily shown to be incorrect by any cynic with some common sense.

However, I couldn't figure out, logically, how the statement "...top 1 percent of people received 60% of economic growth in the last 12 years" is incorrect.
Anybody wanna help me out?

I suppose a more important question is: If this lady is the smartest person in the world, why doesn't she learn chemistry and find a vaccine for cancer or AIDS or do something important instead of sitting around answering stupid questions from stupid people?

Then again, the same could be asked of Cecil...

[TheIncredibleHolg]

NanoByte asked:According to this, it's her mother's maiden name. I had thought it was her husband's name. So it means smart-ass vixen in Dutch or Walloon or something?Well, it does even in English - kind of:

Main Entry: sa·vant
Pronunciation: sa-'vänt, s&-, -'vän; s&-'vant, 'sa-v&nt
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from Middle French, from present participle of savoir to know, from Latin sapere to be wise -- more at SAGE
Date: 1719
1 : a person of learning; especially : one with detailed knowledge in some specialized field (as of science or literature)
2 : IDIOT SAVANT 1

Main Entry: idiot sa·vant
Pronunciation: 'E-"dyO-sä-'vän, or same as IDIOT and savant for respective singular and plural forms
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural idiots savants /-"dyO-sä-'vän(z)/; or idiot savants /-'vän(z)/
Etymology: French, literally, learned idiot
Date: 1927
1 : a mentally defective person who exhibits exceptional skill or brilliance in some limited field
2 : a person who is highly knowledgeable about one subject but knows little about anything else

(http://www.m-w.com/)

ROTFL!!

[Shirley Ujest]

I know I am not alone when I write that I would prefer to have Cecil at my dinner table any night of the week rather than suffer five minutes trapped in an elevator with very dull, Ms. Savant.

[voltaire]

Am I the only one who doesn't believe for a second that Marilyn's IQ is 228? And no, not because she is a woman. I've never heard of anyones' IQ being that high. For contrast, does anyone know what Einstein's IQ was or how about Stephan Hawking's?

Methinks if Marilyn's IQ is 228, she probably wrote her own IQ test.

[E1skeptic]

Hey People, may I ask you something?

1. Why do you think IQ is relevant (important, interesting, revealing)?
2. Does it really matter who's (men or women) IQ is higher?
3. Shouldn't you (in that case) include gay and lesbians' IQs?
4. Do you even happen to know how and why did the IQ tests were invented (devised, developed)?

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Men will cease to commit atrocities only when they cease to believe absurdities.
-Voltaire

[Revtim]

E1skeptic, to answer your questions:

1) I don't think it is relevent, I was just curious.
2) I don't think so.
3) N/A, since my answer to #2 was negative.
4) I guess I don't. Enlighten me, please.

[Hazel]

IMO it is idiotic to think you can sum up an individual's intelligence in a single numerical score. Intelligence has many facets. Even if you could come up with tests that would give you a score for each facet, an average of those scores would be meaningless.

[E1skeptic]

Revtim: I'm glad to know you think IQ is irrelevant. Unfortunately, some people still think that IQ is a valid measure of intelligence. Hah!

If you're really curious about the history of it, I recommend you read Stephen Jay Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man", and any biography of Alfred Binet. I'm sure you'll find it very interesting.

Saludos.

[Revtim]

To be honest E1Skeptic, I'm not quite curious enough about it to do actual research.

From your "Do you even happen to know how and why did the IQ tests were invented" remark I got the implication it was developed for nefarious purpose, like proving the superiority of the white race, or the stupidity of some other race. Am I right? Can you describe the how and why of IQ tests in a nutshell, or do I gotta get up off my lazy ass and add those books to my queue?