12 ms·

> “Half of the human beings in history are women,” she noted, “but we have had so few recognized for their genius". There's an interesting view that while men

by hyp0 12y ago

> “Half of the human beings in history are women,” she noted, “but we have had so few recognized for their genius". There's an interesting view that while men aren't "better" than women, they are more distributed. That is, the distribution graph of talent (or any quality) is flatter for men than for women. So, you have more men at the extremes than women: more tall more, more short men; more geniuses; more idiots; etc. There's a fascinating argument for this observation: women have two X chromosomes, while men only have one. The presence of a second X chromosome has different effects depending on the gene, but often acts as a backup or an averaging. So, if there's some new gene going around that has wonderful properies, men get the full dose of it, women only get half. If the new gene has terrible properties or just doesn't work properly, men suffer the full blast, but women only get a half-blast (or, the other X completely compensates).

k__ 12y ago
> men aren't "better" than women, they are more distributed. source?
- possibilistic 12y ago
  I've skimmed literature on this before. Did a quick search on my phone, though this doesn't look like the most reputable source: http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-how-and-why-sex-differences/201101/how-can-there-still-be-sex-difference-even-when-there-is http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-how-and-why-sex-differ... I'd be interested to read any studies with alternative outcomes. This seems like a well-promulgated meme, regardless of its factuality or not...
  - streptomycin 12y ago
    This shows some data from one study: http://www.american.com/archive/2010/june-2010/are-there-more-girl-geniuses http://www.american.com/archive/2010/june-2010/are-there-mor... Men are overrepresented at the tails of the IQ distribution, women are overrepresented in the middle.
    - GHFigs 12y ago
      Something must be done.
    - danimalia 12y ago
      The evidence presented is IQ scores from 1932. Given historical gender biases this not persuasive. Culling scientific evidence from conservative think tank Op-Eds is probably not a best practice...
      - streptomycin 12y ago
        There are many other data sources, some are linked from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence - I just linked to the above article because it has a pretty figure and it's not behind an academic paywall. Maybe most notable is a 1995 paper in Science http://www.sciencemag.org/content/269/5220/41 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/269/5220/41 but it is both behind a paywall and completely devoid of figures! You get the main idea from the abstract, though: Except in tests of reading comprehension, perceptual speed, and associative memory, males typically outnumber females substantially among high-scoring individuals.
        danimalia 12y ago
        Well here is something not behind a paywall: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2689999/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2689999/. This study finds that gender differences among top performers varies by ethnic and national background. While there may be gender differences among high/low scoring individuals, I resent that that this is treated as a scientific fact when there are limited studies with contradictory findings.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        streptomycin 12y ago
        That's an interesting article. I guess it's not as clear cut as many people believe.
- bane 12y ago
  It comes out in a wide variety of measures. Simple ones that people are familiar with are things like Gini coefficients of income among males is more distributed, IQ is more distributed, various incarceration statistics etc. So while the richest people might be men, the poorest population will also be men. Or, the people with highest and lowest IQs will be men. etc.
- saltvedt 12y ago
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606001115 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606...
- jacquesm 12y ago
  > source? Your genome. And more formally stuff like this: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-how-and-why-sex-differences/201101/how-can-there-still-be-sex-difference-even-when-there-is http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-how-and-why-sex-diff...
samirmenon 12y ago
Only if that gene happens to be on the sex chromosomes! There are 22 other chromosomes, though. I'm no biologist, but I believe you are referring to sex-linked traits. Hemophilia is the most studied example, but there are many (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_linkage#X-linked_recessive_inheritance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_linkage#X-linked_recessive_...). In these disorders, males with the gene will always get the disease, where as women can act as "carriers", carrying the trait for the gene on one of their X chromosomes, but not experiencing any of the symptoms of the disorder. Unfortunately for your theory, this interesting phenomenon has little to do with other genes. There is no magic link between separate chromosomes, and almost all of our important traits lie on the 22 other chromosomes, which do not experience this sex-linkage.
Symmetry 12y ago
It always seemed to me that this apparent divergence might have more to do with ambition or society than with brainpower. The physical differences between male and female brains are pretty subtle, hormonal and social differences are much more pronounced. And if there were single gene changes for raising or lowering intelligence I expect they would have spread through the population even faster than adult lactase. Though I suppose you could argue that this is happening continuously and that's why we have the Flynn effect, but in that case you wouldn't find the relative IQs of national groups tracking their relative wealth in the way we observe even in response to plainly exogenous factors like Communism in East Germany. I expect that there are some genes that increase IQ but have side effects[1], but I expect most genetic causes of variation in IQ rest on combinations of genes. [1]http://www.iovs.org/content/45/9/2943.full http://www.iovs.org/content/45/9/2943.full

by hyp0 12y ago

k__ 12y ago

> men aren't "better" than women, they are more distributed. source?

possibilistic 12y ago
I've skimmed literature on this before. Did a quick search on my phone, though this doesn't look like the most reputable source: http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-how-and-why-sex-differences/201101/how-can-there-still-be-sex-difference-even-when-there-is http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-how-and-why-sex-differ... I'd be interested to read any studies with alternative outcomes. This seems like a well-promulgated meme, regardless of its factuality or not...
- streptomycin 12y ago
  This shows some data from one study: http://www.american.com/archive/2010/june-2010/are-there-more-girl-geniuses http://www.american.com/archive/2010/june-2010/are-there-mor... Men are overrepresented at the tails of the IQ distribution, women are overrepresented in the middle.
  - GHFigs 12y ago
    Something must be done.
  - danimalia 12y ago
    The evidence presented is IQ scores from 1932. Given historical gender biases this not persuasive. Culling scientific evidence from conservative think tank Op-Eds is probably not a best practice...
    - streptomycin 12y ago
      There are many other data sources, some are linked from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence - I just linked to the above article because it has a pretty figure and it's not behind an academic paywall. Maybe most notable is a 1995 paper in Science http://www.sciencemag.org/content/269/5220/41 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/269/5220/41 but it is both behind a paywall and completely devoid of figures! You get the main idea from the abstract, though: Except in tests of reading comprehension, perceptual speed, and associative memory, males typically outnumber females substantially among high-scoring individuals.
      - danimalia 12y ago
        Well here is something not behind a paywall: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2689999/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2689999/. This study finds that gender differences among top performers varies by ethnic and national background. While there may be gender differences among high/low scoring individuals, I resent that that this is treated as a scientific fact when there are limited studies with contradictory findings.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        streptomycin 12y ago
        That's an interesting article. I guess it's not as clear cut as many people believe.
bane 12y ago
It comes out in a wide variety of measures. Simple ones that people are familiar with are things like Gini coefficients of income among males is more distributed, IQ is more distributed, various incarceration statistics etc. So while the richest people might be men, the poorest population will also be men. Or, the people with highest and lowest IQs will be men. etc.
saltvedt 12y ago
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606001115 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606...
jacquesm 12y ago
> source? Your genome. And more formally stuff like this: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-how-and-why-sex-differences/201101/how-can-there-still-be-sex-difference-even-when-there-is http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-how-and-why-sex-diff...

samirmenon 12y ago

Only if that gene happens to be on the sex chromosomes! There are 22 other chromosomes, though. I'm no biologist, but I believe you are referring to sex-linked traits. Hemophilia is the most studied example, but there are many (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_linkage#X-linked_recessive_inheritance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_linkage#X-linked_recessive_...). In these disorders, males with the gene will always get the disease, where as women can act as "carriers", carrying the trait for the gene on one of their X chromosomes, but not experiencing any of the symptoms of the disorder. Unfortunately for your theory, this interesting phenomenon has little to do with other genes. There is no magic link between separate chromosomes, and almost all of our important traits lie on the 22 other chromosomes, which do not experience this sex-linkage.

Symmetry 12y ago

It always seemed to me that this apparent divergence might have more to do with ambition or society than with brainpower. The physical differences between male and female brains are pretty subtle, hormonal and social differences are much more pronounced. And if there were single gene changes for raising or lowering intelligence I expect they would have spread through the population even faster than adult lactase. Though I suppose you could argue that this is happening continuously and that's why we have the Flynn effect, but in that case you wouldn't find the relative IQs of national groups tracking their relative wealth in the way we observe even in response to plainly exogenous factors like Communism in East Germany. I expect that there are some genes that increase IQ but have side effects[1], but I expect most genetic causes of variation in IQ rest on combinations of genes. [1]http://www.iovs.org/content/45/9/2943.full http://www.iovs.org/content/45/9/2943.full