Posted on 10/05/2012 3:11:56 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
American media are excitedly reporting that women are smarter than men, according to IQ tests. Not equal to men, supposedly the goal of feminism, but superior to men.
That is quite a jump, all in a matter of decades. How could such a thing happen? After all, biology tells us that genes tend to be stable over generations.
An ABC News blog reported: “James Flynn, a New Zealand-based researcher known as an IQ testing expert, said...that women have closed the gap and even inched ahead in this battle of the intelligent sexes...Deciding which is the smarter sex is an ever-controversial topic of conversation and scientific research.”
But one major aspect of this puzzle is completely clear. Virtually every teacher agrees that boys have greater trouble with one skill in particular: literacy. You can find dozens of articles with titles such as: “Research Says Boys More Likely To Have Problems Reading.”
About.com continues: “The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that boys are more prone to having trouble reading than girls...Researchers found that in all studies, about 20 percent of the boys had reading disabilities compared with 11 percent of the girls.”
Scienceblog.com summed up: “The research implies that reading disabilities are genetic. Boys are more likely to have a range of developmental difficulties.”
These researchers are eager to make sweeping (and sexist) generalizations. But nobody seems to want to notice the 800-pound joker in the room, that is, how reading is taught. The method of instruction could be a critical variable. But we are supposed to ignore that while accepting without reservation all the outlandish claims that researchers want to make. It’s time to back up.
Let’s approach this problem with the fewest possible preconceptions. It is probably safe to assume that boys are a bit more physical and restless...
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
But Jonty30 didn’t blame anyone for this outcome, so the information is worthless.
I think the simple answer, which has been alluded to here, is that boys require a more active education than girls. Girls are fine with the passive method of teaching that is used today, whereas boys need a more active method. For boys, running contests or being able to jump up and yell out the answer, or have to defend themselves in a debate, etc, is needed for them to be engaged.
That’s why many of them are checking out, a lack of interest.
I believe I read somewhere that males dominate on both ends of the IQ test.
I’m not surprised. While I’m sure the majority of replies is going to center around the so-called “war against boys” and other nonsense, my experience raising children gives me an insight into this issue.
Since the early 90’s, I’ve seen video games literally consume the lives of young boys, while young girls have not been drawn into that culture to nearly the degree that boys are.
Girls today are more driven than they ever were, whereas boys might as well be wearing neon signs that read, “Entertain me.”
OK. Do you have any idea how pathetic this sounds. Assuming this was true, why aren't men fighting back, especially for their sons. One MRA has this answer. If you don't agree, then what is it? You know women would never stand for this if the roles were reversed, so what's stopping men?
Meanwhile, when we have boys beating each other up over nothing and doing stupid crap like this to each other, is it any wonder they're falling behind?
I agree. That certainly affects the school performance of boys and girls respectively. However, I believe they’re still finding that boys in the aggregate do better than girls on the math sections of the SAT, which suggests that the schooling process isn’t particularly affecting overall intelligence.
It would be interesting to see the study population, and also to see another study (or several more) of a similar population, to see whether other studies would be the same, or show a slightly higher average for the male participants.
“Women Beat Men on IQ Tests for First Time... But Why??
Becasue the test was based on memory and the question was what did your husband do wrong 10 years ago.”
LOL
It has long been confirmed that females tend to the middle of the curve, with males being more broadly represented. This means far more geniuses are male, but it also means more idiots are as well.
The question should be, just what would lop off the higher end of male scores yet be subtle enough that biased researchers felt secure in publishing this?
Skew in the direction of a desired, a priori conclusion could have been introduced by choosing a methodology that (oops) unintentionally excluded certain identifiable groups with a better than average likelihood of higher IQ.
That's one way to get from point A to point B.
The difference would likely be explainable by the accumulative differences between constant stimulation and not being stimulated.
If you took two people, say twins, who were largely identical in every meaningful way, and gave them a differing level of challenges, over many years, the person who led a more challenging life will probably have a measurable higher IQ difference than the person who wasn’t challenged sufficiently.
When we send our kids to school, based on the current curriculum and method of teachings, you are sending boys to check out out for 5 hours a day and girls to check in for 5 hours a day. That has to create a difference over time.
Ding! Ding! Ding! You win. Best post of the day.
With excuses like that you should be working for the Obama campaign. Repeat after me, "It's women's . . . er, Bush's fault."
I don’t think it’s necessary to just dump on Young men, when they are living in a society where the incentive to succeed where has become so costly, in one form or another, that it’s not unreasonable to question the worthwhileness of it.
I think it’s far better to ask how men can be motivated to start engaging again, instead of simply blaming them for not.
Women outscoring men on IQ tests by 1/2 or 1 point = important. It explains all kinds of things that are going on in the world.
Whites outscoring blacks by 15+ points, and Jews outscoring gentiles by roughly the same number, steady over five decades = not important, explains nothing about how the world works, and who succeeds and who doesn’t.
I choose to uphold God’s plan for man AND woman in society. Unfortunately, mankind isn’t.
By the way, there are many, MANY more instances of girls beating each other up lately; A new kind of charm school, if you will..
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, but the concept that environment, including educational environment, significantly affects IQ scores is contrary to the notion, popular with some FReepers, that IQ is set in stone at birth and that large swathes of the population are inherently incapable of learning to read and do basic math.
Someone ... maybe the Thernstroms, or Thomas Sowell ... wrote about a study which showed that IQ in elementary-school age correlates closely with the child’s aural vocabulary - the number of spoke words he understands - at age 5. The writer pointed out that talking to and reading to a young child is a very low-cost, high-return intervention.
I know I can certainly attest to this, as many times the sun rose and I realized the sad ignorance caused by the unequal dispersion of said blood.
But I still bragged to my buddies...
Thank you!
It would be very interesting to know if there is a biological explanation for the difference in the distribution of intelligence between the sexes. Could it have something to do with the higher prenatal death rate of males? Are there suggestions of a similar difference between the sexes of other mammals?
However, I can’t imagine anyone would fund a study unless there was a political agenda, so we’re unlikely to learn anything.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.