The news today is in an uproar about a BBC report of some research that seems to indicate that men, after 14 or 15, tend to be more intelligent than women.[1] First of all, as a caveat, I am not at all sure how much good IQ tests are. That they have non-trivial flaws is obvious. Still, taking the research at face value, there are several note-worthy points.
- They focused on the high end of the IQ scale. Somewhere I read, but appear not to have written, about research indicating that women's IQ test scores form a nice bell curve while men's show a much straighter line, a distribution with more people at each extreme. Focusing on the high end of the scale would tend to ignore the possibility that there may be just as many men scoring just as significantly lower than the women's average as there are men scoring above.
- The study finds no difference before age 14. This is incredibly counter-intuitive, but may be explained by my next item.
- The study finds that women "are able to achieve more than men" "at the same level of IQ" (I reversed the clauses of the sentence, hence two quotes).[2} This may explain the common impression, perhaps reality (I honestly do not know how much basis in fact it has) that girls are smarter than guys in grade school.
- [1] BBC News. "'Men cleverer than women' claim" BBC News UK Edition (online). 2005-08-25 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4183166.stm
[2] See above.