François-René Rideau (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} fare) wrote,@ 2006-07-30 14:46:00 |
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| Entry tags: | en, evolution, evopsy, hbd, intelligence |
Risk aversion, or Why smart women are worth more than smart men
Even though the topic
is actively censored
by the intellectual terrorists who control the intelligentsia
with their political correctness,
it is a fact confirmed by everyone's experience
as well as by repeated scientific experiments
that there is a measurable discrepancy
between the distribution of general intelligence
among men and women.
IQ as measured in either sex leads to a normal
distribution of intelligence along a bell curve,
but
the standard deviation of IQ amongst males
is noticably larger,
and
the average of IQ amongst males is higher.
The first statistics means that there is a much wider variety in male intelligence than in female intelligence. If you want to find someone of average intelligence, you'll find a lot of females and fewer males; If you want to find someone really bright -- or really dumb -- you'll find a lot of males and few females; and the higher you set the bar for bright people (or the lower you set it for dumb people) and the more dramatically bigger ratio of males to females you'll get. The second statistics means that males in their majority dominate females in their majority in terms of intelligence. The previous statistics implies that this domination increases fast as we filter for more intelligence, although it reverses completely as we filter for more stupidity.
Now, I have a rational explanation for both statistics that does not depend on any significant difference distribution of genetic abilities at birth, except for one essential trait: that males in general have a tendency to be more reckless than females.
This trait is well-known and well-documented, and has an obvious explanation in terms of evolutionary psychology: females are genetically more precious than men, because they invest more time in children (if only the duration of the pregnancy); to illustrate things with their extremes, a clan all of whose males are dead but one is still doing well on next generation whereas a clan all of whose females are dead but one is nearly extinct. Hence it makes a great deal of sense that if risks are to be taken (and they are, in a dangerous world of wild animals and scarce resources disputed by even wilder human rivals) they should be taken preferrably by males. And thus this increased risk-aversion in female behaviour seems to have a strong genetic source, observable in humans as well as in all other animal species.
What does this difference in risk-aversion have to do with the distribution of intelligence, will you ask? Everything! Because more risks means more selection, both internal and external.
Let's start with average intelligence. Suppose that men and women are born with the same potential intellectual abilities. So far so good. Now, it is an observable fact, backed by many statistics, that males are born in slightly higher ratio than females (say 52% vs 48%), but that the ratio equalizes for men and women in their most fertile years (say 25) because infantile illnesses, teenage recklessness and adventurous youth tend to kill a lot of males and few females. This is completely in synch with what risk aversion means: males try more things, including stupid things, whether consciously or unconsciously, because their minds and bodies are genetically programmed to take more risks. Now, if there is any meaningful difference between intelligence and stupidity it will be precisely that intelligence leads to taking risks that are statistically more conducive to success whereas stupidity leads to taking risks that are statistically more conducive to failure -- most notably including lethal failure. Sure, there are otherwise bright guys who die in stupid ways; but as far as taking stupid risks go (such as driving fast while drunk, or engaging in deadly fights), stupid people will be far more numerous to take them and suffer the consequences. (For infant mortality, the standard explanation is that having only one X chromosome, male infants are not protected by redundancy against a whole class of genetic defects; but in as much as some genetic defects may imply ulterior stupidity, this also means a stronger selection against stupidity in males than in females.) Thus, the Bell Curve of male IQ distribution will be modified by time, and statistically, those near to the bottom will tend to not be there anymore to take a test. Hence an upward displacement of intelligence amongst survivors. This doesn't mean that anyone got any brighter, only that a lot of stupid people died. Starting with equal distribution in intelligence at birth we must necessarily expect that males be statistically more intelligent than females when they are adult. If adult females were statistically just as bright as adult males, that would be quite an anomaly that would require a lot of scientific studies.
Now, my pet theory is that risk aversion also explains
the larger standard deviation in male intelligence,
and thus the fact that very intelligent women are much rarer
than very intelligent men, especially as you look
for higher intelligence.
Indeed, I contend that a large part of what makes for intelligence,
apart from innate genetic predispositions (that I'll hypothesize
are distributed equally amongst males and females)
is about exploring new hypotheses --
throwing ideas and seeing what sticks.
Of course, people will adopt or reject those original ideas
depending on their individual bullshit filter: their reasoning abilities.
People with worse filters will on average adopt more stupid ideas
and thus grow dumber with time;
people with better filters will on average adopt more intelligent ideas
and thus grow wiser with time.
But it is important to note that the propensity to take intellectual risks
(imagination?) decides on how fast a person evolves;
and among the good or bad ideas
that may or may not stick
are patterns of thought that are instrumental in generating more good ideas
and rejecting more bad ideas:
key metaideas
that lead to an exponential growth (or degeneration)
in intellectual abilities
(including growth
beyond the point when it becomes stupidly too much for your own good).
Thus, if the strongly genetically driven tendency of females to
be more risk averse has any implication in intellectual life
(and burden of the proof is upon those who'd claim the opposite),
then women will statistically throw fewer original ideas,
then the necessary consequence is that fewer original ideas
will stick to their minds, whether good or bad,
and including those key mind habits that make
a mind stand out as either brighter or dumber.
This increased risk aversion by females,
which might take forms as simple as worrying more about immediate daily problems
and less about far-fetched abstract concepts,
means that intelligence distribution amongst females
will necessarily have a narrower standard deviation
than intelligence distribution amongst males.
In as much as innate filters were externally selected for their effectiveness
and that ideas have cumulative good effects
more so than cumulative bad effects,
relative shortage of risky intellectual activity may also
contribute to a difference in IQ averages.
This is what I mean by internal selection vs external selection: selection of ideas within a given individual's minds, as opposed to selection of individuals who have brighter ideas over individuals who have stupider ideas. (A topic I once promised to develop regarding programming languages, and once again leave as an exercise to the gentle macroexpander.)
Ben once wrote that One good Husband is worth two good Wives; for the scarcer things are, the more they're valued. Well, then by the same token, one intelligent woman is worth a lot of intelligent men.
Post-Scriptum: For the record, the more common hypotheses for discrepancy in female intelligence are (1) that female intellect, just like female body, matures sooner than male intellect and then stops growing, and that (2) sexual hormones play a role in brain development and/or activity, especially in areas that process spatial representation.
