Old Myths Rising

Hello everyone!

I wanted to talk today about a disturbing trend in research during the past few years. Namely the use of studies with very questionable methodology being used to "prove" that men have higher IQs than women.

IQ tests have been around since 1904, and one of the earliest and easiest conclusions of political important was the lack of any notable difference between men and women as far as IQ scores were concerned. In 1918, British psychologist Charles Spearman said of those who thought any "reliable" test would prove women to be intellectually deficient, "It is time to call off the pack of the investigators.....because they are following a false scent."

However, the "pack of investigators" has continued to go down one rabbit hole after another over the years. Around the time Charles Spearman declared gender difference in basic intelligence to be a "false scent"the theories of Sigmund Freud were gaining popular acceptance, and with them the view that women were masochistic, hysterical, incapable of developing an independent conscience or higher sense of social purpose, and that any desire on their part for roles other than wife, mother, and Victorian lady represented an unhealthy desire for male anatomy.

During the 70's and 80's, when the questioning of Freudianism went from the fringe to the mainstream, sociobiology came into fashion. Although it was sold as a way to explain a wide variety of human behaviors, much of the focus ended up on trying to "prove" that women were naturally housewives, prostitutes, and sexual objects. Now that models of sociobiology that make such claims about men and women are increasingly under question, the pack of investigators seems to be looking for what rabbit hole to run down next.

Some studies have tried to claim that women innately liked pink and men blue, even though in before WWI pink was considered a boy's color and blue more feminine. Also you would think if women "biologically" liked pink and men liked blue, that women would wear blue and men pink, because after all most heterosexuals supposedly spend more time looking and trying to attract members of the other sex, rather than their own!! Yet others tried to prove that gender equality had caused the Neandrathals to go extinct-Jean Auel eat your heart out!!

What I never expected, was to see them going over IQ tests to try and argue that women are less intelligent on average than men. Now this was a very strange idea seeing how IQ tests have been around for over a 100 years without finding any such thing. But yet, certain researchers claimed it was only because feminist dominated science had only failed to look hard enough. For example in 1994 a meta-analysis by Richard Lynn and Paul Irwing concluded that that the average man had 4.0 IQ points on the average woman. And it was welcomed by much of the British media until testing expert Steve Blinkhorn pointed out that their data was severely methodologically flawed, because they had based their conclusions on several studies of university students in different countries. In addition to the fact that university students are not the general population, the study actually excluded the 45% of their data. Namely a study from Mexico-by far the largest study they looked at-because it didn't show any significant differences between males and females. They claimed that this Mexican study was an "outlier" or a fluke, because according to them, "This university was unusually selective of female students." Also they gave the remaining studies equal weight even though the sample sizes ranged for 111 to over 9,000. Basically they fudged the data to show the results they seemed to want. In 2006, another study a Danish study claimed men average 8 IQ points above women, but it was investigated for academic dishonesty. And yet, much of the media treated these studies as somehow "overriding" years of IQ research on both children and adults? Some people welcome these studies saying that "new statistical methodology" have shown differences between men and women that older studies didn't pick up. I'm afraid, it's actually a very old statistical method called, "cooking the data". Basically this technique is designed to guarantee the results you want.

Of course, claims based on questionable IQ data can only stand for so long. But one has to ask. What trail will the hound pack, err scientists committed to proving women unfit for civilization, run after next?

Say Goodnight Readers!!