The Intellectual Capacity Of Women

[joshisrad]

http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/women.html

I'm interested in your opinion on this matter, and would like to see the topic discussed.
I'm writing a paper with much of what Stove says in focus. Though I won't say where I stand on the subject yet, nor what kind of paper it is, etc. Wouldn't want to inadvertently create personal bias.

 

[GoldShadow]

Summary please? If that sounds interesting I might consider reading the whole thing.

 

[joshisrad]

It claims that women are intellectually inferior to men, and basis its thesis on various logical reasonings. The main thing discussed in it is that women have not proven themselves otherwise.

"..if there is a large number of women at a given above average level of intellectual capacity, then there is an even larger number of men at that level."
"..the intellectual performance of women is inferior to that of men."
"..reasoning involved, then, is reasoning from inferior performance to inferior capacity."

 

[tmw_redcell]

Of course you'd say that. You're just a woman with a tiny brain. A brain one third the size of a man's.

It's science.

And this guy's essay structure sucks. Hyuck hyuck, spend thousands of words introducing your crappy arguements, then admitting they're crap, THEN getting onto the 'good stuff.' I haven't read that far but, skimming it suggests that the crux of his argument is an appeal to history/tradition ignoring the powerful, contant discrimination and oppression women suffered in most places in history due to things like physical weakness and reasoning like this guy may/may not be using.

 

[Dodongo]

Ha.
Secondly, woman aren't people, they are devices built by the lord Jesus Christ for our entertainment. (Except Azua, she's some kind of succubus created to /dance.)

 

[joshisrad]

TMW - Stove actually refutes what you have said, though he does not address that counter-argument directly. You have to remember that you can't read only a section of something and say it's all wrong. But you're right. His structure is awful, and makes it hard for the reader to continue. I have to wonder whether he intended this or not.

 

[cowboyardee]

"A comparison between Christianity, and the supposedly-equal intellectual capacity of women, is in fact worth pausing over. Equality-theorists are never tired of reminding us of the obstacles which have been put in the way of the exercise of the intellectual capacity of women, at such-and-such a period, in that society or the other; and of course there are countless such cases. Those obstacles, however, have never been more than trifles when compared with the obstacles which, in countless cases, have been put in the way of the practice of the Christian religion. It is a mere abuse of words to speak, as some do, of "martyrs" and "persecution" in the one case as in the other. In both cases, for every instance in which some obstacle was put in the way, there is another instance in which that obstacle was not put in the way. Now, Christianity has sometimes made its way, sometimes without obstacles, sometimes even with obstacles; whereas the supposed equal intellectual capacity of women has never made its way, with or even without obstacles. Yet female intellectual capacity has obviously been tried in a far greater number of cases, and in a far wider variety of circumstances, than Christianity."


-- a paragraph from the linked article.

I just want to point out that this is possibly the dumbest individual paragraph I have ever read in my life, and I used to teach remedial english.




*sigh*
If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.

 

[joshisrad]

Care to elaborate? You shouldn't attack an argument and then not give support for your side.

 

[Frozenserpent]

I read the article, and I don't see what you guys are complaining about on essay structure.

All in all, I found some of his arguments interesting, but a few major points detract from his argument:

Firstly, he was rather vague on how men show superior intellectual performance to women. The only thing close to that had been the statement that men dominate positions like professors. This, of course, is rather a farfetched link to intellectual performance.

Secondly, he seems overly distrustful of modern psychological studies. In fact, it seemed somewhat hypocritical, as he argued that results can't be denied with what-if's, and here he seems to be doing the very thing.

Thirdly, he never actually provide a good deal of specific evidence supporting his claims. At most, he gives a rather general reference to some historical account, but then fails to elaborate on it. For example, he briefly mentioned how Christianity overcame obstacles greater than ones facing women. Again, he merely stated it, and never gave a convincing argument for that in the first place.


Well, I'll try to summarize his essay here:

1. The idea that the genders are equal intellectually is based off of no evidence or results. It has simply been part of the "equality of genders" and now it has become unethical to even suggest that the genders have differences intellectually.
2. The history of human has invariably shown that men had superior intellectual performance than women.
3. Intellectual performance is the only indicator we have of intellectual capacity.
4. There has been enough history that women have been exposed to a countless variety of situations and circumstances. Women still perform worse intellectually than men.
5. While it may be true that there is a hidden variable involved that led to inferior women intellectual performance, it does not discredit the history of superior male intellectual performance. Such is merely a what-if.
6. A difference in intellectual capacity between genders would make sense biologically.
7. In many species, males and females are specialized into different roles, in order to maximize energy and efficiency.
8. Humans are unique animals because of a long gestation, an extremely frail infancy, and the fact that infants can only be sustained off of human milk.
9. All this leads to women becoming the child-rearers, as men simply cannot give milk or give birth.
10. Men, then, have to take over such roles as hunting.
11. Hunting requires a great deal of intellectual capacity in order to be successful.
12. Thus, there has been a higher need for intellectual capacity in men than in women, who do not need much intellectual capacity in order to rear children.
13. Psychologists are pressured to ignore results that male and females are intellectually equal, or they ascribe to some other variable. To think otherwise, after all, would go against society, ethics, morality, religion, etc.
14. Experiments on humans simply cannot control enough variables.
15. A statement does not require experiments or studies in order to be considered valid.
16. Some point about how women with exceptional intellectual performance are nonchildrearing women.

 

[cowboyardee]

Care to elaborate? You shouldn't attack an argument and then not give support for your side.

it reallllly should be obvious, but fine, I'll bite....

the paragraph again:

"A comparison between Christianity, and the supposedly-equal intellectual capacity of women, is in fact worth pausing over. Equality-theorists are never tired ["never tire" is better writing] of reminding us of the obstacles which have been put in the way of the exercise of the intellectual capacity of women, at such-and-such a period, in that society or the other [don't get so d@mn lazy -- if you don't feel like bringing up any specifics to substantiate your argument, drop the argument entirely]; and of course there are countless such cases. Those obstacles, however, have never been more than trifles when compared with the obstacles which, in countless cases, have been put in the way of the practice of the Christian religion [like what? I'm supposed to take this as obvious?]. It is a mere abuse of words to speak, as some do, of "martyrs" and "persecution" in the one case as in the other [This is just arrogance. A person killed for being a christian and a person killed for being a woman are invariably equally dead.]. In both cases, for every instance in which some obstacle was put in the way, there is another instance in which that obstacle was not put in the way [weak clunky sentence]. Now, Christianity has sometimes made its way, sometimes without obstacles, sometimes even with obstacles; whereas the supposed equal intellectual capacity of women has never made its way, with or even without obstacles [what the hell does this mean? 'made its way'? Nevermind that Christianity is a set of beliefs held by a group of people while the intellectual capacity of women is a vague measurement of anatomical/physiological capability, which of course renders the two grossly unsuited for direct comparison -- more importantly, what the hell is he talking about? Show me in ANY way that intellectual capacity of women has not 'made its way']. Yet female intellectual capacity has obviously been tried in a far greater number of cases, and in a far wider variety of circumstances, than Christianity.[also maybe worth pointing out as an afterthought that when tried, women as a group have generally not historically resorted to slaughtering the unconverted/unconvertable. No offense to christians, but willingness to engage in large-scale bloodshed has undeniably helped the christian religion to thrive in its formative and middle years. Perhaps wholesale slaughter is a 'more intelligent' response to persecution. I hope not.]"


Note that this is the bulk of his exposition on the matter. It's not like he goes on to actually argue this case in the next paragraph or something. So what in effect did this paragraph say? Something along the lines of "don't give me that 'women have been persecuted' BS. You know who've been persecuted? CHRISTIANS, that's who! Hurumph hurumph hurumph."

The problem is he failed to back up his argument in any way whatsoever, and he made his points so sloppily that you could barely extract that rather simple meaning from them.

As for elsewhere in the argument, he dismisses any scientific evidence out of hand as being either biased or outright fraud, yet he never manages to actually give us any freakin evidence (scientific or otherwise) that women have less intellectual capacity than men. NONE. He just keeps saying it over and over as though it were completely obvious and then refuting arguments contrary to his beliefs with the sort of sloppy, poorly argued crap seen above.


His argument takes "women have reduced intellectual capacity" as both a premise and a conclusion. Does anyone else see the problem with this?

 

[The Mad Hatter]

This would be a great one for the debate room.

I found this interesting, but lacking detail and examples.

 

[Mic_128]

You have to remember that you can't read only a section of something and say it's all wrong.

You also can't study a tiny sample group and say they're all dumb either.


Here's a better question; who cares, except steriotypical men who feel the need to proove that they are better than a woman?

 

[joshisrad]

You also can't study a tiny sample group and say they're all dumb either.

That would be better directed at (the deceased) Stove, not myself. Even then, that isn't what he did.
Who cares? Equality-theorists, as he makes a huge case to make clear, as well as feminists, radicals, liberals, and conservatives alike. Just because it doesn't fit your own preferred discourse doesn't mean everyone else shares your apathy.

 

[Revolutions]

Also, black people have been scientifically proven to have smaller brains. Don't forget about that!!!!

 

[Mic_128]

That would be better directed at (the deceased) Stove, not myself. Even then, that isn't what he did.

Unless he went and surveyed a large number of people, in the hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, you can't get an accurate result. (concidering there are over 6 billion people on this planet, roughtly half male and half female.)

 

[Virgilijus]

You have to remember that you can't read only a section of something and say it's all wrong. But you're right.

Yes you can. If I'm reading a mathematical proof and see that the person added some sides up in the first step, I know that the proof (in total) is wrong. The same logic applies for other arguments.

 

[Scav]

Here's the funny thing about this topic.

Whether or not it is true, it is unethical to treat it as fact. Studies show that men tend to do better at math tests than women. But, women who were told this before taking a test did significantly poorer than women who were not told it.

It's a biological stereotype, but the simple act of acknowledging the stereotype reinforces it. Women who aren't told that men are better at math get better scores on math tests.

 

[tmw_redcell]

Yeah, I read a about that. But the study I read was doing it according to race. Black people scored poorer on tests when they were told they were being evaluated based on their race. The article effect dealt mostly with minorities but it also applied to white engineering students who were given a math test to help the psychologists "better understand the superiority of Asian students."

The effect is called the stereotype threat, for those who want to look it up. And it would have been applying to women all throughout history.

 

[Peeze]

Also, black people have been scientifically proven to have smaller brains. Don't forget about that!!!!

But They're usually bigger in body size

Spoiler

and pen!s size

but who's keeping track?

Women don't need to be smarter, some women are smarter, but i guarantee you women have more common sense than men do. More DUI's, murders, and fines go to the male sex.
Women are proven to be better mutitasker's than men. I'm probly smarter than most girls I know, but that doesn't mean I'm better than them at any particular thing.
Besides the smart ones are usually the ones who hate men, so screw them.

 

[leviathan_]

Women are intellectually challenged .... jk >_> *pokes Lulu*

 

[joshisrad]

Mic - I'm aware. I didn't make his argument. He did.

What I'm to say next is somewhat relevant to explaining further what Scav said.
In my class, I'm supposed to write an enthymeme and justify it through an essay based purely on opinion and personal experience. No research, evidence, historical fact, whatever. This is a poor, poor method of justification, and it's pretty bull**** if you ask me, but I notice that Stove has done the same thing as I am being made to do in writing his essay. He backs it with opinion and reason. No fact. No real research. It's kind of interesting.

Yes you can. If I'm reading a mathematical proof and see that the person added some sides up in the first step, I know that the proof (in total) is wrong. The same logic applies for other arguments.

Well, since your logic contains a very basic fallacy(which you seem to have acknowledged in your parenthesis? I can't tell), to follow it would say that one is just as well justified in claiming that because someone forgot to add a swingset to a playground while building it, the entire playground is now useless. The reasoning doesn't pertain to every situation, as you can see.

 

[Tera253]

well, Here's one female who's not dumb at all.

partially ********? maybe...

academically, my GPA is 4.0133333333..... (3333333333333.....)


(3333333333333.....)




(3333333333333.....)


I might just be marginally ******** otherwise though.
~Tera253~

 

[Rici]

What? What happened to you?!?!?!

I might just be marginally ******** otherwise though.
~Tera253~

Edit: Wait, never mind, didn't see that Rev had edited it

 

[Ryan-K]

It's a biological stereotype, but the simple act of acknowledging the stereotype reinforces it. Women who aren't told that men are better at math get better scores on math tests.

I've heard of something like this called the "sterotype threat"

Steele (Claude Steele, a psychologist at Stanford University) and Joshua Aronson found that when they gave a group of Stanford undergraduates a standardized test and told them that it was a measure of their intellectual ability, the white students did much better than their black counterparts. But when the same test was presented simply as an abstract laboratory tool, with no relevance to ability, the scores of blacks and whites were virtually identical. Steele and Aronson attribute this disparity to what they call "stereotype threat": when black students are put into a situation where they are directly confronted with a stereotype about their group--in this case, one having to do with intelligence--the resulting pressure causes their performance to suffer.

from http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_08_21_a_choking.htm

 

[commonyoshi]

Edit: Wait, never mind, didn't see that Rev had edited it

If he keeps it up, I might just vote him for the most Omnipresent Mod.

I dont know about smarter, but the females in my school definitely work harder. Are there any scientific studies on that? I'm curious.

 

[Kitten]

"A reply to this article appeared in J. Teichman, `The intellectual capacity of David Stove', Philosophy 76 (2001): 149-57."

I didn't read the essay, but that was probably the best part.

 

[joshisrad]

Haha, yeah, I thought was pretty funny as well. Didn't read it either.

 

[pikachun00b7]

Its a good read. Some statistics and scientific tests will be helpful though. Though I don't intend want to sexist I have noticed i was able to talk to my male friends about god, existence, thought, ect, but when I bring the subject to my female friends they couldn't comprehend anything (even when I broke it down and explained it).

Though many girls may have high GPA in my school and in other schools as well, applying
basic thought to them is usually insufficient compared to men. My dad told me to find the linear distance formula by myself(He is a college professor and doesn't want me to be as dumb as the other American kids) I found it(after thinking for like a half a ****ing hour). My sister was watching me and was overwhelmed of my math skills in trying to find the formula.

 

[1048576]

I've read in some article published by the Scientific American magazine, that, essentially, men have more logic, women have more creativity. Men are generally better at math, but women are more gifted in the language arts, at least from what I understand. I don't think that any gender is smarter, because intelligence is defined in too vague a sense for any meaningful conclusions to be drawn.

 

[Zink]

Meh. I've for a time been of the opinion that general life ability, whatever that means, is distributed along a bell curve, with women in the middle and men on each end. It's relatively rarer to find an average man, as many of them are either high or low. Opposite with women. Either way, the average of the particular gender is close to the other. I don't think it matters very much.


although finding gamers girls is 100x harder than finding game guys, explain that.

 

[Luigi Ka-master]

If he keeps it up, I might just vote him for the most Omnipresent Mod.

I dont know about smarter, but the females in my school definitely work harder. Are there any scientific studies on that? I'm curious.

Yeah, I agree with this. Though the most probable reason for their greater work effort is because they take their education more seriously. Which would technically make them smarter. I don't think they just enjoy doing homework and crap.

I've read in some article published by the Scientific American magazine, that, essentially, men have more logic, women have more creativity. Men are generally better at math, but women are more gifted in the language arts, at least from what I understand. I don't think that any gender is smarter, because intelligence is defined in too vague a sense for any meaningful conclusions to be drawn.

That's also a good point. You would have to make some like...super-duper-hax exam to be able to draw a conclusion on the actual intelligence of a person. Not just some random math test and like...writing skills.

 

[Sky2042]

although finding gamers girls is 100x harder than finding game guys, explain that.

Gaming makes some men as like to a zombie as men in love.

 

[falco_4_life]

this seems like a interesting subject to discuss, but it invovles to much reading for me

 

[Jazzy Jinx]

It's possible for an individual man to have greater intellect than a woman and vice versa. If you go by numbers alone and, let's say, there are more men that are smart than there are women that are smart, it still wouldn't matter. The reason being is that, majority doesn't win the argument in this case because it is entirely possible for an individual woman to exceed the intelligence of the smartest man alive so despite majority, she still overcomes his intellect those proving that men are smarter false.

Intelligence is a variable and therefor this argument can never been determined unless we do an extensive experiment and see which brain holds the higher maximum intelligence possible but even then we would still need several candidates.

 

[Frozenserpent]

It's possible for an individual man to have greater intellect than a woman and vice versa. If you go by numbers alone and, let's say, there are more men that are smart than there are women that are smart, it still wouldn't matter. The reason being is that, majority doesn't win the argument in this case because it is entirely possible for an individual woman to exceed the intelligence of the smartest man alive so despite majority, she still overcomes his intellect those proving that men are smarter false.

Intelligence is a variable and therefor this argument can never been determined unless we do an extensive experiment and see which brain holds the higher maximum intelligence possible but even then we would still need several candidates.

That is a pointless argument that has nothing to do with anything. When one is making generalizations, majority is everything that matters. Outliers matter very little. Are you suggesting that men are not predisposed to greater strength than women? Certainly, women bodybuilders are stronger than the vast majority of men, but is that fact enough to state that "men and women are the same when it comes to strength"? There ARE differences between women and men. Do not let one's prejudices blind oneself.

 

[Jazzy Jinx]

Alright, say the majority of men are smarter so they state "hey, men are smarter." If that statement is true, then it would be impossible for a woman to exceed the intelligence of the smartest man, correct? If the fact is that men are smarter then how can a woman hope to become smarter than the smartest man? If she does, she will have proven that fact wrong.

This is not a generalization, it's a variable and a hard one to measure at that. The only possible way to gurantee which sex is smarter is to see the MAXIMUM POSSIBLE INTELLECT that each brain can hold. I'm talking about the maximum period, not Einstien level, I mean the whole d*** brain. The reason you would need several subjects too, is because you want to make sure that you are certain in your conclusion.

This would be hard to do since nobody on the planet has ever ascended to maximum intelligence but if they somehow learn how to measure how much the brain can hold then we can tell and we can try that experiment.

By the way, my argument was relevant and I am not prejudice. Stop tripping out.

 

[Seed of Sorrow]

That is a pointless argument that has nothing to do with anything. When one is making generalizations, majority is everything that matters. Outliers matter very little. Are you suggesting that men are not predisposed to greater strength than women? Certainly, women bodybuilders are stronger than the vast majority of men, but is that fact enough to state that "men and women are the same when it comes to strength"? There ARE differences between women and men. Do not let one's prejudices blind oneself.

Alright, what you just said is bull ****. True there are stereotypes, but anything that has to do with large generalizations such as there are completely independent occurences. If you have ever studied genetics you would learn this.

"Critics argue that the way intelligence is measured contains a high level of random variation and therefore it's impossible to generalise it all" - BBC Science and Nature

 

[Mediocre]

Alright, say the majority of men are smarter so they state "hey, men are smarter." If that statement is true, then it would be impossible for a woman to exceed the intelligence of the smartest man, correct? If the fact is that men are smarter then how can a woman hope to become smarter than the smartest man? If she does, she will have proven that fact wrong.

She'll have proven that she is smarter than any man, not that women as a whole are smarter than men.

Nevermind that intelligence is so hard to measure that proof like that would be impossible.

This is not a generalization, it's a variable and a hard one to measure at that. The only possible way to gurantee which sex is smarter is to see the MAXIMUM POSSIBLE INTELLECT that each brain can hold.

How do you even define maximum possible intellect?

I'd say that it's so hard to judge that the only thing you can do is get subjective impressions.

I'm talking about the maximum period, not Einstien level, I mean the whole d*** brain. The reason you would need several subjects too, is because you want to make sure that you are certain in your conclusion.

Testing subjects has a lot to do with the amount of knowledge a person has. For example, the average person from a place like Sudan or any other third world country would fare substantially worse that Americans on just about any test of intellect that you could imagine, but that doesn't mean that Sudanese people are inherently stupid.

This would be hard to do since nobody on the planet has ever ascended to maximum intelligence but if they somehow learn how to measure how much the brain can hold then we can tell and we can try that experiment.

Again, "how much the brain can hold" is not the same as intelligence. It's how you use the knowledge you have that really determines intelligence.

By the way, my argument was relevant and I am not prejudice. Stop tripping out.

I don't think he was "tripping out." Although I agree that he was a little ruder than he needed to be, he did make a valid point.

Alright, what you just said is bull ****. True there are stereotypes, but anything that has to do with large generalizations such as there are completely independent occurences. If you have ever studied genetics you would learn this.

"Critics argue that the way intelligence is measured contains a high level of random variation and therefore it's impossible to generalise it all" - BBC Science and Nature

I don't think he mentioned intelligence at all.

He was saying that there are differences between women, so we shouldn't ignore the possibility of a difference in intelligence between gender just because we feel the need to be politically correct.

Nowhere did he say that women were stupid.

 

[Jazzy Jinx]

Gah... I hate debating outside the Debate Hall... Well what do you think about all of it then?

Because to sum up what I think, I think it is impossible to measure intelligence and therefor it is impossible to make claims that men are mentally superior.

Edit: Fine... I'll debate.

I could make a claim that since I am a guy and you're a girl, I am instantly smarter and end the argument right there. But you would say that you are simply smarter than me on individual standards. This must mean that you think majority rules.

If that is the case and a majority of men are smarter then that would be a fact based off of these claims. But say the next year, more women are smarter than men so the fact shifts in that women would be smarter than men.

Long story short, you can't have a shifting fact, but you can have a variable. To label this thing as fact is impossible since it can shift whenever.

 

[Mediocre]

Gah... I hate debating outside the Debate Hall... Well what do you think about all of it then?

Because to sum up what I think, I think it is impossible to measure intelligence and therefor it is impossible to make claims that men are mentally superior.

Well, it's possible to make claims.

Pretty much impossible to back them up.

Since we seem to be in agreement that there's no real proof that can be offered in this debate, I'm just going to give my completely subjective view. I've always thought that men and women were, on average, equal in intelligence, although men seem to do better in some areas and women seem to do better at others. I have no way of proving this, though.

I also agree with 1048576 that women generally seem more creative than men, while men appear to be better at things involving logic or calculation. I'm not sure if this is because of some innate, genetic predisposition, or because of societal pressures and molding. However, I've usually found it to be true, although exceptions are pretty common.

In conclusion, I think it's a really stupid topic to be debating in the first place, and that the essay writer (if you can even call that piece of crap an essay) needs to learn how to structure an argument and stop being such a sexist pig.

That's really all I have to say on the subject.