Man, Woman and Chess.

[Kaze Araki]

I suggest you to understand what Chess is all about first, before we can continue our debate, as I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about, and the way how you correlate things is beyond absurd.

Nevertheless, once again;



Well , the citation clearly shows that Chess, along with Noble Prizes (assuming here; within scientific field) and Turing Awards (all three being cognitively demanding) are indicators (not just possible) of intellectual superiority.

 

[-lexus-]

I suggest you to understand what Chess is all about first, before we can continue our debate, as I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about, and the way how you correlate things is beyond absurd.

Nevertheless, once again;



Well , the citation clearly shows that Chess, along with Noble Prizes (assuming here; within scientific field) and Turing Awards (all three being cognitively demanding) are indicators (not just possible) of intellectual superiority.

Refer to my edited post.

 

[Kaze Araki]

Read the citation once again; why all three are indicators for intellectual superiority is because they are cognitively demanding. Now this is not just my opinion, but also the opinions of those respective scientists that do know more than me in their respective fields. You have none sources to support your argument, and your examples (soccer, politic, chess computer) does not even correlate with the fundamental properties that links all the previous three (Chess, Nobel Prizes, Turing Awards) together which is cognitive ability.



EDIT:

Your description of Chess made me speechless.



The relationship between IQ and Chess:

http://www.iqtestexperts.com/iq-chess.php

 

[-lexus-]

Read the citation once again; why all three are indicators for intellectual superiority is because they are cognitively demanding. Now this is not just my opinion, but also the opinions of those respective scientists that do know more than me in their respective fields. You have none sources to support your argument, and your examples (soccer, politic, chess computer) does not even correlate with the fundamental properties that links all the previous three (Chess, Nobel Prizes, Turing Awards) together which is cognitive ability.



EDIT:

Your description of Chess made me speechless.

Chess is only there because it is linked to winning awards and prices. A lot of people that won a noble price are also good at chess, ergo, being good at chess means youre smart, because other good chess players won noble prices. If the top and subtop of chess players never ever won any noble price, chess wouldnt be there. The fact that it is cognitively demanding isnt a argument. Playing tabletop wargames is also cognitively demanding (its chess with more variables!). Does that make people who play Warhammer all intellectually superior to people who dont? Dungeons and Dragons is also more cognitively demanding then athletic sports, so does that make Dungeons and Dragons players intellectually superior to people who do an athletic sport?



Thats why my chess computer example DOES make sense. A chess computer can be the best at chess, and never win any noble prices or Turing awards. In fact, you can create a whole army of chess computers that win from humans, replacing the entire top of chess players with computers, and no one would say those computers are intellectually superior compared to humans, only because they beat humans at one game.



Yes, there is a link, a correlation between being good at chess and being intellectual. However, being good at chess doesnt make you automatically mean you have a superior intellect then the average human. Your article only cites that there is a link.



EDIT

The link you provided is absolutely pathetic. Ive come to expect better sources from you.

"How could chess possibly improve English skills? The young students learned to make connections based on chess moves; This helped them connect different aspects of what they read in English courses & texts. Thus, the ability to make connections improves the overall IQ score."

Has nothing to do with chess, but with making connections, a well known method of studying, and not only for verbal skills. Chess can be used to make the connections, but so could any well known surrounding, hell, even made up fantasy landscapes. (Loci method is a very old method and famous method which relies heavily on linking things with mental images. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loci_Method)



"Chess has been shown to raise student's overall IQ scores. A Venezuelan study involving 4,000 second grade students found a significant increase in their IQ scores after only 4.5 months of systematically studying chess. Tournament chess games, which bind each player to make his move within the stipulated time, hone one's ability to perform under pressure, mimicking environments of most school and competitive exams."

Short term improvements of the IQ are extremely unreliable, go ask any psychologist. The reason for the improvement is already hinted in the article itself, saying that it prepares for testing, or standardized tests. Standardized IQ tests become worthless if people are prepared before hand. On top of that, short term IQ scores can fluctuate pretty wildly, while long term IQ scores tend to remain the same. It has to do with the way IQ is calculated based on the persons age. Learning ahead can make you seem smarter on the short term because you know more then the average person for your age. But unless you are persistently ahead of people from your age, your long term IQ will drop again to normal levels.



"The ability to perceive possibilities for movement is particularly crucial to chess thinking, as is the capacity to build up a system of knowledge and experience. Chess thinking often involves a complex, hierarchical structure of problems and sub-problems, and the capacity for retaining and manipulating such complex structures of data concurrently never deviating from the goals, all correlate with having a high IQ"

Author didnt bother to cite the sources he got that from. On top of that, he specifically mentions building up a certain system or structure and working with it. Which can be trained to be chess specific.



"Chess studying and playing involves six out of seven factors of the modern IQ test model. Hence subscribing to it would warranty improvement in your performance in IQ tests as per the verdicts of researchers. So if you have never felt the chessboard its time you star"arranging your pawns!"

Obviously the author has never done an IQ test himself. Word knowledge, reciting numbers forwards and backwards, general knowledge about the world, basic math, etc have nothing to do with chess, yet those are the things asked in an IQ test (at leas the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children and the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale).



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Intelligence_Scale_for_Children#Uses

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Adult_Intelligence_Scale#Standardization

 

[Canabary]

I suggest you to understand what Chess is all about first, before we can continue our debate, as I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about, and the way how you correlate things is beyond absurd.

Nevertheless, once again;



Well , the citation clearly shows that Chess, along with Noble Prizes (assuming here; within scientific field) and Turing Awards (all three being cognitively demanding) are indicators (not just possible) of intellectual superiority.

Chess, although a good judge of logical, and primary tactical, intellect can not be considered a sole judge of intellect. Kasparov was a brilliant tactitian, but he is not as intelligent as say Nikolai Tesla, Albert Einstein or Emilie Chatelet was, and if we look at his achievements after Chess, or even outside chess, there's nothing there to indicate "genius".



However, if we do accept the premise, which I personally do not, it is also important to note the male to female ratio is riddiculous. There are far more men playing chess than there are women. However, since you are set on using Chess as a variable, let's look at the science.



A report published by Chabris and Glickman in the academic journal "Psychological Science":

They found no greater variance in men than women. It

had been suggested that since science selects for individuals at the

upper tail of the distribution, a higher variance in men than women

might explain their greater representation. However, the researchers

found that - with respect to chess - if anything in most age groups

women had a higher variance then men. Upper tail effects do not explain

the differences in the numbers of grandmasters.

Further:

If you look at the participation rate of women and relate that

to performance, you find that in cases where the participation rate of

women and men is equal the disparity in ability vanishes.

So as you can see, there is no evidence in Chess that seems to indacte male intellectual superiority.



As for Nobel Prizes it's important to note that women haven't competed on equal footing with men through most of the awards history, women's roles in universities were extremely limited until well into the 1900s, with only a few getting even a small percent of the oppertunities available for men. It's not actually true that "men dominate the nobel prizes" If you actually look at the nominees rather than the winners you will see that there are quite a lof of women nominated, and many of which who would have been worthy winners, in some cases perhaps even more worthy winners than those who were awarded.



The Turing award is based on computer technology, a field dominated by males. During the technological boom of the 60,70s and 80s there was a general trend towards gender seperation through technology. While the boys could be tinkering with their gadgets, electronics and trying to get their computers to work, women were left with doing household chores and other non-technological tasks. If they had any interest in the technology it is doubtful that their interest would have been nurtured by a parent or teacher. Women's roles were still heavily limited in the 70s and even the 80s, which meant that their interests were drawn elsewhere.



Chances are that you will see a more "diversified" winners list in the next 100 years.



It is no secret that women's role in academia haven't been on equal footing with men until very recently. Some would even say as late as the 80s. Indeed while most men had the oppertunity for an education some 70 years ago, women had no such possiblities. Sure universities were "opened" to women in the 1870s, but because of gender roles, the fact that women didn't recieve anywhere near the same level of education as men, and the lack of work oppertunities for women, it is no surprise that these fields that you've highlighted are dominated by men.

 

[Kaze Araki]

God, spare me the torture of telling the obvious...



being good at chess doesn't make you automatically mean you have a superior intellect then the average human.



Well, of course! *face-palm*

Therefore, being a Chess Champion does! Which is the point raised in the original citation!



Being a mathematician, physicist or chess Grandmaster does not mean that you have a superior intellect than the average human.

However, being the best of the best in their fields (again, all three are cognitively demanding) does mean that their IQ are above averages.

So, Chess is indeed a valid indicator of intellectual superiority.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



@Canabary



You can't compare which are smarter between Mathematicians, Physicians and Doctors, they are genius in their own respective fields. Kasparov is indeed a genius in Chess due to the fact he had contributed a lot in advancing Chess theories. I don't see any relevance of Kasparov genius in Chess to anything outside of Chess. What matter here is the fact that Chess is a cognitively demanding occupation - and thus why it is can be used as indicator for intellectual superiority.



I make no claim about Nobel Prizes and Turing Awards, they are there as comparison to chess, as part of the original citation.



As for your men vs women disparity in numbers claim, I personally don't have any opinion in regard to whether men are superior to women or not - intellectually. But I don't really see this majority argument as convincing. For example, even though Jews are only roughly 3% of the population in the U.S., their representation in the cognitively demanding fields are just overwhelming. This fact alone does not seems to correlate well with your fact.





_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



@Lexus



The link you provided is absolutely pathetic. Ive come to expect better sources from you.



I concede, I'll use Wikipedia next time.

 

[Canabary]

[MENTION=199]Canabary[/MENTION]



You can't compare which are smarter between Mathematicians, Physicians and Doctors, they are genius in their own respective fields. Kasparov is indeed a genius in Chess due to the fact he had contributed a lot in advancing Chess theories. I don't see any relevance of Kasparov genius in Chess to anything outside of Chess. What matter here is the fact that Chess is a cognitively demanding occupation - and thus why it is can be used as indicator for intellectual superiority.



I make no claim about Nobel Prizes and Turing Awards, they are there as comparison to chess, as part of the original citation.



As for your men vs women disparity in numbers claim, I personally don't have any opinion in regard to whether men are superior to women or not - intellectually. But I don't really see this majority argument as convincing. For example, even though Jews are only roughly 3% of the population in the U.S., their representation in the cognitively demanding fields are just overwhelming. This fact alone does not seems to correlate well with your fact.

Intellectual superiority can not be claimed if you can only master one field. "Genius", fine. Intellectual superiority, no. I will readily conceed that Kasparov was a chess genius, but for him to be intellectually superior he would have to show that in more than one field, especially considering his one field is basically a game. His career in politics speak of a man incapable of taking any tactical genius he displays on the chess board into the real world, that in itself is a great weakness and hinders any claim of him being intellectually superior. He has fame and popular belief that he is a genius on his side, yet he is unable to mount any sort of political challenge. I'm sorry but I do not see intellectual superiority in that.



My disparity claim is well documented. If you take the same ammount of men and women and look at their relative ability there is no significant difference. I do not claim that "because men are in the majority they do better". Although I do believe that is partyl the reason for it. I'm giving you a study published in "Psycological Science" that concluded that there is no discernable difference in ability between men and women in Chess.



Your reference about jews relates very little to my claim. You claim that the fact that jews are only 3% of Americans yet dominate the intellectual fields as evidence against there being no discernable intellectual disparity between the sexes. But that's not something you can conclude out of that. What you can conclude is that Jews are generally far more intelligent than their american counterparts. Since the minority is dominant it would stand to reason that if you put two equally large groups of jews and non jews together the jews would be vastly more intelligent than the non jews.



We're not talking about a mathematical equation here. We're talking about real experiments with real people over 13 years where the conclusion has been that there is no difference in ability between women and men when it comes to chess, and by proxy, no difference between intelligence as per your correlation between chess and intelligence.



Why Jews dominate these fields and appear to be intellectual superior is another matter entirely.

 

[Kaze Araki]

Intellectual superiority can not be claimed if you can only master one field. "Genius", fine. Intellectual superiority, no. I will readily conceed that Kasparov was a chess genius, but for him to be intellectually superior he would have to show that in more than one field, especially considering his one field is basically a game. His career in politics speak of a man incapable of taking any tactical genius he displays on the chess board into the real world, that in itself is a great weakness and hinders any claim of him being intellectually superior. He has fame and popular belief that he is a genius on his side, yet he is unable to mount any sort of political challenge. I'm sorry but I do not see intellectual superiority in that.

I think you misunderstand in regard to what it means by intellectual superiority, I have no interest in such vague and subjective comparison. To be clear, intellectual superiority must be biologically innate (if exist) e.g. racially or based upon gender. The question here is; whether men are superior to women intellectually, using chess as a precise example.

My disparity claim is well documented. If you take the same ammount of men and women and look at their relative ability there is no significant difference. I do not claim that "because men are in the majority they do better". Although I do believe that is partyl the reason for it. I'm giving you a study published in "Psycological Science" that concluded that there is no discernable difference in ability between men and women in Chess.



We're not talking about a mathematical equation here. We're talking about real experiments with real people over 13 years where the conclusion has been that there is no difference in ability between women and men when it comes to chess,

Upon scrutinizing the cited paper, the red underline part is exactly the reason.



Only 1% of the world's chess grandmasters are women. This underrepresentation is unlikely to be caused by discrimination, because chess ratings objectively reflect competitive results. Using data on the ratings of more than 250,000 tournament players over 13 years, we investigated several potential explanations for the male domination of elite chess. We found that (a) the ratings of men are higher on average than those of women, but no more variable; (

matched boys and girls improve and drop out at equal rates, but boys begin chess competition in greater numbers and at higher performance levels than girls; and (c) in locales where at least 50% of the new young players are girls, their initial ratings are not lower than those of boys. We conclude that the greater number of men at the highest levels in chess can be explained by the greater number of boys who enter chess at the lowest levels.

Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17201785



Basically, the paper shows that:

A. There is no intellectual disparity between men and women in Chess.

B. Men dominance is due to the greater number of male Chess players.

and by proxy, no difference between intelligence as per your correlation between chess and intelligence.

The correlation between chess and intelligence is indisputable (precisely the very reason why the paper used chess players as subjects), but this is not central to the question at hand.

Your reference about jews relates very little to my claim. You claim that the fact that jews are only 3% of Americans yet dominate the intellectual fields as evidence against there being no discernable intellectual disparity between the sexes. But that's not something you can conclude out of that. What you can conclude is that Jews are generally far more intelligent than their american counterparts. Since the minority is dominant it would stand to reason that if you put two equally large groups of jews and non jews together the jews would be vastly more intelligent than the non jews.



Why Jews dominate these fields and appear to be intellectual superior is another matter entirely.

The Jewish example give us two important facts;

A. Intellectual abilities and therefore superiority is biologically innate, in this instance - racially. Therefore, it would be of no surprise if we would later discover that this innate differences are also empirically observable in sexes.

B. Intellectual abilities and therefore superiority does not follow statistical common sense as such that the majority will always produce more intellectuals compared to the minority, as it is apparently clear in this instance case.



Because of this, while I concede that there are no indisputable empirical evidences that can prove the intellectual disparity, I am not fully convinced either with the statistical evidences given as an adequate explanation for men domination in Chess. When it comes to intelligences, numbers hardly matter - the smartest would always shows up despite numerical disadvantage. Nevertheless, until such evidences for innate biological differences arrive (if any) - it is best to accept the current scientific consensus that there are no intellectual disparity between men and women.



A recent study by Bilalic (2009), while fully supporting the statistical evidences, is more cautious in their discussion;

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/276/1659/1161.full.html#fn-group-1

 

[-lexus-]

The Jewish example give us two important facts;

A. Intellectual abilities and therefore superiority is biologically innate, in this instance - racially. Therefore, it would be of no surprise if we would later discover that this innate differences are also empirically observable in sexes.

B. Intellectual abilities and therefore superiority does not follow statistical common sense as such that the majority will always produce more intellectuals compared to the minority, as it is apparently clear in this instance case.



Because of this, while I concede that there are no indisputable empirical evidences that can prove the intellectual disparity, I am not fully convinced either with the statistical evidences given as an adequate explanation for men domination in Chess. When it comes to intelligences, numbers hardly matter - the smartest would always shows up despite numerical disadvantage. Nevertheless, until such evidences for innate biological differences arrive (if any) - it is best to accept the current scientific consensus that there are no intellectual disparity between men and women.



A recent study by Bilalic (2009), while fully supporting the statistical evidences, is more cautious in their discussion;

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/276/1659/1161.full.html#fn-group-1

Good work at bringing back the master race bullshit, and then trying to prove it with science.



Its an extremely long shot to say that because a small group of Jews perform better in science and have an average higher IQ, those reasons are biological, making Jews as a race a smarter race. Maybe it hasnt gotten anything to do with genes, but with social factors as well. Jews werent allowed to be farmers, and always ended up doing the 'smart' jobs back in Europe. They became the bankers and all the other well paid things Christians werent allowed to do. So, Jewish kids were both brought up in increasingly richer families, giving them access to better education and healthier food. Now let this go on for a few centuries and you get a religious group who almost completely specialized in the more cognitively demanding jobs. Because of that, they lived in a intellectual environment, which is always more likely to bring about smarter kids then someone from a peasant family who lived in a intellectually deprived environment his whole life.



You focus to much on genes when the environment also has enormous effects on IQ and intellect, and because of that, its just downright stupid to say that Jews are a smarter race, or something like that.



More proof for environmental factors. Over the past few decades, the average IQ of a Dutch person has increased with 20 IQ points. If genes and inheritance and biology are the only factors explaining intelligence, then this increase makes no sense. Dumb people having sex with other dumb people giving birth to smart people! Why the increase? The environment changed, education improved, people got more and healthier foods, etc. Not to say that genes dont play a role, because they do, but they are not all determining and thats why its stupid to class intelligence based on race or gender.





Anyways, read this: http://iq-test.learninginfo.org/iq03.htm this time written by someone who does know a thing or two about intelligence, and with sources from where he got it.

Also: Dickens, W. T., & Flynn, J. R. (2001). Heritability estimates versus large environmental effects: The IQ paradox resolved. Psychological Review, 108, 346-369.

 

[Kaze Araki]

@Canabary



Additional materials.



As a Chess player, it's hard to just accept that the discrepancy in intellectual abilities does not exist and that the domination is solely due to overwhelming representation of men within the sport itself. As I've said before, smart people does not follow the majority statistical trend, and this can be seen clearly in Chess when the solo Bobby Fischer completely obliterate Soviet domination during his war path to become world champion. The strongest women Grandmaster so far is Judith Polgar and she has been holding this title for quite a long time. Ranked 41 among the top 100 Chess Grandmaster (as of 2011), she is unfortunately the only women in that list, and her rating gap (2699) with the world Champion Anand (2817) is massive.



Granted that no innate biological traits which caused the discrepancy has been detected (if any) and that the male domination is well explained by a simple statistical method, the following study by Colom and Lynn (2004) may come across as "interesting" to read;



The consensus view states that there are no sex differences in intelligence. However, Lynn (1994, 1999) has formulated a developmental theory of sex differences in intelligence that challenges that view. The theory states that boys and girls mature at different rates such that the growth of girls accelerates at the age of about 9 years and remains in advance of boys until 14-15 years. At 15-16 years the growth of girls decelerates relative to boys. As boys continue to grow from this age their height and their mean IQs increase relative to those of girls. This paper presents new evidence for the theory from the Spanish standardization sample of the fifth edition of the DAT. 1027 boys and 924 girls between 12 and 18 years were tested. The general trend shows that girls do better at the younger ages and their performance declines relative to boys among older age groups, which supports the developmental theory. The sex difference for the DAT as a whole for 18 year olds is a 4.3 IQ advantage for boys, very close to the advantage that can be predicted from their larger brain size (4.4 IQ points). The profile of sex differences in abilities among the Spanish sample is closely similar to that in the United States and Britain, which is testimony to the robustness of the difference in these different cultures.

Source: http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15338584



If such minor advantage is to be applied on a higher level, the effect can be decisive. This may (speculation) explain why no woman has been able to breakthrough the male domination.



A 2006 study by Jackson and Rushton seems to support my argument;



In this study we found that 17- to 18-year old males averaged 3.63 IQ points higher than did their female counterparts on the 1991 Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT). We analysed 145 item responses from 46,509 males and 56,007 females (total N = 102,516) using a principal components procedure. We found (1) the "g" factor underlies both the SAT Verbal (SAT-V) and the SAT Mathematics (SAT-M) scales with the congruence between these components greater than 0.90; (2) the "g" components predict undergraduate grades better than do the traditionally used SAT-V and SAT-M scales; (3) the male and the female "g" factors are congruent in excess of 0.99; (4) male-female differences in "g" have a point-biserial effect size of 0.12 favoring males (equivalent to 3.63 IQ points); (5) male-female differences in "g" are present throughout the entire distribution of scores; (6) male-female differences in "g" are found at every socioeconomic level; and (7) male-female differences in "g" are found across several ethnic groups. We conclude that while the magnitude of the male-female difference in "g" is not large, it is real and non-trivial. Finally, we discuss some remaining sex-difference/brain-size/IQ anomalies.

Source: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPorta...&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ742900

 

[Canabary]

I think you misunderstand in regard to what it means by intellectual superiority, I have no interest in such vague and subjective comparison. To be clear, intellectual superiority must be biologically innate (if exist) e.g. racially or based upon gender. The question here is; whether men are superior to women intellectually, using chess as a precise example.

And as I say intellectual superiority means someone is smarter than everyone else. Kasparov's chess feats are impressive but his intellgience outside the field of chess is limited at best. There is nothing there to prove him to be smarter than the average bear except for his ability at chess.

Upon scrutinizing the cited paper, the red underline part is exactly the reason.



Only 1% of the world's chess grandmasters are women. This underrepresentation is unlikely to be caused by discrimination, because chess ratings objectively reflect competitive results. Using data on the ratings of more than 250,000 tournament players over 13 years, we investigated several potential explanations for the male domination of elite chess. We found that (a) the ratings of men are higher on average than those of women, but no more variable; (

matched boys and girls improve and drop out at equal rates, but boys begin chess competition in greater numbers and at higher performance levels than girls; and (c) in locales where at least 50% of the new young players are girls, their initial ratings are not lower than those of boys. We conclude that the greater number of men at the highest levels in chess can be explained by the greater number of boys who enter chess at the lowest levels.

Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17201785



Basically, the paper shows that:

A. There is no intellectual disparity between men and women in Chess.

B. Men dominance is due to the greater number of male Chess players.

And as you can see they tested this theory. In chess establishments were women had begun at the same age as men, and given the same oppertunities, there's no indication of a difference in ability. Which is the entire point. Given the same condiditions and oppertunities there is no significant difference between men and women when it comes to chess ability.

The correlation between chess and intelligence is indisputable (precisely the very reason why the paper used chess players as subjects), but this is not central to the question at hand.

The paper wasn't testing intellgience, it was testing chess ability. Some of the most brilliant men and women in the world would have fallen to Kasparov in chess, that does not make him intellectually superior to Einstein, Tesla, Chatelet, or Da Vinci. At least not in my opinion.



If Chess is "the" way to test intelligence then Einstein and Tesla would have been grand masters.

The Jewish example give us two important facts;

A. Intellectual abilities and therefore superiority is biologically innate, in this instance - racially. Therefore, it would be of no surprise if we would later discover that this innate differences are also empirically observable in sexes.

B. Intellectual abilities and therefore superiority does not follow statistical common sense as such that the majority will always produce more intellectuals compared to the minority, as it is apparently clear in this instance case.

And as I've pointed out, the paper in question did not assume anything of the sort. They took two groups of equal size, with the same oppertunities and condiditions and found that when men and women were given the same condiditions there was no signficant difference between chess ability between the sexes. Chess is not something that any intelligent person can pick up and master instantly, as with everyhting else it takes practice and experience. Which means if women aren't given the same time and oppertunities for chess as men it stands to reason that they will not reach the same level as men.

Because of this, while I concede that there are no indisputable empirical evidences that can prove the intellectual disparity, I am not fully convinced either with the statistical evidences given as an adequate explanation for men domination in Chess. When it comes to intelligences, numbers hardly matter - the smartest would always shows up despite numerical disadvantage. Nevertheless, until such evidences for innate biological differences arrive (if any) - it is best to accept the current scientific consensus that there are no intellectual disparity between men and women.

It does matter if you focus on a single subject. Messuring intelligence soley through chess ability is widely inaccurate, there is far more to intelligence. Even something as limited as the standarized IQ test takes into account far more than chess would ever do.

A recent study by Bilalic (2009), while fully supporting the statistical evidences, is more cautious in their discussion;

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/276/1659/1161.full.html#fn-group-1

This study concludes that as of yet there is no way to use male dominance in intellectual fields as evidence of male intellectual superiority, so yes. Precisely what I've been saying.

As a Chess player, it's hard to just accept that the discrepancy in intellectual abilities does not exist and that the domination is solely due to overwhelming representation of men within the sport itself. As I've said before, smart people does not follow the majority statistical trend, and this can be seen clearly in Chess when the solo Bobby Fischer completely obliterate Soviet domination during his war path to become world champion. The strongest women Grandmaster so far is Judith Polgar and she has been holding this title for quite a long time. Ranked 41 among the top 100 Chess Grandmaster (as of 2011), she is unfortunately the only women in that list, and her rating gap (2699) with the world Champion Anand (2817) is massive.

There is no evidence at all that suggest that men are more intelligent than women, nor that the dominance in the field of chess has anyhting to do with a higher innate intellectual ability. Most evidence seem to point towards to social factors rather than anyhting biological.

The consensus view states that there are no sex differences in intelligence. However, Lynn (1994, 1999) has formulated a developmental theory of sex differences in intelligence that challenges that view. The theory states that boys and girls mature at different rates such that the growth of girls accelerates at the age of about 9 years and remains in advance of boys until 14-15 years. At 15-16 years the growth of girls decelerates relative to boys. As boys continue to grow from this age their height and their mean IQs increase relative to those of girls. This paper presents new evidence for the theory from the Spanish standardization sample of the fifth edition of the DAT. 1027 boys and 924 girls between 12 and 18 years were tested. The general trend shows that girls do better at the younger ages and their performance declines relative to boys among older age groups, which supports the developmental theory. The sex difference for the DAT as a whole for 18 year olds is a 4.3 IQ advantage for boys, very close to the advantage that can be predicted from their larger brain size (4.4 IQ points). The profile of sex differences in abilities among the Spanish sample is closely similar to that in the United States and Britain, which is testimony to the robustness of the difference in these different cultures.

I can't comment on something soley based on an abstract as there's no way for me to see what methods they've used or scientific processes. If there is indeed a 4.4 difference in IQ points then this can be an important factor in supposed intellectual discrepancy, but 4.4 points does not sound like enough for there to be a "massive" difference, certainly nothing like that represented by male dominance in intellectual fields.

In this study we found that 17- to 18-year old males averaged 3.63 IQ points higher than did their female counterparts on the 1991 Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT). We analysed 145 item responses from 46,509 males and 56,007 females (total N = 102,516) using a principal components procedure. We found (1) the "g" factor underlies both the SAT Verbal (SAT-V) and the SAT Mathematics (SAT-M) scales with the congruence between these components greater than 0.90; (2) the "g" components predict undergraduate grades better than do the traditionally used SAT-V and SAT-M scales; (3) the male and the female "g" factors are congruent in excess of 0.99; (4) male-female differences in "g" have a point-biserial effect size of 0.12 favoring males (equivalent to 3.63 IQ points); (5) male-female differences in "g" are present throughout the entire distribution of scores; (6) male-female differences in "g" are found at every socioeconomic level; and (7) male-female differences in "g" are found across several ethnic groups. We conclude that while the magnitude of the male-female difference in "g" is not large, it is real and non-trivial. Finally, we discuss some remaining sex-difference/brain-size/IQ anomalies.

The SATs have been changed drastically since 1991, but I do admitt that it would be a OK way of judging the intellgience of adolescents. However, it does not give any indication of intellegence differences of full grown adults. Although it may be present, an SAT score bases itself on adolescents who are still in puberty, not on adults. If anything it shows a difference in intellectual growth rate/periods.



I think you will find that within most fields the lack of female pressence is more down to socioeconmic attributes than bioligical. The fact that women's role in the sciences have been highly limited until quite recently (80s/90s) There is no surprise that men dominate these fields.

 

[Kaze Araki]

And as I say intellectual superiority means someone is smarter than everyone else.

Your claim makes no sense at all whatsoever. How do you established that someone is smarter than everyone else? By their success in politic? Because their field of expertise is in physics? Plain outright absurd. In any case, your personal definition has nothing to do with the issue at hand, that is; how to determine whether there are actually intellectual disparity between men and women, the indicator used in this instance is Chess. Now, why do we use Chess as one of the indicator? It is simply because this field of expertise requires demanding cognitive abilities which is essential in determining whether the disparity (if exist) is biologically innate, not all the subjective reasoning that you've been spouting out so far. If you want to compare which one is smarter between Kasparov and Einstein, you need to test their IQ, not comparing their achievement within and outside of their respective fields. But then again, comparing their IQ is still irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Kasparov's chess feats are impressive but his intellgience outside the field of chess is limited at best. There is nothing there to prove him to be smarter than the average bear except for his ability at chess.

Plain outright retarded, I don't think this ad hominem even deserve a reply. Let us not dwell into the absurdities of your subjective and irrelevant definition of intellectual superiority, focus only on the question at hand - that is whether the innate biological differences really exist as the source of the disparity.

And as you can see they tested this theory. In chess establishments were women had begun at the same age as men, and given the same oppertunities, there's no indication of a difference in ability. Which is the entire point. Given the same condiditions and oppertunities there is no significant difference between men and women when it comes to chess ability.

And your whole argument is dependent on this one paper only. You ignore the papers presented by Colom and Lynn, and later Jackson and Rushton which pointed out that the disparity does exist on older ages adolescent. Notice the conclusion of your cited paper: "We conclude that the greater number of men at the highest levels in chess can be explained by the greater number of boys who enter chess at the lowest levels." relies heavily on younger age bracket.

The paper wasn't testing intellgience, it was testing chess ability. Some of the most brilliant men and women in the world would have fallen to Kasparov in chess, that does not make him intellectually superior to Einstein, Tesla, Chatelet, or Da Vinci. At least not in my opinion.

The paper only seek to explain why male is dominant in Chess, but then you went down into the irrelevant once more. Who is actually claiming that Kasparov is intellectually superior than Einstein? I know I don't. Because unlike you, I don't compare apple with orange. Stop making up strawman and just concentrate on the issue at hand - again;

a. Whether there are intellectual disparity between men and women.

b. Since the indicator here is Chess, this would mean that we are comparing cognitive ability - that is whether this disparity (if exist) is innate or not.

If Chess is "the" way to test intelligence then Einstein and Tesla would have been grand masters.

This is garbage, and irrelevant as well. Since you went on with the path of ad hominem, I will not shy away either from exposing your bias and idiocy. Recall the paper by Bilalic;



A popular explanation for the small number of women at the top level of intellectually demanding activities from chess to science appeals to biological differences in the intellectual abilities of men and women.



different proportions of men and women with high IQs… may go some way to explain the greater numbers of men achieving distinctions of various kinds for which a high IQ is required, such as chess Grandmasters, Fields medallists for mathematics, Nobel prize winners and the like



Here, we show that in chess, an intellectually demanding activity where men dominate at the top level, the difference in the performance of the best men and women is largely accounted for by the difference that would be expected, given the much greater number of men who participate.



It is difficult to quantify how participation rates influence the number of outstanding men and women in fields such as science and engineering because both achievement and participation rates are difficult to measure. But it is straightforward in chess because there is an objective measure of achievement and the number of male and female participants is known.



Chess has long been renowned as the intellectual activity par excellence (Newell et al. 1958) and male dominance at chess is frequently cited as an example of innate male intellectual superiority (e.g. Howard 2005; Irwing & Lynn 2005).



Women may be inferior in the intellectual abilities that are important for successful chess playing. This innate disadvantage may lead women to give up on chess in greater numbers than more successful men. The small number of women is then a consequence of their greater drop-out, which in turn is produced by their innate lack of the intellectual abilities required to succeed at chess.



This paper specifically used Chess to test whether there exist intelligence disparity between men and women. Your attempt to undermine the value of Chess may sound credible to lay people, but it is outright idiotic to people who do understand the complexity of the respective field.

 

[Kaze Araki]

And as I've pointed out, the paper in question did not assume anything of the sort. They took two groups of equal size, with the same oppertunities and condiditions and found that when men and women were given the same condiditions there was no signficant difference between chess ability between the sexes. Chess is not something that any intelligent person can pick up and master instantly, as with everyhting else it takes practice and experience. Which means if women aren't given the same time and oppertunities for chess as men it stands to reason that they will not reach the same level as men.

The paper only used statistical method to explain why male is dominance in this field of expertise.

It does matter if you focus on a single subject. Messuring intelligence soley through chess ability is widely inaccurate, there is far more to intelligence. Even something as limited as the standarized IQ test takes into account far more than chess would ever do.

To the contrary, Bilalic et all. clearly stated;



In other domains such as science and engineering, where the predominance of men at the top is offered as evidence of the biological superiority of men, large differences between the number of women and men engaged in these activities are evident (Long 2001; Xie & Shauman 2003). In these areas of life, it is not possible to estimate the performance of the top women and men and their participation rates as precisely as it is in chess.



Exactly the reason why Bilalic used Chess as indicator i.e. because it is more precise.

This study concludes that as of yet there is no way to use male dominance in intellectual fields as evidence of male intellectual superiority, so yes. Precisely what I've been saying.

This study concludes that;



But until the effect of participation rates has been allowed for, the greater number of men among the most successful people should not be cited as evidence of innate differences between male and female intellectual abilities.



While I concede that there is no evidences for innate disparity (such admission is a must to any intellectually honest man), this study also proves that all your snide remark about Chess is pretty much rubbish, since this study specifically used Chess to prove whether the innate biological differences argument is valid or not.

There is no evidence at all that suggest that men are more intelligent than women, nor that the dominance in the field of chess has anyhting to do with a higher innate intellectual ability. Most evidence seem to point towards to social factors rather than anyhting biological.

Now, this is flat out false. The evidences of the disparity do exist, albeit not significant - according to mainstream interpretation.

I can't comment on something soley based on an abstract as there's no way for me to see what methods they've used or scientific processes. If there is indeed a 4.4 difference in IQ points then this can be an important factor in supposed intellectual discrepancy, but 4.4 points does not sound like enough for there to be a "massive" difference, certainly nothing like that represented by male dominance in intellectual fields.

But there is exactly where my speculation lies. While 4.4 point discrepancy means very little to the average men and women, it may proves to be massive on the highest level - and Chess is a good indicator for this.

The SATs have been changed drastically since 1991, but I do admitt that it would be a OK way of judging the intellgience of adolescents. However, it does not give any indication of intellegence differences of full grown adults. Although it may be present, an SAT score bases itself on adolescents who are still in puberty, not on adults. If anything it shows a difference in intellectual growth rate/periods.

It shows more than that, as it shows that on the age of 18, boys are intellectually superior to girls. Recall once again your one and only cited paper which relies heavily on children-adolescent participation.

I think you will find that within most fields the lack of female pressence is more down to socioeconmic attributes than bioligical. The fact that women's role in the sciences have been highly limited until quite recently (80s/90s) There is no surprise that men dominate these fields.

What you think is irrelevant, the question here is whether the disparity is biologically innate or not, since this is the most objective measurement in regard to whether men is intellectually superior to women. If it's innate - than I'm right, if it's not - than I'm wrong, pure and simple. Socioeconomic factors are irrelevant as they are not innate.

 

[Canabary]

Your claim makes no sense at all whatsoever. How do you established that someone is smarter than everyone else? By their success in politic? Because their field of expertise is in physics? Plain outright absurd. In any case, your personal definition has nothing to do with the issue at hand, that is; how to determine whether there are actually intellectual disparity between men and women, the indicator used in this instance is Chess. Now, why do we use Chess as one of the indicator? It is simply because this field of expertise requires demanding cognitive abilities which is essential in determining whether the disparity (if exist) is biologically innate, not all the subjective reasoning that you've been spouting out so far. If you want to compare which one is smarter between Kasparov and Einstein, you need to test their IQ, not comparing their achievement within and outside of their respective fields. But then again, comparing their IQ is still irrelevant to the topic at hand.

All I'm saying is that using chess as the sole indicator of inate intelligence seems simplistic.

And your whole argument is dependent on this one paper only. You ignore the papers presented by Colom and Lynn, and later Jackson and Rushton which pointed out that the disparity does exist on older ages adolescent. Notice the conclusion of your cited paper: "We conclude that the greater number of men at the highest levels in chess can be explained by the greater number of boys who enter chess at the lowest levels." relies heavily on younger age bracket.

You Presented me with "Chess = intelligence, therefore men's greater chess ability = men have a higher inate intelligence level than women". To which I presented a paper that states that "Men and women do not differ in chess ability given equal conditions"

The paper only seek to explain why male is dominant in Chess, but then you went down into the irrelevant once more. Who is actually claiming that Kasparov is intellectually superior than Einstein? I know I don't. Because unlike you, I don't compare apple with orange. Stop making up strawman and just concentrate on the issue at hand - again;

a. Whether there are intellectual disparity between men and women.

b. Since the indicator here is Chess, this would mean that we are comparing cognitive ability - that is whether this disparity (if exist) is innate or not.

As I've said before. Chess can not be used as the sole indicator of innate intellectual ability. Kasparov is the greatest chess player in history. If chess is indeed the "best" way of messuring inate intelligence then it would stand to reason that Kasparov is more intelligent than the ones mentioned as they never competed on a high level of chess.



I've stated numerous times that I completely disagree with the conclusions presented about chess and it's direct correlation to intelligence. However I've still stuck to the premise and presented you with evidence which states that there is no difference between men and women in terms of chess ability when the condidtions are equal.

This is garbage, and irrelevant as well. Since you went on with the path of ad hominem, I will not shy away either from exposing your bias and idiocy. Recall the paper by Bilalic;



A popular explanation for the small number of women at the top level of intellectually demanding activities from chess to science appeals to biological differences in the intellectual abilities of men and women.



different proportions of men and women with high IQs… may go some way to explain the greater numbers of men achieving distinctions of various kinds for which a high IQ is required, such as chess Grandmasters, Fields medallists for mathematics, Nobel prize winners and the like



Here, we show that in chess, an intellectually demanding activity where men dominate at the top level, the difference in the performance of the best men and women is largely accounted for by the difference that would be expected, given the much greater number of men who participate.



It is difficult to quantify how participation rates influence the number of outstanding men and women in fields such as science and engineering because both achievement and participation rates are difficult to measure. But it is straightforward in chess because there is an objective measure of achievement and the number of male and female participants is known.



Chess has long been renowned as the intellectual activity par excellence (Newell et al. 1958) and male dominance at chess is frequently cited as an example of innate male intellectual superiority (e.g. Howard 2005; Irwing & Lynn 2005).



Women may be inferior in the intellectual abilities that are important for successful chess playing. This innate disadvantage may lead women to give up on chess in greater numbers than more successful men. The small number of women is then a consequence of their greater drop-out, which in turn is produced by their innate lack of the intellectual abilities required to succeed at chess.



This paper specifically used Chess to test whether there exist intelligence disparity between men and women. Your attempt to undermine the value of Chess may sound credible to lay people, but it is outright idiotic to people who do understand the complexity of the respective field.

I have no bias against Chess. I see it as a game that requires quite a few attributes that can be linked with intelligence nor do I deny that grand masters are intelligent. I simply question the suitability of chess as a sole indicator of intelligence. But I have already accepted your premise and argued out from that. You've seem to gotten hung up in the fact that I disagree with the premise rather than what I'm actually arguing.

To the contrary, Bilalic et all. clearly stated;



In other domains such as science and engineering, where the predominance of men at the top is offered as evidence of the biological superiority of men, large differences between the number of women and men engaged in these activities are evident (Long 2001; Xie & Shauman 2003). In these areas of life, it is not possible to estimate the performance of the top women and men and their participation rates as precisely as it is in chess.



Exactly the reason why Bilalic used Chess as indicator i.e. because it is more precise.

[/color]

I disagree with him, but as I said. Premise accepted, statement argued based on premise.

This study concludes that;



But until the effect of participation rates has been allowed for, the greater number of men among the most successful people should not be cited as evidence of innate differences between male and female intellectual abilities.



While I concede that there is no evidences for innate disparity (such admission is a must to any intellectually honest man), this study also proves that all your snide remark about Chess is pretty much rubbish, since this study specifically used Chess to prove whether the innate biological differences argument is valid or not.

I've not made a single snide remark about chess. I've stated that I disagree with the premise that chess = intelligence. That is it. Even though I disagree with the premise I've accepted it for the discussion.



I personally like the game, the strategic elements and the need for creativity while playing it, but I do not agree with the assumption that you can messure intelligence through chess alone.

Now, this is flat out false. The evidences of the disparity do exist, albeit not significant - according to mainstream interpretation.

There is no evidence of men having a higher innate intelligence than women. Critics of Rushton and Jackson question their selection for the test, as well as the SAT's suitability to determine intelligence. The nearest thing to a conlcusion we have on the matter is "there is a possibility that there might be a slight difference in intelligence based on the fact that the male brain is slightly bigger than the female's" This was even admitted by Rushton.

But there is exactly where my speculation lies. While 4.4 point discrepancy means very little to the average men and women, it may proves to be massive on the highest level - and Chess is a good indicator for this.

A 4.4 discrpancy can be explained in a multitude of ways, the tests being conducted were geared more towards men than women (unintentionally of course), the researchers themselves had a small bias and found what they expected to find, the selection simply wasn't balanced enough.



This is my main gripe with the chess arguement. It is indeed a game dominated by men, but why do we assume that intelligence has anything to do with it? Female chess players are a rare breed, and although you may believe this is because they simply do not have the intelligence to match the men, I can not help to think it has its roots not on the biological level, but the sociological level.



Note I'm not saying Dr. Merim Bilalic is wrong about his assumptions. I'm saying his selection may stand in the way of a conclusive result.

What you think is irrelevant, the question here is whether the disparity is biologically innate or not, since this is the most objective measurement in regard to whether men is intellectually superior to women. If it's innate - than I'm right, if it's not - than I'm wrong, pure and simple. Socioeconomic factors are irrelevant as they are not innate.

I can not disprove it and you can not prove it as there's no conclusive evidence for any of the arguements. All the experiments and papers posted, by both you and I, rely heavily on attempting to prove "innate" intelligence through the use of methods that are used to messure "percieved" intelligence. Chess is a skill that can be learned and developed over time, as I'm sure you will agree two men of equal intelligence will not be equal in chess if one man has played his whole life and the other just for 10 minutes. SATs and IQ tests contain questions where you would have to attain knowledge beforehand to answer correctly (math and word association).



With the sources we have both posted socioeconomic factors are quite important considering the experiments and tests being presented are based on a selection of test subjects. Who is in this selection matters quite a lot of the final results.

 

[-lexus-]

Your claim makes no sense at all whatsoever. How do you established that someone is smarter than everyone else? By their success in politic? Because their field of expertise is in physics? Plain outright absurd. In any case, your personal definition has nothing to do with the issue at hand, that is; how to determine whether there are actually intellectual disparity between men and women, the indicator used in this instance is Chess. Now, why do we use Chess as one of the indicator? It is simply because this field of expertise requires demanding cognitive abilities which is essential in determining whether the disparity (if exist) is biologically innate, not all the subjective reasoning that you've been spouting out so far. If you want to compare which one is smarter between Kasparov and Einstein, you need to test their IQ, not comparing their achievement within and outside of their respective fields. But then again, comparing their IQ is still irrelevant to the topic at hand.

No, your use of chess is plainright absurd. ITS A GAME! One can train to be good at it while still suck at everything else. You say that we cant measure it by your success as a politician, or an academic, because thats somehow absurd and dont require substantial cognitive abilities as well (well, maybe not in politics itself, but surely someone who is a freaking academic must have more then the average brain to do his job). No, you use chess because through chess you can 'prove' that males are better then females, because males dominate chess. By making it the only factor youre looking at, youre creating a completely out of whack interpretation of reality, one does only suits your need.



And on top of that, youre going even further by going on and on and on about how this is supposedly biological innate, and you base this is on what? Nothing but speculation and a wishful interpretation of a few sources of evidence. You have no proof that states that intelligence is entirely based on biology and genes. I dont think such a proof even exists, as most Psychologist agree that someones environment plays a large role in shaping intelligence as well.

But there is exactly where my speculation lies. While 4.4 point discrepancy means very little to the average men and women, it may proves to be massive on the highest level - and Chess is a good indicator for this.

What are you saying? That the IQ difference increases the higher people get? So to a difference that when a guy has an IQ of 140, a women would have an IQ of 132 or something (example)? Well, that would mean that we males should be consistently dominate the higher IQ levels, which isnt the case. As for the actual intellectual capabilities you would be missing with a 4.4 difference, it should actually be less significant. The difference between someone who scores a 150 and someone who scores a 145.6 on a intelligence test is smaller and intellectually pretty much insignificant compared to someone who scores a 100 and a 95.6.



Also, the study suggests the difference exists because guys mature later then girls right? The thing you quoted seems to me only suggesting that the difference is there because girls are 'done' growing up while guys suddenly start to grow up. Once guys are done, their relative IQ could decrease again, equalizing IQ scores. Anyways, the study DOES NOT suggest that this relative difference remains there for the rest of peoples live, making males smarter and intellectually superior then girls.

 

[windborn]

In my opinion, it's kind of ridiculous to be equating maturity with intelligence. Just because you're more mature than someone else doesn't mean you're more intelligent. Geniuses can be childish as well. The report mentioned is flawed in the first place, and not suitable to be used as evidence at all.



It's kinda amusing how some people (not naming anyone) think that just because they get a few pieces of 'evidence' from the net, they're automatically correct in their views. It's not like the authors of these 'evidence' have never made a single mistake in their life. Nobody is perfect.

 

[Biomega]

[spoilera]

Six, Lynn and Vanhanen address the question of the causes of national differences in intelligence. They conclude that this lies in the racial composition of the populations. They were led to this conclusion from the observation that national IQs are predictable from the racial composition of the populations. Thus, the six East Asian nations (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore) all have IQs in the range between 105 and 108. The 29 European nations all have IQs in the range between 92 and 102, while the 19 nations of sub-Saharan Africa all have IQs in the range between 59 and 73. They show that there is remarkable consistency in the IQs of nations when these are classified into racial clusters.



Source: http://www.rlynn.co....-Inequality.asp



East Asians are not known for their tall heights.[/spoilera]

That's interesting.

[spoilera]How deliciously racist. You know that you just quoted saying that the average sub Saharan African is by Western standards mentally retarded? Right, since Africans arent all suffering from Downs syndrome, we can throw this piece of racist bull right into the garbage bin.[/spoilera]

I think that was for me. But then again, sub Saharan African are not mentally retarded. It's just they weren't schooled enough.



Most of them are illiterate, let alone having basic arithmetic skills. This is not only in sub Saharan Africa, but in Afghanistan, and some areas in India, Bangladesh and etc - where education is very limited and hard to come by -- even if education is free and funded by government, children in low GDP countries are exploited and are forced to work, thus altering their mental health and education; when they grow, they would still have low IQ because of that specific reason -- plus, girls have even less opportunity for education than men. It's the living standard that determines people's IQ, and not the way around.



Most IQ determinations aren't just for memory or pattern recognition and spatial abilities, but also involves critical thinking and mathematical skills.



Plus, not everyone is retarded. I thought you are a maths genius of some kind. 73+72+76+122 by average will bring us 85.75.



I don't know how is that racist?

It's not like the authors of these 'evidence' have never made a single mistake in their life. Nobody is perfect.

Sure, nobody is perfect. But we have to bring in some studies that were conducted by others who are a little bit professionals in their fields. It's not like we all are statisticians or analyst of some-kind to conduct and conclude on our own.

 

[Canabary]

In my opinion, it's kind of ridiculous to be equating maturity with intelligence. Just because you're more mature than someone else doesn't mean you're more intelligent. Geniuses can be childish as well. The report mentioned is flawed in the first place, and not suitable to be used as evidence at all.



It's kinda amusing how some people (not naming anyone) think that just because they get a few pieces of 'evidence' from the net, they're automatically correct in their views. It's not like the authors of these 'evidence' have never made a single mistake in their life. Nobody is perfect.

I don't think maturity has anyhting to do with intelligence, but it's a well known fact that the brain connects a lot of new neuron pathways during puberty, so the brain is still in growth during this time. According to some research Girls' brains grow quicker than males and at a different rate than the male brain, so the timing of testing could be significant. Note, could be, not claiming that it is. Unfortunately our ability to meassure inate intellignce is severly limited, as is the concept "inate intelligence". Do we meassure how intelligent we are from the point where we leave the womb or when our brains are full grown?

 

[-lexus-]

I think that was for me. But then again, sub Saharan African are not mentally retarded. It's just they weren't schooled enough.



Most of them are illiterate, let alone having basic arithmetic skills. This is not only in sub Saharan Africa, but in Afghanistan, and some areas in India, Bangladesh and etc - where education is very limited and hard to come by -- even if education is free and funded by government, children in low GDP countries are exploited and are forced to work, thus altering their mental health and education; when they grow, they would still have low IQ because of that specific reason -- plus, girls have even less opportunity for education than men. It's the living standard that determines people's IQ, and not the way around.



Most IQ determinations aren't just for memory or pattern recognition and spatial abilities, but also involves critical thinking and mathematical skills.



Plus, not everyone is retarded. I thought you are a maths genius of some kind. 73+72+76+122 by average will bring us 85.75.



I don't know how is that racist?

An IQ of 59 is classified as I think mildly mentally retarded, so if the average of a country has an IQ of 59, the average person in that country would by western standards be classified as retarded. Of course, this is not the case, that is why I objected to the whole thing in the first place. And yes, youre totally right when you name all those factors that decrease the average IQ on a standardized test. Again, more that suggests that something like IQ and to some extend, intelligence, largely depends environmental factors, and not biological factors.



While its not technically racist, once you start classifying intelligence along racial lines like Asian, European and Sub Saharan, you run the risk of either the research being taken out of context or being misunderstood. Mostly because it seems to say that Asians are smart while Sub Saharan people are dumb, BECAUSE they are Asian or Sub Saharan. What more would a white supremacist need then a psychological study that seems to confirm his believes that black people are dumb, because they are black, while white people are smart because they are white. Especially the words, "racial clusters" seem...suspicious.

 

[windborn]

Sure, nobody is perfect. But we have to bring in some studies that were conducted by others who are a little bit professionals in their fields. It's not like we all are statisticians or analyst of some-kind to conduct and conclude on our own.

I'm not refuting that. I just have the feeling that certain people in this thread feel they cannot be wrong because they have a ton of 'evidence' to back themselves up.