Men, women and the hyperintelligent

In a recent post I singled out some hyper-intelligent people. The common theme was their ability to take something we might all have encountered but then done something remarkable with it.

People. Well men actually, as mouse pointed out to me.

This had me thinking. Did my selection reveal an unwitting prejudice against women? Not as unlikely as you might think.

To give you a "for instance" read the following passage and reach your conclusions:

A father and his teenage son are out in the family car. There is an accident. The father, who was driving, is killed outright. The boy is badly injured, with broken ribs and a collapsed lung. He is in danger of dying. An ambulance reaches the scene and the boy is rushed to the A&E at the nearest hospital. Without delay he is prepared for surgery and wheeled into theatre. When the boy is placed on the operating table the surgeon, who was briefed and waiting, gasps and says "I can't operate on that boy, he is my son!"

What is going on? To find out, read the first comment following this post.

Anyway, back to the post in question. Mouse commented as follows:

"a lovely tribute to a great collection of clever guys...operative word is guys! although you did omit one of my favorite smart BOYS, operative word boys...leonardo!!

some women I would honor in such a list may include hildegard of bingen (who I have posted about on the mouse), marie curie, rachel carson, hypatia, and perhaps hannah arendt, maria montessori... just to name a few."

Well, I took this seriously and reflected. There are several possibilities, but the two stark ones are (a) I am actually prejudiced against women (b) I'm not, and the selection simply indicated that there are more smart men to choose from than women.

Professionally, I know that there are no significant differences in intelligence between men and women, though they differ in these two ways. Men have better spatial skills and women have better verbal skills.

But hyperintelligence? I wasn't convinced by the women in mouse's list. Granted, they are all hugely influential, but I thought might come into the Thomas Edison category of 'Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration'. The ones I know about, viz., Marie Curie, Rachel Carson and Maria Montessori seem to me to belong in that category. Their contributions reflect dedication, insight, persistence and hard work. But I don't see the kind of divine spark here that I see in say Newton or Einstein.

But reflecting further, I really don't see that in most men either - not in a Lord Kelvin say, or a Pauling, or even a Watson or Crick.

OK I thought, well maybe there are some incredibly bright men, and some incredibly bright women, and then a third category, the hyperintelligent, who just happen to have penises.

I think there may be something in this. For example, idiot savants are those people, who appear to be subnormal, who can do remarkable things, cognitively speaking. For example, they can tell you the day of the week corresponding to a random date you give them, or can learn a telephone directory by rote. And they are four to six times more likely to be male than female.

A famous contemporary savant is Stephen Wiltshire who couldn't talk and at the age of three was diagnosed as an autistic. He could draw, though, and thanks to those who recognised his talent and encouraged him, he slowly developed and finally, by the age of nine, learned to speak.

His particular talent is architectural drawing. He can look at a cityscape and then draw it. I don't mean an artist's impression. I mean draw it in detail, down to the number of windows in a office block. And without needing to look again.



He once drew the whole of central London after a helicopter trip above it. He did the same thing after a helicopter ride over Rome. His detailed drawing showed, inter alia, the exact number of columns in the Colosseum - not an easy thing to do, as this photograph shows.

Hyperintelligent people are not necessarily better than you and me in all sorts of ways. In fact, in terms of selective advantage and reproductive success, you are far better off with good social skills than an IQ of 145.

But they do seem to have these blinding insights into life, the universe and everything, that are denied to the rest of us, be we male or female.

[Postscript: baino, in a comment, reminded me about expectation effects, something I had meant to touch on here. For most of history, including modern times, women have not been expected to perform. We know from experimental evidence that this dampens aspiration and affects attainment.]