Wednesday 13 August 2008

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.]

19 comments:

John said...

The answer to the puzzle is that the surgeon is the boy's mother. The unconscious prejudice is that most people assume the surgeon is going to be a man.

You probably got that thanks to the context of the post, but cold, many people do not ... and interestingly enough that goes for men and women.

MYM said...

I didn't get it. This is bothering me now, lol. Why wouldn't I get that? I'm a feminist. This will haunt me for days now, thanks.

Seriously ... it's bothering me. Damn! lol

Baino said...

Damn, I am also prejudiced against women it seems! Or maybe I'm just a crap lateral thinker.

As for women of genius,it would have been exceedingly difficult for a woman in say Galileo's time to have made her mark. Indeed if she had, home detention may have given way to burning at the stake!(Sounds a bit like sour grapes doesn't it?)

As a great believer that behind every great man is a clever woman - I'm sure the domestic genius Louis Goldenberg who invented the first automatic washing machine did so because his wife whinged long enough for him to come up with a solution to her wash day woes! . . Now Ernest, you must admit that's genius!

John said...

drowsey - hah, gotcha! But I'm also relieved it worked.

baino - your point about it being difficult for a woman to make her mark is absolutely spot on; and still largely true today thanks to expectancy (or perhaps I should say negative expectancy) effects. And I do admit that's genius (men can be very dense when women get to work on them).

Janelle said...

quite. there he wanders... where angels fear to tread. x janelle

John said...

janelle - perhaps it depends on whether angels are boys or girls? Bible seems to have them as boys, popular art as girls. I think we should be told.

Blossomcottage said...

My grandmother was a genius, well I think so.
She quoted almost daily.
"Be wise enough to ask a man for advice but NEVER be stupid enough to take it!"
BLOSSOM

John said...

blossom - that's priceless and very close to the knuckle.

Janelle said...

of course they're girls. der. and gorgeous and flipping intelligent too. x j

Unknown said...

Okay, so here's a suggestion... perhaps the fact that there appear to be more hyperintelligent males around is because until recently, women have simply not had the opportunities to "flourish" where men have - they've been too busy doing that pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen thing.

Oh bugger, reading through the comments, I see my dear Baino has already come to the same realisation. Ah well, great female minds and all that, eh? ;-)

John said...

av - I think that I go along with the title of the post, that there may be three categories of people, and the hyperintelligent have nothing much in common with men or women in general (just happen to have willies). I certainly don't think that men are more intelligent than women, and I do go along with your, and baino's point, that the life women have been required to live has completely got in the way of intellectual achievement.

Georgina said...

Hi John,

I'm in deepest Essex again.

Interesting blog. I wonder if the brain of the average 'idiot savant' is not rather akin to a computer - i.e. it can memorise and analyse zillions of facts very quickly, but isn't actually intelligent. The mark of the genius must be to have an original thought and then act on it.

With regard to the differences between males and females in this area I suspect, as with most of our behaviour, it is rooted in our evolution. I guess Mrs Caveman used to sit around with the gals preparing food, looking after the kids, hoovering and watching daytime TV in the cave, whilst Mr Caveman was out with his mates looking for a bison for dinner. Without being sexist in any way I would say Mr C. had to think harder to be successful.

The first genius was probably the guy who worked out that attaching a sharp stone to a stick would allow dinner to be more easily obtained.

Things went on from there...

bob

mouse (aka kimy) said...

I am heartened by this:
"Well, I took this seriously and reflected."

and of course the answers lies within your riddle....

the hegemony (patriarchy) renders women's contributions if not invisible, insignificant.... and even shapes how and what intelligent folk like yourself interprets and defines as genius or worthy.....

women have always 'preformed' in all sorts of fields and arenas; however, what history has done is failed to note the accomplishments of women (see above)

when women are at the level of genius they are more likely labeled crazy than 'hyperintelligent'

John said...

bob - I think that the influence of selective pressure on the sexes is interesting. Probably explains, for example, why men have better spatial skills than women. But I also wonder whether intelligence, and more particularly hyperintelligence, has much influence on breeding success ...

mouse - you are right in much of what you say. An infamous example is Marie Curie, who even after all her achievements and two Nobel Prizes was not elected to the French Academy of Sciences. Incredible.

I agree less with your statement "... the hegemony (patriarchy) renders women's contributions if not invisible, insignificant ..." I'm not sure you can keep good ideas down. More likely that they are not forthcoming in particular environments I think.

mouse (aka kimy) said...

"I'm not sure you can keep good ideas down. More likely that they are not forthcoming in particular environments I think."

or co-opted and accredited to males.....peut-etre

Karen said...

Isn't it just a fact that that men's brains are different from women's? I don't have a problem with that.

Millennium Housewife said...

What a fantastic post! So much food for thought, I think the post script about the level of expectation is interesting. I think Women have always been expected to perform, but in different, less public, more serving areas. There's also the evolutionary aspect that we can't ignore, females tend to desire mates that have proved themselves to be better in some way that the other males around them, while such acheivement is at best not acknowledged by males towards females, at worst a reaon not to desire tham. It is well known for instance, that the Gold medal winning Males in the olympic village are the most sought after men post olympics, while the gold medal winning women do no better than their non medal winning contempories.
The final (glib) point would be that if you need to be wallowing in the bath or resting under an apple tree for that flash on inspiration to hit, then it may well happen to more men. The women are cleaning the bath or making apple pie... MH

John said...

mouse - I wouldn't dare nab the ideas of any of the women I know! But times were different I admit.

karen - I think this may be the nub of it all. I think almost all men have a touch of Asperger about them. If allowed to concentrate most blokes seem to be able to get to the bottom of a problem, but just can't do that if they are asked to multitask at all (or even have someone talking to them at the same time). While women can cope with multiple demands; and achieve while doing so. Different? I'm sure of it.

mh - how interesting about that Olympics thing. I haven't come across that. As for women being preoccupied with other things, I've seen it. In South Africa, where I did some of my growing up, it was completely explicit. Women did all the heavy work in the fields, and cooked, and looked after the children. The men sat around swapping stories, figuring out how things worked, and generally had a brilliant time.

Kurissyma said...

I would suggest Virginia Woolf - who, coincidentally, offers some insight on this situation: that, not only have women not been allowed to flourish intellectually as men have for thousands of years, but also that they cannot possibly be held to the same standards as me - their talents are inherently different. I.e. women are too concerned with fitting into the long-standing male mould of intellectualism and "genius" to explore expressions of female ways of thinking and thus, find their own unique brand of hyperintelligence. :)