There is no female Mozart because there is no female Jack the Ripper

[Virulent]

Camille Paglia, of the title quote, believed that men were dramatically more likely to accomplish acts of genius than women, and that history bore this thesis out. Her reasoning was that as genius is a product of obsession (and as a corollary, so is sociopathy), the discrepancy should lay there.

Paglia's theories for the preponderance of obsession in men is as a result of alienation from the affection of women ("I can't get laid so I'm going to paint/mutilate the genitals of prostitutes!") or as an escape from domination at the hands of women ("My wife keeps nagging me, so I'm going to go hide in the basement and write poetry/torture transients!").

I've always loved this theory; I think it explains the world I see around me very well. Most people I know who disagree with it tend to reject it with the suggestion that historical inequalities of circumstances between women have disadvantaged them so severely that its no wonder there are so many fewer female geniuses. Perhaps! That's the sort of argument that only time can test unfortunately.

Anyone have an opinion?

[denuseri]

sappho, murasaki, pericles mistress, sylvia plath, mary shelly, alice walker,julia alverez,r.s. gwynn, diana krawl,,,they are out there, though some could argue not composers or more preformers , but what really is genius, introversion by alienation by the female of the species? Paglia seems to be grasping at a spurious corelation, i can see it as being one small factor in arguably both catagories by exclusion, but not the determining factor for what is considerd genius,, if that were the case are not then all serial killers geinuses? and or all geniuses serial killers?

[Alex Bragi]

...


I've always loved this theory; I think it explains the world I see around me very well.

Spoken like a true misogynist. ;)


Most people I know who disagree with it tend to reject it with the suggestion that historical inequalities of circumstances between women have disadvantaged them so severely that its no wonder there are so many fewer female geniuses. Perhaps! That's the sort of argument that only time can test unfortunately.

Anyone have an opinion?

As far as I'm aware there are no statistics out there to suggest that men, generally, have a higher IQ than women, although it is a fact that women do have a proportionately larger brains than men. :)

[TomOfSweden]

I've always loved this theory; I think it explains the world I see around me very well. Most people I know who disagree with it tend to reject it with the suggestion that historical inequalities of circumstances between women have disadvantaged them so severely that its no wonder there are so many fewer female geniuses. Perhaps! That's the sort of argument that only time can test unfortunately.

Anyone have an opinion?

I've always loved her work. It was a while since I read anything so I can't really honestly say that I support it even though I think I do. But I remember exclaiming "yes" a lot when reading Personae. But I do remember that she held back a lot. I think she should have gone further.... maybe she does in later works. Or maybe it's because she's a lady, tee hee hee.

If we accept the theory of evolution there's no reason to think women and men should behave in any way similarly. I've posted the below link before.
http://subsite.icu.ac.jp/people/fuller/Richards.htm

I think its a huge mistake to see either male or female behaviour as rational in any way. Both men and women are primarily guided by evolutionarily guided urges. We have no control over these urges and there's no reason to think that just because they kept a naked monkey alive while collecting nuts and berries... that they'll make our lives any more rational now.

I don't think women in power will solve any problem we don't already have now. I think that we should hold men back, because they have more testosterone. Men will automatically take more space because they have stronger urges to do so than women. On an equal playing field, women will lose, because they don't care as much about winning as men. It's as simple as that. and that is why women are oppressed and discriminated in every conceivable way in every existing society, and every society that has ever existed. Matriarchal societies have never existed. It's always been pure myth.

It's got nothing to do with intelligence. Only the will and urge to dominate and let your ideas take more space than others. Of course nearly half of our histories geniuses have been suppressed and robbed from their possibility to publish... only because of their gender. And they probably didn't even realise it. That's the problem of being a social species like ours. It's hard to notice or register that we're being mistreated if its the norm.

But Camille Paglia for president as far as I'm concerned.

[denuseri]

Tom all i can say is wow thanku for that post it speaks volumes to me

[fetishdj]

I had wrote this all out already but the forum crashed in the middle of me posting it...

First point: It is a common mistake to confuse 'genius' with 'IQ'. IQ is an arbitary scoring system devised to demonstrate levels of spatial, mathematical and logical reason. It is not 'intelligence' as psychologists understand it, merely one limited aspect of intelligence. It is also a common mistake to confuse intelligence with 'genius'. Intelligence is an individual's ability to reason, to think, to understand the world about them. Genius is independent of intelligence as genius is a way of looking at the world in a unique way - to see things that should be obvious and point them out to others. It is also the interpretation of that understanding - in art, music, scientific thought, philosophy - so as to make it clear to any who perceive that intepretation. It is independent to intelligence because you do not necessarily have to be highly intelligent to be a genius, though there is a relationship.

As for gender and genius... interesting hypothesis but I am not sure the evidence is there to back it up. There is stronger evidence for handedness and genius and this is potentially linked to gender (by an indirect manner) as handedness is determined by the levels of testosterone in the womb during development. The theory is that as the brain develops in the womb, the dominant side (usually the left for the majority of people making 'right handers') is determined by testosterone levels. High levels of testosterone cause the right side of the brain to develop faster and so be larger and more 'dominant' leading to left handedness. The interesting thing about this is that there is evidence that this leads to different thought patterns due to this right dominance. Its been a while since I looked at the literature but anecdotal evidence suggests that left handers are ore prone to extremes of behaviour than right handers in that they are either very artistic and pacifist or violent psychopaths. The examples given of left handers with extreme talent/psychopathy are: John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Jack the Ripper and there are probably more.

Now, it is possible (and I don't know how the stats would work out for this) that those we see as geniuses may either have an excess of testosterone for their gender or be at least partially left handed or ambidextrous. The testosterone theory may explain why all genius artists are traditionally seen as 'troubled' - i.e. showing extremes of behaviour such as depression, aggression, alcoholism, drug dependencies and so on.

Testosterone also makes you go bald, wonderful little collection of benzene rings that it is... :)

[Virulent]

Spoken like a true misogynist. ;)

Yes, the personal is political, even for anti-feminists. :D

For what its worth, I don't think that women are naturally less intelligent than men, nor do I think that is what Paglia is trying to say. I think she's trying to say that they're less obsessive... and perhaps genius could be defined as obsession + talent (wherein intelligence is a talent applicable to some tasks).


if that were the case are not then all serial killers geinuses?

I think that's the argument. Serial killers are just geniuses at a socially vilified task. Personally I think that the most infamous serial killers have a similar sort of artistic sensibility to a lot of the great artists, which is demonstrated in the way they pose their victims or place characteristic markings on them. Just as Duchamp described the life of the artist as one of profound rejection, a struggle for societal acceptance, so did Gary Ridgway, the Pentecostal prostitute-slayer colloquially known as the Green River Killer. Warhol claimed that celebrity is next to godliness, Alexander Pichushkin claimed that murder made him feel like a god, as he had power over life and death.

[fetishdj]

I think that's the argument. Serial killers are just geniuses at a socially vilified task. Personally I think that the most infamous serial killers have a similar sort of artistic sensibility to a lot of the great artists, which is demonstrated in the way they pose their victims or place characteristic markings on them. Just as Duchamp described the life of the artist as one of profound rejection, a struggle for societal acceptance, so did Gary Ridgway, the Pentecostal prostitute-slayer colloquially known as the Green River Killer. Warhol claimed that celebrity is next to godliness, Alexander Pichushkin claimed that murder made him feel like a god, as he had power over life and death.

I think they certainly see the world in a different way (and that could be, as discussed above *a* definition of genius) and for many of them the problem is that they are removed from society on an emotional level - the classic sociopath (which most serial killers are) is someone who does not see a problem in removing someone from their path by killing them if they are in their way. Where a 'normal' person may explore legal options to stop a person being a problem a sociopath simply kills them and does not understand the emotional impact this has.

[MissElizabeth87]

What about the female geniuses that do exist? What about Maya Angelou (author/poet), Emily Dickenson (poet), Rachel Fuller Brown (inventor: first antifungal antibotic), Madam Curie (found radium, furthered x-rays), Edith Flanigan (considered one of the most inventive chemists EVER-invented a petroleum refining method), Stephanie Louise Kwolek (invented Kevlar), Ada Lovelace (predicted computer software and electronic forms of music in 1849), Ann Tuskamoto (helped to invent the way to isolate human stem cells), Harriet Tubman (writer, underground railroad organizer, etc), Mary Walton (invented several anti-pollution devices)? And there are MANY more... Some of them named above in another post. Is she saying that these women were just obsessive? I like to think of them as women who saw something that needed to change, and then did so (as to the inventors) or saw something beautiful/painful/hateful/exciting/... whatever, and wanted to tell the world about it. And I'd like to point out that Wolfgang (Mozart) himself felt his sister's abilities when it came to music were equal to his. I think she could be considered the female Mozart, don't you? lol.

I don't know that you can say all serial killers are actually geniuses.Just because there is a correlation between fewer female geniuses and fewer female serial killers does not mean that they are related. One of the first things taught in EVERY psychology classe I've taken is that correlation is not causation-and correlation is not an absolute relation, either. There are way too many variables in this to really say that. Some are, I would agree... but I wouldn't say all or probably even most, personally. I think they are just lucky (lucky for getting away with it for so long, not for their mental disease!!!) and sociopaths who were really messed up as a kid. Though I admit that using the definition of genius as seeing the world differently would definitely mean that ALL serial killers are geniuses.

The last thing I'd like to say, is that if genius has to do with looking at the world differently, rather than intelligence, than why does a genius need to DO something extraordinary? And, then how does that differ from certain mental retardation disorders? For instance: Autism. Autistic children view the world incredibly differently than "normal" people. I've worked with Autistic kids and honestly I think their view of the world is amazing, whether I can see it or not.

[Virulent]

Genius is independent of intelligence as genius is a way of looking at the world in a unique way - to see things that should be obvious and point them out to others.

Correct me if I misunderstand you dj, but if you're saying that genius is the spontaneous apprehension of novel concepts, I do disagree (though I hear that perspective a lot). Newton, Beethoven, and Einstein are all good examples of geniuses in my opinion; none of them were known for their spontaneity. They all spent incredible amounts of time on the accomplishments they are lauded for.

To be clear, what I'm saying is that a genius doesn't see things differently because its natural for them to do so - they see things differently because they have an unnatural focus. Mankind is rarely characterized by the kind of ant-like persistence exhibited by a genius like Kant, who never traveled more than 40 miles from his birthplace of Konigsberg... who always took a walk around town at the same time, at the same pace... who consumed the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day until he was in his 50s.

Even Archimedes, famous for his "eureka" moment as he came to understand displacement, didn't figure it out the moment he hopped in the bath. According to Pliny, he'd been puzzling over King Hiero's problem for months.

[Virulent]

Stephanie Louise Kwolek (invented Kevlar)

As an irrelevant personal anecdote, Berendt, the man credited as co-inventor of Kevlar disagrees that Kwolek was in any way useful, for what it's worth. I won't disagree with your list point-by-point though, and I don't, either - some of those women are geniuses... some though are just mundane tinkerers, like Ron Popeil.


Is she saying that these women were just obsessive?

Paglia doesn't deny that there are female geniuses or serial killers, she's said that she considers it self-evident that there are. In what might be a joke, she's claimed in an interview that her writing proves there are female geniuses. She just thinks they are markedly less common than male geniuses, and this is because men are driven to obsession by women.


I'd like to point out that Wolfgang (Mozart) himself felt his sister's abilities when it came to music were equal to his. I think she could be considered the female Mozart, don't you? lol.

That's pretty funny (or at least, it appeals to my sense of humor) :). I would say though that genius is an appellation applied retroactively by society in thanks for services rendered. I think Maria Mozart obviously doesn't fit that category, as everyone knows her primarily as "Mozart's sister". I'm a great fan of Mozart's music, and I had to go look her name up.


I don't know that you can say all serial killers are actually geniuses.

I agree; but I think some of them were, particularly the most infamous ones.

[claire]

...
As far as I'm aware there are no statistics out there to suggest that men, generally, have a higher IQ than women, although it is a fact that women do have a proportionately larger brains than men. :)

What the statistics show is that on average women are just as smart as men and vice versa. However, the smartest people tend to be men and the stupidest people tend to be men, on a measure of IQ.

The idea of the obsessive personality playing a role in genius, is interesting. I am rather skeptical about those obsessions all being derived from a lack of affection from women or dominance by women. Over the history of psychology, just about every form of mental illness has been blamed on mothers. However, over the years research has always shown that this is not the case. (That is not to say that an abusive or neglectful parent wont cause mental problems for a child.)

The idea that obsession with an idea might lead to discoveries or extraordinary skill, has some merit. Persistence pays off. However, once again I would bring up environment. How many women have been allowed the time to indulge in similar pursuit of their obsessions, over the course of history. Women's traditional roles do not allow the solitary pursuit of a skill, or idea, to the exclusion of all else. As the saying goes - behind every great man is a woman. In other words, some one has to cook and clean and take care of the ordinary details of life to enable the obsessed to single mindedly pursue their goals. Very few women have had that kind of back up.

Even more telling perhaps would be class differences. What proportion of genius come from the lower classes. This is another group that had/has limited opportunities to pursue obsessions.

[claire]

I would say though that genius is an appellation applied retroactively by society in thanks for services rendered. I think Maria Mozart obviously doesn't fit that category, as everyone knows her primarily as "Mozart's sister". I'm a great fan of Mozart's music, and I had to go look her name up.

Again you are making the mistake of assuming equal opportunity. Was she allowed as much access to the piano as her brother? Was it socially acceptable for her to perform her own works? Were "nice" women allowed to perform in public? Was she taken as seriously and given the same kind of encouragement her brother was? I don't know the answer to any of these questions. You can never safely assume that because two children grew up in the same household, they were given the same opportunity, especially when they were of different genders.

[MissElizabeth87]

That's pretty funny (or at least, it appeals to my sense of humor) :). I would say though that genius is an appellation applied retroactively by society in thanks for services rendered. I think Maria Mozart obviously doesn't fit that category, as everyone knows her primarily as "Mozart's sister". I'm a great fan of Mozart's music, and I had to go look her name up.


I am also a big fan of Mozart and did not have to look her name up... but then again... as I am a particularly nerdy human being, I tend to enjoy biographies of famous people I admire. I referred to her as "Mozart's sister" because I wanted people to know who I was talking about. It was supposed to be kind of funny though.

I do agree with Claire, however, because she was, in all likelihood, not allowed as much access to a piano, she was forced to stop playing to be married... and the second her brother showed any sort of exceptional apptitude, he was the only one their father booked on tours. In the beginning, she was just as famous as he was... their father just chose to use her as "side dish" to Wolfgang's compositions. If she had lived 250 years later, I think it is very possible that she could have been considered just as much of a genius as her brother.

I very very much disagree with your notion of the women I named being "tinkerers", Virulent. With the exception of the woman who is told to have invented Kevlar (honestly of COURSE the man says she wasn't helpful. why would he want to share credit, especially since she is the one usually credited with the invention anyway), by your own definition of genius as being given for services rendered, why are these inventions less important than any other? Honestly, the inventions I named -antibiotics, petroleum refining methods, pollution reducing items, Madam Curie's findings, human stem cell researchers? That's not important? I truly do not understand why those are less important contributions than Mozart's music.

[Virulent]

You can never safely assume that because two children grew up in the same household, they were given the same opportunity, especially when they were of different genders.

Correct. Neither can you assume that someone not well-known for her musical accomplishments is a musical genius.

Is your argument that because we have an incomplete data set, we should prefer your thesis? Or that no conclusion is possible? I'm not sure I follow. Either line of reasoning is of course equally applicable to almost any argument, whether its in astronomy or anthropology.

[denuseri]

provided that genius involves then some sence of creativity as opposed to the ability to erudite knowledge for a test(IQ)

and that obsession also has nothing to do with taking the same test (unless your obsession of course was the test)

obsession does not equal creativity, for the obsessed may not indeed be creative, nor conversly the creative be obsessed

or perhaps what makes genius is a far more complex ideal than what we can define

perhaps its more a combination of disipline and cunning?

[TomOfSweden]

Correct me if I misunderstand you dj, but if you're saying that genius is the spontaneous apprehension of novel concepts, I do disagree (though I hear that perspective a lot). Newton, Beethoven, and Einstein are all good examples of geniuses in my opinion; none of them were known for their spontaneity. They all spent incredible amounts of time on the accomplishments they are lauded for.


If I remember correctly all serial killers that have had their brain studied have all had damages in their frontal lobes. Serial killing is much like any dysfunction. They're as much a genius as a person in a wheel chair. The reason they see killing other people as a rational solution to a problem... is because it is. The rest of us have an irrational instinctive block to think murder is wrong. There is no rational reason why the killing of another human is wrong. That's just how human instinct works. It's an instinct that has served humanity well in the past, and probably will in the future. Can we over-ride it... hell yes. That's what self-consciousness is. We can do it... but it makes us feel bad. At least if we have a healthy brain.

[fetishdj]

Correct me if I misunderstand you dj, but if you're saying that genius is the spontaneous apprehension of novel concepts, I do disagree (though I hear that perspective a lot). Newton, Beethoven, and Einstein are all good examples of geniuses in my opinion; none of them were known for their spontaneity. They all spent incredible amounts of time on the accomplishments they are lauded for.


Actually, it has been well recognised that many scientists perform their best work before the age of 30. That is the time when the 'inspiration' tends to come and there is a well recognised phenomena known as the 'Philopause' which occurs as you get older - when your receptiveness to new ideas lessens. Newton is regarded to have underwent this. The Principia Mathematica, for which he is famous, was published when he was relatively young and his later life was spent dabbling in alchemy. Darwin formulated the basics of evolution theory while a young man travelling the world. Watson and Crick were relatively young researchers when they thought up DNA structure. After the philopause, many thinkers tend to enter a more dogmatic stage where they seek to defend old ideas against new ones rather than try to think up new ones of their own.

Spontaneity is in fact what many of them are known for. Consider the number of scientists who have credited their discovery to some inspirational dream or vision:

- Kekule and the Ourobouros snake dream leading to the solving of the benzene ring structure
- The image of the spiral staircase that led Watson and Crick to consider the structure of DNA as a double helix (and as an aside you may also want to consider the female co-worker who was not credited with her important role in the discovery)
- Einstien's story of his coming up with the rudiments of relativity while considering train time tables when travelling
- Darwin's finches.
- Roingten's key which led to the discovery of X-Rays

Note I have not included Newton's apple in this as this is largely considered apophrycal (as some of these may be)

I am not saying that there was also not a lot of hard work involved or that this work contiued after the philopause. The important point is that the genius idea comes as a flash of inspiration which then requires many years of work to consolidate. To become a great, revolutionary scientist requires a combination of an inspiration, intelligence and hard work - the latter usually to push an idea in to acceptance against the resistance of your older colleagues.

This is why I consider genius to be the ability to be open to inspirations rather than a function of intelligence.



To be clear, what I'm saying is that a genius doesn't see things differently because its natural for them to do so - they see things differently because they have an unnatural focus. Mankind is rarely characterized by the kind of ant-like persistence exhibited by a genius like Kant, who never traveled more than 40 miles from his birthplace of Konigsberg... who always took a walk around town at the same time, at the same pace... who consumed the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day until he was in his 50s.


I think there is a natural tendency inherent in the thoughts of such people. Inspiration can come from anything and I think a genius is someone who is always open to it. The obsession aspect becomes more important in ensuring that the idea gains acceptance and this is where women will have suffered in the past. A genius is someone who has usually done something which is also controversial - they rail against the establishment. Newton faced opposition from peers, Einstien was accused of overturning Newton, Darwin was scared to publish for many years out of fear of the church. Galileo also had problems with the church. Paracelsus was a famous anti-establishmentarian who argued that the teaching methods used by medical schools were wrong. Kant was responsible for overturning the philosophical practise of 'introspection' and allowing the evolution of modern psychology. They all had to face quite severe opposition from older, more dogmatic colleagues. To achieve that you need persistance, an unassailable ego and, frankly, the respect of your peers. I suspect that women suffer in this process because until quite recently they did not have the respect of peers to help them.

Therefore, I argue that the reason why there are few female geniuses acknowledged (in science at least) is more due to the fact they were not allowed to participate in the process of peer review in the same way that male scientists were and when they did take part in the process were often ignored or sidelined in favour of male colleagues.



Even Archimedes, famous for his "eureka" moment as he came to understand displacement, didn't figure it out the moment he hopped in the bath. According to Pliny, he'd been puzzling over King Hiero's problem for months.

Yes, but would he have made the connection if he'd not been thinking about it? Would he have solved the problem if he'd not got into the bath at the right time? If he'd been thinking about a different problem, would he have come up with something different?

As Pratchett says 'If he'd taken the lift instead of the stairs the whole concept of genetics could have been markedly different (though much faster and only licensed to carry 8 people).'

The important point is that there is a lot of luck involved - the right mind in the right place at the right time and thinking on the right problem. And the right mind has to be in the right receptive state.

[TomOfSweden]

obsession does not equal creativity, for the obsessed may not indeed be creative, nor conversly the creative be obsessed



Obsessed people get more work done. Coming up with an idea is not the heavy lifting. I'm convinced that all those who we label as geniuses in virtually none of the cases came up with the ideas themselves. Their genius lies in seeing how other peoples ideas could be applied to something practical. And that mostly requires hard work. We admire them for having the energy and clarity of thought to know that faith in something other people think is wonky... is in fact a good idea.

But testosterone doesn't do this. Testosterone doesn't give men more energy or clarity of thought. It just makes us, (men) make rash decisions and think that dominating others is a very important thing. If anything its counter productive because it takes away focus from the actual problem. I guess that it can help men defend their ideas when they're attacked before bearing fruit. Which might be a factor. he he. I don't hang around enough geniuses to know.

[denuseri]

lol i so want to quote something from forest gump here

[fetishdj]

But testosterone doesn't do this. Testosterone doesn't give men more energy or clarity of thought. It just makes us, (men) make rash decisions and think that dominating others is a very important thing. If anything its counter productive because it takes away focus from the actual problem. I guess that it can help men defend their ideas when they're attacked before bearing fruit. Which might be a factor. he he. I don't hang around enough geniuses to know.

I was not talking about testosterone in the body of the individual. I was referring to testosterone present in the womb when the individual's brain is developing. It has been shown that in utero factors such as hormone levels in maternal blood can have an effect on the development of the child and testosterone in particular has been shown to have an effect on which side of the brain becomes dominant. Since brain dominance can influence how you think (intuitive/creative as opposed to logical/spatial reasoning to really over simplify things) it is likely that this can affect how much of a genius you are.

Maybe a genius is someone who has a higher level of creative/intuitive reasoning. If they also have a good level of logical/spatial reasoning and have the right training then you get a scientist who has that creative insight which often leads to good ideas and being called a genius?

Because, really, genius is a title which is conferred by society not necessarily by inherent traits. Intelligence is an inherent, measurable quality. Genius is not. Generally, someone is called a genius because they do something that gets noticed which overturns the previous paradigm.

You make a good point about obsessives working harder... more to the point, they work more efficiently and try more things. I say this because you also have to realise that for every good idea that works, there are hundreds that don't (the intellectual jungle is a rough one and some of the tigers use bazookas) so the obsessive also needs to power through many ideas before one gets recognition.

Elizabeth made an interesting point about autism. I think there is also a high correlation between genius ideas and psychological disorders (as already mentioned). Again, autists have a different brain chemsitry which is likely to give them different perceptions of the world.

In fact, different perceptions is what inspiration is based on. For millenia humanity has tried many different ways to change their perception - drugs, meditation, fasting, pain endurance trials and so on. These methods change the way your brain chemistry is balanced ands can lead to insights which may or may not make sense when you come out of the faint. Many tribalres, for example, have a ritual where the shaman goes into a trance (often drug induced) while meditating on a problem the tribe is having. This trance gives him alternative insights into how the problem may be solved. I have had similar experiences myself - not drug induced but during diabetic 'episodes' - where thoughts become crystal clear and I think in a totally different way.

I do sometimes wonder if all the records of oracles and visions of saints and other 'mystical and spiritual phenomena' were not in fact due to someone having undiagnosed autism or some other psychological disorder....

[TomOfSweden]

Are you sure that is what testosterone present in the womb means? I read some stuff that ties testosterone in the womb to the size of the placenta. Which is a different matter and not dependent on the sex of the baby.

High testosterone levels means bigger placenta and therefore bigger baby and therefore bigger brain. Bigger brain means smarter.

Women want to have as small placenta and baby as possible while men want it to be as big as possible. There's basically a war going on in the uterus. The man doesn't care about the woman.. only the baby. While the woman on the other hand cares more for her own life than the babies. Yes, I'm anthropomorphising our genome. I'm not talking about opinions here. The male sperm also tries to send mind controlling hormones to the woman to make her anxious and more careful, while the woman has functions to kill these hormones. Having babies is not a particularly beautiful or cooperative act seen from the cellular level.

I read a report not long ago linking high testosterone levels in the womb to autism. Basically, since big brains are favoured this mechanic is selected for so we get a situation where the selected genes have now hit a roof for how high it can go and still be useful. These are one of the proofs that we're still right in the middle of human evolution.

I'm pretty sure few people can agree on how to measure intelligence.

[fetishdj]

None of what I said was dependent on the gender of the baby at all... you are mistakingly considering testosterone to be linked to 'maleness', which it is to a certain extent but not in the context we are talking about here.

The placental size theory may be the mechanism. Last thing I read on it, they had only just linked serum levels (in the mother) with brain development of the foetus and I am not sure if they had linked it directly through some mechanism. All they knew at the time was that if the mother has high serum testosterone there is a greater probability of the child being born left handed rather than right handed and the theory was that this was because testosterone influenced the growth of the brain. Its been more than ten year since I read up on this for a Psychology module project so presumably there have been advancements since :)

[claire]

Correct. Neither can you assume that someone not well-known for her musical accomplishments is a musical genius.

Is your argument that because we have an incomplete data set, we should prefer your thesis? Or that no conclusion is possible? I'm not sure I follow. Either line of reasoning is of course equally applicable to almost any argument, whether its in astronomy or anthropology.

My knowledge of history led me to believe that if she was acknowledged at all for her ability, it was highly likely she was very very good at what she did. However, I did not have access to the facts.

Elizabeth does have the facts though, which bear out the conclusions I had drawn.


I do agree with Claire, however, because she was, in all likelihood, not allowed as much access to a piano, she was forced to stop playing to be married... and the second her brother showed any sort of exceptional apptitude, he was the only one their father booked on tours. In the beginning, she was just as famous as he was... their father just chose to use her as "side dish" to Wolfgang's compositions. If she had lived 250 years later, I think it is very possible that she could have been considered just as much of a genius as her brother.

Virulent, your conclusions also do not follow logically. Neither can you assume that someone not well-known for her musical accomplishments is a not a musical genius.

[MissElizabeth87]

High testosterone levels means bigger placenta and therefore bigger baby and therefore bigger brain. Bigger brain means smarter.

Bigger brain does not mean smarter. Human beings only use about 3 percent of their brain anyways, and this number actually goes DOWN as the brain increases in size, for the most part. (Sidenote: autistic children and children with certain other neural disorders actually use more of their brain. Maybe they are really more intelligent than we are). A child CAN be smarter and have a bigger brain, but a more intelligent child can actually have a smaller than normal brain. Intelligence is in no way linked to brain size. At least, not by any credited studies. Aside from that, children with a number of neural genetic disorders actually have larger brains than normal... most of them are considered "mentally retarded", which would mean they are not, in a conventional sense, considered intelligent.




I read a report not long ago linking high testosterone levels in the womb to autism. Basically, since big brains are favoured this mechanic is selected for so we get a situation where the selected genes have now hit a roof for how high it can go and still be useful. These are one of the proofs that we're still right in the middle of human evolution.

Autism is generally defined, on a cellular level, as the brain not going through a natural process which is basically like pruning- cells we don't need for cultural reasons are "cut out". This happens to all human beings- babies are born with 100,000,000,000 brain cells... Adults generally have 5 million. You do the math there. I had a professor explain it like this... Our brains are born with a bunch of back roads... so as infants, it takes awhile to get to a thought... by the time we are adults, we have built our brain into super high ways, it doesn't take as long to complete a thought, but there are fewer exits. Autistic children never build highways in their minds. And many "geniuses" have been thought to have had some form of high functioning autism-Beethoven included. That would make both you and fetishdj right. And there have been NO conclusive decisions on what it is that causes autism. Period. There have been theories, which have been tested out and found correct in some studies and false in others. There are no real answers right now. Just "maybes".



I'm pretty sure few people can agree on how to measure intelligence.
Very few people indeed agree on how to measure intelligence. Even the usual things to measure intelligence are very flawed. For instance, the Stanford-Binet IQ test. I have a friend who scored just above average on that test. By maybe a point. She can do complicated math problems correctly in her head. Like... Calculus 6 level math problems. That doesn't sound like average intelligence to me. I have another friend who scored well into the "genius" category. She herself insists she is nothing special, she's just always enjoyed puzzles-which is exactly what that test is. There are something like 20 or 30 definitions of intelligence that are used in psychological circles today. No one can really agree on what makes a person intelligent. IQ tests in general are difficult because they are very biased towards race, gender, and even age.

[Kuskovian]

A kajira is allways prized for her intellect.

[TomOfSweden]

Bigger brain does not mean smarter. Human beings only use about 3 percent of their brain anyways, and this number actually goes DOWN as the brain increases in size, for the most part. (Sidenote: autistic children and children with certain other neural disorders actually use more of their brain. Maybe they are really more intelligent than we are). A child CAN be smarter and have a bigger brain, but a more intelligent child can actually have a smaller than normal brain. Intelligence is in no way linked to brain size. At least, not by any credited studies. Aside from that, children with a number of neural genetic disorders actually have larger brains than normal... most of them are considered "mentally retarded", which would mean they are not, in a conventional sense, considered intelligent.


Well actually brain size and intelligence are linked. Or rather how big the brain size is in proportion to the rest of the body. What I wrote was, that there's a ceiling where our body "design" can't handle further increases. Which is if I understand correctly is what you're saying to. The selected genes promoting further proportional growth just aren't helpful any more. Because that's how evolution works. It's a bit like having a city but with the infrastructure of a village. On the whole, you'd be better off staying the size of a village. What might happen is that among autists a mutation might occur which makes them a new super intelligent type of human. All perfectly in line with evolution. But that's pure speculation. It might simply be another dead end.

[MissElizabeth87]

Well, Tom, I'm not gonna lie, I'd really actually like to believe that autistic people are people who really are incredibly more intelligent than other people are. As I said, they do use more of their brain, so maybe the so-called imaginary world they live in is really what is there, but "normal" folks don't see. Plus, with the whole "lack of pruning" bit, they technically have access to neural pathways that are normally cut out because their particular culture does not use them... Those pathways are still THERE so, in theory, they could access them.

But again, I've read more studies that show no link in brain size to intelligence as it is generally defined than otherwise. I've read studies that say that more myelin on the neurons can contribute to higher level of intelligence... technically, this does increase the size of brain, so I suppose that could be what you meant? I particularly meant brain size at birth. A lot of the reason I say this is because men are generally born with a slightly larger brain than women. And there is not one study that shows integrity and is accredited that claims that men are smarter than women. Period. There are plenty of studies that show that women actually use MORE of their brain. Men tend to have a heavily myelinated "novelty" hemisphere of the brain, with fewer connections to the "reasoning" hemisphere-which, in men, is also less myelinated than the average woman's "reasoning" hemisphere. (Please forgive that I've forgotten exactly which hemisphere is which, I don't want to misquote). This is why men are generally more capable of taking orders and just DOING something-it's where the stereotypical man who does not ask for directions or read the instruction booklet comes in. Women-for the most part-have to really think everything out. They over-analyze... and this can come about with women being less creative about solutions. Perhaps this is why there are more male "geniuses" than female? Anyways, the point is, that technically, while the majority of men have bigger brains, they actually use less of their brain on a regular basis, but score relatively the same as women on IQ tests. I do mean this as "most" women and men... not all. There are always exceptions.

-Myelin, btw, for anyone that doesn't know, is a fatty coating over neurons that allows for a quicker passing of the electrical impulse we call a "thought". They make up "white matter" in the human brain.

[TomOfSweden]

I apparently suck at explaining myself because we seem to totally agree but I fail somehow to... um... yeah. Never mind. Anyhoo. I had a lot of my myelin soaked in ethanol yesterday making me suffer the effects of Hypoglycemia, dehydration and acetaldehyde intoxication today. Thank god for analgesia.

And I take off my hat to you since you utterly confounded me with facts I'd never heard of. There truly is an endless world of knowledge out there. I can never get enough. Thanks for enlightening me. Now I know who to ask if there's anything I need explaining about this.

[MissElizabeth87]

Mmm... ethanol. haha.

Sorry, I had no intention of confusing you. I've actually just finished my third class on brain development/how humans learn... I tend to get sorta overzealous when I learn new information. Yay for nerdiness. :)

[fetishdj]

Myelin increases the speed transduction of nervous signals and therefore increases speed of thought but not necessarily intelligence...

As for Autism, I suspect that what causes it varies a lot. Like many conditions, I think it may suffer from the inevitable but inavoidable problem of our symptom led diagnostic system which tends to group conditions with similar symptoms into the same group and assume they have the same cause when often this is not the case. IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) is one such as is Bechet's disease and a number of other genetic conditions. Basically, we class Autism as a condition characterised by specific symptoms which could be caused by any one of a hundred or more different causes - gene mutations, drug therapy in the womb, steroids, the list is endless (though I think the evidence is mounting to discount MMR vaccine now - the original evidence was based on 8 subjects, one of whom was Autistic at the end of the study and there was no way to know if the child was not already autistic before the trial and proper diagnosis is difficult at a very young age. Plus the results have yet to be verified by independent sources). Modern medicine is edging slowly towards the idea that the cause is more important than the symptoms and should determine classification more than the symptoms and modern techniques can now find these out more accurately. This method may allow better prevention and maybe even treatment of some conditions such as Autism.

The too many connections thing is a viable theory as to why autists think and see the world differently to others. It also explains thier other symptoms. Its evolution trying something new to see if it works and finding that it doesn't quite work well enough. Its also my theory about Downs as well - Downs patients have a whole extra chromosome of genetic stuff so again new things being tried.

[MissElizabeth87]

Just to clarify, I was in no way trying to explain where Autism comes from. Like you said, there is multiple reasons, and it's just a name to explain symptoms. I was just trying to explain those symptoms on a cellular level. Basically, the brain thing does happen to all autistics, but they just don't know WHY it happens. It's similar to Alzhiemer's disease. They know what happens to the brain-they don't actually know why-except that it may be genetic.

[MMI]

I've just skimmed through this (most of it's too hard for me) but in case no-one else has, I thought I'd mention that, in the UK, the public school-leaving exams were always marked with a bias towards boys (in other words, boys gained marks because they were boys), and that way, boys were shown to perform better than girls.

Like cats do, this eventually got out of the bag, and a fairer system of marking had to be introduced. Since then, girls' results have always improved more than boys'. (It is an inviolable "natural law" in UK that pupils' results improve year after year after year, no matter how low standards must drop to achieve this.)

And now, there are more female undergraduates at university than there are males.

I don't know how the balance of sexes within the population affects this outcome, but I do think the "feminisation" of the British education system has had a lot to do with it, and I know that a few boys now suffer at the hands of misandric teachers, just as many girls suffered at the hands of misogynistic ones before, but it cannot be denied that, in the UK at least, girls seem to have greater academic intellect than boys do.

[lucy]

I don't know how the balance of sexes within the population affects this outcome, but I do think the "feminisation" of the British education system has had a lot to do with it, and I know that a few boys now suffer at the hands of misandric teachers, just as many girls suffered at the hands of misogynistic ones before, but it cannot be denied that, in the UK at least, girls seem to have greater academic intellect than boys do.
It's the same here in Switzerland, more girls than boys enter Universities by now. But i think it hasn't anything to do with intellect at all. It's simply because school subjects that appeal more to girls than to boys, i.e. languages, have become more important in recent years.
Furthermore, boys drop out of high school at a much higher rate than girls.
So i think the process of making the school system fairer for girls has created unfairness for the boys.

Back to the topic i think Tom pretty much summed it up: Men just want to win harder than women. That's why more of them achieve really outstanding things.