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...