That wasn't so hard to avoid the guaranteed s*storm that would obviously emerge from claiming one sex was smarter than the other.
Also, taking discussions seriously is exactly the reason why I come to HN. I'm sure I'm not alone.
That being said, those two links where interesting although they left me with even more questions than when I began. On one hand it's claimed that
"The mean IQ scores between men and women vary little."
then
"gender differences tended to disappear on tests for which there was a male advantage and to magnify on tests for which there was a female advantage"
then
"These tests have been complied over the years so there is no sex difference."
but then oops,
"some researchers have concluded that men have slightly higher IQ scores than women"
I'll blame that on Wikipedia I guess.
To be fair, the research of the second link seemed a lot more serious. I'm no IQ scientist so I won't try to guess things I don't fully understand but it was a good read.
>It finds that females have a 101.41 mean IQ with a 13.55 standard deviation versus males that have a 103.08 mean IQ with a 14.54 standard deviation
A difference of 2 IQ-points is marginal anyway, but both populations (in this study) have different standard deviations (so the measurements spread out differently), which makes them harder to compare. In the end I'd say, the difference (in this study) is minimal and can be neglected.
Edit: I also think that just by repeating the same study with exactly the same participants, the difference will be smaller, non-existant, or women will have a higher IQ. I once did (caution: anecdotal evidence) five IQ-tests on five following days and the results were off by +/- 5 points, just because I was more tired/more awake on the different days.
All in all I'm disappointed by the level of discussion in this whole thread, way to show the world that software-people have no clue of gender-differences.
Also, taking discussions seriously is exactly the reason why I come to HN. I'm sure I'm not alone.
That being said, those two links where interesting although they left me with even more questions than when I began. On one hand it's claimed that
"The mean IQ scores between men and women vary little." then "gender differences tended to disappear on tests for which there was a male advantage and to magnify on tests for which there was a female advantage" then "These tests have been complied over the years so there is no sex difference." but then oops, "some researchers have concluded that men have slightly higher IQ scores than women"
I'll blame that on Wikipedia I guess.
To be fair, the research of the second link seemed a lot more serious. I'm no IQ scientist so I won't try to guess things I don't fully understand but it was a good read.