Take that, Larry Summers! December 15, 2011
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, feminism, math, papers, science.Tags: intelligence, male variability, math
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I came across an article on the new research by Kane and Mertz which supposedly disproves the “greater male variability” hypothesis. That is, while averages for both genders are approximately the same, males have more variance in their intelligence. Thus, when intelligence tested, you’ll see more males at both the upper and lower tails of the distribution.
When Larry Summers was talking about the greater male variability hypothesis (GMVH) in his really awful speech, he was talking about those who are at least two standard deviations away from the mean. If you look at the distribution of IQ for each sex, which is what he was referring to, you can see that the ratio at the 98th percentile is approximately 2:1 male to female.
If IQ were an accurate predictor of success in academia and academics came primarily from that top 2% (neither of which are universally true), you would then expect to see approximately 2 men for every woman in those professions. Unfortunately, the ratio is much worse than that (from the perspective of women and feminist men, anyway). This very compelling evidence of social, cultural, and/or economic factors, potentially up to outright sexism coming into play when women are being considered for academic positions. The fact that it is still so far from this ratio makes me have a lot of issues with Larry Summer’s argument. Aside from all that, there is the issue that IQ isn’t the best predictor of success.
However, let’s pretend it is…or that it at least that it may be reflected in math achievement for the tests used in the study. In the study, they took variances from scores on tests like TIMSS and PISA, both of which are given internationally and used to compare various countries’ standing. Specifically, the paper examined the variance question.
To do this, we can begin by looking at the data from IQ Comparison site, which says that the standard deviation in the WISC IV IQ test was about 14.54 for men and 13.55 for women. The variance is the square of the standard deviation, giving the variance for men as 211.4116 and women as 183.6025. If you want to do a comparison, just take the ratio of men’s variance to women’s and you’ll get a variance ratio (VR) of 1.15. Keep in mind that the data this is taken from the US standardization which was used to norm the test, and it was done in the early 80s. If you want to compare that to the data presented in the paper, the US VR in 2003 was 1.11 on the TIMSS and 1.19 on the PISA. In 2007, it had dropped to 1.08 on the TIMSS (no PISA data is given). Therefore, the VR has changed.
The authors use the math testing data to do this for many countries, not just the US. You would expect that if the GMVH is true, then you would see VRs of about 1.15 from most countries and that it is constant in time. What Kane and Mertz find is that the number seem to vary a lot, but many of them have changed. That by itself gives an indication that a VR of 1.15 is not fixed and that the VR may be somewhat cultural. Further, they changed through time. Some of the VRs increased, like in Australia, and some decreased, like Japan’s.
This is the table presented in the paper:
They then attempt to find a correlation between male variance and the VR ratio. If GMVH is true, you would also expect that a higher VR ratio would be highly correlated with males having a larger variance. That’s not what they find, however. The correlation value is fairly low, and the authors state that sometimes a higher VR is actually due to poorer performance on the test by boys.
There is significantly more analysis than I’ve communicated in this post, but the gist is that they found that gender equity in economic and educational arenas were the best predictor of test performance. This gives a good indication that the GMVH is bunk – performance in math is not biologically destined.
Jonathan M. Kane and Janet E. Mertz (2011). Debunking Myths about Gender and Mathematics Performance Notices of the American Mathematical Society
The cold and the intelligent December 15, 2010
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, gifted, humor, research.Tags: intelligence, north dakota
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I was very amused to come across an article posted by Hoagies Gifted on Facebook:
A Compensation for Cold Weather: Higher IQs
The article is an amusing explanation of the fact that there is a strong correlation between higher-than-average IQs and latitude in the continental US. It also discusses a few hypotheses about why this may be true.
I looked up the original paper, and it actually didn’t have much more information than the article. I was hoping for a listing of states so I could hold it over the heads of my friends who live elsewhere.
My personal guess is that the cold weather keeps our neurons from overheating…but I digress.
I have to admit that I’m surprised I didn’t see the most obvious possibility discussed. While I would love to claim the label ‘brainiac’ that was so kindly bestowed upon me and my fellow colleagues at NDSU, I think the real reason is the uneven distribution in population.
The average IQ is higher. If you look at population statistics, one would note that northern states also tend to be some of the least populous states. However, these states also have reasonably sized universities and, in general, a better educated population. Doesn’t it make sense that having a handful of universities in a state like North Dakota could skew the values a bit more than plopping the same size university in a place like Los Angeles?
In North Dakota, two of the largest employers in the state are NDSU and UND. Next in line are many of the state’s medical providers and Microsoft. Having a few thousand college professors, doctors, and Microserfs, who can safely be assumed to have higher than average IQs, is going to have a big impact in a state with less than a million people.
Fortunately, I have a higher than average IQ, so I can figure these things out.
I also blog at Engineer Blogs, home away from home to some of the best engineering blogs.
Smarty pants February 7, 2011
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, societal commentary.Tags: arrogance, education, intelligence, smarty pants, snobbery
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Thing is, I didn’t like him when I first met him. I thought he was rather conceited.
In particular, I remember touring one of the university facilities, and my friend, between stops, started chatting up one of the profs on the tour. He was making out like he actually knew a lot about this stuff when it was obvious he had only a beginner’s interest.
I thought, “What a snob.”
We ended up going to the same school university, and simply because we didn’t know too many people, we spent a lot of time together. I discovered that this friend was one of the most giving people I’d ever met, was actually way smarter than my initial impression, and most definitely not a snob.
So why did I have that impression to begin with?
I realized later that a lot of that perception came from my own insecurities along with the way I was raised: I worried a lot about looking stupid to people, primarily because I’d had to continually prove myself in high school, so I didn’t understand the difference between showing off and being confident. I also was raised in a place where any form of self-promotion really is considered showing off.
Walking the line between self-confidence and showing off is extremely difficult. In academia, I’ve come to accept that promoting yourself and showing people your strengths and abilities is crucial for your success. You have to toot your own horn because you certainly can’t count on anyone else to do it for you. Likewise, this happens a lot in business. In the rest of the world, people don’t want to hear about it: being confident and promoting yourself are equated with snobbery.
I’m trying to learn that you can’t win them all. You can be very careful about what you say (or more importantly, what you don’t say), but sometimes people’s insecurities can override every interaction, interjecting things that really aren’t there.
I was reminded of this when my husband told me about one of the farmers near his hometown. I’d met him a few times and thought he was very nice. He was from a generation that simply didn’t go to college. He did, however, and then returned home to farm. This was really irksome to other people in the area who hadn’t chosen or couldn’t afford to go college, and the hostility was so apparent that it spread to their kids. Fortunately, the grandkids seem to be over it, but it seems hard to believe that some people would get that upset about a college degree. On the other hand, given that many of the people from my parent’s generation grew up in communities like this, it made me realize that this isn’t an isolated attitude. In some places, it doesn’t matter that you’re wearing overalls if you’re a smarty pants…whether or not it’s true.