I didnt claim you cant find female outliers. I only offered evidence from what i believe is a legitimate group of people that are exceptionally good at tough math problems that the frequency of outliers may be different between men and women. I have made that clear in the entire thread.

I also argued i believe convincingly that the standard assumption between slightly different biological systems is that their attributes will be close typically but when certain extremes are studied one may see indeed dramatically different ratios. Understand brain and math related intelligence and be able to anticipate who will be best at what and why with higher frequency eventually.

See one post above this. It doesn't matter.

Bruce likes girls and math. His fingers say otherwise, so we should doubt him?!? Maybe pull on his ring finger a bit to maximize his math skills?!?

So, that I brought up the ONLY study of exceptionally bright people that actually exists in the entire world doesn't matter?!?

I'm not talking your experience. I'm talking about actual girls who could derive academic high school math concepts despite never having been taught them during a timed test.

They exist.

You failed to find anything more than anecdotal date. Technically, you didn't even find that.

Anyway, that is the standard deviation hypothesis. The data shows that men are skewed to the downside, not skewed to the upside. That should be fairly obvious when you consider that we are missing an important chromosome for development.

Brian wanna bet that i have met more smarter women in my life than you have? You essentially are trolling what i said. Again i insist study what they have in common. And study how often you see them vs similar skill men. Are you arguing that female outliers in math must exceed in frequency the male ones? I gave you the 2013 imo links. Give me your links.

I could. I don't do prop bets though. I'll PM you.

I wasn't saying anything about frequency. There is a lot more to what you (and I when I was in it*) see than academic scholarship to smart people. Personality plays a bigger role than cleverness. There are far more smart people than there are obsessive (in a good way) smart people.

*kind of sort of. Psychology and all.

Oh for Christ sake. I blew my 10,000th post on *that*.

Yeah I got that, but I was wondering if they looked for biases against intelligent people in general as well, or they were looking at it only from a gender perspective. Didn't read the original articles obviously.

This seems right, but there are also tons of examples of extremely intelligent people struggling to "make it" or fit in in some way. Tesla would probably be a good example here. One of the most extraordinary individuals to walk the planet, but couldn't get his finances in order to save his life and constantly had other people taking his ideas for their own benefit, couldn't play politics, etc.

Chris Langan somes to mind too (not for his accomplishments like Tesla, but for his raw IQ). I'm pretty sure Newton was not well liked by his contemporaries. Other examples abound.

Basically, while high IQ may be related to those things, high IQ doesn't imply success in all areas. Wondering if you get far enough away from the mean, there may be an inverse correlation? Yeah, I probably should look at the papers.

Not sure I agree with your last sentence. Ability in one of the STEM fields (clearly correlated with IQ) doesn't necessarily imply charisma. Vastly different areas of the brain at work here, imo. How many mathematicians or scientists have you met that are good at "getting people on their side"? How many salesmen or politicians? Which group has the higher average IQ?

I would guess there is a bias against (extreme) intelligence in general, and that the bias is stronger against women. Men in power don't like people who are obviously smarter than them (speaking in generalities obviously). Men especially don't like women who are obviously smarter than them. Men are usually the gender in positions of power which leads to the systematic bias.

many geniuses were what you'd call dysfunctional, forever alones or incapable of what we'd define as normal human interaction. tesla, beethoven, newton, da vinci, michelangelo ...if i'm not mistaking none of them had kids and at least 2-3 died virgins. and these are just of the top of my head.

i found this very interesting section in the ''women in computing'' wiki page, i just remembered:

this is very close to my personal exp: men who are engineers, scientists etc are obsessed with what they do and when they get home they keep ''exploring'' things that are related to their work or at least similar. i have never met a woman in the same fields who didn't leave work behind when she got home. for them it's simply a means to and end.

Are you saying that you met Lise Meitner and Emmy Noether and that Brian has met only one of them? Or that Brian met neither and you met at least one of them?

In physics however the very good women continue to think their theories 24/7 outside campus or research facilities. They always like to talk physics even in lunches, dinners even when drinking out etc.

They do of course need to also take care of kids if they have school work or need any help or for whatever jobs at home are needed that husbands or other relatives or personnel (if they have) hasnt/cant helped. I mean for a kid her mom is always mom first and then physicist.

So i would say they have a bit harder job if they have family than the men (although usually their husbands are understanding and they tend to help more as they recognize how bright their spouses are and the help they need to have free time) but dont for a moment imagine they leave physics behind when out. The really good ones love the theories, the smart quizzes and the abstract experiment thoughts etc as much as the guys.

The younger and less secure however they are (not established yet) the more calculating and trying to extract a benefit from all interactions you will notice them to be. They are manipulative like that often with a purpose in every interaction while the guys are more random and ego clouded self centered borderline narcissists or easy going. But of course there are also many insecure guys that always try to get an edge by any means instead of taking a casual easy going approach.

The really top women and the established ones though are very relaxed and completely immersed in their theories as much as the guys. Underestimate them at your loss and shame lol.


Whatever i have said in this thread is about relative occurrence probabilities.Once of course you have her up there you better watch out, you have a true intelligence/education miracle in front of you and do not see her as a smart woman, see her for what she has earned all her life to be, a real quality thinker that loves knowledge and the truth as much as you if not more (and it could be effectively more because she may prove more hard worker than you because as woman will still have that practical purpose oriented more organized behavior of not horsing around such as posting in SMP lol).

Hey you forgot Marie Currie. None of us has met any of these women as we were both born well after their time. You may have met Lise Meitner though as kid (in her late years) , who knows, although that too is very unlikely.

Certainly you got me trying to remember people i met lol so it may come out as mini celebrity bragging but its the truth (and its an occasion where for bloody hell finally the term celebrity actually is worth it). I was simply claiming that i have had the chance to meet some of the very famous physicists of our times simply because of my own path studying physics so i had naturally access to the very few women up there too (and many much younger ones i cant name here or it will take forever). Therefore it would make sense to claim what i did (stupid prop bet) simply because of access that someone else in another field wouldn't typically have.


So lets see here is a sample list. I have met multiple times in conferences, talks or seminars or had them even as professors for extended periods of time some very famous physicists like, for men (in no particular order); Richard Feynman (last year of his life when i was a very young school student overseas), Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, Edward Witten, Gerald 't Hooft , John Ellis, Steven Weinberg, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, David Gross, Leonard Susskind, Andrei Linde, Savas Dimopoulos, Kip Thorne, Jacob Bekenstein, Joseph Polchinski, Kenneth Wilson, Martinus Veltman, John Illiopoulos, Saul Perlmutter, Robert Wagoner, Steven Chu, Douglas Osheroff and for women Lisa Randall, Renata Kallosh, Helen Quinn, Cecilia Jarlskog and many others i probably failed to recall here or didnt want to name because it would lead to an endless stream of names that are less recognizable.

Most of the above mentioned i have had multiple hours with or even years. I suppose this allows me to have some perspective about how very intelligent, accomplished people that are either Nobel laureates or very significant in contribution scientists, interact with each other, present themselves, talk casually in a dinner or by the beach or in more serious scientific settings etc.


My point being that Brian claimed its anecdotal (implying not significant or unreliable) but some of the above i had plenty of chance to observe for years in multiple occasions so its rather objective observation. I know smart people and i know how rare smart women are and what they feel like in their interactions and style and attitude. All the women i mentioned for example are exceptionally pleasing to be around and talk physics with or take classes have seminars from them (some of my best memories of classes taken or seminars attended in fact ) etc. But they are simply much fewer in numbers.

They were specifically comparing men and women.

There are studies on regular old gifted people (IQ>130 or so) compared to the 180 average group. I gave a rundown of the only significant findings in an earlier post.

Generally, what they find in other studies is that higher IQ means taller, better looking and more popular.

Tesla had the added fact of being a bit crazy. Even if he weren't, being intelligent isn't some golden ticket.

I never said that one thing "necessarily implied" another. Personality plays a large role. Obsessiveness plays a large role.

Heck, there are even some people who are really smart who are autistic. It is usually them who we could (if we wanted to be incorrect) look at and say "wow, he's weird" as evidence that it is broadly true that smart people are less capable of good social relations.

Obviously, if the job entails getting people on your side, you won't find too many excelling at it without doing so. Mathematicians and scientists are (on average) going to be as good or better than the average population at it.

We could make this easy. Do you dislike smart people? Would you dislike a smart woman?

A lot of it (women not doing as much important STEM work) probably has something to do with gender roles. Girls do hair and makeup to be liked.

I didn't meet her but she was my father's professor. As was Arthur Compton, Norbert Weiner, Edward Kasner, and Mortimer Adler.

Hehe. I felt there was some connection there hence the "hedge".

When the very famous ones prove also great teachers you have memories that keep you warm forever. Its something remarkable to witness the confidence, lack of attitude or sense of high authority, the happiness to study nature and overall optimism of these people. They are forever young too. Some others less special often in contrast appear more unapproachable, distant and cold. I always felt super deep intelligence, that is not pathologically out of this world (like most top mathematicians often are) and strong education/experience usually tend to make people very calm, happy and without a hidden motive or any insecurity. Its a form of kindness and subtle humility that is however forever accompanied by immense confidence that never reaches levels of arrogance and a permanent curiosity for the simple key truths of nature that most people fail to notice.

I think you landed on a truth there. You don't describe such people as being intelligent (although they are). You describe them as being excellent and interesting.

I imagine that most of the really clever people mentioned above are far too smart to even want to know their IQ.

Sure, but "on average" is really broad. As others have noted, people with very above normal abilities in logic, science, math, etc. tend not to focus on things like "getting [average] people" on their side. They simply don't care. Or, possibly, wouldn't even be good at it if they did care. The brain is complicated and good at one thing doesn't directly imply good at others (even if there is approximately a linear correlation at "small" deviations from the mean). Not sure if it is apropos to say correlation does not imply causation here, but it's close enough so I'll say it anyway.

Sure. Love smart people. Love smart women.

But I'd bet you a million dollars (if I had it) that a lot of men in power do not (even if they say they do). Threat to their power and all that. And if a woman, threat to their masculinity too. Do not threaten your boss (or someone with power over you) is a pretty basic element of politics. It would be easy to threaten someone who is insecure (and, let's face it, everyone is insecure to some degree) if you're obviously smarter than them and doing ~nobel prize work. I think being female would compound this bias (due to the whole stupid male being in power thing).

For some reason I find this thread tl;dr. Sometimes I'm pro simple solutions. In this case: Grow a dick!

speaking of the imo, did you know girls have their own math olympiad in europe and china (much like chess, women can play in the all gender tournies but men can't play in the all women ones)? is there one in the US as well?

Nobody will ever take seriously a girls only math olympiad. No girl should. Its a step back for women to do so. No self respecting girl for this reason will choose to take part in one and not the standard if they can be selected for the standard. So their existence is irrelevant to my arguments.

My argument stands, women and super tough math doesnt mix well (even when all obvious biases are taken out ie what bias to excel in math boys have? when on avg they dont do particularly better than girls in math grades at school, so any bias has to affect only the super good ones, are you kidding me?) and therefore there has got to be a biological sex related reason. Those girls that do well are rare but they are remarkable brains when you find them and i bet they have a lot in common (find what). I expect over time the numbers will improve for women even there but they will likely never reach even 1 to 2 ratios (now order 1 in 10).

99% of women in chess are more than happy with women's only tournies and titles (for lower ratings obv) and i have never heard any of them admit the reason is any way related to biology. if anything, some of them claim women should paid extra if they compete in the non-gender segregated competitions.

looking at the US national math olympiad winners, you get the same distribution pretty much every year : half white boys, half asian boys plus the token asian girl every 6-7 years.

There is going to be a percentage who are better at it because they work harder at it. One of the reasons to work hard at something is because you aren't good at other things. It is hard to be the captain of the football team and spend all of your time playing with math problems. There is more to it than simple God-given (biological) ability. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it is unlikely that an imaginary professional quarterback twice as smart as your average Nobel Prize winner gets a Nobel Prize.

With men and women, most of the really smart people don't specialize enough to be extremely great at anything, even though they have the intellectual capacity. What is required (and is rarer by default of having to be extreme in several areas) is intellectual ability and the proper personality and the proper opportunities. Most really naturally smart people just don't have the proper personality even if given the opportunity. Most really naturally smart people just would rather do something else.

We should ask Masque whether the super smart people he knows are bad at socializing.

When I was in charge of hiring people, I used to hire the smartest people I could find. When I was in graduate school I helped select the incoming class (I wasn't important in the process, just got to add my two cents). In both cases, I (and the actual people who made the selections) always wanted to get the smartest person who could get along well enough with others to do research.

We can ask Masque the same sort of question. He wants to work with the brightest minds he can find is what I expect him to say.

Anyway, it is more (I think) a matter of super smart girls just choosing to do girly things for the most part. It doesn't take a ton of smarts to be an engineer,* yet most smart girls decide to do something else with their life (and their studies from when they can first choose their course load). I doubt that there is much nefarious going on.

Average (not minimum) IQs for various occupations:
•130.0 Physics
•129.0 Mathematics
•128.5 Computer Science
•128.0 Economics
•127.5 Chemical engineering
•127.0 Material science
•126.0 Electrical engineering
•125.5 Mechanical engineering
•125.0 Philosophy
•124.0 Chemistry
•123.0 Earth sciences
•122.0 Industrial engineering
•122.0 Civil engineering (lol, dumbasses)

I suspect there is a source for the numbers presented above, but I think just pulling them out of your ass is a better technique (a probability you did just that) and a much more fulfilling adventure. You forgot a few.



• No one you know: 203
• A Carneades Clone: 189
• Stoic (choose wisely): 165
• Skeptic Philosophers (but not all): 160
• Some Smart Ass SMP Posters: 155.333

I think he conveniently left out some stuff.

130.0 Physics
129.0 Mathematics
128.5 Computer Science
128.0 Economics
127.5 Chemical engineering
127.0 Material science
126.0 Electrical engineering
125.5 Mechanical engineering
125.0 Philosophy
124.0 Chemistry
123.0 Earth sciences
122.0 Industrial engineering
122.0 Civil engineering
121.5 Biology
120.1 English/literature
120.0 Religion/theology
119.8 Political science
119.7 History
118.0 Art history
117.7 Anthropology/archeology
116.5 Architecture
116.0 Business
115.0 Sociology
114.0 Psychology (HUGE DUMBASSES)
114.0 Medicine
112.0 Communication
109.0 Education
106.0 Public administration

These were based on GRE scores given here by Steve Hsu. I didn't convert them to IQ. That was done here. He may also have been quoting IQ and the Wealth of Nations.

You don't even know the half of it... I suspect that we are dragged down a bit by the non-research programs. Probably a bit more by the unwritten mandate to primarily "admit as many hot girls as possible regardless of their other assets" into the programs.

Speaking of assets, has anyone else noticed every single female dental hygienist and pharmacist is HAWT?!