'MEN BRAINIER THAN WOMEN'
A new claim that men are more intelligent than women is poised to reignite controversy about the difference between the sexes.
Research to be published later this year argues that men's IQs are on average five points higher than those of women.
The scientists who conducted the study say this is why men are more likely to win Nobel prizes and gain other major academic distinctions.
One of them is Richard Lynn, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Ulster, whose work on intelligence has already proved highly controversial.
Not only has he maintained that men have higher IQs than women, but also that whites are more intelligent than blacks and eastern Asians brighter than Europeans.
The new work, to appear in the British Journal of Psychology on November 4, was conducted with Dr Paul Irwing, Senior Lecturer in Organisational Psychology at the University of Manchester.
Dr Irwing said he and Prof Lynn had found strong evidence that men not only had larger brains than women but higher IQs by about five points.
The paper will argue that the IQ difference between men and women cannot be easily dismissed as insignificant.
Looked at from a population perspective, it meant there were three men to each woman with an IQ above 130, and 5.5 men for each woman with an IQ above 145.
Dr Irwing said: "These different proportions of men and women with high IQ scores are clearly worth speaking of and may go some way to explaining the greater numbers of men achieving distinctions of various kinds for which a high IQ is required, such as chess grandmasters, fields medallists for mathematics, Nobel prizewinners and the like."
The researchers acknowledge that women now outnumber men at every level of educational achievement, with the sole exception of Phd level.
The study says there is evidence that at the same IQ level women are able to achieve more than men "possibly because they are more conscientious and better adapted to sustained periods of hard work".
A 1999 study by Prof Lynn found that men's IQs were three to four points higher than women's.
A new claim that men are more intelligent than women is poised to reignite controversy about the difference between the sexes.
Research to be published later this year argues that men's IQs are on average five points higher than those of women.
The scientists who conducted the study say this is why men are more likely to win Nobel prizes and gain other major academic distinctions.
One of them is Richard Lynn, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Ulster, whose work on intelligence has already proved highly controversial.
Not only has he maintained that men have higher IQs than women, but also that whites are more intelligent than blacks and eastern Asians brighter than Europeans.
The new work, to appear in the British Journal of Psychology on November 4, was conducted with Dr Paul Irwing, Senior Lecturer in Organisational Psychology at the University of Manchester.
Dr Irwing said he and Prof Lynn had found strong evidence that men not only had larger brains than women but higher IQs by about five points.
The paper will argue that the IQ difference between men and women cannot be easily dismissed as insignificant.
Looked at from a population perspective, it meant there were three men to each woman with an IQ above 130, and 5.5 men for each woman with an IQ above 145.
Dr Irwing said: "These different proportions of men and women with high IQ scores are clearly worth speaking of and may go some way to explaining the greater numbers of men achieving distinctions of various kinds for which a high IQ is required, such as chess grandmasters, fields medallists for mathematics, Nobel prizewinners and the like."
The researchers acknowledge that women now outnumber men at every level of educational achievement, with the sole exception of Phd level.
The study says there is evidence that at the same IQ level women are able to achieve more than men "possibly because they are more conscientious and better adapted to sustained periods of hard work".
A 1999 study by Prof Lynn found that men's IQs were three to four points higher than women's.
