(12-19-2024, 10:49 AM)mikesez Wrote:

(12-19-2024, 10:37 AM)The Real Marty Wrote: The interesting question to me is, are the smartest men smarter than the smartest women, and are the dumbest men dumber than the dumbest women?  In other words, even though men and women could be, on average, equally talented mentally, do men occupy more of the extremes of the bell curve?

I've heard smart sounding people say yes they do, and that it's because we only have one x chromosome that either has very good traits or very bad ones.  When I was younger I would have found that credible but now I find it speculative.  

There are inherent differences in the toys most children are interested in at different ages, I never prevented my kids from playing with the "wrong" toys for their gender but after about age 3 they didn't really want to anyways.  

One difference I've seen in children is most boys have a strong competitive nature and most girls have a strong team building nature.  Neither of my kids are very competitive but as I've had them both in youth sports I definitely see that difference play out in their teammates.

In terms of chess, there have been very few elite women chess players.  Judit Polgar was once the 8th rated chess player in the world, but that's about it.  The politically correct thing to say is that it's because not very many women play chess.  The politically incorrect thing to say is that it's because of inherent differences, such as men inherently being more aggressive, which makes them more competitive.  If that is true, then the implications are profound, especially in a society that is supposed to be a meritocracy.  It would mean that there will always be many more men who are qualified to be CEO of a company, or General of an army, for example.  It would mean that any effort to equalize things is pointless.  Competitiveness is a key quality for a person to have in a meritocracy.

Inherent differences are an uncomfortable question for some people.  Why is it that a disproportionate number of elite professional athletes are African American?  Several times I've seen African Americans say it's because of they are inherently better athletes, but then what happens is another African American will immediately say "You can't say that." And the reason is, if you say Black people are better at athletics, then you are saying there are inherent differences between the races, and then a white guy can say, "You are better at athletics, and we are better at math and science."  And then you've stepped right into racism.

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