Usually I only talk about linear relationships with IQ because I love the elegance of a straight line, but today I’m going to talk about a variable that has a curvilinear relationship with IQ: Testosterone. People who have too much or too little tend to be dumb, and those with an optimum amount tend to be smart.
Instead of thinking there are two genders (men and women), it helps here to think there are four genders:
1) Weak women
2) Butch women
3) Skinny men
4) Muscular men
Weak men (i.e. Bill Gates) and butch women (i.e. Rosie O’Donnel) are the most intelligent, while muscular men (i.e. Mike Tyson) and weak women (i.e. Paris Hilton) are the least intelligent. Perhaps Mike Tyson and Paris Hilton are smarter than they seem, but knew they had to conform to the dumb stereotype to stay popular. Stereotypes are comforting to people, and we don’t like seeing them violated. I believe this is why muscular Chris Lanngan faced hostility in academia. A guy with a mind of Newton but a body of a wrestler was anathemaa to academic elites, so they made sure he wouldn’t succeed:
Alert! Rambling post ahead:
I remember an old Half-Sigma post (Lion of the Blogosphere’s old blog) about the relationship between testosterone and IQ. Can’t find it right now. Another good post was done on the old Gene Expression website:
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/04/intercourse-and-intelligence.php
This actually demonstrates that sexual activity probably peaks between IQs 75 and 90 (also where criminality peaks), which indicates testosterone is highest at these levels. The very low testosterone folks are those with IQs above 130 (with those in the middle being those with IQs below 75 and around 100).
What’s confusing to me, though, are claims by researchers like digit ratio researchers John Manning that high-IQ, autistic types have high testosterone in the womb. And as you suggested with Rosie O’Donnell, lesbians have high testosterone relative to women but sometimes seem pretty smart (and sometimes do well in math if they don’t become angry feminists).
I also would question the idea that Paris Hilton has low testosterone. She’s seems a little like a floozy to me (actually, scratch that, she’s a straight up whore), which has associations with high testosterone.
Testosterone seems to have different impacts: either it makes more male-interests oriented, or it makes you more physically, or it makes you sexually aggressive. But often a person who is more male-interest oriented (someone who into math), will have low sexual and physical aggression. I have no good explanation for why this is.
Some claim that testosterone has different impacts at different points in development: in the womb it causes that male-interest orientation, while testosterone at puberty causes physical/sexual aggression. I don’t know enough to say if this is true.
BTW, I had my testosterone tested recently. It was extremely low: around 250 parts/dl or something (can’t remember the units) when the norm for my age is around 750. I can’t say if it’s really impacted me one way or the other.
The level of testosterone in the womb influence the developpement of the brain but genetics have a stronger effect.
We should expect, from individuals of a same race, that the smartest individuals have a more masculine brain and a less masculine body. Because if their mother have higher testosterone, their father is more likely to have low testosterone because low t men are less attracted by feminine traits(more risks of being gay), and the adult levels of testosterone of a male individual is more likely to be inherited from his father. Because Y chromosome which pass from father to son have a greater role in testosterone levels.
Gay men have more testosterone i think:
http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/Mobile/article.aspx?articleid=491546
It’s may be because, higher t gay men are more extroverted and are less ashamed of their difference.
This study is so old you weren’t even born.
It’s interesting, when you compare the races (and Steve Sailer alluded to this long ago), blacks are the most physically & temperamentally masculine (i.e. aggressive), but the most cognitively feminine (verbal ability > spatial ability) and probably social IQ > logic IQ. Orientals are the opposite.
We see the same pattern in nerds vs jocks. Jocks are more physically & temperamentally masculine, but nerds are more cognitively masculine. I suspect autism is largely just low functioning nerdiness. Cale also once made a distinction between hormonal masculinity and brain masculinity.
Now that I think about it, your theory aligns pretty well with the research I’ve posted, but I still disagree that low female testosterone is deleterious (or that Paris Hilton exemplifies it). I know a lot of meek, low testosterone women who are pretty smart.
Optimal testosterone for IQ is probably is in the low male range, but having lower than that probably doesn’t hurt too much.
I’m being a bit presumptuous because I haven’t seen research linking testosterone to IQ directly, but Jensen claimed that for spatial ability, the optimum level of testosterone is below the male mean but above the female mean, which would imply both high T men and low T women would be spatially stupid , but perhaps they are smart in other domains???
I’m not sure who is a good example of a low T woman. Paris was probably a very bad example. I suppose East Asian women would be low T, but East Asian women have better spatial ability than white white women and equal spatial ability to white men, so that contradicts what I’m saying.
she’s tall, low body fat, big hands, big feet, small hips, seems pretty high T
I have seen a study which was showing that. The classement in intellectual abilities was:
1.low t men.
2.high t women
3.high t men
4.low t women
Women seems to have a lower average IQ than men, which is not surprising given the fact that systemisation is more like general intelligence.
Lion of the Judah-sphere,
It’s may be because the low t women you are talking about are from low t races which are generally smarter or from high social class which also have lower t and higher IQ.
the record is still unbeaten!
off topic but a huge “teachable moment” today for hereditists.
for the first time since affirmed in ’78 a horse has won the tiple crown.
what horse still holds the record times in all three triple crown races?
secretariat in ’73.
the lesson is that despite enormous incentive to breed a super horse none have succeeded in besting secretariat. and that’s been ca 14 generations of thoroughbreds since ’73.
that is, the hereditists may be disappointed when they find a ceiling and that the most eugenics can do is irradicate retardation and draw the population closer and closer to a not very high ceiling.
secretariat’s belmont is the single most freakish performance in all of sports ever. “like a tremendous machine.” not even fischer’s candidates matches or bolt compares. here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfCMtaNiMDM.
btw, i very much am a eugenicist. i consider eugenics to be the most progressive policy. i just know that the results would not be even close to what heredistists think it would be.
it’s not even clear to me the west africans are better genetic sprinters than europeans.
The ideal scenario for racists is that both HBD is true & eugenics doesn’t work, because then no amount of selective breeding will bring black IQ up to the white mean.
How could this be possible ?
Well if Mugabe & Swank are correct that meaningful heritability is much lower than HBDers think, then that still wouldn’t prove races are equal, because the ancestors of blacks and whites have been separated for over 50,000 years, maybe over 110,000 years (plenty of time for IQ differences to evolve even with low heritability)
However a low heritability would mean eugenics would take an incredibly long time to work.
Twin studies only assess H^2. Eugenics will only really have h^2 to work with and will already be much slower.
American blacks also do not come from right of bell curve stock, which is why using them,as the standard is incorrect. Wicherts already showed that Lynn’s data on SSA IQ was a flawed underestimation.
If the trait has only minimal genetic determination then it’s clear that a strong nation state is the way to go. Only one culture. Only the state. Only the environment that will maximize the entire country’s ability.
American blacks also do not come from right of bell curve stock, which is why using them,as the standard is incorrect.
It’s possible that the smartest blacks in Africa figured out how to evade the slave traders from capturing them, or were rich enough to be selling slaves instead of being them, but I doubt the difference is large, especially this many generations later. Just a hunch (I have no data to back it up)
Wicherts already showed that Lynn’s data on SSA IQ was a flawed underestimation.
Virtually every study in SSA is already biased upward because only children of privileged blacks are in urban schools to be tested, so even if Lynn was biased in the studies he selected, this would have likely had a neutralizing effect. My guess is that the average IQ is SSA is actually even lower than Lynn suggested, largely because the environment is so bad for so many..On the other hand, someone who know Wicherts tell me he’s very credible, so he could be right.
However a low heritability would mean eugenics would take an incredibly long time to work.
This is why I hope the heritability of most personality traits and IQ are as high as some claim: 80-100%
You can look at immigration as an example of simulated genetics, in the sense that largely the brightest of their home counties come to America, resulting in the children of both African and Indian immigrants to the U.S. being way smarter than average for their race, though environment plays a big role internationally.
Eugenics would definitely increase the mean, but their might be a genetic limit preventing any full-blooded member of race X from having an IQ above Y.
ooops. i’m a moron. no surprise.
should’ve said e-radicate.
Pumpkin what do you think about sexual differences in intelligence ?
If we apply the systemize-empathize model, male should have an higher general intelligence because social intelligence only work when there are people around. On the contrary, to systemize work in all type of environment. So, men seem to have less archaic brains.
And what about encephalisation ? Did men have an higher EQ (not in the absolute but in comparaison of what their EQ should be) than women ?
By the way, Rushton said on an interview that men have higher IQ than women and he said in a speech that men and women have the same IQ.
Rushton has cited studies showing that men have larger brains, even when controlling for body size, but I’m not convinced those studies properly controlled for body size, because even men and women of the same height and body surface area will differ in fat-free body weight.
Your point about systemizing working in more environments is very insightful.
So you think that women are as intelligents as men ?
I still think men are smarter than women because prehistorically men were the providers, but the difference might be smaller than Lynn & Rushton have claimed. Much depends on what measure of intelligence you use.
Heritability depend selective enphasis. Without huge selective pressure, heritability will be lower and inherited by indirect selective processes.
You have it backwards. A trait under heavy selection pressure will spread throughout a population and go to fixation which means that the variation in the trait will become more environmental.
I don’t know where you are going with this post.
To this date, we have not witnessed an Ashkenazi, let alone an East Asian on the same level of Newton, Mozart and Beethoven. Not even comparable to the smart Southern Euros like Marconi, Tesla, and the Spanish Neuroscientist, Ramon y Cajal.
Even a guy like Freud, the Father of Psychoanalysis, with all his ramblings and pseudo science of Psychology couldn’t even reach the great heights of popularity of the French Psychiatrist, Jacques Lacan, who took Freud’s psychoanalytical ideologies, and also ramble all kinds of BS, which made him very wealthy, very famous and very influential, something that Freud could never do, simply Europeans are more talented, charismatic, and innovative.
I suggest your readers to google some of the names that are not familiar here.
Ashkenazi have a very very small population in comparaison to Whites gentiles and the Ashkenazi “race” is relatively recent. So it’s not comparable.
By the way Von Neumann is 100% Ashkenazi and he is smarter than all the genius you have cited at the exception of Tesla and may be Newton.
Yes Von Neuman is at the genetic limit for non-Mongoloid intelligence.
To go beyond that you must be oriental.
What Asian has tackled as many problems as von Neumann and mastered them? Besides, I thought Jews were more intelligent than Asians.
And i know Jews have smaller brains but they’re probably way more efficient.
You have more than one billion Asians and less than 16 million Ashkenazi.
Pumpkin, you should do a calcul showing at what IQ Ashkenazi are in a greater proportion than East Asians.
And what did Von Neumann contribute to society that is easily is comprehensible/tangible to the mainstream? Basically nothing, like most Ashkenazi Jews with their inane theories.
I cited Freud, who was also like Einstein with his useless theories, and Von Nuemann, seems to be the highest order Ashkenazi of this sort.
JS…
Here is the Ashkenazi Jewish, MIT Professor, Noam Chomsky who criticizes Jacques Lacan for being a charlatan, a verbose, nonsense guy who talks a lot of BS.
http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/noam_chomsky_slams_zizek_and_lacan_empty_posturing.html
I sense some jealousy here and double standards. When a White gentile acts like a rambling person, like many Jewish intellectuals, they get dismissed by Jews. It would not have happened if they were one of their own. Furthermore, Lacan took Freud’s ideas and made even more bullshit, where he became famous and wealthy for it.
And most importantly, Lacan was the 1st person to say this: Western Civilization was the most productive, because it was the 1st one to have this: Sewage pipes.
What Asian has tackled as many problems as von Neumann and mastered them?
It’s been suggested that Orientals are less curious, so even the most brilliant Oriental may not be a creative achiever
Besides, I thought Jews were more intelligent than Asians.
It’s apples & oranges because you’re comparing the smartest Caucasoids (Jews) to average Mongoloids (East Asians) so yes Jews have higher IQ, but it’s easy to have a high average IQ when you’re a tiny subgroup.
Look at Indian Americans. They score just as high as Jews even though Indians in India have low IQs.
PP: Also, Jews in America have yet to dominate the technological field, which is the most important sector for mankind. East Asians have an overrepresentation, but they do not make any breakthroughs.
The guys who came up with the Ethernet and the Intel Processor Chip are not Jews.
JS is right and he’s right because, unsurprisingly, IQ is not intelligence. To try and say that X group is just as smart but less curious is to create false distinctions.
Well IQ is supposed to be a measure of cognitive abilities, while curiosity is largely personality variable. The two are related, of course.
Yes, one can assign different names to different qualities and thereafter assume they are different or not part of the same whole.
However, there is a reason that despite Bush’s decent SAT, people still do not consider him intelligent: he is not perceived as curious.
However, there is a reason that despite Bush’s decent SAT, people still do not consider him intelligent: he is not perceived as curious.
Well I definitely think there’s a strong correlation between the two but I think they’re conceptually distinct, and I suspect curiosity would fall in the personality domain, not cognitive domain, if objectively analyzed by factor analysis.
A non-curious high IQ person would be best best described as an intelligent non-intellectual IMHO.
And I suspect Bush’s SAT overestimated his middle aged IQ because of his privileged background and because he took the test prior to becoming an alcoholic, which might have an absolutely devastating effect on fluid intelligence.
I know that one can make them conceptually distinct.
Just consider that curiosity describes a type of vigor that some people simply do not have. The ability to ask the question is important.
A non-curious high IQ person would be best best described as an intelligent non-intellectual IMHO.
First, the category is a little contradictory at first blush: an intelligent non-intellectual. That should tell you something.
Yes, but most people didn’t do that. They simply described him as unintelligent. What people usually mean when they say the word counts, too.
But as usual, you say potato I say potato.
Yes, but most people didn’t do that. They simply described him as unintelligent. What people usually mean when they say the word counts, too.
It’s not a good example, because the main reason people thought Bush was dumb was because of all his speaking gaffes and because he was a puppet of Cheney who was himself a puppet of the neocons. Being a puppet of a puppet makes you look dumb. But I do agree that the line between cognitive ability and personality can be blurry, and different people draw it in different places.
Cale – Jews have produced nearly nothing of significance that has benefited mankind.
But it’s not comparable for the reasons I have exposed.
Chinese were the first, I think.
You’re a moron anti-semite.
And you are pedantic moron… Please, i don’t want to know your iq 120 again… 😉
Iq ISN’T achievement, is a (technical) potential, period.
In Isisrael, you will be sterilized champs!! 😥
The way the gentile West did and does science owes a lot to the non-IQ aspects of approach.
“Try it and see” in the absence of any theory is what has produced many of the results.
At day’s end, causation is not logical and is instead a descriptive, empirical process.
Although, I break from JS saying things like “nothing of significance.” Every race has contributed something of significance to mankind.
Jewsus Christ, i say i’m not comment here.
Kids, stop personal offenses and/or misconceptions about something and i will can leave us in a glory peace of lord.
🙂
Leave them. 0:)