Women genetically less intelligent than Men?, page 9

In my own personal opinion, I view basic intelligence as a potential. As an analogy, consider musical talent. A child with little innate musical talent (potential) could begin piano lessons at age 2 and never rise above being able to play reasonably well. Another child might be born in a 3rd world country with the potential to be the next Mozart, but if he never sees a piano his innate potential will be completely unrealized.

I do believe that the intelligence "potential" is largely genetic. My biological father was a genius. Of his three offspring, 2 of us are geniuses and one is only somewhat above average in intelligence. However, as with the musical talent, the potential for intelligence means nothing if it is not trained. What was the potential of a child raised by dogs who never learned to speak a language? Probably no less than the average child, but without training the potential is never realized. Some tribal savage who makes his living by spearing animals in the jungle may have a higher potential intelligence than a guy who has two advanced degrees and some fancy letters after his name, but we'll never know since the savage never received the training to make use of his potential and must settle instead for being his tribe's most cunning and successful hunter.

Now on to "evolution" and how it applies here. If a woman is born intelligent and suffers brain damage at age 20, then has a child at age 24, will the child be born with less intelligence potential because of the brain damage? I say no. The child genetically will reflect the potential the mother was born with. In the same manner, a child born to a woman who has high potential intelligence but was never educated will also receive his mother's potential; his inherited potential will not be lessened by her lack of education.

The principle of evolution says that animals which are better suited to their environment are more likely to survive to reproduce. If a particular trait has no bearing on survival, it will not be "selected" for or against. Human beings utilize this principle with animals. They artificially select the animals they want to breed based on a desired trait, and thus successive generations of animals have more of the desired trait. For example, the original wild bird which was the ancestor of today's chickens did not lay an egg every day, or even close. Generations upon generations of selective breeding have been necessary to produce a chicken that lays (almost) every day. Color is irrelevant to the trait, so laying chickens come in many different colors. Thus we have horses who run faster, dogs who are smarter or smaller (but generally not both IMO

), cows who give incredible amounts of milk compared to their ancestors, and so on.

Now, my point. In order to postulate that women have been "dumbed down" by generations of repression or lack of education, one would have to assume that men have selected women for reproduction based on lack of intelligence. Do you think that is true? I do not, for two reasons:

1) Without education or training, it would be difficult for a man to assess the potential intelligence of any particular woman, thus it would not have been an obvious trait that he could have selected for. Thus it would be, in an evolutionary sense, an "irrelevant" trait like the color of a chicken which would carried through the generations more or less randomly; selected neither for or against. I think that in many cases men selected women for reproduction based on appearance, social standing, family connections, compatibility, etc. - not for intelligence or lack of it.

2) I think that, when a man was able to have an opinion of a woman's basic intelligence, it was expressed in terms of her success at "womanly" tasks such as raising children, keeping the household running smoothly, being able to keep up her end of an interesting conversation, adaptability to changing circumstances, and so forth. Thus I think it likely that men chose in favor of intelligent women despite lack of formal education because their basic potential intelligence caused them to be more successful in other more "acceptable" areas of their lives.

Therefore, I conclude that women are not genetically less intelligent than men; education and training have little or no bearing on the genetic passing of potential intelligence. Furthermore, even if men HAD preferentially selected "stupid" women for reproduction, the potential intelligence of their MALE children would have been adversely affected just as much as the female children, thus still leaving men and women equal (but dumber).

Conclusion on the OP: FALSE.