Past lack of learning would inhibit women to be intellects, not harm

this thread is in part dedicated to this thread:www.abovetopsecret.com...
but i have a different view from the OP and i want this thread to only discuss how evolution would respond to this, i am pretty sure i am on ignore in the OP so here goes:
some would believe that because of years and years of intellectual oppression of women, over time geneticly the have developed inferior IQ abilities to men. i do not see how this would happen.
as i understand evolution and mutation, it is to adapt and ensure survival.
that being said, then over time, women would develop a stronger likelyhood than men at having a high IQ. what better way to compete with a mans more muscled and physical frame than to be smarter than him? explain to me how women would digress? If a region is prone to frequent flooding, the animals there do not get worse at climbing trees over the years.
the only possible way it could be argued differently would be that women mutate to be prettier and prettier, and mens sexual desire becoming greater and greater, thus giving women SOME TYPE of advantage to the smarter,AND stronger man, the result being that a high IQ is not needed, and the trait begins to digress. i.e. fish born blind because sight will never be required in their dark waters and what have you. very interested in responses. it is a very interesting idea that the way we have treated women over the years can affect their genetics!

[edit on 4-10-2008 by Enigma Publius]

It has to do with the different functions primarily. Women need to have the numerous connectors and a more integrated brain use, more fluid and flexible and more nesting and bonding and communicative with children. Men have more enriched spacial and mathematics and are the builders and are geared to protect their offspring. I don't see the very slight difference in neocortex, spacial wiring to make women less intelligent than men, as they perform better on exams overall. It seems to be specialization but there is a lot of crossover nonetheless. It doesn't make either sex less than equal or needed than the other, not does it equate to competence for those who pursue similar activities with similar IQs. Both sexes can stand alone and flex either way, yet they still complement each other.

Ok, if we are talking about evolution giving men slightly larger brains than women, I have to argue the point that brain size does not contribute to intelligence.

If we are talking about evolution giving women more "brain connections" than men, then I have to argue the point that women are more adept at some things than men are.

If we are talking about evolution from centuries of women being held down or held back by a patriarchal society, then I have to argue the point that it had no impact whatsoever on women's abilities to learn and grow intellectually. Now, women have the opportunities to learn and grow intellectually and we are seeing more and more women seep into once male dominated "intellectual arenas".

reply to post by skeptic1

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thanks both of you for the input. to answer your question, i am wondering primarily only about the evolution process and which traits would get genetic improvement or, conversely, less attention. basicly wondering if ages of not being considered equals would allow their genetics to hone in MORE or LESS on being geneticly (i know the spelling is wrong, but no matter how i try to spell it, i can't find the right one...
theres a joke in there somewhere) prone to be intellectual minded. yes, women have almost equal access to these things now, in most countries, but in the timline this is VERY recent. i still think that women would develop better problem solving skills than men over the ages because they were disadvantaged from the get go because of their enviroment, they would have to be better at what was offered to them, make better use of it. I often have great trouble getting my ideas across, i am very scatterbrained, so i don't know if that makes sense to ya'll, i'll try to clarify more if i need to, just ask me.

One major problem with your hypothesis; natural selection works to the advantage of a species, not a gender. Women do not physically compete with men for survival (at a species level anyway). Inter-gender competition is not a survival enhancing adaptation.

Women evolved to be physically attractive to men in order to increase their chances of breeding with the dominant, and therefore presumably more survivable males. Just as males evolved to be stronger in order to be able to become dominant and thereby increase their ability to mate with the more attractive and physically able women. Men compete with men for women, and women compete with women for men. Physical attractiveness and strength, as well as intellect, is advantageous in this competition as well as survival. Weaker, less attractive, less intelligent individuals would be less likely to successfully mate.

There really is no quantitative difference in the inherent intelligence levels of men and women. Cultural influences have caused differences in the intellectual development of men and women but these are acquired characteristic which have no influence on genetic inheritance and thus no influence on evolution.



[edit on 4-10-2008 by Phage]

Well I don't know about the selection process they went through, but I read something interesting when I was researching Hopi prophecies, about the reason the men kept their hair long and beautiful. They said in the west we had it wrong with the cavemen idea of men throwing women over their shoulders. Instead, long hair was appealing to the women, and made a perfect handle for them. Notwithstanding that native cultures have been known to be over 10,000 years in North America.
Men do apparently have a larger brain mass, but that could relate to their overall size, and their neocortex is larger in the left brain region, a trait which is most noticeable in geniuses like Einstein. Apparently they score slightly higher on college entrance exams and have slightly higher IQs, they discovered recently. Yet, this seems to be more related to extremes, such as in the higher IQ ranges, with other ranges being more equal. Yet despite this, women do better in school and learn faster. The differences in wiring, such as the interaction between the two hemispheres which relate to great flexibility and multi-tasking and communication is suited to childrearing, whereas the greater wiring in the left neo-cortex is a building and providing skill. Overall, they're quite equal.

A question.....

How would women develop better problem solving skills than men if they were disadvantaged and never had problems to solve??

I am just wondering where we are planning to go with this line of thought.

[edit on 10/5/2008 by skeptic1]

reply to post by skeptic1

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i understand what u are asking...my bad, i could have said it better. what i mean is, for women to level to field so to speak, they would have to develop a better natural ability at understanding something or solving something when it was presented to them. i do not see intelligence as known information such as equations learned and such, but instead as an ability to look at something and figure it out with pure brainpower, not learned knowledge. men were schooled, and encouraged to question while women were left out. i believe that was out of fear of losing dominance...a way to control. now for a woman to gain advantage over that control, i would think that over time geneticly they would posses greater natural skills at understanding and figuring things out. the best example i can think of are those "what symbol comes next" sequences. they do not rely on learned knowledge. Under my theory, which i am now seriously questioning thaks to Phage, women would have a higher success rate at pure brain powered things like that.

reply to post by Enigma Publius

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Here's the problem I see with the question. Men weren't born knowing how to do all these things. They had to learn through trial and error.....and, like you said, they were schooled and educated.

Unlike animals, we humans aren't born hardwired with much. We have to learn how to do it. And, in my mind, we learn three ways: through trial and error, through experience, and through education.

So, once women were given opportunities to "learn", they had to do it the same way men did.

I don't think evolution had all that much to do with inhibiting intellect....because we are all born with pretty much the same "clean slate".

JMO....

Its not just education though. Its really division of task hardwired into the emerging race. When I did some of the research for the other thread, I read that they found the same differences in size of brain and the left side of the neocortex in other primates as well. It means that men are 5 times more likely than women to be geniuses. Which actually made me a little annoyed and I began wondering how women can overcome this and increase the likelihood of their daughters reaching the same numbers. Apparently the women who are very high IQ do very well, due to having the fluid multi-tasking of the more neurons connecting the hemispheres. So maybe it wouldn't be fair if we had the same number and were so noticeably excellent at our work.

[edit on 5-10-2008 by mystiq]

[edit on 5-10-2008 by mystiq]

reply to post by mystiq

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No, it isn't just education. It is a lot of things, but maybe the question needs to be are men more hardwired for "intelligence" than women due to circumstances in the past leading up to now? And, if so, what determines what is hardwired into our brains and what is hardwired in humans to begin with??

YES YES YES! that's what my handicapped left and right hemisphers have been trying to get across for the last 3 hours!!!!!! you did it in 4 lines of text! that is solid, definate proof that we are indeed wired different. i am utterly stunned. when i read that i was like "well there ya go- (slaps forehead VERY HARD)"
that is the core of my thoughts that have numbered multiple pages by now. you did it in a coupla sentences. i give u a star....hell...if i could i'd give u a hug and a kiss!

reply to post by Enigma Publius

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i have been humbled in the last few moments. you and malzypants have made me realize that women are stronger thinkers than men. both of you have gotten right to the core of the matter with such ease and natural grace that i was deeply moved on a genuine, personal level. Kudos to the gals, you have my vote, why aren't you running my country again?

Well, personally... I'm Canadian so I don't think I'm allowed. Haha.

I'm from South Georgia, and after Jimmy Carter, I don't think they are going to let any more Georgians reside in the White House.

I'll do some research this afternoon to see what I can find about how we are hard-wired, or if we are, as genders, and post what I find.

It looks like humans are hardwired for certain needs....Source

Our basic hardwiring doesn't appear to have change from when we lived in small tribal groups until now. Our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs seem to be the same.

As for intellectual needs, it appears we need a certain level of knowledge, stimulation and growth to fully mature.

Yes, they've been hardwired differently prior to moderns man develop.



This is interesting though, as it seems there are ways to raise IQ;



This is related to the fat that doctors used to think was responsible for plump babies when there was a movement to put them all on 2%, until they discovered the error of their ways, as it was critical to brain development. I've also read that a steady diet of fish, or fish oil, was responsible for the brain growth of our species.

Lets reverse the question-

What if men were the ones surpressed for thousands of years, not being given the chances to figure out things, the chance to have the people place the confidence in the man to rule and to guide the world. What if man had been surpressed and woman forced the ruling of the world to the female gender and not the male gender. Would it take some time, once the surpression was lifted, for mans mind to begin to place confidence in their thinking and intuition. I think it could affect not so much the genetic make up but the psychological makeup of the brain...having confidence, as a human being, sometimes is affected by how the world views ones gender, race or ethics.

I think it could be psychologically damaging to a gender or race, either or, over thousands of yrs of surpression in thinking....'they arent good enough or sufficent in the eyes of others'.

First Enigma, this is a great thread. I was totally burned out on the thread you cited earlier, and I am glad to see this new focus, which is really quite valid. Starred and flagged.

There are some great responses already posted here.

What I am thinking is that the suppression of women by society has probably not changed their intelligence level. Rather, it has established a powerful "meme", where women are more passive, less tempermental, more cautious, less aggressive.

A "meme" is like a "gene" (hence the play-on of words) and has the same general ability to shape organisms. However, it is really a behavioral trait that is passed between generations, rather than something genetic.

en.wikipedia.org...

I am also thinking that the genetic differences between genders are probably ancient in nature, and the time span needed to evolve any significant changes, of the type to affect and modify intelligence, is much longer than a few thousand years.

Finally, I am thinking that one obvious form of natural selection, which is got to be real: physical attractiveness. That is something that is probably selected out each and every generation of humanity. Naturally, this is evolving for both genders.

Thanks for starting this thread. Very cool

reply to post by Buck Division

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More about "memes": Wikipedia sites the following as powerful memes that are passed down through learning, but affect us in a very genetic way.

#1. Common sense, as spread from generation to generation

#2. Traditions, including religion, fashion, proverbs, epic poems, stories, music, dance, and children's culture

#3. Popular concepts: these include Freedom, Justice, Ownership, Open Source, Egoism, or Altruism

#4. Group-based biases: everything from antisemitism and racism to cargo cults.

To paraphrase Wikipedia: A meme is any idea or behavior that can pass from one person to another by learning or imitation. Memes replicate and propagate themselves in a manner similar to the contagious behavior of a virus.

Strangely, memes are not confined to humans. For example, domestic animals may not be able to survive without humans, even though wild animals are genetically identical. Obviously, dometicated animals have certain memes which limit their survivability away from humans.