IS MAN MORE INTELLIGENT THAN WOMAN?

Lake County Press, Issue 2134, 6 September 1906, Page 6

IS MAN MORE INTELLIGENT THAN WOMAN?

The question has hit oh heen mooted as to the relative brain-weight of , J man and woman. Dr. Reynuuid ' I'earl's conclusion is that the dilier- . i ence between the sexes in mean | brain-weight is only in part to be • accounted for by differences in bodily _! characters. Mr. Lilakeman uses stature, age, length of skull, breadth . : of skull, height of skull, and hori/.onp tal cranial circumference, and shows . i that the absolute absence in brainI i weight then appears wholly, and not I in part, due to differences in bodily characters. In other words a man i of the same length, breadth, height, • and circumference of skull as the I average woman has her mean bruini weight. "Do such men actually exist?" i asks Professor JCarl Pearson, and he [ aiuiuorh, "Undoubtedly." i An examination of the curves for I male and female cranial characters ' I shows that a considerable percentage 1 of women exceed in crania] riimenI sions the mean man. and again as | large a percentage of men fall in cranial dimensions below the mean woman. And further examination shows that in stature at each age there are women in excess of (he average man, and men less than the average wo- | men. Thus, for the very characters Sir. lilakeman has dealt, with, we find men who are physically like the average woman and women who are physically like the average man. Such men would have the brainweight of the average woman, and sue)) woman the brain-weight of the average man. In other words, the man of slender build is a woman in drain weight, and the woman of ro- ; bust build is a man in brain-weight. ! The difference in weight of man's (and woman's brains is thus seen to ihe precisely the difference between brain-weight in two different groups of men. It is only a sexual difference in so fnr as difference in sexual physique is so, he says, in the "Brit- | ish Medical Journal." Thus, continues Professor Pearson, I without raising any sex feeling, we j can re-word the problem .so often I raised by anatomists. We can ask j whether the man of slender build has i more or less of intelligence than the ! man of robust build, and then inI quire how far ! his is due to greater brain-weight. Undoubtedly the big- | ger man has the larger brain-weight, i but is he more intelligent ? There is 1 a sensible correlation between .size of I head and intelligence, but it is so ; slight that no safe prediction can )re made from size to degree of intelligence. This may be summed up almost in the words of Professor PearI son's conclusion of J!H)2. FortyI four per cejit. of amy homogeneous j (like or akin) class have heads as large or larger than the mean head of the exceptionally able 2 per cent. Conversely, 11 per cent, of any homogeneous class are able or abler than the two per cent, of this class 'with exceptionally big heads. The merit of Mr. Blakeman's rcI suit is, that, ii shows that the sexi ual difference in brain-weight is '■ only sexual because differences 'in the sizes of the body land head are sexual. It enables the [ problem of brain-weight and intclliI gence to be discussed on a ground much less controversial than the sexual. Dr. Pearson believes there is iu> useful correlation (similarity of lav.) between the two characters, thai is there is none big enough to base predictions upon. Those anatomists who assert that man is more intelligent than woman because be has greater brain-weight must be ! prepared to hold, on precisely the ! same weight of evidence, that the j big man is more intelligent than the small man.