Is There Anything Good About Men?

Roy F. Baumeister, a psychology professor a href=”http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm”gave the 2007 invited address /aat the American Psychological Association entitled, “Is There Anything Good About Men?” (Hat tip: a href=”http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.com/”Bruce Charlton/a). Some highlights from the talk: br /br /blockquoteIn an important sense, men really are better AND worse than women. br /br /There are more males than females with really low IQs. Indeed, the pattern with mental retardation is the same as with genius, namely that as you go from mild to medium to extreme, the preponderance of males gets bigger.br /br /My guess is that the greater proportion of men at both extremes of the IQ distribution is part of the same pattern. Nature rolls the dice with men more than women. Men go to extremes more than women. It’s true not just with IQ but also with other things, even height: The male distribution of height is flatter, with more really tall and really short men. br /br /Maybe the differences between the genders are more about motivation than ability./blockquotebr /br /I don’t agree with some of what he says, but it is an interesting talk and not terribly anti-male–uhh, except maybe for the title, imagine the reverse, “Is There Anything Good About Women?” My main disagreements are with how he views women as more socially connected and interested in babies rather than in achievement since men in society have to achieve something to get status and a woman has a baby to adore her. I think that women are interested in achievement for itself and not all of us are fullfilled by a baby “adoring” us! br /br /a href=”http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm”Go read the whole thing /a and form your own opinion.