"Angilion" <angilion at ypical.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3d307910.1831889 at news.freeserve.net...
> On Sat, 13 Jul 2002 01:35:12 +0000 (UTC), cary at afone.as.arizona.edu (Cary
> Kittrell) wrote:
>> >In article <hopems-1207022009450001 at cs6625171-151.austin.rr.com>
hopems at mail.utexas.edu (Hope Munro Smith) writes:
> ><
> ><In article <3d2f507c.20059553 at news.freeserve.net>,
> ><angilion at ypical.fsnet.co.uk (Angilion) wrote:
>> [..]
>> ><> As an aside, I have seen it hypothesised that brain mass correlates
with
> ><> height. That would neatly explain the average difference in brain
> ><> mass between men and women (as an artefact of the average
> ><> difference in height) and the hypothesis sounds plausible. However,
> ><> I haven't seen any evidence for it. Do you have any?
> ><I'd be interested in hearing it as well. It would make
> ><sense that a larger body would need a larger brain to work
> ><its various systems, which again would prove that brain size
> ><says nothing about intelligence.
> >That's quite standard in biology: neurological comparisons
> >are always made on a brain/body mass basis, never on absolute
> >brain size. (what's the smartest blue whale you've ever met?)
>> 1) No-one has suggested trying it across different species, due
> to the differences in brain structure.
>> 2) You are making a standard argument to "prove" that
> "female people are more intelligent than male people", because
> the average brain mass to body mass ratio is higher in
> female people than in male people. I've seen that often
> enough in children's TV shows, as part of the endemic conditioning
> to make male people feel inferior and female people feel
> superior.
>> 3) You are making a stupidly irrational argument to support
> the prevailing sexism. By your argument, losing weight
> would make a person more intelligent. Losing a lot of
> weight would make them a lot more intelligent. After all, the
> more weight they lost, the higher their brain mass to body mass
> ratio would become. By your argument, anorexia is a sure
> route to genius. A very nasty argument.
>> 4) You appear unable to tell the difference between height
> and weight.
>> 5) You do not provide any evidence concerning the
> hypothesis I mentioned, which is what I was asking for.
> You just used it as a means to promote an idea which
> is harmful both directly and through the sexism it promotes.
>
Very well said, Angilion.
To feminazis, there's no difference between blue whales and humans, because
they both "evolved" from the same "common ancestor", so it must somehow make
sense to them to make such a suggestion.
But to the rest of the normal people in the country, namely the 91% who
reject this "theory" of evolution, human beings have a unique role on the
planet because they are a unique species, so to suggest that we must make
comparisons across species is merely the easiest way out of replying
logically to your question.
TIMSS and GRE are evidence enough of the correlation between human brain
size and human intelligence--but this forum sure did add some nice data to
the equation, didn't it?
John Knight
