Agree

by Lucius Trae

Created on: May 11, 2010

I love seeing people react to studies like this. It shows how unscientific the majority of the population is in their approach to new information. Obviously, IQ studies have plenty of flaws, but there is nothing to indicate bias in favor of non-sexually active people in IQ testing.

Contrastingly, there are cases to be made for biases against minorities in some cases. Of course, that's only the majority opinion in the field. There are some who believe the testing is completely unbiased (not me, personally).

Science continually shows us that humans are bad at probability. If I say "most people who are intelligent don't do drugs," people will get upset. I don't know if that's true, but we can assume it is for these purposes.

Someone will immediately say "I know X, Y, and Z who do drugs and are extremely intelligent. Of course you do! The odds are most people will know someone who violates the rule, which is why it says "most" will not do drugs.

The study is saying "most" people with higher IQs are less likely to be sexually active. So the fact that you lost your virginity at a young age doesn't mean your less intelligent than your virgin peers. People get offended and assume the study is calling them less intelligent. It's not, but a future study might do so. If we perfected intelligence monitoring with brain scans or something of that nature, people would surpass most of us.

I know a lot of people are more intelligent than I am. It's just outright arrogant to criticize science on the basis that it produces results that make you feel bad. You shouldn't be judging your self-worth relative to other people anyway. It doesn't set the bar high.

Now why is this study legitimate? Well, the first part is the data collection had a fairly acceptable methodology. A larger sample size with more variation would be useful, but scientists have budgets like anyone else. The obvious answer is that students with higher IQs are studying.

However, people who have higher or lower IQs have difficulty relating to their peers more frequently than those closer to the average. Again, it doesn't mean all intelligent people are socially awkward.

If you look through history, you'll see an interesting pattern. Geniuses often married one another, and the most intelligent people in history seemed to know one another far more than random chance would predict.

Intelligent people generally don't get much out of talking to the average person on the street. It doesn't mean they don't value that person and respect what they do for society. It just means they have little in common.

Those with high IQs will often become introverted. They will have difficulty finding people to associate with that challenge them mentally. Less social interaction provides less opportunities for sexual activity. Furthermore, there is the obvious point that intelligent studies usually study more, and that further limits social activity. And another point.

Students who are more intellectual will probably take the risks of intercourse more seriously. Having sex at a young age has more risks associated with it, including parental punishment.

Furthermore, society promotes certain images. Intelligent people are expected to be quiet and hit the books. While this is becoming less true, it's still a factor. Less educated individuals will attempt to develop an identity. All people want to identity themselves in a particular way.

The intelligent get that identity thrown on them whether they like it or not. Others have to discover for themselves what will work, and becoming popular often entails sexual exploration.

There have been a variety of studies on IQ and sexuality. They aren't all necessarily true, but they seem to suggest some sort of connection between the two variables. Monogamy is more popular amongst the educated, and divorce rates are lower. Faithfulness in marriage also appears to have some connections to IQ. It will be interesting to see future developments concerning the two variables.

What's important to recognize is that it's a mistake to confuse correlations with causation. Just because IQ might make a person more likely to be sexually active, it doesn't mean that either trait should be used to make assumptions about individual people. IQ studies are designed around populations. The application of testing to individual people as a means of judging them is hardly a proper implementation of the science.

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