So basically, what we have here is the fact that people of average intelligence are out breeding people of higher intelligence.
Here is the scenario: A young woman with a high school education goes out to a bar with her friends. She is ovulating, feeling adventurous and has sex on her mind. She drinks more alcohol than usual and starts looking out over the men. The skinny guy with his buddies discussing Middle Eastern geopolitics doesn't interest her but she does like the big guy throwing darts.
The part of her brain that evaluates risk and values inhibition is less active while the reward centers and risk taking center are firing on all cylinders. The alcohol that she drank helps her decide to go flirt. The big guy has a similar educational background and they go back to her apartment. He doesn't want to use protection and she doesn't want him to either. Bingo, she gets pregnant.
Educational level of a woman has a lot to do with how many children she will have over the course of her life. A study published in 1997 found that women with the lowest educational level had the highest birth rates. The average birth rate of women that never entered high school was 3.2 births, while women with a college degree average 1.6 to 2 children.
Contraceptive usage also varied depending on their mother's education level. Women whose mothers didn't graduate high school had a 52.8% birth control usage rate. Daughters of high school grads had a 69.3% rate. Daughters of college grads had a 83.9% contraceptive usage rate.
Look at another scenario: A young woman with a college education goes to the bar and she is also ovulating and feeling sexual. She is just as interested in sex as the less educated woman, but is more in control of herself. She has a "slow life history strategy," meaning she has better impulse control and judgment. They tend to have less sex with fewer partners. (Psychology Today, July/August 2011 edition)She is also most likely interested in the stud by the dart board, but if she does sleep with him, she will be more likely to use contraception.
Blogger's Musings:
But why isn't there more attraction to intelligence? Wouldn't being smart be an advantage in the caveman days? Well, yes. Women don't sleep with dumb men any more than they do with smart men but the physical hardships in those olden days were extreme. Hunting mammoths was a job for brawn, not a math champ. If you wanted to eat and be protected, you needed a tough guy that acted. Remember the previous post: intelligent people have a slow, cautious life history. There was no time to be too slow and cautious when the group was starving.
Plus, women are attracted to dangerous men while ovulating. If a smart man passes on the chance to get her pregnant, an average intelligence man with brawn wont pass it up. True, caring for the new baby cuts down on time to study but it does get the biological job done. As far as nature is concerned, that's more important than learning for the sake of learning.
A chart comparing education level of people of varying IQ's for comparison.
IQ of 75 = 50/50 chance of reaching 9th grade
IQ of 100 = average of the total population
IQ of 105 = average of high school graduate
IQ of 115 = average of college graduate
IQ of 125 = average of person with a Ph.D or Masters Degree
Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/health/research/25stats.html
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/97facts/edu2birt.htm
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20028272-10391704.html
http://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/news/20071107/women-risk-risky-sex-at-worst-time
No comments:
Post a Comment