This Weekend’s Unanswered Questions (082705)

Another installment in a nearly-regular series of mysteries and pseudo-mysteries (usually 3-4) this inquiring mind would like to have answers for (some links may require free registration)–This one should probably be filed under “How to alienate almost everyone in a single post”:

Click “more” to see the questions and discussion.

QUESTION 1: Do really you think I’m going to be dumb enough to express an opinion on this obviously true (oops) story? (HT Chrenkoff; uh oh–now over half the population will be on my case)

Men are smarter than women. Sez so right here:

HALF the population will dismiss this story - but a new study claims the cleverest people are far more likely to be male than female.

Men are more intelligent than women by about five IQ points on average, making them better suited for tasks of high complexity, according to the authors of a paper due to be published in the British Journal of Psychology.

Genetic differences in intelligence between the sexes helped explain why many more men than women won Nobel Prizes or became chess grandmasters, the study by Paul Irwing and Richard Lynn concludes.

They showed that men outnumbered women in increasing numbers as intelligence levels rose. There were twice as many with IQ scores of 125, typical for people with first-class degrees.

When scores rose to 155, associated with genius, there were 5.5 men for every woman.

Dr Irwing, a senior lecturer in organisational psychology at Manchester University, said he was uncomfortable with the findings. However, he said, the evidence was clear, despite the insistence of many academics that there were no meaningful gender differences in levels of intelligence.

There’s only one problem:

The findings come from a study of 24,000 British students, and will intensify a battle of the sexes that was triggered last week by a BBC newscaster, Michael Buerk, who complained that life was now being lived according to women’s rules.

Buerk said men had been reduced to little more than sperm donors because of the female dominance of society.

Well if that’s true, how did the “not as smart sex” achieve this dominance? (I say we’re just making them THINK they’re in charge, and I will now put on the flame-resistant suit–Ed.)

QUESTION 2: Is Apple making the same mistakes with the iPod that it made with computers? (now I move on to ticking off millions of iPod users)

Libraries are making audiobook downloads available–but not on iPods:

GUILDERLAND, N.Y. — A new way to borrow audiobooks from the library involves no CDs, no car trips, no fines and no risk of being shushed.

Rather, public libraries from New York City to Alameda, Calif., are letting patrons download Tom Clancy techno-thrillers, Arabic tutorials and other titles to which they can listen on their computers or portable music players — all without leaving home.

Librarians say such offerings help libraries stay relevant in the digital age.

Barbara Nichols Randall, director of the Guilderland Public Library in suburban Albany, said the library considered the needs of younger readers and those too busy to visit.

“This is a way for us to have library access 24/7,” she said.

There’s still one big hitch, though: The leading library services offer Windows-friendly audiobook files that can’t be played on Apple Computer Inc.’s massively popular iPod player.

…. Nearly 28 million portable audio players were sold last year, according to In-Stat, a technology research company. With more than 21 million sold, the iPod remains the signature portable player. But it uses the Advanced Audio Coding format with FairPlay, its own digital rights management system and one incompatible with Windows’ technology.

Just as the lack of a standard digital audio format has fragmented the music download market, it affects audiobooks.

Users of iPods can still listen to books purchased through sources such as audible.com or Apple’s own iTunes Music Store, but the library services, for now, are geared toward computers and devices that support Windows Media Audio files. OverDrive files can be burned to CDs and converted to iPod friendly formats, but NetLibrary’s cannot.

Marge Gammon of NetLibrary said that despite iPod’s cache, the company wanted a product that could be played on a range of devices.

The proprietary standards that marginalized the Mac into an admittedly neat machine of (in my opinion) unfortunately minor importance (between 2%-3% market share) may do the same thing to iPods if the folks in Cupertino aren’t careful. I think it’s time they consider opening things up a bit.

QUESTION 3: What are the political implications of this study of chimps?

According to an Associated Press piece:

WASHINGTON — When it comes to fishing tasty termites out of their mounds, wild chimpanzees don’t have the right stuff. Most, in fact, are southpaws. A three-year study of 17 wild chimps in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, found that 12 of them used their left hands when using sticks to probe for termites.

Four were right-handed and one was listed as ambiguously handed.

“Contrary to previous claims, wild chimpanzees show population-level handedness in tool-use,” reported the research team led by William D. Hopkins of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta. Population-level handedness indicates a preference for one hand in a large group.

Hopkins’ findings are reported in Tuesday’s issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The paper also looked at previous studies of chimpanzees and found that others had noted a left-handed preference when using sticks to fish for termites, but there had been reports of a right-handed preference when cracking nuts.

Scientists have long debated whether nonhuman primates exhibit handedness.

Because the hands are controlled by opposite sides of the brain, the finding could indicate that this brain division had begun as long as 5 million years ago, prior to the split between humans and chimpanzees.

Now, since the left hand is controlled by the right side of the brain, the findings indicate to me that you have a greater chance of surviving in this world if you are a right-winger.

Others, particularly the minority of the population on the left (uh-oh) may disagree.