Abdul-Aziz

Recent Scientific Evidence Indicates That Women Find Nice Guys To Be A Disgusting, Repulsive Bunch What women say they want... For hundreds of years, ever since the institutional collapse of arranged marriage in late medieval Europe and the gradual emergence of the modern Western heterosexual marketplace, prospective bachelors have wondered what it is that women truly desire in a sex partner. It is not so much that female mate preference is somehow very complicated or even very sophisticated for that matter, because it is not; what women want is really quite obvious, even straightforward, and has been known long before the civilizations of the ancient Mesopotamian plateau actually flourished and the classical Near East began production of the first cuneiform tablets. In the current sociological/psychological literature, the dispute is often conceptualized as involving the dysgenic effects of female reproductive choice, and whether either altruism or aggressive displays of testosterone-related masculinity are eventually selected as the proper conduits through which the core objectives of the female reproductive strategy are effectively met. Unfortunately, what does seem to complicate matters quite a bit is the level of attitude-belief inconsistency and other forms of behavioural irrationality by which women often articulate their sexual preferences, specifically as it relates to the so-called “nice guy stereotype”. According to the “nice guy stereotype”, women say that they want “nice guys”, but in actuality, secretly crave the awesome challenge posed by trying to rein in and reform a “bad boy”. On a more positive note, it seems clear from the research of McDaniel (2005) and Urbaniak and Kilman (2006) that although women may claim to want a “nice guy”, pretending hypocritically to be really searching for such a personality type, the common man in the street and the typical bachelor who frequents the local pub still persist in believing that women overwhelmingly prefer “bad boys” instead. In the study Young women's dating behavior: Why/Why not date a nice guy? (2005), the researcher McDaniel writes: A common refrain among men is the observation that women do not like (or more appropriately, do not want to date) nice guys. Popular cultural texts that range from Kuriansky's (1996) The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dating to Internet articles such as Overthelimit.com's "The Myth of the Nice Guy" (Guy in a Trenchcoat, 2002) suggest that women claim they want a "nice guy" because they believe that that is what is expected of them when, in reality, they want the so-called "challenge" that comes with dating a not-so-nice guy. Scholarly texts seem to echo this general claim, as does the opinion of the anonymous man. The gentle, compassionate man who reads magazine surveys indicating that his qualities are the very ones that most women prefer in a mate may be the same man who is repeatedly turned down by women who seek the company of more atavistic males ... Women go for heroes while saying they want vulnerability and later try to persuade their partners to become more sensitive and vulnerable, rather than initially pursuing sensitive and vulnerable men (Desrochers, 1995, p. 376). However, when women are asked about the subject, they almost always claim to desire a nice guy ... so long as he is not too nice (Gray, 1997). Urbaniak and Kilman describe the “nice guy stereotype” this way in their 2006 paper, Niceness and dating success: a further test of the nice guy stereotype: The nice guy stereotype asserts that women in today's society display contradictory attitudes and behaviors regarding whom they choose as dating partners. At least since the rise of the second wave of feminism, many women have expressed a desire to date kind, sensitive, and emotionally expressive men, rather than more traditionally masculine, distant, and insensitive "macho men" (or, more pejoratively, "jerks.") Despite this stated preference, however, proponents of the nice guy stereotype argue that, in reality, women still choose to date macho men over nice guys, especially if the macho men are more physically attractive. The nice guys are, subsequently, either outright rejected or relegated to the category of "just friends." The stereotype even transcends the notion of "looks versus niceness" by suggesting that if a man is "too nice," a woman will reject him, regardless of physical appearance, in favor of a more macho man who treats her with less respect (e.g., Hollandsworth, 1994; Iverson, 1994; Muller, 2002; Virtual Voyage, 1999). It is common folk wisdom that, on an international level, women verbally indicate such personal characteristics as being caring, sweet, warm, considerate, understanding, sensitive, compassionate, intelligent, and emotionally expressive as being very sexually attractive when found in eligible males. In light of the data, one question that automatically springs to mind is: How is this finding best interpreted so as to be rigorously subjected to empirical analysis and subsequently quantified mathematically? In the modern social psychological literature in particular, this is most effectively operationalized as the so-called “nice guy” construct, representing a potential male sex partner who is cooperative, generous, sympathetic, kind, reserved and timid. When the prototypical “nice guy” was operationalized as an essentially altruistic individual, as was done in the 1995 study of Jensen-Campbell et al, more recent investigators found that he was rejected each and every single time as a prospective dating/marriage partner. Thus, from all available sources of current information, “nice guys” were typically seen by women as being socially undesirable, sexually unattractive, and were frequently ignored by women who were actively searching for sex/marriage partners. Its diametrical opposite, the “bad boy” construct, has been successfully operationalized by Jonason et al (2008) as the “dark triad” cluster of personality characteristics, consisting of psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. These traits function as natural indicators of both male dominance and high socio-economic status, stimulating female heterosexual attraction like an aphrodisiac carefully administered or even strongly scented male sex pheromones. One tenet which happens to be central to the “nice guy stereotype” is that women will always verbalize a preference for “nice guys” in questionnaires and other survey type studies based on female self-report. A 1986 evolutionary psychology study by Buss and Barnes, entitled Preferences in human mate selection, discovered that the factors of kindness and understanding were the two most desired traits in a sex partner. Nonetheless, this result was only obtained when a methodological approach based on extensive self-reportage was employed. Writing of sexual dimorphism in terms of mate selection preferences, Buss and Barnes observe that: In relation to men, the women in this sample tended to prefer the following spouse characteristics: considerate, honest, dependable, kind, understanding, fond of children, well-liked by others, good earning capacity, ambitious and career-oriented, good family background, and tall... Moreover, according to a 1995 study conducted by Jensen-Campbell et al, entitled Dominance, prosocial orientation, and female preferences: Do nice guys really finish last?, it was found that both male dominance and having a prosocial behavioural orientation (“being nice”) were highly correlated with female heterosexual attraction. The authors write that: Across all measures attraction was an interactive function of dominance and prosocial tendencies. Dominance alone did not increase any form of attraction measured. Another 1995 study, this time conducted by the researcher Stephan Desrochers and entitled What types of men are most attractive and most repulsive to women?, operationalized the “nice guy” construct as being typically representative of feminized males and the “bad boy” construct as being typically representative of masculinised males. The results obtained through the study itself suggested that university women seemed to have a preference for more feminine, as opposed to masculine, male types. Nevertheless, towards the end of the study, Desrochers discounted the results, suggesting that because the findings were based on a small subpopulation of women (university women), the generalizability of such findings were limited to the population in question. Moreover, Desrochers argued that highly educated women would select male sex partners on the basis of socio-economic status and earning potential, therefore selecting more feminine males, whereas women of lower socio-economic status and lesser education would select men on the basis of such traits as aggressiveness, violent temperament, and testosterone-related features of physiological masculinity, displaying a marked preference for more masculinised males. However, given the widespread sexual preference of women for “tough guys”, “macho men”, violent, psychopathic criminals, and other unsavoury types, in contemporary popular culture, some more recent investigators argue that these earlier reports of female sexual preference are seriously methodologically flawed, being based upon the relatively unreliable measure of female self-reportage, rather than empirical observation of actual female socio-sexual behaviour. Various academic studies designed to investigate self-reported female sexual preferences in different kinds of male sex partners have reached similar conclusions: that women self-report that they want “nice guys”, whereas other researchers suggest (Urbaniak and Kilman, 2003, 2006), that when multiple regression and factor analysis of questionnaire results are substituted for actual observation of female behavioural response, women will more often than not choose the most aggressive, physically dominant, and least agreeable male available for reproductive access. This is because the methodological principles which underlie measures of female self-reportage openly conflict with the well-established empirical finding that there is an actual discrepancy between what women say they want and whom they choose as an intimate partner on a strictly behavioural level. Moreover, these very contradictory attitudes towards mate selection are suggestive of a universal female cognitive dissonance, and highlights the frequent attitude-behaviour inconsistency that is a fundamental, if not endlessly recurring aspect of female socio-sexual behaviour. In their recent sociological analysis of the “nice guy” construct, Physical attractiveness and the "nice guy paradox": do nice guys really finish last? (2003), Urbaniak and Kilman discuss some of the technical difficulties with previous studies of female sexual preference: ... Although the studies reviewed above demonstrated that women prefer to date "nice guys," almost all relied solely on self-reported preferences rather than on actual behaviors. Actual behaviors are not always highly related to self-reports. For example, Sprecher (1989) asked participants to read a script in which a member of their same sex supposedly described a target member of the other sex on variables of physical attractiveness, expressiveness, and earning potential. In the physical attractiveness manipulation, participants were told that the target had previously been rated as high or low on attractiveness by a previous rater. The participants then rated how much they would be attracted to the target and afterward rated how much they thought the three variables (attractiveness, earning potential, and expressiveness) had contributed to their liking of the target. Expressiveness was reported as the most important factor, when, in fact, physical attractiveness was the most important factor behaviorally. Wiederman and Dubois (1998) found a similar discrepancy between self-perceptions and behavior, particularly among women. Descriptions of potential short-term mates were experimentally manipulated so that they varied along six dimensions: physical attractiveness, financial resources, generosity, sexual experience/interest, current relationship status, and desired level of relationship commitment. The physical attractiveness manipulation was the most important factor in predicting ratings of desirability for men and women alike. Men accurately acknowledged that physical attractiveness was the most important characteristic that influenced their ratings of a desirable partner. Women rated desired level of relationship commitment as the most important factor that influenced their mate selection when, in fact, it was one of the least important factors behaviorally. ... The same concern as to the validity of the previous studies in terms of methodological approach is also reiterated in a follow up study by Urbaniak and Kilman, Niceness and dating success: a further test of the nice guy stereotype (2006). In the report, both researchers acknowledge that there is a sharp disconnect between self-reported female sexual preference and actual female mate choice: Weiderman and Dubois (1998) used behavioral measures to assess women's preferences for a mate and found a discrepancy between self-perceptions and behavior, particularly among women. For both men and women, the physical attractiveness manipulation was the most important factor in predicting ratings of desirability. Men accurately indicated that the physical attractiveness of the targets was the most important characteristic that influenced their desirability ratings, whereas women inaccurately indicated that desired level of relationship commitment was their most important factor, when, in fact, it was one of the least important factors behaviorally. Sprecher (1989) found similar results, in that women inaccurately assessed the role of physical attractiveness in their own ratings of a target man. The women in Sprecher's study reported that expressiveness was the most important factor in their choice, although it was the least important factor behaviorally. Physical attractiveness was the most important factor that actually influenced their ratings. The results of these two studies suggest that women's self-reported preferences may not match their actual choices. Because it is still considered shallow and inappropriate for women to say that physical attractiveness is very important in their choices, those women may have engaged in impression management. And what the findings of empirical research say that women want... Although women say they want a “nice guy”, many men have been known to complain that such is obviously not the case. Researchers such as McDaniel (2005) and Urbaniuk and Kilman (2003, 2006) have noted repeatedly that in terms of female sexual preference, women display a considerable amount of attitude-behaviour inconsistency, frequently choosing "bad boys" while saying emphatically that they want “nice guys”. To understand the difficulty inherent within the very situation we are presented with, let us contrast the female preference for “bad boys” with that other major female sexual preference, that for male socio-economic status and male-male hierarchical dominance. It is an established scientific fact that socio-economic status, and more specifically male possession of actual financial wealth, is positively associated with romantic success in the heterosexual marketplace. That women all over the globe prize the size of a man’s bank account over any other male personality trait is a fact which is well-attested to in the peer-reviewed literature on sexual dimorphism in human mate preference. Unlike the so-called female sexual preference for “nice guys”, women neither hide nor find it embarrassing that they both openly and regularly select men on the basis of such shallow, ephemeral criteria as financial wealth and earning capacity. In a 2005 study by Hitsch et al, What Makes You Click: An Empirical Analysis of Online Dating, it was observed that male socio-economic status, as well as annual male earning power were seen as powerful indicators of who was and wasn’t romantically successful in the heterosexual marketplace. The researchers write: Income strongly affects the success of men, as measured by the number of first contact e-mails received. While there is no apparent effect below an annual income of $50,000, outcomes improve monotonically for income levels above $50,000. Relative to incomes below $50,000, the increase in the expected number of first contacts is at least 32%, and as large as 156% for incomes in excess of $250,000. In contrast to the strong income effect for men, the online success of women is at most marginally related to their income. Women in the $35,000-$100,000 income range fare slightly better than women with lower incomes. Higher incomes, however, do not appear to improve outcomes, and are not associated with a statistically different effect relative to the $15,000-$25,000 income range. Indeed, women not only seem to have a strong preference for very thick wallets and relatively large bank accounts, a preference which happens to be a well-attested empirical fact within much of the peer-reviewed academic literature on the subject, but also prefer “tough guys”, “macho men”, aggressive bullies, thugs, gangsters, bikers, drug dealers, street brawlers, and violent psychopaths. At the very extremes of female heterosexual attraction, a sizable minority of women have been known to seek out even killers and child rapists, such as the Austrian Josef Fritzl and the American Scott Peterson (both of whom have received numerous letters from star-crossed female devotees, professing undying love and endless marriage proposals), as potential boyfriend/husband material. Unlike the well-known female preference for men of high socio-economic status and financial wealth, women have been known to openly verbalize the desire for men who are both sweet and nice, meanwhile covertly selecting actual “bad boys” instead. Let us now see what the recent sociological/psychological literature has to say concerning the actual nature of female sexual preference and its relationship to the “bad boy”/ “nice guy” empirical construct. A significant majority of women say they desire “nice guys” for all relationship contexts, however much recent social scientific research seems to contradict this assertion. In a study conducted by Herold and Milhausen, Dating Preferences of University Women: An Analysis of the Nice Guy Stereotype (1999), it was determined that 56% of 165 university women interviewed agreed with the expression that “Nice guys finish last” and that women were less likely to seek them out as sex partners, as opposed to “bad boys” and other unsavoury types, who would be highly sought after as sex partners by women. Although “bad boys” have the edge over “nice guys” when it comes to establishing short-term relationships and meeting women for immediate sexual intercourse, Herold and Milhausen argued that while nice guys may not be competitive in terms of numbers of sexual partners, they tend to be more successful with respect to longer-term, committed relationships. Herold and Milhausen observe: Many researchers have attempted to discover what types of men women consider most desirable for relationship partners. This study investigated university women's (N = 165) perceptions of "nice guys," specifically whether women perceived nice guys to be more or less sexually successful than guys who are considered not nice. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were used. The qualitative analysis was useful in understanding women's differing interpretations of the nice guy label. More than one half of the women agreed that nice guys have fewer sexual partners. However, more than one half also reported a preference for a nice guy over a bad boy as a date. As hypothesized, women who placed a lesser emphasis on the importance of sex, who had fewer sexual partners, and who were less accepting of men who had many sexual partners were more likely to choose the nice guy as a dating partner. The findings indicate that nice guys are likely to have fewer sexual partners but are more desired for committed relationships. In a 2005 study conducted by McDaniel, Young women's dating behavior: Why/Why not date a nice guy?, it was found that a considerable amount of evidence supports the hypothesis that women prefer “bad boys” (operationalized by McDaniel in this context as a not-so-nice fun/sexy guy) over “nice guys”. Throughout her paper, McDaniel argues that because women routinely select “bad boys” over “nice guys” for low commitment dating, “bad boys” are not only in a very advantageous position within the heterosexual market itself, but are also provided with infinitely more opportunities for establishing both short- and long-term relationships with eligible females, as opposed to the hapless “nice guy”, who is generally avoided by the majority of women. In her study, McDaniel writes: First, being suitable for high commitment dating alone is not enough (by a long shot) to increase a nice guy's likelihood to progress into or beyond the experimentation stage of relationship escalation. Second, young women who are interested in frequent casual dating are not going to select a nice guy as a dating partner because he cannot meet her recreational dating needs. And, because the fun/sexy guy seems to be more suitable for low commitment dating, he is going to be chosen more often for it, which provides him with an increased opportunity to progress well into and beyond the experimentation stage. In a 2003 study by Urbaniak and Kilman, entitled Physical attractiveness and the "nice guy paradox": do nice guys really finish last?, the investigators argue that although the vast majority of women say they desire a “nice guy” for both casual dating and committed, romantic relationships, the evidence seems to suggest that women prefer “jerks” over “nice guys” when it comes to both short-term, but not long-term, committed relationships. Urbaniak and Kilman write: It may be that the nice guy stereotype is more accurate in relation to relatively casual, physical relationships than to more serious relationships. This finding is generally consistent with results of previous studies which suggest that women place more emphasis on physical attractiveness when considering more short-term relationships (e.g., Herold & Milhausen, 1999; Regan, 1998a; 1998b; Sprecher & Regan, 2002). In another study conducted by Urbaniak and Kilman in 2006, Niceness and dating success: a further test of the nice guy stereotype, it was found that women prefer “bad boys” or “jerks” for both short-term, casual dating and long-term, committed relationships, directly contradicting the findings of Herold and Milhausen (1999), as well as those of their own 2003 research, which suggested that “jerks” may be highly sought after for low-commitment dating, but that “nice guys” would be preferred for longer, more stable relationships. In this study, empirical observation of actual female socio-sexual behaviour was substituted for female self-reportage, constituting a significant methodological improvement over previous studies. Instead, overall male dating success, actual female selection of males on the basis of physical attractiveness and other variables, as well as objective measures of male niceness/agreeableness are employed as independent factors whose subsequent interrelationship and covariation are determined by sequential multiple regression analysis and other modes of statistical quantification. Thus, Urbaniak and Kilman found that women regarded such characteristics as being “nice” or possessing high levels of niceness/agreeableness as a major hindrance to establishing a committed, romantic relationship, whether of the casual or long-term variety. In their 2006 study, Urbaniak and Kilman test four hypotheses: 1. Within shorter-term, less-committed relationship contexts (i.e., casual-dating relationships, one-time sexual encounters, and casual-sex relationships), men's physical attractiveness would be a stronger predictor of their relationship success than would men's niceness/agreeableness. Women have been shown to place more emphasis on niceness/agreeableness in the context of long-term, romantic relationships (e.g., Regan, 1998a). Therefore, our second hypothesis: 2. Men's niceness/agreeableness would be a stronger predictor of their relationship success than would men's physical attractiveness in the committed/romantic relationship context. Women have rated men's niceness/agreeableness as a desirable characteristic in all relationship contexts (and not, in fact, as a hindrance; e.g., Regan et al., 2000). Thus, our third hypothesis: 3. In contrast to the nice guy stereotype, men's niceness/agreeableness would be a positive predictor of dating success across all four relationship contexts. As noted earlier, media references to the nice guy stereotype often reflect a categorical distinction in describing the "dating success" of archetypal "homely nice guys" versus "cute, macho guys". Our fourth hypothesis was formed to test the validity of this popular or "media-based" distinction by contrasting two subgroups of men: 4. Men rated relatively high in niceness/agreeableness but relatively low in physical attractiveness (i.e., "homely nice guys") would report greater long-term dating success than men rated relatively low in niceness but high in physical attractiveness ("cute, macho guys"). The reverse pattern was predicted regarding short-term sexual success. The results obtained by Urbaniak and Kilman for the first hypothesis, through bivariate correlation matrices and multiple regression analysis of the data obtained, was that low niceness/agreeableness and high physical attractiveness ensured success for “bad boys” in both short-term relationships and casual dating. Results generated for the second hypothesis suggested that men who lack niceness/agreeableness have much greater success in committed, romantic relationships than “nice guys”, who would have almost zero success in terms of establishing committed relationships. For the third hypothesis, it was found that men who possessed high levels of niceness/agreeableness fared badly across all relationship contexts. Not only was being nice/agreeable described as a socially undesirable trait by women in terms of casual dating, but it was also found that being nice, sweet, kind, or any of a number of other altruistic personality characteristics associated with niceness/agreeableness could be a major hindrance to the establishment of committed, long-term relationships with heterosexual females. Concerning the results generated for the fourth hypothesis, it was found that “cute, macho guys” had more success with both casual dating and long-term committed relationships than men who were high in measures of niceness/agreeableness. Taken together, the 2006 results of Urbaniak and Kilman suggest that women actually do prefer bad boys over nice guys after all. Being nice, kind, sweet, considerate, generous, compassionate, sympathetic, helpful etc, were actually perceived of by the vast majority of women as being highly disadvantageous, even being of negative consequence, when found in a potential male sex partner. These results both strongly reinforce and nicely complement the findings of Schmitt (2003) who, in The Big Five related to risky sexual behaviour across 10 world regions: differential personality associations of sexual promiscuity and relationship infidelity, found that low agreeableness/conscientiousness and high levels of gregariousness or extraversion, were strongly associated with sexual promiscuity and the ability to establish multiple committed relationships with large volumes of available females, constituting a reproductively viable and evolutionarily sustainable life history strategy. In addition, these traits are also associated with such psycho-pathological conditions as psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. Schmitt writes: As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, 16 362 participants from 52 nations responded to measures of the Big Five and risky sexuality. It was expected that low levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness would be universally associated with relationship infidelity. Sexual promiscuity, in contrast, was expected to positively relate to extraversion and neuroticism. Analyses across 10 world regions revealed relationship infidelity was universally associated with low agreeableness and low conscientiousness. Sexual promiscuity was somewhat related to these traits as well, but was more highly related to extraversion across many, but not all, world regions. Both forms of risky sexual behaviour were generally unrelated to neuroticism and openness across cultures. Discussion focuses on possible explanations of regional differences in personality-sexuality linkages. In their conclusion, Urbaniak and Kilman observe: Although variability in the importance of niceness/agreeableness across different relationship types was expected, the fact that low agreeableness, generally speaking, was more related to success across all the relationship contexts than high agreeableness was somewhat surprising. Previous studies have shown that women highly value niceness in committed/romantic partners (and still value niceness, if less-so, in more sexual contexts; e.g., Regan et al., 2000; Urbaniak & Kilmann, 2003). The present results, however, failed to show any clear advantage for the men who were highly nice/agreeable, even in the romantic context. As such, results from the present study actually are more consistent with the nice guy stereotype, overall, than were the results of our earlier study, which had suggested that the stereotype might be a myth. This contradictory finding suggests a discrepancy between which men women will say they prefer, or will choose in a (experimentally-manipulated) hypothetical scenario, and which men actually are successful--at least, by the men's own accounts. Apart from the expenditure of money, only violent psychopaths and dangerous criminals are ever guaranteed always getting the girl It has been established numerous times by scientific research that male dominance, in the form of social presence and intrasexual competitiveness, is the central ingredient which often determines the strength and direction of female heterosexual attraction. Whereas typical “nice guys” are not seen as being dominant or exuding social presence, “bad boys” are and because of that, are seen as much more sexually attractive and socially desirable. Hence, two lines of converging evidence are presented: one in which women repeatedly select “bad boys” over “nice guys” and another large body of evidence which indicates that violent psychopaths, dangerous criminals, aggressive bullies, and other antisocial personality types have the most reproductive success when it comes to attracting women and establishing committed, romantic relationships. In one of the earliest studies which helped establish a strong linkage between male social dominance and female sexual attraction, Dominance and Heterosexual Attraction (1987), Sadalla et al write: Four experiments examined the relation between behavioral expressions of dominance and the heterosexual attractiveness of males and females. Predictions concerning the relation between dominance and heterosexual attraction were derived from a consideration of sex role norms and from the comparative biological literature. All four experiments indicated an interaction between dominance and sex of target. Dominance behavior increased the attractiveness of males, but had no effect on the attractiveness of females. The third study indicated that the effect did not depend on the sex of the rater or on the sex of those with whom the dominant target interacted. The fourth study showed that the effect was specific to dominance as an independent variable and did not occur for related constructs (aggressive or domineering). This study also found that manipulated dominance enhanced only a male's sexual attractiveness and not his general likeability. In Predictors of University Men’s Number of Sexual Partners, a study conducted by A.F. Bogaert and W.A. Fisher in 1995, it was found that the within-gender variation of differential reproductive success was heavily influenced by such things as normal individual differences in personality and psycho-physiological constitution. Significant correlational associations were found between such traits as hypermasculinity, sensation-seeking, extraversion, levels of circulating androgens, physical attractiveness, and “Eysenck psychoticism”, with men who rated high on these measures having the greatest number of sex partners and greater overall reproductive success, in comparison to more normal, less pathological men. Bogaert and Fisher write: We examined the role of personality (e.g., hypermasculinity, sensation-seeking) and physical individual differences (testosterone, physical attractiveness) in predicting university men’s (N = 215) number of sexual partners. Significant zero-order correlations occurred between number of sexual partners and sensation seeking, hypermasculinity, physical attractiveness, and testosterone. In addition, multiple regression analysis revealed significant increases in prediction with an additive combination of these individual differences, and some of these individual differences (e.g., sensation seeking) contributed unique variation to the prediction of the number of sexual partners. Finally, principal components analysis revealed a common personality factor labelled Disinhibition that may partly underlie the relationship between some of these individual differences and the number of sexual partners. ... In a more recent study by Jonason et al (2008), entitled The Dark Triad: Facilitating a short-term mating strategy in men, it was revealed that men who possessed antisocial personality traits such as psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism, attracted more female sex partners and enjoyed higher levels of reproductive success than men with more normal personality characteristics. In addition, many personality characteristics indicated by researchers such as Sadalla et al (1987) and Bogaert and Fisher (1995) as the central ingredients of male reproductive success and the driving animus behind the male ability to attract available female partners intersect with and are the cornerstone upon which the more pathological “Dark Triad” is based. Therefore, traits such as dominance, extraversion, psychoticism, and impulsivity are central to the short-term reproductive success characteristic of such dysfunctional personalities as psychopaths, narcissists, and Machiavellians. As Jonason et al writes: The personality traits that compose the Dark Triad have typically been considered abnormal, pathological, and inherently maladaptive (e.g., Kowalski, 2001). Although individuals with these traits inflict costs to others and themselves, the Dark Triad traits are also associated with some qualities, including a drive for power (Bradlee & Emmons, 1992; Foster et al., 2006), low neuroticism (Taylor & Armor, 1996), and extraversion (Paulhus & Williams, 2002), that may be beneficial. Together with low amounts of empathy and agreeableness (Paulhus, 2001), such traits may facilitate – especially for men – the pursuit of an exploitative short-term mating strategy. In a study by Harris et al (2007), COERCIVE AND PRECOCIOUS SEXUALITY AS A FUNDAMENTAL ASPECT OF PSYCHOPATHY, it was revealed that the male psychopath is the quintessential Casanova, attracting large numbers of female sex partners and having numerous short-term relationships with women, a life history course routinely described by evolutionary psychologists and others of a socio-biological orientation as, in its more essential aspects, a reproductively adaptive strategy. According to Harris et al: Sexual behavior is closely associated with delinquency and crime. Although psychopaths, by definition, have many short-term sexual relationships, it has not been shown that sexuality is a core aspect of psychopathy. A Darwinian view of psychopathy led to the hypothesis that psychopaths have a unique sexuality involving early, frequent, and coercive sex. Our subjects were 512 sex offenders assessed on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R). Five variables reflecting early, frequent, and coercive sex loaded on the same principal component in exploratory factor analysis on a subset of the sample, whereas PCL-R items pertaining to adult sexual behavior did not. Confirmatory factor analysis of the remaining subjects yielded a measurement model containingthree inter-correlated factors – the traditional two PCL-R factors, and coercive and precocious sexuality. Taxometric analyses gave evidence of a natural discontinuity underlying coercive and precocious sexuality. Coercive and precocious sexuality yielded statistically significant associations with other study variables predicted by the Darwinian hypothesis. The present findings are consistent with prior empirical findings and support the hypothesis that psychopathy has been a nonpathological, reproductively viable, alternate life history strategy. Thus, current sociological/psychological research into both “bad boy” and “nice guy” categories operationalized as empirical, quantifiable constructs, reveals three pertinent phenomena: (1.) women prefer “bad boys” over “nice guys”, (2.) being kind, compassionate, or friendly towards others can be a major hindrance in the establishment of either short-term or long-term committed relationships with heterosexual females, and (3.) that violent psychopaths, dangerous criminals, and other antisocial personality types have much greater success than normal in establishing both short-term and long-term committed relationships with heterosexual females, as well as being able to attract large volumes of female sex partners. To sum up this exciting field of social scientific research, it is the opinion of this brief meta-analysis of contemporary academic investigations into the subject of female sexual preference, that the vast majority of women despise men who are kind, nice, sympathetic, compassionate, sensitive, friendly, considerate, generous etc. In addition, it should also be evident from the foregoing that the ideal sex partner for the typical heterosexual female is a violent psychopath or a dangerous criminal and never was, or ever has been, the supposedly chivalrous gentleman of medieval lore (Bogaert and Fisher, 1995; McDaniel, 2005; Urbaniak and Kilman, 2006; Harris et al, 2007; Jonason et al, 2008 etc). On the basis of current empirical research, women who say they prefer “nice guys” should be immediately discounted as passive victims of bad social conditioning, having failed to fully assimilate the ideals of state-enforced gender equality. Indeed, many of the women who make such assertions seem to be resisting their more natural, more primitive evolutionary biological urges, because society disapprovingly says that to openly seek a male partner on the basis of testosterone-related features of both phenotypic and behavioural masculinity is both superficial and emotionally immature. Actual female sexual preference of violent, aggressive males, as opposed to the more verbal, outspoken claim of seeking the company of more chivalrous gentlemen, should be seen as reflecting a general attitude-behaviour inconsistency that is a fundamental, empirically deduced characteristic of female socio-sexual behaviour (Weiderman and Dubois 1998). As men have doubtless griped in the past, and will continue griping far into the distant future, women really are attracted to “bad boys”, and have no interest in men who visibly display altruistic behaviour and other “nice guy” characteristics. However, there is only one solution to the female preference for more atavistic males. Alas, it is time to come to grips with the established scientific fact that women despise “nice guys”, finding them both socially undesirable and even physically repulsive as well; we must eventually come to accept the fact that women frequently prefer selecting wife batterers, violent criminals, and sexual abusers as both potential boyfriends and future husbands. It is time for the “nice guy” to toughen up and become an aggressive, physically dominant “bad boy” (and failing at that, maybe consider amassing a small fortune in bank notes instead).

First of all, nowhere in the peer-reviewed literature is it ever mentioned that "dark triad" men use deception to attract women. That was simply a groundless assumption on your part. Secondly, even if they did use deception to attract women, the fact that women are capable of being attracted to these men demonstrates that these men are capable of successfully generating a certain level of female sexual attraction, which also happens to be a very strong indicator of individual female preference as well. In addition, whether the man uses deception or not is immaterial to the point in question. After all, is it not possible that being able to assume multiple personae is an integral part of a "bad boy" routine that women both know and are deeply attracted to? From an empirical, quantitative perspective (the scientific point of view), the fact that the man is capable of attracting large numbers of women and that many women are attracted to him, more so than the average man as a matter of fact, strongly indicates that the "bad boy" (who is not only a psychopath, but a narcissist and a Machiavellian as well) both attracts and is found attractive by women. Women are not simply attracted to psychopaths, but they are attracted to a cluster of personality characteristics known as the "dark triad". You seem to have a view of the psychopath as a "Hannibal the Cannibal" sort of character, which is a Hollywood creation that is simply inaccurate. Read the description of a psychopath from the book Without Conscience, by the world-renowned expert on psychopathy, Dr. Robert Hare: Everybody has met these people, been deceived and manipulated by them, and forced to live with or repair the damage they have wrought. These often charming—but always deadly—individuals have a clinical name: psychopaths. Their hallmark is a stunning lack of conscience; their game is self-gratification at the other person's expense. Many spend time in prison, but many do not. All take far more than they give. ... The most obvious expressions of psychopathy —but by no means the only ones—involve flagrant criminal violation of society's rules. Not surprisingly, many psychopaths are criminals, but many remain out of prison, using their charm and chamaleonlike abilities to cut a wide swath though society and leaving a wake of ruined lives behind them. ... Psychopaths are like regular, seemingly normal people, but they are often callous, remorseless, superficial, charming, sexually promiscuous, fearless, gregarious, extraverted etc. They are not only violent criminals, but ruthless Wall Street brokers, ambitious CEOs, and fearless daredevils that many legions of women find extremely attractive. Unfortunately, none of these sources support whatever you are trying to claim, but they do support what I am claiming, which is that women are very attracted to the "dark triad" cluster of personality characteristics. In fact, Jonason et al. (2008) describe the dark triad personality as a "reproductively adaptive strategy" that "facilitates short-term mating success" amongst men. You have a wildly inaccurate, even distorted conception of what a psychopath actually is. See above. For the record, Ed Gein was not a psychopath, he was psychotic. Big difference. As I explained before, women are not only attracted to psychopaths, but to men with "dark triad" personality traits (including narcissists and Machiavellians). There is an abundance of peer-reviewed literature substantiating this point, whether you choose to accept it or not.

All I was trying to demonstrate was that conventional news media interpretations of the research of Dr. Jonason and others are very different from how they were being interpreted here. I was not citing Wiki or ABC News as legitimate sources of information. My claim is that a substantial percentage of women are attracted to a cluster of personality traits known as the "dark triad", which consists of such individual characteristics as psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism or the so-called "bad boy" mentality. As a point of clarification, I want to explain how psychopath is defined within this body of literature. A psychopath should not be understood as an Ed Gein-type figure (Ed Gein was actually psychotic), but as a normal human being, just like us. The only difference between him and us is that the psychopath is callous, remorseless, fearless, ruthless, charming, promiscuous, risk-taking, aggressive, has had innumerable short-term relationships with large numbers of women etc. Remember that, according to current research, psychopaths need not be dangerous criminals; they can also be ruthless Wall Street bankers and grasping corporate executives, unscrupulous lawyers and fearless daredevils.

Well, you guys have an unconventional, even very strange, interpretation of what the empirical evidence is pointing at. To see what I mean, just look at the way the recent studies on women and their attraction for bad boys is being interpreted at this major news media outlet: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=5197531&page=2 or even here, at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Triad As a point of clarification: Although, it may seem that I am making absolute statements, it should be understood that I am referring to a large segment of women within the female population itself, not to all of womankind. According to a recent 2005 Harlequin poll of a thousand women, it was found that 21% of women (35+) prefer having a bad boy as a sex partner and that 31% of women with children under 18 would date a bad boy. Link: http://www.articlealley.com/article_27778_35.html As this poll was conducted by Harlequin, I am not sure of its veracity; it was all that I could find at the moment, but I know there are others. My opinion on the matter, based on a careful examination of the work of David M. Buss and others, is that female mate preference should be understood as existing along a continuum of various other female mate preferences, with all women possessing a desire for both socio-economic status and dark triad personality characteristics, albeit in varying degrees of intensity. These should be statistically represented as existing along a Gaussian distribution or a continuous probability distribution curve. I would suspect that maybe 50% of women would be predominantly attracted to such things as socio-economic status, male-male hierarchical dominance, and male intrasexual competitiveness, whereas another 50% would be attracted to testosterone-related aspects of phenotypical masculinity, athletic prowess, physical strength, naked aggression, "dark triad" personalities etc. If I were to draw a curve, the 50% of women who are attracted to such things as male socio-economic status would be located in the centre of that curve. Those women who find testosterone-related aspects of phenotypical masculinity attractive (high testosterone females and other women of precocious sexuality, representing 25% of all women) would be placed at the left of the bell curve; women who prefer dark triad personality characteristics, representing the other 25% of women, would be placed to the right of the curve. However, as I stated before, I feel that most women are capable of feeling the entire gamut of female sexual preference, just some more than others.

Must I always provide answers to your questions? A man who employs the art of seduction, attracting more women than another man who employs honesty as the best policy, is going to be more successful in attracting female partners and establishing romantic relationships with others. Regardless of whether that man employs deception as a means of attracting women or not has virtually no bearing on the fact that, from the perspective of elementary quantitative analysis, that man is going to be much more romantically successful than the man who uses honesty to get what he wants and attracts no one because of it. Objectively speaking, he is much more successful because he attracts more women and more women are attracted to him, as opposed to his unfortunate colleague. The fact that many women fall madly in love with our deceitful Casanova, whereas not a single one finds the honest man attractive, indicates that he is much more attractive to other women than this man is; in fact, the fact that women find this man attractive over the more honest individual is a clear and obvious indication of female sexual preference. Thus, you have not demonstrated how "deception" makes our Casanova somehow less successful with women than the man who chooses to be honest in his dealings with women. As a matter of fact, it has been demonstrated that "deception", however it is defined, does not operate as a confounding variable in this situation, unless you mean to say that our Casanova is unsuccessful in his romantic adventures because the pursuit of a sex partner should be based on a level playing field between fellow seekers. Unfortunately, this is an ethical implication which has no basis in science, because it is a branch of human endeavour based on empirical observation and quantitative analysis alone, not subjective interpretations of reality. I never said preferences were linear or unimodal; you are putting words in my mouth. Clearly, our preferences exist along an unbroken continuum where one individual preference blends imperceptibly into the next. I have cited a considerable amount of peer-reviewed literature, such as the studies of Jonason et al, Schmitt, Harris et al., and numerous others which offer solid empirical evidence that "bad boys" attract more women than most men. You, on the other hand, have not presented a single scrap of evidence supporting your criticisms. How can you say that? Just because I present uncomfortable findings about the nature of womankind means that somehow, all of a sudden, they are not automatically supported by the evidence at hand? I provided more direct empirical evidence to support my contention that women are attracted to "bad boys", than anyone else on this thread. If you want to prove me wrong, provide me with peer-reviewed literature that proves women are *not* attracted to "bad boys", something I doubt you're able to do. Anyway, I understand that science is based on evidence, but what evidence have you presented?

Thanks for the article, iNow. But I'm not a zealous proponent of evolutionary psychology, I just believe that it offers some very worthwhile insights on certain aspects of human behaviour. I don't know why you guys find it so hard to accept the fact that a significant percentage of women are attracted to dangerous men. Dweebs knew it, nerds knew it, nice guys knew it, and now scientists know it. However, I am not claiming that all women are attracted to violent, aggressive men, because many women are also attracted to socio-economic status as well. What I am saying is that many women are attracted to dangerous men because they appeal to the more primitive evolutionary aspects of the female drive and as such, the attraction itself should be present universally throughout all cultures. Anyway, I think the studies I mentioned are pretty clear on the fact that women are attracted to "bad boys" (after all, they do go out with them in large numbers) and that "bad boys" tend to attract the largest number of women. Is there anyway we can come to a gentleman's agreement on this subject?

Your objection is completely irrelevant to the studies at hand, and can be hurled as a libellous accusation against the formation of any relationship (after all, it can be argued that all relationships are established on the basis of deception), not to mention that such an accusation is a tangential observation made without any substantiating evidence whatsoever. With that in mind, what the studies do demonstrate, and conclusively I might add, is that men with "dark triad" personalities have greater success in attracting reproductively available women and establishing romantic partnerships. Do you have any tangible evidence to substantiate your personal observations? I challenge you to find one reference in the published literature that asserts that "dark triad" men necessarily employ deception in order to attract a large number of sex partners. According to Jonason et al (2008), "dark triad" men are self-serving individuals who possess a strong motivation to seek out power and dominance, are very charming, personable, and extroverted. They are individuals who have extremely low levels of neuroticism and anxiety. Because female mate selection is based on the psychological evaluation of individual males within a hierarchy of social dominance, in which the desire for power and dominance are central to upward mobility, "dark triad" men tend to be much more attractive to women than regular males who occupy less prestigious rungs on the ladder of male-male intrasexual competition. Ah well, I guess there's no deception here. Are you deliberately quoting me out of context? I never said that men with high testosterone were psychopaths, but that the aggressiveness characteristic of the psychopathic/narcissistic personality was due to high levels of circulating testosterone, as with all other anti-social behaviours. Psychopathy, as defined by world-famous investigator Dr. Robert Hare, author of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist - Revised, consists of a whole constellation of personality traits including lack of remorse, extraversion, superficial charm, sexual promiscuity, and having numerous short-term marital relationships. I never said that psychopaths or narcissists have higher levels of circulating androgens, but that people who are more aggressive than others have higher levels of androgens (such as psychopaths and narcissists). This finding has been established as scientific fact by the research of James M. Dabbs et al. in a paper entitled Testosterone, crime, and misbehavior among 692 male prison inmates (1995). Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V9F-3Y6PG24-T&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=30f9b5c9a10304ef9f2fe8c3956285dd That women are attracted to male social dominance and male access to socio-economic resources (traits which tend to be monopolized by psychopathic/narcissistic personalities) is at the core of Dr. David M. Buss’s theory of male-female reproductive strategies. I strongly suggest you read his book again. But one can conclude a cause by systematically investigating the complex symptomatologies which underlie the disease itself, such as the way in which male social dominance is facilitated by individual possession of “dark triad” personality characteristics. Which has everything to do with psychopaths. Women are attracted to dominant males and insomuch as a certain fraction of these males possess “dark triad” personalities, women are attracted to them as well. Not true. What I have said is that many traits characteristic of male social dominance overlap with psychopathy/narcissism. That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. The pursuit of a successful reproductive strategy is going to facilitate the gradual, evolutionary development of certain mate preferences along sex-typical lines. These are primarily socio-economic for females, and largely physiological for males. The possession of the traits themselves are valuable insomuch as they promote an evolutionarily stable, successful reproductive strategy. For example, it is a well-established fact that women are attracted to male earning power; the more money a man earns, the more a woman will be able to procreate and nurture viable offspring, making her considerably more successful in the pursuit of her reproductive strategy. It is the same with men; the younger and more fertile a woman, the more likely it is for a man to produce viable offspring. From the male perspective, the best women, of course, are those who are the youngest and most fertile (around 18 or 20). Jonason et al. (2008) lists a number of traits, such as the intense motivation for power and socio-economic dominance, extraversion, and personal charm which make the psychopath or narcissist irresistible to women and helps facilitate a successful reproductive strategy. According to a 2003 report by Elina Haavio-Mannila et al., female mate preferences are described thus: Women are cross culturally on average relatively selective and favour partners with impressive fitness indicators such as social status, strength and bravery. Being rich and famous increases the attractiveness of both sexes, but is more highly valued in men than in women. (Campbell 2002, 103 and 179.) Furthermore, it has been established repeatedly by various scientific investigators, such as David M. Buss and Steven Pinker, that women are attracted to male dominance and power, and because the “dark triad” personality is characterized by fearlessness and a powerful motivation to seek out power and dominance through socio-economic status, women tend to find psychopaths/narcissists to be highly attractive. As I have explained many times before, the preference for dominant males is not equivalent to a preference for psychopaths, but widely overlaps with such a preference only because a certain fraction of socially/physically dominant males will possess “dark triad” personality characteristics Your contention is entirely superfluous to the issue at hand. But if only to put things in perspective, let me ask you a question: a man deceives a woman, makes her fall in love with him, and manages to go out with her; another man tries to attract a woman through honesty, but succeeds only in arousing her disgust. Who is the more successful at attracting women? If the same man manages to deceive a hundred women into falling in love with him, and another man trying to attract women through honesty is rejected a hundred times over, then who is the more successful at attracting women? From both a strictly quantitative and qualitative point of view, it is obvious that the man who has managed to attract hundreds of women is the more successful, regardless of the technique employed, as opposed to the man who has attracted no one. In addition, I find the term “deception” to be a very ambiguous and subjective term of moral condemnation; after all, can one not successfully arouse female attraction through deception as well? Is it not possible that women wish to be deceived on a subconscious level? Is it not possible that the man who attracts large numbers of women has a greater sense of personal charm or gregariousness, characteristics that are central to the pathological expression of the psychopathic/narcissistic personality (as described by Jonason et al.) and therefore has no need of deception? The subject of “deception” raises all sorts of ethical implications that have no place in science, which is concerned with empirical observation and abstract quantitative analysis, not moral inquiry. Therefore, any mention of “deception” is tangential to the subject at hand and lies outside the scope of proper scientific investigation. Unless you can demonstrate, by citing valid studies published in reputable academic journals, that women are not attracted to men who possess “dark triad” personality traits, then nothing you have said has any validity whatsoever and should be immediately disregarded. I have adequately refuted all of your objections, whereas you have only bombarded me with a series of idle questions and presented me with absolutely no evidence to the contrary. Evolutionary psychology has proven beyond a doubt that women are attracted to various indicators of male social dominance. Therefore, it should be common sense that the more dominant a male (depending on whether she prefers male physical or socio-economic dominance), the more likely she will be able to successfully pursue her reproductive strategy. In so much as “dark triad” personalities are overrepresented amongst dominant males, they will always be regarded as highly attractive by the opposite sex.

As I have explained before in previous posts, I am not claiming that *all* women are attracted to "bad boys" or "dark triad" personalities, however, what I am trying to say is that a substantial percentage of women are attracted to dangerous, psychopathic men.

Well, the fact that "dark triad" males have tremendous short-term mating success does demonstrate quite clearly that psychopaths, narcissists, and Machiavellians need only invest a minimal amount of effort in order to attract large volumes of female sex partners, as opposed to the vast majority of hapless males. Moreover, they are living out every adult male's fantasy of having large numbers of readily available women for no-strings' attached sex, so in a sense, the formation of long-term relationships is relatively unimportant in this regard. The fact that so many women are not only deeply attracted to such violent, brutal men, but willing to form intimate sexual relationships with such individuals, does reflect female sexual preference to a high degree, albeit indirectly. It is an established scientific fact that a substantial percentage of women are highly attracted to male aggressiveness and intrasexual competitiveness, or else why would these women freely choose to go out with such men and in such large numbers as well? This is a groundless assumption on your part. Are you saying that most women are stupid? Most women are just as capable of making individual choices and taking responsibility for their actions just like anyone else. Just because you do not prefer who some women choose to go out with does not mean that these women should not be held accountable for their actions. In none of these studies is it ever suggested that "dark triad" men necessarily deceive their partners in order to attract them, but that women are genuinely attracted to "dark triad" personality characteristics. In fact, many of these scholars describe the "dark triad" approach to attracting women as a reproductively viable strategy (after all, who attracts the greatest number of women and enjoys the highest rates of fertility?). Most recent studies, including both primatological and human endocrinological investigations, suggest that higher levels of circulating testosterone correspondingly leads to higher levels of male physical strength and muscular development, aggressiveness, intrasexual competitiveness, and hierarchical dominance, a biochemical fact that is central to the expression of psychopathic/narcissistic behavioural characteristics in human beings. The fact that many women are attracted to high levels of testosterone-related masculinity and that this varies as a function of the ovulatory cycle does suggest a strong psycho-physiological predisposition to be attracted to dominant, even "dark triad" male personalities (who typically have higher levels of testosterone-related masculinity than others). Hence, the study of Penton-Voak and Perrett (2000) is highly relevant to the discussion at hand. However, this study is also very relevant to the discussion at hand because social presence (consisting of such traits as assertiveness and extraversion) and intrasexual competitiveness (such as promiscuity and aggressive mating tactics) are also core features of the psychopathic/narcissistic personality. Many "dark triad" men are not only violent criminals but can also be successful, although remorseless and unscrupulous, psychopaths driven by a ruthless ambition to succeed and crush all those who stand in their way, a trait most women find to be extremely attractive. Actually, all my citations clearly demonstrate that women are attracted to such men. The fact that women routinely avoid "nice guys", even when they are readily available, in order to be with such dangerous "bad boys" only further reinforces the assertion that women have a strong sexual preference for such men because of a primitive, evolutionary drive to be protected by physically dominant, aggressive males. Social dominance, status seeking etc. are not exclusively psychopathic traits, but they do overlap with "dark triad" personality characteristics. In addition, these characteristics are also taken to their extremes when expressed in their psychopathic/narcissistic form. Thus, someone can be ambitious, but a person who is ruthlessly ambitious (a trait positively correlated with psychopathy) will have more access to available females and more mating opportunities. Your final statement is almost certainly incorrect. I don't know how familiar you are with the principles of evolutionary biology, but men are driven to attain positions of social dominance in a hierarchical setting as a means of gaining access to viable mating opportunities. Women evaluate men on the basis of their socio-economic status because of their greater parental investment in reproduction and corresponding need for greater material resources in order to facilitate this. Thus, women do not need to attain positions of social dominance in the same way that men do. On the other hand, because men compete, through social dominance, for sexual access to reproductively available women, traits such as youthfulness and fertility tend to be highly prized in women (because they indicate the capacity to bear children). I strongly suggest reading The Evolution of Desire by the evolutionary psychologist David M. Buss. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedDr. Liane J. Leedom M.D. and Sandra L. Brown M.A. are two researchers who have studied the phenomenon of female attraction to dangerous males on an in-depth level. In their book, Women Who Love Psychopaths (2008), they write about why women are attracted to violent, aggressive men: Interestingly, this is the only major trait that the psychopath’s woman shares with the psychopath—the issue of extraversion and excitement seeking. This is the attraction, the hook-up factor, and the issue upon which their dating relationship was based, the exciting extraverted life they both want to live! If you wondered what the first part of their attraction to each other was: here it is! But there is also more to what attracted her and kept them together. As wonderful as competitiveness is in regular life, her competitiveness however, is a downfall in the relationship with the psychopath. This is because as the relationship begins to become pathologically-driven and his crazy-making increases instead of running for the hills she is likely to stay and battle it out. Women who love psychopaths tested very high in relationship investment and positive sociability. These are the kinds of women psychopaths like to target. The psychopath uses positive rewards to establish his patterns of power, control, and dominance in a woman’s life. If a woman is ending a previous relationship in which she didn’t get much affection, hooking up with a psychopath can feel like she has hit the “Affection Lotto!” At least in the beginning many psychopaths know that to give affection is to increase her sense of attachment, and her corresponding loyalty. Psychopaths see affection as a way of exerting power and dominance over both the relationship and the emotions of their partners These cooperation traits are her drawing card to a psychopath. Her over-flowing empathy, tolerance, friendliness, compassion, supportiveness and her moral principles are what balance the lopsided scales of the relationship with him, since he lacks these qualities. This delicate balance helps to camouflage the glaring gaps of the character traits between them. Her cooperativeness helps to smooth out the character he doesn’t have and makes the relationship seem more normal. We think that very high cooperativeness is the most significant reason these specific women were targeted. Psychopaths instinctively know that women high in cooperativeness will stay in relationships with them longer. Sex also plays a role in helping to facilitate female bonding with aggressive, even violent males. According to Leedom and Brown: Sex kick-starts the premature bonding process. The touching and sexual stimulation seals the love bond. The stimulation of the vagina and cervix during sex causes the release of the hormones prolactin and oxytocin. These hormones travel to the bonding centers of the brain and produce an emotional and hormonal attachment to the man. The importance of these hormones in female attachment is these are the exact hormones produced in pregnancy and nursing. They are responsible for a woman’s ability to bond to babies! The more sex she has with the psychopath, the more these attachment hormones are released, and the more bonded she feels to the psychopath. This isn’t merely the cuddling of love making. This is a biochemical process occurring in her body and brain increasing her sense of attachment…but tragically, to a psychopath! These are the hormones of motherhood attachment. Just like motherly love is unconditional, a sexual bond is also unconditional. She will find out just what it will cost her to have this intense unconditional attachment and love bond to a psychopath. Link: http://www.amazon.com/Women-Love-Psychopaths-Sandra-L-Brown/dp/0977801322

Although psychopaths and other "dark triad" types (narcissists, Machiavellians) constitute a small percentage of the population, I think the amount of damage they cause (in terms of actual violence within interpersonal relationships) is disproportionate to their overall numbers, which is what the above-mentioned study seems to be hinting at. Further confirmation of this trend can be found in other studies, such as in the Identification of the psychopathic batterer: The clinical, legal, and policy implications (2000). In this paper, the researchers Huss and Langinrichsen-Rohling observe: A number of theoretical and empirical sources have proposed that a subgroup of domestically violent men exhibit more antisocial behavior, express more generalized violence, and are generally more resistant to mental health intervention than others. In a parallel literature, researchers have identified a subgroup of violent criminal offenders (i.e., psychopaths) that exhibit a number of similar characteristics to this more antisocial/generally violent group of batterers. Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VH7-402K87Y-4&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=25b1fd5dec5a5e2b40d667aa3d05f3fd Well, I'm not sure if you have been reading the thread, but I did mention a number of "high-brow" studies, published in legitimate academic journals specializing in both the fields of psychology and evolutionary biology, which strongly suggest that "bad boys" or dark triad personalities tend to have much greater success and more frequent relationships with women than other, more average men. In this regard, the peer-reviewed literature appears to be quite substantial. One study I mentioned, The dark triad: Facilitating a short-term mating strategy in men (2008) by Jonason et al., demonstrates that men with dark triad personalities (consisting of such traits as psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism) tend to attract larger numbers of women, enter into more sexual relationships with women, and have much greater short-term mating success than ordinary men. In the abstract, Jonason et al. writes: This survey (N = 224) found that characteristics collectively known as the Dark Triad (i.e. narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism) were correlated with various dimensions of short-term mating but not long-term mating. The link between the Dark Triad and short-term mating was stronger for men than for women. The Dark Triad partially mediated the sex difference in short-term mating behaviour. Findings are consistent with a view that the Dark Triad facilitates an exploitative, short-term mating strategy in men. Possible implications, including that Dark Triad traits represent a bundle of individual differences that promote a reproductively adaptive strategy are discussed. Findings are discussed in the broad context of how an evolutionary approach to personality psychology can enhance our understanding of individual differences. Link: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121517849/abstract Another study, The Big Five related to risky sexual behaviour across 10 world regions: differential personality associations of sexual promiscuity and relationship infidelity (2003) by Schmitt, demonstrates that men who exhibit low levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness, but high levels of extraversion (traits that are positively correlated with psychopathy), tend to be less faithful to their spouses and have larger numbers of sex partners/short-term relationships than regular men. Link: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/109075976/abstract Still, in another study entitled Coercive And Precocious Sexuality As A Fundamental Aspect Of Psychopathy (2007), the researchers Harris et al. assert that not only is sexual promiscuity a central aspect of the psychopathic personality, but that psychopathy is a successful reproductive strategy. In their abstract, Harris et al. write: Sexual behavior is closely associated with delinquency and crime. Although psychopaths, by definition, have many short-term sexual relationships, it has not been shown that sexuality is a core aspect of psychopathy. A Darwinian view of psychopathy led to the hypothesis that psychopaths have a unique sexuality involving early, frequent, and coercive sex. Our subjects were 512 sex offenders assessed on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R). Five variables reflecting early, frequent, and coercive sex loaded on the same principal component in exploratory factor analysis on a subset of the sample, whereas PCL-R items pertaining to adult sexual behavior did not. Confirmatory factor analysis of the remaining subjects yielded a measurement model containing three inter-correlated factors – the traditional two PCL-R factors, and coercive and precocious sexuality. Taxometric analyses gave evidence of a natural discontinuity underlying coercive and precocious sexuality. Coercive and precocious sexuality yielded statistically significant associations with other study variables predicted by the Darwinian hypothesis. The present findings are consistent with prior empirical findings and support the hypothesis that psychopathy has been a nonpathological, reproductively viable, alternate life history strategy. Link: http://www.atypon-link.com/GPI/doi/abs/10.1521/pedi.2007.21.1.1 Other studies suggest that the female attraction to "bad boys" is not only psychological, but possibly endocrinological in origin as well. These studies suggest that female preferences for testosterone-related male facial characteristics fluctuate throughout the menstrual cycle, with women being attracted to more masculine phenotypes around the moment of conception, when female androgen production is at its maximum. According to a report by Penton-Voak and Perrett, Female preference for male faces changes cyclically: Further evidence (2000): Female respondents in the follicular phase of their menstrual cycle (n = 55) were significantly more likely to choose a masculine face than those in menses and luteal phases (n = 84). This study provides further evidence that when conception is most likely, females prefer testosterone-related facial characteristics that may honestly advertise immunocompetence. Link: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1090513899000331 In addition, there is a large body of evidence which demonstrates that women are more attracted biologically to men who are both very dominant and aggressive, as opposed to more passive, regular men. Female sexual preference for certain types of male social behaviour has also been found to fluctuate throughout the menstrual cycle, with women exhibiting a marked preference for displays of male aggression and male-male hierarchical dominance during the moment of ovulation. In the paper, Women's Preferences for Male Behavioral Displays Change Across the Menstrual Cycle (2003), the researchers Gangestad et al. write that: ... As predicted, women's preference for men who displayed social presence and direct intrasexual competitiveness increased on high-fertility days relative to low-fertility days, but only in a short-term, not a long-term, mating context. These findings add to the growing literature indicating that women's mate preferences systematically vary across the reproductive cycle. Link: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120705560/abstract Based on the available peer-reviewed literature, it seems that there is a considerable amount of scientific evidence which seems to suggest that a substantial percentage of women are very attracted to aggressive, even brutally violent men ("bad boys").

Are you actually reading what I'm writing? I never said that most women are victims of domestic violence, but I did say that much domestic violence is perpetrated by males with dark triad personalities. Please, have the common courtesy to read what I am typing. In the study, Sex, Lies, and More Lies: Exploring the Intimate Relationships of Subclinical Psychopaths (2005), Williams et al. suggest that: The link between psychopathy and relationship violence may be gleaned from research involving batterers. Although scholars vary with respect to the labeling of batterer subgroups,there is fair consistency in the personality traits, pathology, and battering patterns that define these subgroups (see Dutton 1998; Tweed & Dutton, 1998; Huss & Langhinrichsen-Rohling, 2000, forreviews). One of these subgroups is known as the generally violent/antisocial. In light of the striking similarities between the generally violent/antisocial batterers and men with psychopathic personality disorder (Spidel et al., in press), it may be that psychopathy is a prime candidate as a correlate of relationship problems. Link: http://66.102.1.104/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:4PuF9NVqa3AJ:www.psych.ubc.ca/~dellab/RESEARCH/Dark%2520Triad/SSSP%2520poster%2520KW%2520email.pdf+dark+triad+violence+relationships I can present more evidence if you like... Try reading The Manipulative Man: Identify His Behavior, Counter the Abuse, Regain Control by Dorothy McCoy or Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft. Another study of interest would be Who is James Bond?: Assessing the nature of the Dark Triad (2008), by Jonason and Li (I'm not sure if this study has been published). As I said before, there is a considerable amount of scientific evidence suggesting that many women are attracted to violent criminals and dangerous psychopaths. See above. Well, women in general tend to be attracted to either violent, aggressive men or men of high socio-economic status. Concerning some of the famous bad boys I mentioned earlier, Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez were men of low socio-economic status, but they happened to be pursued by hundreds of young and eager female groupies. Look at this site about women who love murderers: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/363800/little_girls_lost_love_letters_to_murderers.html?cat=47

I don't know if you have been reading the thread so far, but I did mention a number of peer-reviewed studies, such as The dark triad: Facilitating a short-term mating strategy in men by Jonason et al. (2008). This study is available for perusal here: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121517849/abstract Another study of interest would be The Big Five related to risky sexual behaviour across 10 world regions: differential personality associations of sexual promiscuity and relationship infidelity (2004), by Schmitt, a professor at Bradley University. This paper suggests that both sexual infidelity and promiscuity are highly associated with traits such as low agreeableness, low conscientiousness, and high levels of extraversion, traits that correlate positively with narcissistic and psychopathic personalities. The link to this study is: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/109075976/abstract This site also has some interesting things to say about women who love violent men: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/why-women-really-do-love-selfobsessed-psychopaths-850007.html First, I never said, neither did I wish to imply, that *all* women are attracted to violent criminals and dangerous psychopaths, however what I did say was that a significant percentage of women are attracted to these kinds of men. I mean, how else do you explain (atleast partially) the high rates of wife battering and domestic violence so prevalent in relationships these days? In addition, I am supported by a large amount of scientific evidence which suggests that (a sizable percentage of) women are attracted to the dark triad personalities of dominant males. True, but these bad boys were attracting women by the boat load long before they became famous.

Actually, that's not true. There is a considerable amount of scientific evidence which suggests that women are very attracted to violent, aggressive men. Perhaps you should read Women Who Love Psychopaths by Sandra L. Brown and Lianne J. Leedom or How To Spot A Dangerous Man Before You Get Involved by Sandra L. Brown, who write about the many women who actively pursue violent criminals and dangerous psychopaths. In addition, all of the famous bad boys, unless they were utter misogynists or completely psychotic, like Al Capone, George Jones, Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, Pablo Escobar, John Gotti and all the rest, were virtual "chick magnets". This is a well-known and well-documented fact. Even some of the biggest, most violent gangs in the world, such as the Crips or the Hells' Angels, attract their hordes of female followers. Come on, it should be obvious that a significant percentage of women are attracted to bad boys or "dark triad" personalities. However, as I explained many times before, many women are also attracted to socio-economic status and male-male hierarchical dominance as well, not only or even exclusively bad boys. Well, one thing that "bad boys" have and "nice guys" don't are nerves of steel and tremendous confidence, traits that are symptomatic of both narcissistic and psychopathic personalities. After all, it's because of this that many women enjoy having an extra piece of muscle on the side.

I agree, and I am very sorry if I gave out the very misleading impression that all women are a certain way. Although sweeping generalizations are certainly invalid, statistical generalizations based on the available, peer-reviewed scientific literature aren't; in other words, what I meant to say was that a significant percentage of women are highly attracted to "dark triad" personality traits in males, as overwhelmingly corroborated by modern research. However, I also realize that a substantial percentage of women can also be attracted to other things, such as socio-economic status and male-male hierarchical dominance, which has also been demonstrated by evolutionary biologists. My point is that, whether a woman is attracted to socio-economic status or vulgar displays of natural aggression and athletic prowess, they are all various tendencies which ultimately constitute the female reproductive strategy. Can we agree and just shake hands now?

Machiavellianism is not only a political philosophy, but a personality trait as well. Modern psychologists have formulated this concept as an individual willingness to use deceit, manipulation, and exploitation to get what one wants for purely selfish reasons. According to Dr. Paulhus et al.: Although the personality constructs of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy had different origins, there are striking similarities. To varying degrees, all three entail a dark, socially destructive character with behavior tendencies such as grandiosity, emotional coldness, manipulation and aggressiveness. In the clinical literature, the link between narcissism and psychopathy has been noted for some time (for a review, see Hart & Hare, 1998). The recent development of non-clinical measures of narcissism (Raskin & Hall, 1979) and psychopathy (Forth et al., 1998) has permitted direct comparison of the three dark traits in normal populations. For example, there is now empirical evidence that, in non-clinical populations, Machiavellianism and psychopathy may coincide (McHoskey et al., 1998). Similarly, there is evidence that narcissism and psychopathy overlap (Gustafson & Ritzer, 1995). The "Dark Triad" is a legitimate scientific construct employed by modern social psychologists and women are highly attracted to it when found in the personalities of dominant alpha males. This is a scientific fact corroborated by a tremendous amount of evidence and cannot be avoided. For further information, the study of Paulhus et al., Shedding Light on the Dark Triad of Personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy (2001), should be consulted at: http://www.psych.ubc.ca/~dellab/RESEARCH/DarkTriad/sheddinglight-spsp01poster.pdf

Actually, there seems to be a considerable amount of scientific evidence that suggests that most women, a sizable majority perhaps, prefer violent criminals, dangerous psychopaths, and even brutal mass murderers for mates. Researchers such as P.K. Jonason of the University of New Mexico and David Schmitt of Bradley University have repeatedly demonstrated that men who have a so-called "Dark Triad" personality (consisting of such delightful traits as psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism) tend to attract the largest number of female partners and have little or no difficulty establishing romantic relationships. See links for further information: Dr. Jonason et al. has written The Dark Triad: Facilitating short-term mating in men for the European Journal of Personality (I believe it is still in press) http://web.nmsu.edu/~pjonason/dtstmnewscientist.pdf http://abcnews.go.com/health/Story?id=5197531&page=1

Why Are Women Attracted To Violent Criminals And Psychopaths? I once e-mailed this question to Steven Pinker, a famous Harvard professor and evolutionary biologist: I have some questions to ask you that have perplexed me for some time. Many people seem to think that besides financially well-off men, women are deeply attracted to both thugs and gangsters. It seems that the conventional wisdom is that women are attracted to "assholes", but despise so-called "nice guys". Why is it that women seem to be so attracted to aggressive bullies, violent criminals, dangerous psychopaths, mass murderers, and drug-crazed gang-bangers? The fact that women are attracted to violent criminals and dangerous psychopaths is a fact that cannot be denied. As a matter of fact, some of the world's most dangerous criminals, such as Al Capone, Pablo Escobar or Ted Bundy, always seemed to attract the most beautiful women. Even some of the biggest, most violent and bloodthirsty gangs in the contemporary world, such as La Mara Salvatrucha in El Salvador or the L.A.-based Bloods in the U.S., seem to attract hordes of female admirers known as "honey traps". Many mass murderers sitting in jail cells all around the world are constantly inundated with letters from women declaring love at first sight and proposing marriage. Even if these thugs and gangsters have nothing else to offer, especially in terms of money or other resources, many women still seem drawn to these men like flies on shit. If women are supposedly attracted to men of the highest genetic quality, then why are so many women attracted to men of obviously low genetic quality like dangerous criminals and violent psychopaths? It seems that women are not designed to select men on the basis of any kind of genetic superiority whatsoever, but to evaluate a man solely on his ability to provide or his abiltiy to protect due to the phenomenon of greater female parental investment. Or is it the other way around? Is it possible that women are designed to select men on the basis of genetic fitness, but whether they do so effectively or not is an entirely different matter altogether? Is there a possible sociobiological explanation that can account for why so many women find violent criminals attractive? Are women attracted to such men because they crave a level of excitement that a nice guy cannot provide them with? Does female sexual interest in violent male aggression reflect a primitive attraction to physical strength and high levels of testosterone, factors that were key to successfully raising children within an ancestral environment? Is it possible that much of the birth rate amongst the lower classes is due to the fact that women are attracted to violent criminals? Given the propensity that women have for being attracted to dangerous men, is it possible that such men are more fertile than men who are economically well-off? It seems that violent criminals have more success with women than either men who are financially well-off or relatively impoverished. I have heard it said that female reproductive choice often leads to dysgenic effects (negative genetic consequences) as far as the population is concerned. Is the dramatic increase in single-parent families a reflection of the dysgenic nature of female reproductive choice? Are rates of domestic violence and marital rape a consequence of the female attraction to dangerous, violent men? Professor Pinker, our celebrated author of the Blank Slate, replied to my question, via personal communication, with the following: I’m not an expert in the phenomena, but here are some relevant considerations. From an evolutionary perspective, female mate choice should be affected both by a desire for good genes (where “good” means “likely to reproduce”) as well as paternal investment in the woman’s children. These need not coincide; hence some women have affairs with the strongest, smartest, best-looking man available, while being married to the nicest and most reliable man available. There is some evidence that women are more attracted to hypermasculine men when they are ovulating (when good genes are paramount) and to nice guys when they are not. There is also evidence that less desirable women are less choosy in terms of the willingness and ability of a man to provide for her and her children, and hence at least in relative terms more attracted to dashing qualities than to stable ones. Note too that the most desirable man of all, in many woman’s eyes, is “tough-tender” – nice to her, aggressive with everyone else. Toughness can be attractive for several reasons. One is that it can reflect overall genetic quality – health, smarts, strength (this would be especially true in ancestral contexts where the land and money and power went to the best warriror, not to the smartest lawyer). Another is that it can protect the woman and her children against rapists, abductors, and so on. Probably most relevant is that he promises to give her tough sons. A woman’s son has to compete against other women’s sons, and if he is beaten up or publicly humiliated or cuckolded or killed, he will have less of a chance to reproduce. Of course all these have to be traded off against how good he is to her and her kids, but as mentioned, I predict that most women would prefer tough-to-others-nice-to-her than tough-to-everyone, though some may have to settle for the latter as a second choice. So, what do you guys think? Is it true that most women find bad boys, such as violent criminals, to be very attractive? Tell me what you think.

Science teaches us that race does not exist There are no genes for race Numerous epistemological difficulties beset the formulation of a systematic taxonomic classification based on human differences. The nonexistence of universal racial essences, or their corresponding nominalist analogues, upon which conventional typological definitions of race are mapped poses a significant challenge to this gargantuan task. Even the usage of racialized labels are subject to numerous ideological constraints, such as the lack of sufficiently contingent, even homogeneous conditions by which they can be both consistently and thoroughly applied. However, the enormous philosophical problems that beset the epistemological substructure upon which the concept of biological race is founded, are dwarfed by a substantial body of scientific evidence which explicitly denies the existence of racial essences on a genetic level. Thus, no specific causal gene for race has ever been uncovered; no sophisticated gene-gene interactions have ever been implicated in the elaboration of ethno-racial differences amongst human beings. Hence, there is no direct connection between genetic substructure and the specifically racialized morphology of folk taxonomy. For example, in classical typological definitions of biological race, Australians, Tasmanians, and Melanesians are phenotypically Africoid; unfortunately, the genetic distance between these South Pacific populations and the classical “Negro” morphologies of sub-Saharan Africa is much greater than whatever gulf exists between Australians/Tasmanians/Melanesians and northeast Asians. In other words, not only is there no genetic substructure that can be identified as being specifically racial, but there is no structural isomorphism that characterizes the relationship between genomic DNA and human phenotypic variance. In order to fully comprehend the implications of what is being said, let us contrast ethno-racial designation with sexual dimorphism amongst human beings. Unlike conventional ethno-racial designations, being male or female is largely determined by the presence of XY and XX chromosomes. Although whatever genomic boundary that exists between the sexes is disrupted by the presence of intersexuality, the genotypic information contained within both pairs of sex chromosomes are reliably correlated with both secondary and tertiary sex characteristics, regardless of the gender in which they are manifested. From a general nomological perspective, a statistical generalization constructed on the presence or absence of XX possesses greater predictive value than atomic propositions about the genotypic or phenotypic basis of either secondary or tertiary sex characters. Even the aetiology of a condition such as hermaphroditism can be traced back to chromosomal dysmorphologies, such as XXX, XXY, or XYY, or to certain individual-level endocrinological disorders, such as the lack of gonadal androgen synthesis during embryological development, which can be traced back to various genes on either XX or XY chromosomes. Genes may be responsible for a human morphological structure which can be conceptually associated with certain features of biological race, such as cranio-facial features or hair texture. However, it must be remembered that there are no chromosomal markers that code for being “black” or “white”; neither are there genes that pre-determine ethno-racial identity. When it comes to the modern conceptualization of race, there is no ethno-racial equivalent of our XX and XY chromosomes that determine sex, neither is there any ethno-racial analogue for the various combinations of X and Y that form the aetiological basis for congenital hermaphroditism, as in the case of ethno-racial intermixture. Although genes for certain aspects of gross human morphology may exist, the lack of any identifiable genetic substructure means that there is no connection between genes and any of the traditional morphological features associated with the standard typological definitions of race. Hence, the biological basis of sexual dimorphism is much stronger than whatever exists for race. The ground work upon which sexual identification rests are both objective and scientifically real, whereas no such proposition could be stated in favour of the doctrine of race. Based on this, it seems more likely that race is a social construction that is super-imposed from without over the processes of biological differentiation amongst human beings. There may be genes for certain morphological features traditionally deemed racial, but there are no specifically “racial” genes. Moreover, the fact that there is no identifiable allele that corresponds to our modern conceptualization of “race” strongly suggests that we are dealing with an arbitrary form of social categorization which consists of a highly diverse and variable membership. This tremendous variability and biodiversity within the concept of race, with genetically dissimilar individuals belonging to the same taxonomic category, makes ascribing a definite biological basis to race scientifically implausible. In fact, the elaboration of human phenotypic variance is so complex, that it is almost impossible to separate environmental-genotypic interactions from purely genetic variables by mathematically partitioning them into exact percentages. The notion that there exists within nature a one-to-one correspondence between the gene itself and the phenotypic trait (“a gene for race”) is an ideological assertion that finds its origins in those pseudo-scientific, eugenic speculations that immediately surrounded the work of Gregor Mendel at the turn of the twentieth century. From the standpoint of classical Mendelian genetics, the enormous variation present throughout nature means that genes that code for universal, highly differentiated population-based traits are non-existent. Instead, genes are represented as factors that determine the expression of individual phenotypic differences through successive cross-fertilizations, such as the intergenerational transmission of specific pathologies. These traits are expressed on an individual phenotypic level, depending on the levels of dominance or recessiveness involved. Because the supposedly “ethno-racial” phenotype as such possesses no genetic basis whatsoever, it is never expressed in terms of allelic dominance or recessiveness (appearing amongst some descendents, but not others) clearly demonstrating that it functions as a social construct on all levels of conceptual analysis. In fact, all genomic/phenotypic characteristics are geographically dispersed amongst world populations. All gene frequencies that are highly correlated with trait expression, such as cranio-facial features and melanin pigmentation (which seems to be correlated with melanocotin 1 receptor genes), are present within all populations, suggesting a level of both genetic and physiological continuity that gravely undermines any system of ethno-racial classification. To sum up, this is why the modern social construct of race is one of the greatest biological fictions of all time. The study of Barbujani and Belle (2006) contradicts the findings of Rosenberg et al. (2002, 2005): race is a social construct without objective basis in perceptual biological reality There are no putative genomic boundaries that divide human populations unambiguously into genetically distinguishable, geographically defined, and discrete biological categories. In this sense the concept of subspecies is an entirely mythological construct without foundation in objective reality. All forms of phenotypic variance, representing all gene frequencies and genomic configurations, are universally present within all populations. To say that any race, without being clearly delineated by identifiable differentia, can exist along a continuum without being wholly indistinguishable from the continuum itself is positively absurd. Thus, classical typological definitions of subspecies quickly break down as a legitimate means of systematizing empirical data, because there are no differentia unique to any subspecies that can reliably facilitate its structural differentiation from other subspecies. Standard phylogeographic criteria dictates that in order for one subspecies to be distinguished from another, one must possess a series of differentia that are unique only to that subspecies, and no other. However, given the continuous distribution of human phenotypic/genotypic variation, heavily modulated by the presence of randomly distributed and linear clinal gradients, all traits are found in varying degrees of frequency within all populations. Because geographic dispersion of allele frequencies transcend conventional typological-populational definitions of subspecies, it is virtually impossible to classify the human species into subspecies categories. Ethno-racial differentiation is dependent on the existence of unique characteristics that can be assigned to one group and no other, meaning that in order for “raciation” to take place there must be some discontinuity in terms of the distribution of human trait variance. However, because of the continuity of human biodiversity, such ethno-racial differentiation is rendered impossible. According to a study conducted by Barbujani and Belle (2006), the existence of patterns of genetic continuity on a universal level gravely undermine any attempt at differentiating the human species along ethno-racial lines. Although the researchers observe a certain degree of clustering within the data set, these clusters tend to show a considerable amount of variation in terms of overall structural composition, and are certainly very different from those initially observed by Rosenberg et al (2002, 2005). In order for the research of Rosenberg et al to have any validity, his exact results should be easily replicated, regardless of the scientific methodological approach employed. The main contention of Barbujani and Belle is that human biodiversity cannot be partitioned into gene clusters because regardless of which experimental methodological approach is employed, those clusters and the individual genotypes they group will vary from data set to data set. In other words, k-means Bayesian clustering around the various loci of geographical ancestry can only be validated if it can be replicated using other analytical/statistical techniques. Although, the authors of the study did manage to produce discrete clusters, they varied in number and structural configuration each time the data was falsified, demonstrating that the 2002 and 2005 study of Rosenberg et al cannot be accurately replicated and is therefore, scientifically obsolete. This means that biological distinctions between human populations do not permit the classification of individuals into discrete clusters because of constantly shifting boundaries which depend on which methodological approach is being used and what implicit assumptions are worked with. Barbujani and Belle write: An analysis of 377 microsatellites of the CEPH human diversity panel was interpreted as evidence that most genotypes cluster into one of five distinct groups, approximately corresponding to continents, which were proposed by some authors as the major biological subdivisions of humankind. Here we analyse the same dataset by a specific numerical method, designed to detect genomic boundaries, i.e. zones of increased change in maps of genomic variation. We show that statistically significant boundaries can be described between groups of populations, but different clusters are identified, depending on the assumptions of the model. In addition, these clusters do not correspond to the clusters inferred from previous analyses of the same or of other polymorphisms. We conclude that it is indeed possible to cluster genotypes according to geography, but no study so far identified unambiguously anything that can be regarded as a major genetic subdivision of humankind, and hence discontinuous models of human diversity are unsupported by data. Although some individuals claim that the Bayesian clustering of genetic data corresponds to conventional typological definitions of subspecies, it must be realized that this position can only be given credence by grossly distorting the available evidence. All major researchers who have familiarized themselves with the HGDP-CEPH Human Genome Diversity Panel are of the unanimous position that gene cluster formation is heavily dependent on the kind of software and statistical techniques used to analyze autosomal microsatellites and other polymorphisms. This means that there is virtually no correspondence between the gene clusters and the amorphous reality of human biogeographical ancestry. Those studies that have found a loose correlation between continental ancestry and the formation of discrete, STRUCTURE-mediated clusters within human genomic data, because of differing statistical methodologies and paradigmatic frameworks, do not conflate k-means clustering with ethno-racial differentiation. To assume, as numerous racialist authors have repeatedly done, that k clusters are adequate proxies for race is a gross distortion of the available evidence. In the initial 2002 paper of Rosenberg et al, it was admitted that individual genotypes reflect the clinal nature of human phenotypic variance. They write: In several populations, individuals had partial membership in multiple clusters, with similar membership coefficients for most individuals. These populations might reflect continuous gradations across regions or admixture of neighbouring groups. Rosenberg et al. (2005) have repeatedly asserted that, because of the clinal distribution of allele frequencies along linear gradients and across geographical space, the concept of biological race is a tangential issue that is statistically independent of their research: Our evidence for clustering should not be taken as evidence of our support of any particular concept of ‘‘biological race.’’ In general, representations of human genetic diversity are evaluated based on their ability to facilitate further research into such topics as human evolutionary history and the identification of medically important genotypes that vary in frequency across populations. Both clines and clusters are among the constructs that meet this standard of usefulness: for example, clines of allele frequency variation have proven important for inference about the genetic history of Europe, and clusters have been shown to be valuable for avoidance of the false positive associations that result from population structure in genetic association studies. The arguments about the existence or nonexistence of ‘‘biological races’’ in the absence of a specific context are largely orthogonal to the question of scientific utility, and they should not obscure the fact that, ultimately, the primary goals for studies of genetic variation in humans are to make inferences about human evolutionary history, human biology, and the genetic causes of disease. Consistent with the research of Barbujani and Belle, using alternative technical equipment and statistical methodologies to analyze human genomic data helps produce relatively ambiguous gene clusters characterized by highly unstable boundaries, constantly shifting in structural composition from one data set to the next. This demonstrates the sheer impossibility of classifying human beings into discrete clusters. The fact that human genetic variation is continuous has tremendous ramifications for how we as a species view ourselves. It would ultimately mean that all systems of ethno-racial classification are arbitrary, primarily socio-cultural in origin, and do not map onto human genotypic/phenotypic variance. Notwithstanding the fact that, in the opinion of Rosenberg et al (2005), clusters cannot be confused with biological definitions of race, Barbujani and Belle dispute the results of both studies conducted by Rosenberg et al in 2002 and 2005. They have repeatedly emphasized that the STRUCTURE program employed by Rosenberg et al was seriously plagued by numerous methodological short-comings and limitations, easily overcome by Barrier version 2.2 and Arlequin version 2.0 software. In their 2006 paper, Barbujani and Belle write: In fact, interpretation of these results is not straightforward. Structure estimates the likely genetic contributions of k parental populations to the current populations, but does not take geography into consideration, provides no information about the existence of boundaries of increased genetic change between populations, nor does it test for their statistical significance. Through the Barrier version 2.2 software, researchers Barbujani and Belle assigned 377 autosomal microsatellite markers to corresponding population co-ordinates on a map. A Delauney triangulation was super-imposed over the co-ordinates in order to facilitate the statistical evaluation of the rate of genetic change between neighbouring and peripheral populations. Using the program Arlequin version 2.0, mean values quantifying both between-population genetic diversity (FST) and genetic differentiation between population-based allele frequencies on a molecular level (RST) were calculated. Through Monmonier’s maximum-difference algorithm, 10 putative genomic boundaries were identified in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. A number of randomization trials were used to evaluate the data in order to determine whether the populations allocated within these boundaries would be more homogeneous in genetic makeup than a series of randomly distributed populations. This was done using the program Analysis of Molecular Covariance (AMOVA) and MsatBootstrap software. Using AMOVA to analyze the data, it was found that the percentage of RST/FST variance across 7 out of ten genomic boundaries was much greater than that produced by randomly allocating individual genotypes within the putative genomic boundaries. For the MsatBootstrap software, values for all genomic boundaries, except the one in tenth ranking, exceeded 70%. The results obtained by Barbujani and Belle are stunning, and in sharp contradistinction to those results produced by previous investigators. The clusters observed within the data set were very different in structural composition from those produced in the study conducted by Rosenberg et al in 2002 and 2005. Rosenberg et al had produced genetic clusters that roughly corresponded to 6 geographic regions, being that of Africa, Eurasia, East Asia, Oceania, and the Americas, whereas in the study of Barbujani and Belle, 9 major clusters were uncovered, with 4 of them located in the Americas and another 3 found in sub-Saharan Africa. One cluster stretched from the east African coast to Mexico. Employing another model based on the estimation of RST variance, a total of 8 clusters were obtained. Belle and Barbujani write: However, the main difference with respect to the previous model is not the number of clusters, but their scope. All populations from Subsaharan Africa form a single group, when analysed by RST. Western Eurasia is separated from East-Central Asia and Papua New Guinea by boundary 7 that closes on itself around the Kalash from Pakistan, thus defining a one-population cluster. These results strongly confirm those uncovered by other groups of researchers, most notably Serre and Paabo (2004) and Ramachandran et al (2005), which strongly contradict, if not refute the initial study of Rosenberg et al (2002). Serre and Paabo used a different methodological approach, employing both a homogeneous sampling strategy and a model based on implicit assumptions about the noncorrelated distribution of allele frequencies on a global level. Their research clearly demonstrated the superiority of geography-based sampling of individual genotypes through the analysis of microsatellite loci, as opposed to the population-based sampling techniques used by Rosenberg et al. It was found that human diversity was continuous and distributed across gradients of noncorrelated allele frequencies, rather than being organized into discrete, homogeneous clusters. Populations blend imperceptibly into other populations and the geographical allocation of human phenotypic variance assumes an infinite variety of forms; phenotypes coexist with other, more variable phenotypes, regardless of so-called biogeographical ancestry. Serre and Paabo’s momentous discovery has ultimately lead researchers to the conclusion that human biodiversity is best explained by worldwide patterns of admixture across a global distribution of clines, not genetically distinguishable continental groups. Moreover, Ramachandran et al, in a 2005 study, found that genetic differentiation between geographically distributed populations steadily increased as a function of genetic distance, suggesting the absence of genomic boundaries and the clinal variation of human phenotypic variance. As indicated by Ramachandran et al: Equilibrium models of isolation by distance predict an increase in genetic differentiation with geographic distance. Here we find a linear relationship between genetic and geographic distance in a worldwide sample of human populations, with major deviations from the fitted line explicable by admixture or extreme isolation. A close relationship is shown to exist between the correlation of geographic distance and genetic differentiation (as measured by FST) and the geographic pattern of heterozygosity across populations. Considering a worldwide set of geographic locations as possible sources of the human expansion, we find that heterozygosities in the globally distributed populations of the data set are best explained by an expansion originating in Africa and that no geographic origin outside of Africa accounts as well for the observed patterns of genetic diversity. Although the relationship between FST and geographic distance has been interpreted in the past as the result of an equilibrium model of drift and dispersal, simulation shows that the geographic pattern of heterozygosities in this data set is consistent with a model of a serial founder effect starting at a single origin. Given this serial-founder scenario, the relationship between genetic and geographic distance allows us to derive bounds for the effects of drift and natural selection on human genetic variation. In addition, Ramachandran et al provided tremendous evidence that human beings come from a single common ancestor, indicating the primordial existence of a Y-chromosomal Adam or a mitochondrial Eve. Through multiple regression analysis of expected population heterozygosities based on estimations of genetic distance, the initial expansion of human beings was traced to a serial founder effect originating in the heart of Africa. It was found that as the genetic distance from Africa was increased, the percentage of variance in heterozygosity (R2) explained by multiple regression analysis decreased. However, as the genetic distance from South America was increased, the regression coefficient increased correspondingly, suggesting that all mankind is descended from a single lineage located in the heart of Africa. In the words of scholar A.R. Templeton: The pattern of overall genetic differences instead tells us that genetic lineages rapidly spread out to all of humanity, indicating that human populations have always had a degree of genetic contact with one another, and thus historically don't show any distinct evolutionary lineages within humanity. Rather, all of humanity is a single long-term evolutionary lineage. All men are of one lineage and one blood The above diagrammatic representation is an individual and population ancestry dendrogram (A) and maximum likelihood tree (B) taken from the study of Jun Li et al (2008). It is based on the genetic analysis of the single nucleotide polymorphism loci of 938 individuals from 51 different populations. The fact that the individual ancestries actually cluster around regions of continental origin is one means by which discrete clusters are produced. However, depending on the implicit assumptions inherent within the model used or the methodological approach involved, either no discrete clusters are formed (Serre and Paabo, 2004) or multiple clusters are formed around alternative biogeographical loci (Barbujani and Belle, 2006). Looking at the dendrogram, one can see that the colour-coded individual ancestries of the 938 individuals examined frequently exceed, even transcend the vertical barriers used to denote individual populations, vividly illustrating the fact that allele frequencies are both continuously and randomly distributed along a clinal gradient. Instead, a wide range of both phenotypes and genotypes, ranging from the very “Negrid” to the very “Europid” and originating from all regions of the globe, coexist within a single genomic boundary. Nevertheless, this provides absolutely no support for the belief that human beings can be ethno-racially categorized. The ancestries of Middle Eastern and Central Asian populations are so heavily compromised by a plethora of “racial” identities as to be virtually impossible to classify with any degree of exactitude, severely undermining conventional typological definitions of biological race. Even the relative homogeneity of African, East Asian, and European populations rests upon a seemingly deceptive illusion, because even these can be broken down into numerous genetic clusters (representing tribal, even family units) that have greater genetic distances between each other than the population ancestries used to subdivide the dendrogram. Concerning the maximum likelihood tree diagram, the researchers Li et al state: The sub-Saharan African populations are located nearest to the root of the tree (Fig. 1B), outward from which are branches that correspond, sequentially, to populations from North Africa, the Middle East, Europe, South/Central Asia, Oceania, America, and East Asia. This population tree shows not only major splits between different continents but also sublineages within continents consistent with the ancestry analysis shown above as well as with results from microsatellite markers. The branching pattern largely agrees with the approximate order of human expansion and supports the “out of Africa” model of human origin. Incidentally enough, this study also provides considerable evidentiary support for the single lineage hypothesis of human origins. Based on the data provided by Li et al, not only is the “Negrid” phenotype/genotype the ancestral phenotype/genotype from which all others are systematically derived, but all human beings spring from a single common ancestor in sub-Saharan Africa. Given the tremendous amount of recent, converging lines of scientific evidence on this point, what more powerful confirmation of the single lineage hypothesis does one need, other than this? Hence, the final conclusion is undeniable: all men are of one blood and one lineage.

Point taken. However, my initial argument has been that the original purpose of psychometric testing had been distorted long before the rise of the Third Reich, when a number of psychometricians, in the early years of the twentieth century, began correlating intelligence tests with the concept of g. They interpreted the test scores as being objective measures of native intelligence, which was something that the original test designer, Alfred Binet, had not intended. You haven't read up on the history of IQ testing, have you? Not true. I have already defined a racist as someone who advocates the ethno-racial superiority of one group over another. I accused you of arrogance only because you began boasting about your "superior level of intelligence". I acknowledge the existence of human biodiversity that is continuously distributed along a clinal gradient. However, the concept of "race", as it has been traditionally defined, is the belief that human beings can be classified into biologically discrete, geographically defined taxonomic categories. As such, I don't think there is sufficient evidence that supports this conventional view of "race". Although "race" is not a biological reality, it most certainly is a socio-cultural reality. Because of previous injustice and discrimination, I think we should recognize differences between "races" as socially constructed categories, however we must realize that these differences are socio-cultural/environmental in origin, not genetic. Well, I'm glad to see that you have adopted a much more sympathetic approach to both the sufferings and achievements of mankind. I was simply providing further clarification, and not obfuscation, of the issues at hand. Is this not what you asked me for? The only thing I did was provide an abundance of scientific evidence to ponder, nothing more. To say that I used strawman arguments or emotional rhetoric in my discussion of the nature of intelligence testing is a gross exaggeration; everything I had to say, I presented in a logical, internally self-consistent fashion, as should be clear from the thread itself. Perhaps we shall meet again under more favourable circumstances...

I suspect that my arguments are only "logically empty", "straw man" arguments because you have not been able to refute them with a single shred of credible evidence. Your accusation that I refute arguments by calling others "racist" or "crypto-Nazi" is both libellous and absolutely without foundation. I have always presented a substantial amount of scientific research defending my position, something you have repeatedly failed to do. I have openly referred to Thomas Bouchard as a neo-Nazi because of his strong ties to the Pioneer Fund, a white supremacist organization dedicated to uncovering scientific evidence in support of white racial superiority. Thomas Bouchard has made numerous statements in support of white racial superiority in the past, as well as having intimate connections with prominent neo-Nazis and white supremacists, such as Linda Gottfredson, Richard Lynn, and Arthur Jensen. Moreover, the reason why Thomas Bouchard receives massive funding from the Pioneer Fund is because his research was designed to provide scientific justification for the racist, white supremacist ideology upheld by the current president of the Pioneer Fund, J.P. "penis size equals brain size" Rushton. To compare Wernher Von Braun with Thomas Bouchard is utterly ridiculous. Von Braun had renounced his Nazi beliefs after his surrender to the Americans during WWII. After the war, he managed to publicly denounce Hitler for his crimes. Von Braun never advocated white racial superiority, neither did he conduct research with the express intention of providing a scientific basis for the doctrine of white supremacy. On the other hand, Thomas Bouchard is a public racist who not only associates with white supremacists, but whose research serves one purpose and one purpose only: providing scientific justification for the ideology of white racial superiority as advocated by the Pioneer Fund. The above paragraph is nothing but incomprehensible gibberish. As I have explained before, I have provided a tremendous amount of scientific data supporting my position, whereas you have provided virtually nothing substantiating anything you have had to say. My argument has remained the same throughout. The original tests produced by Alfred Binet were not designed to measure intelligence. Although the test developed by Binet is the precursor of the modern IQ test, the concept of IQ as an objective measure of intelligence was actually ideologically formulated by men such as Charles Spearman and Lewis Terman in the early half of the twentieth century. Ah, yes! My thread should be moved to the pseudoscience forum because it directly refutes some of your most cherished beliefs about human nature. How delightfully fascist of you! Despite your insistence to the contrary, you have not provided a single shred of credible evidence demonstrating that there is a "high degree of heritability involved in intelligence". You do realize this, don't you? David G. Myers is a social scientist who has embraced a number of views advocated by the controversial school of evolutionary psychology. "Evopsych" is a relatively new discipline that specializes in providing a biological determinist approach, using simplistic evolutionary "just so" stories, in its explanation of the complexities of human social behaviour. It should come as no surprise that Myers would interpret certain aspects of the psychological sciences through a genetic determinist, neo-Social Darwinist lens, a perspective that is vigorously contested by the majority of modern psychologists. However, it should be pointed out that Myers also acknowledges environmental explanations of human social behaviour as well. Because causal genes/multi-allelic systems that code for specific heritable traits have not been isolated, let alone discovered, most studies that provide heritability estimates are based on speculation and untestable hypothesis. The difficulty in locating such genetic mechanisms simply demonstrates the enormous complexity of gene-gene interactions in the physiological development of human phenotypic variance. This means that human trait distribution cannot be fully comprehended from a purely reductionistic point of view. In addition, estimates of heritability, especially given the fact that genotype-environment interactions cannot be minimized, are really pointless exercises in numerology, and certainly not warranted by the fragmentary evidence provided by quantitative genetic analysis. I have defended my arguments with verifiable scientific research, whereas you have defended yourself using ad hominem arguments and pejorative comments. You have stated that I have accused you of being a neo-Nazi; this is an egregious lie that cannot be proven. As I said before, the fact that you have gone out of your way to defend the pseudo-scientific research of white supremacists such as Thomas Bouchard reflects very negatively on what kind of person you are. I have treated you with nothing but respect and decency, yet you turn around and insult me for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Unable to defend your own position by using logical argument and scientific evidence, you resort to juvenile name-calling instead. As the above quotation clearly demonstrates, you are the only person on this thread who has resorted to emotion and ad hominem rhetoric as a means of rebuttal. Your ignorance of the history of IQ testing is truly astounding. As a matter of fact, intelligence tests were used extensively in Nazi Germany as a means of determining who was and wasn't mentally retarded. Those who were deemed mentally retarded were then confined to psychiatric hospitals and eventually shipped to extermination camps. Actually, in America and Great Britain, minority children are frequently misdiagnosed as mentally retarded or learning disabled through standardized intelligence testing. In fact, it has become a notorious fact of daily life that minority children, who are otherwise normal in terms of intellectual and emotional development, are overrepresented in special education classes. It was only through the research of JR Mercer (1971) that people finally began to realize that minority children in the USA were being misdiagnosed/mislabeled as mentally retarded and disproportionately enrolled in special education classes. The mislabeling of minority children is also discussed to some extent in The Psychological Testing of American Minorities (1998) by Ronald J. Samuda. Again my criticism remains the same: Your ignorance of the history of IQ testing is shocking! I strongly suggest that you read up on the history of IQ. Anyone who believes that one "race" (being a socially constructed division of humanity) is superior to another "race" is a racist. The fact that you are needlessly insisting on your own superior intelligence (and still doing so I might add!) suggests that you are very arrogant in your dealings with others. Why else would you describe the majority of persons you meet on a daily basis as being inept, other than because you look down upon them with contempt and false pity? Is this not the very definition of arrogance? By describing the nature-nurture component of human social behaviour as 50/50 (metaphorically speaking), I am saying that the contributions of both nature and nurture are inextricably intertwined and, because of the great complexity and multidimensional nature of genotype-environment interactions, cannot be disentangled and partitioned into exact percentages. However, heritability need not be associated with immutability because even the genome can be modified through exposure to environmental factors, meaning that the presence of external variables can override genetic programming. Well, you have a very strange way of defusing tension. A little humility goes a long way. Then how do you explain inherited wealth and lottery winners?

I believe that it is still used widely by psychologists, particularly in America, Canada, Great Britain, and continental Europe, as a means of diagnosing learning disabilities, mental retardation, and giftedness. Either a traditional IQ test is administered, such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), or a more g-loaded test, such as Raven's Progressive Matrices. In America, I believe that SAT/ACT tests have largely replaced IQ tests as an entrance requirement for colleges/universities. As I do not live in the USA, I am not sure. However, what is disturbing is that a number of psychometricians are even trying to correlate Spearman's g with the various subtest categories of the SAT/ACT. White/male gender supremacists such as J. Taylor (USA), J.P. Rushton (Canada), and R. Lynn (United Kingdom) still use the concept of IQ as a means of providing justification for their pet theories of racial/gender-based intellectual superiority.

Well, many people have been victimized by IQ and this has been extensively documented by historians. In the past, people were forcibly sterilized and even roasted alive in the crematoria because of receiving low IQ scores. Even today, many otherwise normal people are still being misdiagnosed as mentally challenged and forced into special education classes against their will. So you see, the problems with intelligence testing are more than just mere aberrations, but a reflection of the fact that on a deeper mathematical, scientific level, the concept of IQ is a deeply flawed instrument to begin with, notwithstanding the good intentions of those who employ it as a measure of intelligence. I'm not so sure of that, considering that I was the one insulted first. Besides, it's a debate where people are expected to become passionate over the issues. Such irregularities should only be expected. Many lives are at stake because of the issue of intelligence testing and many people have been personally affected by it. I would not discount personal experience because it is one way of evaluating the tremendous harm done by the concept of IQ. Your perceived level of intelligence is irrelevant to the conversation at hand. The fact that you feel a need to blow your own trumpet in the course of a discussion about IQ suggests that you are desperately trying to affirm something that obviously isn't there. The subject of psychometric testing is a serious enough issue as it is; please, there is no need for arrogance. With this, I strongly agree. The influence of nature and nurture is 50/50. I have done no such thing. If anything, people insulted me first and I remained stoic throughout. I have done nothing but treat everyone here with respect and decency. You are reading far too much into a few hasty words. Well, you do realize that this is a discussion, right? Sooner or later, people are going to disagree with something. There's an old saying: If you can't take the heat, get out of the frying pan. Well, isn't this ironic. You accuse me of being insulting, yet you insult me in turn. Not only do you insult me, but you put words into my mouth as well. Where did I ever blow my own trumpet? The fact of the matter is that I have done absolutely nothing of the sort. You know, the famous French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal once remarked: Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself. Humility is the foundation of all virtue. You would do well to heed those words. Well, you obviously have had it rather quite easy. You should be grateful, because many others have not been granted the same kind of good fortune.

Actually, just because a person is assigned an IQ of 50 does not necessarily mean that they cannot look after themselves or are somehow mentally delayed. Sometimes, people obtain IQs of 50 because of cultural, linguistic, and socio-economic barriers to test performance, yet are fully capable of looking after themselves. Other people may perform poorly on an IQ test because of boredom, fatigue, inadequate motivation, or lack of interest in the task at hand, yet possess enormous practical sense and excellent life skills. People may perform poorly on IQ tests, and exhibit tremendous virtuosity, even genius, in such things as chess playing, music, financial investment, or advanced mathematical computation. Still others, because of conduct disorders such as ADHD, may be of normal, above average, or even gifted intelligence, but because of an inability to sit still or concentrate for any length of time, are only able to score a low IQ. In reality, assigning a person an IQ of 50, 60, 110, or even 200 is virtually meaningless. A person can be without any book smarts whatsoever, but can be more street savvy and have greater practical life skills than any Ph.d. Conversely, some people are late bloomers, like Albert Einstein. They have low IQs and are slow learners throughout childhood and adolescence, but when they reach adulthood, they ascend the heights of intellectual brilliance. To sum up, the lack of one-to-one correspondence between intelligence testing and the reality it is designed to measure is one reason why IQ tests should be done away with; it is clear that IQ testing hurts much more than it helps. I did not realize that you had been victimized by the testing/labelling process that so many of us are struggling against on an international level. My sincerest apologies for being so hasty in the exercise of my own personal judgment. I was so busy lashing out at the whole foul business of intelligence testing, that I completely lost track of the original cause I had been fighting for, and managed to utter a few rash words at a moment's lapse in reason. When I was wallowing in my own rhetorical excesses, I should have been welcoming you as a comrade with open arms. It would have been better if you had provided me with a personal introduction as a means of preventing such future misunderstandings. But alas, who knows? Again, I offer my sincerest apologies. As for rhetoric, I sincerely believe that the best mode of spreading awareness is by directly challenging people, stimulating their imaginations, and forcing them to confront life's little unpleasantries head-on. Have you not read Plato's Allegory of the Cave from The Republic? Most men spend their lives in a state of the most blissful darkness; indifferent to the world and callous towards the sufferings of others around them; ceaselessly moving from one sensual pleasure to the next. My goal is to awaken the somnambulist from his drunken stupor and instil within his spirit a passion for justice. And in my experience, this is best done not with a whimper, but with a loud bang, so that their eyes may be opened. As I have said many times before, IQ hurts more than it helps. I have seen people have their lives utterly destroyed by the assignment of a two or three digit number to the quality of their intellects. The concept of IQ seems to be more of an instrument for bigots and prudes (because yes, that is what they are) to pat themselves on the back with, assure themselves of how virtuous they are, and degrade others in the process.

I have no problem with IQ, provided it is used in the sense that it was originally intended by the founder of psychometric testing, Alfred Binet: as a useful measure of practical life skills and secondarily, as a means of roughly evaluating current academic progress during the course of a school year. IQ tests were only abused when they were seen as objective measures of cognitive ability and made to correlate with Spearman's general factor of intelligence, a move that Binet strongly opposed. In fact, the first tests that Binet put together were not designed to measure intelligence. Concerning the purpose of the first tests, Binet wrote: This scale properly speaking does not permit the measure of the intelligence, because intellectual qualities are not superposable, and therefore cannot be measured as linear surfaces are measured, but are on the contrary, a classification, a hierarchy among diverse intelligences; and for the necessities of practice this classification is equivalent to a measure. We shall therefore be able to know, after studying two individuals, if one rises above the other and to how many degrees, if one rises above the average level of other individuals considered as normal, or if he remains below. When Alfred Binet spoke of the measurement of "intelligence", he did not mean intelligence in the sense that Spearman or Sir Cyril Burt used the word. For him, intelligence was about good judgment and practical life skills. In a famous passage, Binet explains: It seems to us that in intelligence there is a fundamental faculty, the alteration or the lack of which, is of the utmost importance for practical life. This faculty is judgment, otherwise called good sense, practical sense, initiative, the faculty of adapting one's self to circumstances. To judge well, to comprehend well, to reason well, these are the essential activities of intelligence. A person may be a moron or an imbecile if he is lacking in judgment; but with good judgment he can never be either. Indeed the rest of the intellectual faculties seem of little importance in comparison with judgment. What does it matter, for example, whether the organs of sense function normally? Of what import that certain ones are hyperesthetic, or that others are anesthetic or are weakened? Laura Bridgman, Helen Keller and their fellow-unfortunates were blind as well as deaf, but this did not prevent them from being very intelligent. Certainly this is demonstrative proof that the total or even partial integrity of the senses does not form a mental factor equal to judgment. We may measure the acuteness of the sensibility of subjects; nothing could be easier. But we should do this, not so much to find out the state of their sensibility as to learn the exactitude of their judgment.

Again, you're completely missing the point, as I am not denying the heritability of certain traits. However, what I am saying is that estimates of heritability are not possible if genotype-environment correlations/interactions can neither be isolated nor minimized as experimental controls, as in the case of certain plants/animals. This suggests that with human beings, genotype-environment and gene-gene interactions are so complex that they cannot be disentangled by simple estimates of trait heritability; thus, a considerably more sophisticated methodological analysis is needed. The dearth of evidence for specific causal genes/complex multi-allelic systems underlying the genetic transmission of phenotypic variance does not mean that the genetic basis of heritability is non-existent, but it should temper an excessive religious faith in genes as supreme destiny. Actually, there is an enormous volume of literature that has been published in recent years which thoroughly discredits the twin study as an instrument of scientific investigation. One that I would strongly recommend is that of Kamin and Goldberger (2002). You would be surprised. Many articles advocating racial/gender superiority, based on the discredited concept that intelligence can somehow be objectively measured, are still being published in credible, peer-reviewed journals. The articles of white/male gender supremacists such as J.P. Rushton and R. Lynn always end up in the most respectable journals. I wasn't speaking of the bell curve as a statistical tool, I was referring to The Bell Curve as a book written by C. Murray and R. Herrnstein. Where have you been all these years? In the book, the authors predict the emergence of a welfare state presided over by a high IQ cognitive elite who happen to be predominantly white/east Asian/male. If you don't find that morally repugnant, then you need to do some soul searching. Oh yes they do, as your citation of Thomas Bouchard clearly demonstrates. The land of science may not care about with whom a person associates, but it does care about who funds the study being conducted, the credentials of the person conducting the study, and whether that study was based on a thoroughly discredited scientific methodological approach or not. And from what I understand, the Pioneer Fund has never funded a study refuting its white supremacist, neo-Nazi ideology. The purpose of scientific investigation is not to be objective, because that is impossible, but to approximate empirical objectivity as closely as possible. This is where you are wrong. It is the complex interaction of genes and environment that can both hobble and strengthen us. What I am expressing is moral indignation at the fact that intelligence testing has been used to forcibly sterilize, deport, maim and even commit acts of racially motivated genocide against others. Maybe you would react the same way if you were well-versed in the history of IQ, depending on whether you had a conscience or not. I strongly suggest that you read up on the history of IQ. I don't think intelligence is controlled by a single gene; I don't think it is controlled any differently from any other trait. Intelligence is a product of both genetic and environmental factors, which happen to be both inextricably intertwined.