Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: Titanscape on 02/11/2004 06:41:38

Title: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: Titanscape on 02/11/2004 06:41:38
In a TV special from either Sydney or Melbourne side by side they IQ tested blonds verses red heads verses brunettes. The blonds came last and the red heads first, why do you think that is? All the subjects were women.

Titanscape
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: chris on 02/11/2004 09:05:03
Were the blond subjects genuinely natural blonds, or where they bottle-assisted ?

People who dye their hair blond might tend to be of lower average intellect, for instance.



"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception"
 - Groucho Marx
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: Ylide on 02/11/2004 11:29:56
It's not the say that the blondes were necessarily dumb, but that redheads are totally badass.



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Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: neilep on 02/11/2004 18:59:31
I love redheads.

'Men are the same as women...just inside out !' (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.world-of-smilies.de%2Fhtml%2Fimages%2Fsmilies%2FSchilder2%2Finsanes.gif&hash=4f18432872d0188852a6f4a3170ec758)
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: Corbeille on 02/11/2004 22:08:41
People who dye their hair blond might tend to be of lower average intellect, for instance.

Chris I dare you to repeat that on your radio show[:0]

I find long wavy red hair on a lass irresistable[:p]

Don't tell Mrs Corbeille - she's blonde!

Nah pop no style, a strictly roots!
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: bezoar on 03/11/2004 07:15:24
Somehow every redhead, and I mean carrot top redhead, that I've ever come across has had some mental problems -- kinda crazy.  I know there are some sane ones out there, but I haven't run across one yet.
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: chris on 03/11/2004 09:21:28
I wasn't saying that people who dye their hair blond are thicker than average, merely that if this were true it might account for the findings !

Chris

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception"
 - Groucho Marx
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: DrN on 03/11/2004 12:16:58
well, my husband is a red-head, and his IQ is pretty high. but he is pretty crazy too.

my IQ is less than his unfortunatlely, and I'm blonde. I think I make up for it by being marginally less crazy though. I would kind of agree that people who dye their hair blonde may have a lower IQ - why would anyone want to come across as a 'dumb blonde' ???

anyway, I'm not sure i agree with this line of reasoning - are we saying the celts were an intellectually superior race to the scandinavians? the vikings did a pretty good job over them after all!!
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: Corbeille on 03/11/2004 12:40:54
Well I'm of Irish and German descent and I'm as mad as a haddock![:D][:D][:D][:X]

Nah pop no style, a strictly roots!
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: neilep on 03/11/2004 12:44:12
...I once bleached my hair...it went peroxide yellow....now I've shaved it all off.........and to spark perhaps another debate (if it hasn't been done here already else where on this site)...Is IQ a generally accepted ident of a persons intelligence ?

'Men are the same as women...just inside out !'
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: Titanscape on 04/11/2004 16:50:30
They were natural blonds. And IQ tests are old now as neilep said. I Perth WA I went to school and had a hard time. I failed everthing really badly, except poetry, which in the end was like War of the Worlds anyway.

Back in Sydney with some discipline and I past everything in the second semester and won two prizes. I past advanced maths, just, and got good science grades.

Red heads must have some different proteins. A friend argued that there were no famous blond haired, blue eyed generals too.

Titanscape
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: chris on 04/11/2004 17:00:30
Not even in Hitler's army ?

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception"
 - Groucho Marx
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: bezoar on 04/11/2004 19:51:15
Titan-
You past or passed?
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: chris on 05/11/2004 09:20:20
I think he's probably past caring !

Incidentally, Titanscape, did you enjoy the nice pictures of your name sake generated by Cassini last week ?

And did you catch Prof. John Zarnecki (who is one of the guys behind the Huygens Titan Lander) chatting with us on the radio on Sunday 24th October ? - Here's the download link, just in case you want to listen :

http://tnsstore.caret.cam.ac.uk/Naked_Scientists_Show_04.10.24.zip

Best

Chris

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception"
 - Groucho Marx
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: Titanscape on 05/11/2004 16:58:54
Yeh I mispelled passed. And Titan is interesting.

Titanscape
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: gsmollin on 10/11/2004 04:00:11
quote:
Originally posted by Titanscape

In a TV special from either Sydney or Melbourne side by side they IQ tested blonds verses red heads verses brunettes. The blonds came last and the red heads first, why do you think that is? All the subjects were women.

Titanscape



What were the statistics? Are we talking about anything significant; is there any science, or is it just another TV special, like the moon-landing-fakery special(s)?
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: roberth on 10/11/2004 04:21:53
Really, it was just crap entertainment. I couldn't be bothered watching. They had a similar "special" on last year and it rated OK, so they thought they would try again. This time I don't think it rated that well. It's not scientific, it's just some bloke asking inane questions, aimed at a specific group to see who knew the most answers.
Title: Re: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: Titanscape on 11/11/2004 04:40:08
The questions were conventional IQ test style ones with time limits. Continue the pattern...

Titanscape
Title: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: Ben6789 on 26/04/2007 16:10:13
Most blonde jokes are about women..maybe that's just male chavunism.

I am a blonde, i don't think i'm less intelligent.

Why would hair color make a difference?
Title: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: Bored chemist on 26/04/2007 19:37:00
OK so I chose 3 groups of people and set IQ tests for them all. Then I look at the results.
What are the chances of the 3 groups having exactly the same average IQ? Well, it depends on the size of the groups but it's pretty damned small.
One group almost certainly ends up "top of the class" but that doesn't mean anything; they were just lucky.

By the way, I'm going to get into trouble for saying this but in most of the Western world people with black hair have lower IQs on average than those with brown or blonde hair. Why?
Because black people have black hair and are subject to racial prejudice. They end up with worse incomes and, therefore poorer education. That, in turn leads to lower IQs.
Of course, if you want to ignore the rules of cause and effect you could just say black people have low IQs. The debate on IQ and anything to do with race is a political minefield.
Title: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: ukmicky on 26/04/2007 21:43:55


By the way, I'm going to get into trouble for saying this but in most of the Western world people with black hair have lower IQs on average than those with brown or blonde hair.


That may or may not be true but i would like to see evidence either way.


Quote
Because black people have black hair and are subject to racial prejudice. They end up with worse incomes and, therefore poorer education. That, in turn leads to lower IQs.
I have never heard of a case of a black person not getting a job in the UK due to his or her skin colour but have heard of white people not getting jobs through a practice called positive discrimination.

Here in the UK all children also have the same access to education.. In the UK unless your talking about the rich elite who send their children to private schools money makes no real difference to the state school a child gets into..

Also i'm mixed race and have seen just as much racism directed from white people onto black people as i have from black people onto white people.

 
Title: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: ukmicky on 26/04/2007 22:24:33
One other thing are you talking about the IQ that someone is born with or the IQ that someone builds through life experiences.
Title: Red Heads Are Brighter.
Post by: Seany on 27/04/2007 00:00:43
Hmm. In our school, they make jokes on blondes and gingers. [;)] Although it's not really bullying, because we're good friends with em, but we do tease them a bit. [:P] Like if the blonde girl says something really random or stupid, then.. Heehee.

And theres this boy who is completely ginger, and he is called James. But we call him Jinger or Jingy [;)]

Anyway, in that case, the blonde girl is smarter than the ginger boy [;)]