Courtesy of Broadsheet, our attention is brought to an article in the Calgary Herald, charmingly entitled:
Do hunky men make women smarter?
I once worked in close proximity to a major urban news desk. I’ve written news stories, and been on the other side too, with a stint as a magazine editor. But I still can’t stifle my urge to throttle idiotic editors and kerning flunkies who make up headlines like this. Of course, the story is actually about mice, not people; it’s about potential medical advances that could repair the damaged brain tissue of victims of strokes and accidents, not “making women smarter.” Even for the mice, it’s not about being “smarter,” it’s about very specific mating behaviors.
I can’t entirely blame whoever wrote the headline though, unless they also crammed this ridiculous lead onto the top:
It’s not just the muscles, or the confidence, or the chiselled cheekbones. Nor is it the flashy sportscar or the charming arrogance. No, the charms of the alpha male — the guy who stands out above lesser mortals — may actually help women become smarter.
Whoa, stop the presses! We’d better issue an Are Your Children In Danger? alert immediately on this one! I mean, with all the pressure on middle-class suburban teens these days to excel and get into college, this could cause your daughters to run down to the nearest Gold’s Gym and start HUFFING ON BODYBUILDERS to try and improve their SAT scores. Don’t think it couldn’t happen!
On second thought, maybe we should have a little recap of some Science Facts, and simultaneously expose all of you to my mania for numbered lists:
1. The hypothesis being advanced by the researchers here is that female mice generate new brain cells when exposed to the pheromones of alpha male mice–apparently for a specific purpose. What is this purpose? Well according to their observations, the brain growth seems to help female mice recognize alpha male mice again! I might be missing something here that’s in the original paper, but this sounds a lot like saying “smelling an apple pie helps my brain recognize the scent of apple pies when I encounter them again!” It might be more substantial than that, but still, this doesn’t come as a huge surprise.
2. Although mice are used in experiments like this because of their neurological similarities to humans, that doesn’t necessarily mean this same mechanism is present in human beings. Human mating behavior is substantially different than mice mating behavior, no matter how many online ads for “all-natural human pheromones” and manuals with titles like “Be An Alpha Male: The Art of Picking Up Hot Chicks” might insist otherwise.
3. The researchers’ ideas about the possibilities based on their findings aren’t related to mating or even to gender. They’re looking at what’s going on at a more basic, chemical level: if certain chemicals stimulate brain growth, then maybe we can create something based on those chemicals that will help repair damaged brains! Hey, good idea, scientists. And amazingly, doesn’t involve anything stupid related to “hunky guys make girls smarter!”
4. Brain size doesn’t automatically mean you’re smarter. People used to believe this back in the 19th century, when they’d cut open the skulls of dead scientists to weigh the Great Man’s weighty brain, and exclaim at its rubbery ponderousness. This is the stuff of cranial measurements and anthropometry. More recently, as Tracy-Clark Flory points out, a correlation has been noted between density of brain cells in some parts of the brain, and intelligence. I’m not even going to get into the difficulties of actually measuring “intelligence,” but I could start a whole nested, numbered list on the problems of confusing correlation with causation. It’s not even clear in this other line of scientific research whether having more brain cells actually “makes you smarter” or whether “smarter people” just tend to work their brains out harder and grow more brain cells as a result.
5. People really ought to check their culturally-driven assumptions when reporting on science. I mean, “hunky guys make women smarter?” Come on. Supposedly, scientists are trained to think more rigorously about this stuff, although I have my doubts (as do relatives of mine who actually train scientists). The same is sadly not true of science reporters–or whoever slapped the headline and lead on this story.