Bell curves: Large differences at the extremes of a distribution don't imply large differences at the mean

I think it's safe to say that most people on reddit don't belong to circles that have a proportional number of sub-100 IQ people. So the extremes in our social circles isn't the same as the extremes in a random sample.

I was in gifted classes from grade 5 to grade 12. The requirement was a measured IQ above 130 or so which isn't a a very high threshold by any means. Just kids that were a fair bit smarter than average but few if any actual geniuses. I happened to move around a lot during the same time period. Boys consistently outnumbered the girls at every school that I attended with the program by at least 3 to 2 and probably closer to 2 to 1. Mandatory testing in the school district so there was no bias.

Anecdotal, I know. Point being, I believe there's a significant difference in the number of men and women that are in the smart but not brilliant IQ range and therefore society should not expect women to have the same attainment as men even if we were to ignore the extremes. And, I mean the real extremes.

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