The Intelligence Paradox: Why the Intelligent Choice Isn't Always the Smart One - Hardcover

by Satoshi Kanazawa (Author)

A book that challenges common misconceptions about the nature of intelligence

Satoshi Kanazawa's Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters (written with Alan S. Miller) was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as ""a rollicking bit of pop science that turns the lens of evolutionary psychology on issues of the day."" That book answered such burning questions as why women tend to lust after males who already have mates and why newborns look more like Dad than Mom. Now Kanazawa tackles the nature of intelligence: what it is, what it does, what it is good for (if anything). Highly entertaining, smart (dare we say intelligent?), and daringly contrarian, The Intelligence Paradox will provide a deeper understanding of what intelligence is, and what it means for us in our lives.

• Asks why more intelligent individuals are not better (and are, in fact, often worse) than less intelligent individuals in solving some of the most important problems in life--such as finding a mate, raising children, and making friends
• Discusses why liberals are more intelligent than conservatives, why atheists are more intelligent than the religious, why more intelligent men value monogamy, why night owls are more intelligent than morning larks, and why homosexuals are more intelligent than heterosexuals
• Explores how the purpose for which general intelligence evolved--solving evolutionarily novel problems--allows us to explain why intelligent people have the particular values and preferences they have

Challenging common misconceptions about the nature of intelligence, this book offers surprising insights into the cutting-edge of science at the intersection of evolutionary psychology and intelligence research.

Front Jacket

Seventeenth-century political philosopher Thomas Hobbes once observed that intelligence must be equally distributed among humans, because no one ever complained that they didn't get as much as everyone else. Of course, that was before the invention of the IQ test prompted a series of objections that the tests were biased and/or inaccurate, that intelligence can't really be measured, and that there are multiple types of intelligence. For well over a century, intelligence and what it means have been the source of endless controversy. Here comes more.

In The Intelligence Paradox, the coauthor of Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, Satoshi Kanazawa challenges the common misconceptions about what intelligence is and what it is not, how it is measured, what it's good for, and what it's bad at. He also makes many controversial statements: liberals are, on average, more intelligent than conservatives; atheists are more intelligent than believers; and homosexuals are more intelligent than heterosexuals. And using the latest research, he shows each one to be true.

At its core, Kanazawa's message is that intelligence, while certainly an asset, is one human trait among many, and it is in no way a measure of human worth. He reveals how the purposefor which general intelligence evolved--solving evolutionarily novel problems that were rarely encountered during life on the savanna--allows us to understand why the most intelligent people have the particular values and preferences they have. He also explains why, despite their huge brains, the most intelligent people are often less successful than their less intelligent relatives at solving life's most important problems.

Kanazawa uses the findings of several large long-term studies to examine the relationship between intelligence and numerous preferences and values. What he discovers is often surprising and sometimes, indeed, paradoxical. Intelligent men, for example, are more likely than less intelligent men to value sexual exclusivity for themselves, yet also more likely to cheat on wives or girlfriends despite what they really want. Why are intelligent people more likely than less intelligent people to be night owls and late sleepers? Precisely because it is unnatural. It may not surprise you to learn that intelligent people are more likely to prefer classical music to pop--but why on earth would they also like elevator music?

Intersecting the fields of evolutionary psychology and intelligence research, The Intelligence Paradox is guaranteed to change the way you think about all that thinking you do.

Back Jacket

Advance praise for The Intelligence Paradox

"The Intelligence Paradox is a chocolate sundae for the brain, filled with insights about intelligence and everyday behavior that have changed my thinking about intelligence. A brilliant achievement and a joy to read."--Charles Murray, author of the New York Times bestseller Coming Apart

"This is a splendidly written book about a fascinating new theory of intelligence. By carefully anchoring his approach in evidence, Kanazawa integrates information about the evolution of intelligence in intriguing and tantalizing ways. He also generates some startling and provocative predictions. Be forewarned, this book will change the way you think about intelligence." --Gordon Gallup, evolutionary psychologist, University at Albany, SUNY

"This is a beautifully written book that will sell to laymen as well as to academics. Kanazawa's thesis is that intelligence, what IQ tests measure, is a specific ability to cope with general problems for which our evolution has not prepared us. Intelligence then leads to great benefit when tethered to the real world, such as quantum theory and computers. Untethered, it can lead to convoluted nonsense such as fads in literary criticism. And while intelligence may often be considered an unalloyed good, Kanazawa shows it has costs to biological fitness. For example, intelligent people have fewer offspring, although successful reproduction is the definition of evolutionary success. Intelligent people are more prone to indulge in (evolutionary) novelties such as drugs. Viewed from the perspective of evolution, intelligent people are 'the ultimate losers in life.'"--Henry Harpending, coauthor of The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution

"General intelligence is both a grand achievement of psychology research and a crucial human dimension. That people differ so markedly from each other on such an important trait has seemed something of an evolutionary paradox. Wouldn't evolution make us all smart? Satoshi Kanazawa proposes an intriguing explanation about how human intelligence evolved and why differences remain among us. It is a creative but data-driven argument that I found surprising but sensible. I think he may be right. And it's delivered in a breezily elegant style that is a joy to read."--J. Michael Bailey, author of The Man Who Would Be Queen

Author Biography

Satoshi Kanazawa was one of the inaugural contributors to the Psychology Today blog and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology. He is a Reader in Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Birkbeck College, University of London.