Men ‘have bigger brains than women and higher IQs’, according to controversial study

A controversial new study claims that men not only have bigger brains than women – but are actually more intelligent.

But not everyone is convinced by the new study – and other scientists suggest that while men do have bigger brains, women’s may be more efficient.

Researchers at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, used MRI scans to measure the brains of 875 volunteers – and found that men’s brains are 14% larger.

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They found that women also scored on tests of general intelligence (by 3.75 on average) – although they perform better on memory tests.

Lead author Dr Dimitri van der Linden said: ‘We found that men’s brains are larger than women’s and our analysis suggests this is the reason for lower average general intelligence across a range of tests.

‘We are aware of previous research suggesting women’s brains are better organised or process information more efficiently but we did not look at this in our study.’

The measurements used in the study are also controversial.

Dr Joseph Devlin of University College London, said: ‘This is a well-researched study but the evidence is not strong enough to prove that larger male brains are more intelligent than smaller female brains, which makes it a leap of faith, using a measure of general intelligence which has little basis.

‘Men and women’s brains are different and we know spatial navigation is slightly better in men than women, while women tend to have a better vocabulary. But we should be sceptical of claims that men are smarter than women, especially when there is little to no evidence for that and lots of evidence to the contrary.’