Men are more likely to win Nobel prizes and achieve excellence simply because they are more intelligent than women, according to a controversial male academic.
In a paper to be published in a leading research journal, one of Britain's most outspoken academics will argue that men have larger brains and higher IQs than women, to such an extent that they are better suited to "tasks of high complexity".

Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at Ulster University, who has caused outrage in the past with claims that white people are more intelligent than blacks and that criminal traits are genetic, will publish the work with Dr Paul Irwing, senior lecturer in organisational psychology at Manchester University.

The study, to be published in the British Journal of Psychology in November, concluded that men not only have larger brains but also have higher IQs, on average by about 5 points, than women.

This difference means many more men than women have exceptionally high IQs, and the authors claim this means that men are more likely to win Nobel prizes and make scientific discoveries, according to the Times Higher Education Supplement.

Dr Irwing said that he had initially been reluctant to take part in the study, arguing that he would have personally preferred not to have discovered that men had a biological advantage.

But after resolving to put "scientific truth" above his personal political conflicts and potentially even his academic reputation, he had agreed to work with Professor Lynn.

The paper will seek to counter the academic orthodoxy that men and women are basically the same and that any sex differences are due to pressure from society to conform to gender stereotypes.

Professor Lynn has argued that his attempt to overturn the belief that men and women are equally intelligent is like Galileo trying to explain to 17th-century Italy that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

The researchers acknowledge that women outnumber men at every stage of educational achievement, except PhD level.

However, the paper will argue that women "achieve more" in life than men with the same IQ, "possibly because they are more conscientious and better adapted to sustained periods of hard work".

- INDEPENDENT