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

By: Satoshi Kanazawa

Narrated by: Paul Neal Rohrer

Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

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 & Technology 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 & Technology at the intersection of evolutionary psychology and intelligence research.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2012 Satoshi Kanazawa (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

great none fiction,

very interesting ideas to challenge the current mainstream culture of PC, great performance by the voice actor.

Insightful and fascinating!

Very interesting to listen to.
Explains a lot of things that one asks himself over the course of life!

insightful

a fascinating deconstruction of why modern society places too high a value on human intelligence.

interesting analysis

fascinating analysis of the science of intelligence. alot of it seems counter intuitive at first glance but makes sense through an evolutionary lense. check it out

Very entertaining

This intelligent person had a great time listening to this book. It’s a dose of humorous humility.

Good Stuff!!

If you are I interested in evolutionary biology and psychology as well as sociobiology, you'll enjoy this book.

Refreshingly blunt view of intelligence statistics

I would have been a bit put off by some of the information contained in this book had it not been for the author diffusing my concerns with a framing of this simply being what the data shows and in no way correlates the worth of a human being to their intelligence. Something the author suggests is pushed too often in modern westerner societies and we are not the better for it.

very academic yet insightful

the conclusions drawn are based only on the western civilization data. would be interesting if other datasets are also used. i understand the availability of such datasets may be an issue.