GETTY - STOCK New research found that men have a higher IQ than women because they have bigger brain

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Scientists scanned the brains of almost 900 people to measure their brain volumes before they underwent a battery of intelligence tests. They found that men typically had an IQ of four points higher than women, and their brain volumes were larger than those of the fairer sex. Professor Dimitri van der Linden, of Erasmus University in Rotterdam, said: “We found that the average IQ of men was about four points above that of women.

“So if men had an average score of 100, women would score 96.” He also found men had an average brain volume of 1.2 litres compared with 1 litre for women. The surface area of the male cerebral cortex was 1850 sq cm compared with 1630 sq cm for women.

GETTY - STOCK Scientists scanned the brains of almost 900 people to measure their brain volumes

The average IQ of men was about four points above that of women Professor Dimitri van der Linden

And for both sexes, those with bigger brains had slightly higher IQ scores. Angela Saini, author of a new book, Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong - and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story, stressed there was no difference in intelligence between the sexes. She said it was “well established” that there is no difference on average in general intelligence between women and men.

GETTY - STOCK They found that men typically had an IQ of four points higher than women

“It’s also well known that women have, on average, slightly smaller brains than men because they are, on average, slightly smaller in size,” she said. “For more than 100 years, male anatomists and neuroscientists have sought to find evidence of women’s intellectual inferiority by comparing their brains to those of men. “It’s surprising that in the 21st century those efforts haven’t ended.” Add brain Debate has long ranged over the controversial area of differences between male and female intelligence. Clear anatomical differences have been found between the sexes with women having a thicker cerebral cortex - an area associated with language and memory.

GETTY - STOCK Men had an average brain volume of 1.2 litres compared with 1 litre for women