True, such a study is bound to spark quite a controversy, but there really isn’t any reason to be upset about it

Dec 12, 2014 19:57 GMT  ·  By

This week, a team of researchers announced that, following a lengthy investigation, they found men to be more idiotic than women. They even went the extra mile and published a paper detailing their findings in the British Medical Journal.

Naturally, their announcement, together with their study in the aforementioned scientific journal, sparked quite a controversy. In a nutshell, many took the time to label this investigation and its outcome complete mumbo jumbo.

The thing is that this is by no means the case. The research is reliable and backed up by actual information. What people appear to have failed to notice is that the scientists never meant to offend anybody. They were just trying to make factual observations about human behavior.

For those who missed it, here’s what the study entailed

As part of their investigation, the researchers looked at the nominees and the winners of the Darwin Awards between the years 1995 and 2014. They settled on the incidents confirmed by the Darwin Awards Committee and that had just one protagonist, be it a man or a woman.

They found that, of the 318 cases of downright idiotic behavior that they took into consideration for this study, as many as 282 (that’s an impressive 88.7%) had a male protagonist. Women, on the other hand, accounted for just 36 (11.3%).

In light of these findings, they concluded that, as a general rule, men tend to be more idiotic than women. Take the case of the terrorist who failed to put enough postage stamps on a letter bomb and who opened it and had it blow up in his face when returned if you need proof.

Mind you, this study was by no means meant as an insult

Admittedly, learning that your entire gender is more idiotic than the other is bound to upset people, and rightfully so. However, the research was never intended to anger or insult anybody. As already pointed out, the scientists merely wanted to study human behavior.

It’s important to note that, although the outcome of this investigation is argued to prove the so-called Male Idiocy Theory, which stipulates that men are more idiotic than women, the researchers actually proved that men are more likely to engage in risky behaviors that put them in danger.

If we’re going to be honest here, it must be said that this observation is one very simple truth that pretty much everybody is familiar with. Men are more likely to be adventurous, do all sorts of crazy things and get injured in the process, and that is a fact.

Otherwise put, this investigation merely proved that, generally speaking, men love and adore taking risks. True, it sometimes happens that the risks they take are borderline insane and nothing short of idiotic, but this does not mean that they themselves are idiots on a day to day basis.

“According to 'male idiot theory' (MIT) many of the differences in risk seeking behavior, emergency department admissions, and mortality may be explained by the observation that men are idiots and idiots do stupid things,” the scientists write in their paper.

“Males are more likely to be admitted to an emergency department after accidental injuries, more likely to be admitted with a sporting injury and more likely to be in a road traffic collision with a higher mortality rate,” they add.

Hence, there really is no need for people to be upset about this investigation into human nature and trash it or the researchers who carried it out. In fact, from where I stand, this study was meant as a tongue-in-cheek attempt at science, just like the Darwin Awards it was based on.

Some examples of human idiocy (5 Images)

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