The Female is the deadlier of the species... if there wasn't
enough proof read this article from News.com.au
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Marriage 'tames' geniuses, criminals
From correspondents in Paris
July 10, 2003
CREATIVE genius and crime express themselves early in men but both
are turned off almost like a tap if a man gets married and has
children, a study says.
Satoshi Kanazawa, a psychologist at the University of Canterbury in
New Zealand, compiled a database of the biographies of 280 great
scientists, noting their age at the time when they made their
greatest work.
The data remarkably concur with the brutal observation made by
Albert Einstein, who wrote in 1942: "A person who has not made his
great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do
so."
"Scientific productivity indeed fades with age," Kanazawa says.
"Two-thirds (of all scientists) will have made their most
significant contributions before their mid-thirties."
But, regardless of age, the great minds who married virtually
kissed goodbye to making any further glorious additions to their
CV.
Within five years of making their nuptial vows, nearly a quarter of
married scientists had made their last significant contribution to
history's Hall of Fame.
"Scientists rather quickly desist [from their careers] after their
marriage, while unmarried scientists continue to make great
scientific contributions later in their lives," says
Kanazawa.
The energy of youth and the dampening effect of marriage, he adds,
are also remarkably similar among geniuses in music, painting and
writing, as well as in criminal activity.
Previous studies have documented that delinquents are
overwhelmingly male, and usually start out on the road to crime in
their teens.
But those who marry well subsequently stop committing crime,
whereas criminals at the same age who remain unmarried tend to
continue their unlawful careers.
Kanazawa suggests "a single psychological mechanism" is responsible
for this: the competitive edge among young men to fight for glory
and gain the attention of women. That craving drives the
all-important male hormone, testosterone.
After a man settles down, the testosterone level falls, as does his
creative output, Kanazawa theorises.
The study appears in in the August issue of the Journal of Research
in Personality, published by the Elsevier group.
