[Sociocultural] explanations are vulnerable to a number of criticisms. To begin with, it is unclear to what extent current social influences actually… - Steve Stewart-Williams

Language, intelligence, and humor, along with art, generosity, and musical ability, are often described as human equivalents of the peacock’s tail. However, peacocks afford a poor analogy for the role of courtship displays in humans. Other animal models offer a better fit. In a number of nonhuman species — species as diverse as sea dragons and grebes — males and females engage in a mutual courtship “dance,” in which the two partners mirror one another’s movements. In Clark’s grebes and Western grebes, for instance, the pair bond ritual culminates in the famous courtship rush: The male and female swim side by side along the top of the water, with their wings back and their heads and necks in a stereotyped posture. If we want a nonhuman analogue for the role of creative intelligence or humor in human courtship, we should think not of ornamented peacocks displaying while drab females evaluate them. We should think instead of grebes engaged in their mating rush or sea dragons engaged in their synchronized mirror dance. Once we have one of these alternative images fixed in our minds, we can then add the proviso that there is a slight skew such that, in the early stages of courtship, men tend to display more vigorously and women tend to be choosier. However, this should be seen as a qualification to the primary message that intelligence, humor, and other forms of sexual display are part of the mutual courtship process in our species.

Changes in the inhabitants of the earth do not reflect a constant process of improvement in the design of organisms, any more than changes in fashion over the years reflect a constant process of improvement in the quality of clothing.

[A]mong the minority of people who possess exceptional mathematical abilities, the women are more likely to possess exceptional language abilities as well. This means that mathematically gifted women have more vocational options than their male counterparts, and consequently that fewer mathematically gifted women end up pursuing a STEM career. To the extent that this explains the gender gap in maths-intensive fields, the gap results not from mathematically gifted women having fewer options, but rather from them having more.