Class talk's all Greek to me . . .

Byline: Denis Kilcommons

THEY'RE at it again.

Professor Chris McManus of University College London says the working classes are less intelligent than those from wealthier backgrounds.

"UK medical students tend to come from higher socio-economic classes, perhaps not surprisingly, as social class correlates with intellectual ability."

This comes only a week or so since Dr Bruce Charlton claimed children from middle class families are naturally more intelligent than those from a working class background.

"Higher social classes have a significantly higher average IQ than lower social classes," he says. "This observed pattern is a natural outcome of meritocracy."

What is going on?

Are they really suggesting that being born into money and privilege automatically makes you more intelligent?

Don't they realise that having money and privilege automatically provides the opportunity for a superior education?

It could be a little difficult to concentrate the mind on Greek homework and the journey of Odysseus back to Ithaca if your parents are working all hours to make ends meet and you have to study at the kitchen table.

Even more of a challenge to come to grips with the complexities of Pythagoras and algebraic number theory if your dad is out of work and the family diet is baked beans.

Much easier if you have your own study, no financial worries and the only troublesome decision you have to make is whether to have the Porsche or Beemer as your first car.

Professor McManus, it has to be said, is an award winner.

A few years ago, he received an Ig Nobel prize - a parody of the Nobel prize - for his seminal work, Scrotal Asymmetry in Man and in Ancient Sculpture, for which he studied the male genitalia of 187 Greek sculptures.

In most men, he said, the right testicle is higher and larger than the left. Yet he discovered that most Greek sculptors got this fact wrong.

And the point is?

This edifying piece of research, perhaps like the professor's latest assertion, could perhaps best be termed as a load of old spherical objects.