What’s the average IQ for a XX-year-old?


What’s the average IQ for a XX-year-old?

Article presented in QUORA in May 2, 2017

Leopoldo Perdomo,

Theoretically, the average IQ for most people, whatever its age, is 100.
Because with the years and universal attendance to school, since the times Lewis Terman since 1916, the IQ test had been increasing 0.5 points per year. That means an average of 15 points in 30 years. But 15 or 16 points is approximately 1 «standard deviation». Look for standard deviation if you are not sure what it means in an IQ test.
 Just to avoid you to look at, I will tell you that if the average IQ is 100 points. More or less, some 62% of people has an IQ of 85 to 115 points. Thus, people below 85 points is 19% of the population, and a little dull. People over 115 points is also 19% and is more intelligent.
To keep the average values of the test on 100 the results of a test are multiplied by a number smaller than 1 that is changed every four years.
Since the times of Lewis Terman in 1916 when he presented the IQ test it had passed 100 years.
 Thus, 100 years by 0.5 makes 50 points. This mean the average IQ of people living today would not be 100 but 150 points now; if were not for some corrections that periodically are applied to the results of the tests.
Compared to the average people in 1916 the people today is sort of genial. This question is called the Flynn Effect and most people that believe the intelligence is determined by genetics should start to think how the genetics is changing so fast. If those that believe in Evolution would hear idea they would be amazed. Genetics cannot change so fast, but schooling improves a lot intelligence.
In some well educated nations the increase in IQ is very small, in poor countries that are just now improving on the general education of people the increase of IQ is a lot greater: like 20 or 24 points per 30 years (0.7 or 0.8 points per year)

A REPLY from
Zhao
May 2, 2017

The likely explanation for the Flynn effect would be nutrition (or so I’ve heard)

A REPLY from
Leopoldo Perdomo
May 2, 2017

This question of IQ is at least controverted.
The main reason to be controverted is the IQ was meant to be genetic since it started. It was meant to justify social classes and to oppose public free education for the poor that was a socialist argument. Thus you can bet it exists a strong resistance to change the paradigm of the fixed genetic intelligence. Since the start, the proponents of the IQ tests were arguing that to expend money to educate the poor was a waste of money and time.
Just imagine that Richard Feynman that won a Nobel prize of physics was not only lower class he was the son of a family of poor Jews. Jews were traditionally been considered typical lower social class in Europe and America. But Feynman had a time in which a part of America was feeling liberal and less conscious about lower social classes should live in the shit.
For reasons typical of many Jewish families, Richard was very intelligent. Some Jews develop high levels of verbal intelligence, and language is a powerful carrier of intelligence. Then, amazing thing, he got some economic help and went to study in the MIT. Those were not the times of the Republican party but of FDR as a president.
A while later, he was also admitted in Princeton University. It took a while for the dean to accept R. Feynman. The director of the MIT had to phone several times to convince the dean to accept Feynman for he was really good.
The dean of Princeton was fearing to being accused of having too many Jews in his university. You see? Can you discern the roots about being poor meant to be stupid and higher class children meant to be intelligent? This ideas came from the tests of IQ. and the arguments of Lewis Terman and other proponents of the intelligence tests. Poor means stupid, the children of the rich means to be more intelligent, for intelligence was genetic. Intelligence to Lewis Terman was like wealth, it was inheritable.
They had softened a bit the argument of the generic intelligence and accepted the environment was also playing a bit, like 50% of the cause of intelligence. To change totally the paradigm was offensive to conservatives pundits.
My opinion is implicit in the detailed narrative of the Flynn effect. The Flynn effect is most remarked or higher among the poor classes after a period of education. And the poor classes traditionally had a very low IQ. In part is determined by the language. The poor develop little the language at home. Then, thanks to the school, the poor are improving slowly the intelligence. If you check the items of the Standford test you can see that basically it measures how good is the language skill of the child or person passing the test. If your child are bad with language, it is bad as well for reasoning. To reason is in some way like playing with words. There are some rules permitted in this play with words. So, basically reasoning is a part of language. A little advanced.
According to the Flynn effect, the upper classes that traditionally are considered the intelligent people… they were improving little their IQ with modern education; in the last three decades.
My interpretation of this fact is that to increase the intelligence is a costly process. The more intelligent you are already the most difficult is to increase your intelligence. It follows the lower classes have the most potential to increase intelligence. We can say they had more space in their brain to improved it.
By example, I was from a family of rat poor people, most of my family do not went to primary school or only went for a couple of years. My relatives were goat herders or cow herders, boxers, very poor tenant farmers, or low rank construction workers. I was a sort of autistic with little social abilities, except to speak a lot. I started working without qualification in constructions sites. But as I was not a social person, and loved a lot to talk, the only way to talk was to read books. This is reverse talking. As a reader you are only a receptor of the talk. Slowly, I went reading all sort of books, for the sake of it. Later, I learned French, and English, and I was reading books of science on my own, including psychology.

This must be the reason I believe so firmly that intelligence is not genetic. But something that you learn. For I had learned on my own all I know. And I could do it because I was a sort of solitary, nearly an autistic person.
Nevertheless, it can exist something genetic in intelligence and it must be related to the endocrine system, not to the brain itself.
The endocrine system controls the levels of adrenaline, and its power can be genetically determined. Then, a person with high levels of adrenaline, must have an ass of bad sitting. They do not tolerate well a situation of staying long hours sitting in a class in school. Their brain can easily flee the classroom and began to think about doing some sportive or athletic. The person with high levels of adrenaline need a lot of exercise. These types cannot be good students, but good athletes and fighters. They have not patience to develop high degrees of intelligence. On the opposing corner are people with very low levels of adrenaline. These people are sleepy most of the time, and can get even more sleepy while hearing something complex, like a long speech. The intelligent people is average, they must have not high, not low, levels of adrenaline, and can be awake while hearing complex arguments that require attention. But basically, the intelligence is the accumulation of abilities of a class or the other. Abilities that make sense as a means to earn a life. So, the academic intelligence is useless for a hunter gatherer, or an Eskimo or Inuit in the Arctic. The academic intelligence is not any good if you are a Chukchi herder in northeast Siberia, not any good if you are yak herder in the Tibet or the Indo-Kush mountains. Academic intelligence is only valid on some academic related environment.
If you read the Flynn effect you would see that some very high educated nations like Nordic European nations had not improved much in the last 30 years. While nations that were in retard developing the public school system had improved a lot more higher. This was proved in Spain comparing the IQ of people in a private high class school, for elite families, and it was compared with a public school in a poor quarter of Seville. After 30 years the poor school of Seville improved an average of nearly 30 points, while the elite school improved only 10 or 12 points. I do not recall the exact figures.
Poor nations had been improving IQ much faster than educated rich nations. But this can be interpreted with the paradigm “more is less” or its opposite, “less is more”. This idea suggest the brain has a limited capacity. When you need to study a lot of matters, you are exhausting the available time. You must have less time per item to dig deeper into each question. The brain reacts working lightly on a paradigm like “garbage in, garbage out”. You only remember a little the questions you had recently studied.
To have an intelligence must have to be something different.

Dependence on technology is making humanity less intelligent?

Leopoldo Perdomo
Leopoldo Perdomo, Autodidact, reader of science books, writer of stories and novels

Never has been so much intelligent people in this planet. And the cause is that technology had improved a lot the means to feed and educate people. The average population of the planet can have an IQ of 40 or 50 points higher than people 100 years ago. According to Flynn Effect

The Flynn Effect And IQ

Then your question presents a false premise.

Technology had permitted to educate much better the middle and the lower classes of society, and this resulted in a general increase of intelligence. Basically because machines had liberated a lot of people of hard labor. In past centuries only aristocrats and rich parents could expend money to educate their children. Things had changed since the end of the IIWW.

In fact, the Flynn Effect had debunked the idea that intelligence is due to genetic factors.

The Flynn effect do not disprove intelligence is related to the intelligence of the parents. But this happens not for genetic reasons, but for educational ones. Intelligent people tend to teach their children to become intelligent as well. It is similar to mother language. Mums tend to teach their children their own language. And if they can speak some foreign language tend to make some efforts to teach their kids this foreign language. They help their kids as well to understand some basic maths. For an intelligent mum wants to make their child as intelligence as possible. This is not at the reach of mothers with scant intelligence.

 

 

 

¿Que cosa es la voluntad?

 

¿Qué cosa es la voluntad?
¿Puedes dejar comentarios explicando lo que es?

Jose Alberto Garza Jose Alberto Garza, Ingenieria electronica de Universidad La Salle (2021)

La capacidad humana para seguir adelante sin importar los problemas que los dificulten.


Leopoldo Perdomo Leopoldo Perdomo

Hace 10h

Deberías poner un ejemplo.

1) Un sujeto tiene mucha hambre y se pasa días y días en busca de comida, hasta que cae exhausto y se muere.

2) Un sujeto tiene mucha sed y se pasa varios días sin encontrar agua, motivo por el que su sangre se hace muy viscosa, no circula bien, y su cerebro se colapsa por falta de oxígeno.

Esos dos ejemplos deben ser una prueba de que existe la voluntad.

3) Un niño al que no le falta nada, ni agua ni comida, puede que no tenga deseos de hacer nada porque todas sus necesidades están cubiertas. Y si todas las cosas están en su sitio ¿qué motivos puede tener para estudiar geometría analítica? ¿O para tocar el piano?

Tocar el piano o estudiar física teórica parece cosa de chiflados.

Luego, debe haber algo más concreto que explique porque alguien está tocando el piano, o estudiando chino mandarín. ¿Qué razón mueve a una persona para estudiar inglés, o japonés?

Si no podemos responder a esas preguntas no entendemos que cosa es la voluntad.

————-

Para mi esas acciones que tienen que ver con el aprendizaje por el gusto del saber no tiene que ver tanto con la voluntad si no con la característica inherente del ser humano a trascender o intentar entender el mundo.

Gracias por los ejemplos.

————

 

Leopoldo Perdomo Leopoldo Perdomo Hace 1 h

Bueno, en tal caso tendrías que preguntar por qué a alguien le gusta hacer algo. A la mayoría de la gente no le gusta hacer nada que implique un poco de atención y esfuerzo. De modo que no veo como

la característica inherente del ser humano a trascender o intentar entender el mundo.

He puesto tu frase.

Puedo estar equivocado pero me da la impresión de que, en general, la mayor parte de los niños y adultos sale de mala gana al colegio o al trabajo. Y una vez en el sitio, está deseando que sea la hora de irse.

No parece que tengan deseos de trascendencia ni de entender como es el mundo. Por lo tanto, creo que esa definición anda un poco coja.

————

Hace 1 h

La verdad es que estoy completamente de acuerdo contigo con que la mayoría de las personas y sobre todo los críos no quieren saber nada de la escuela o en si del conocimiento en general.

Pero a la vez creo que todas las personas tienen deseos de trascendencia y no como crear una pieza musical fenomenal o un anueva teoría, pero si para tener algo que se deja en el mundo, quizás una familia, quizás la impresión que dejó en las personas, quizá ser el mejor en entre sus amigos del colegio, pero algo que dure después que no esté aquí.

Y como tal creo que podría categorizar también una parte de la voluntad así, como la afición de dejar algo en el mundo.

————

Hace 1 h

Y gracias por la retroalimentación.

—————-

De nada. Creo que necesitas una explicación mejor para entender por qué alguna gente, poca, desea ser superior en algo, motivo por el que se esfuerza de un modo chocante, para hacer algo que a la mayoría le parece absurdo.

Y existe una buena explicación. Y se llama condicionamiento operante.

Condicionamiento operante – Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

Y si contemplas un experimento clásico de Skinner, donde se coge una paloma joven, con un poco de hambre, y se le pone en una jaula, y se pide a los estudiantes que hacer con la paloma, podrás ver algo insólito. Imagina que los estudiante deciden que la paloma se ponga a dar vueltas como si estuviera loca. Y el profe pregunta, ¿cómo quieres que dé vueltas, en el sentido de las agujas del reloj o al revés? Imagina que deciden que en el sentido de las agujas del reloj. Entonces, el profesor observa la paloma, y cada vez que dé un paso a la derecha, activa un dispositivo que le da una bolita pequeña de comida. La paloma se lo come y esperan que la paloma haga algo. De modo que el animal se mueve de aquí para allá, pero cada vez que da un paso a la derecha, se dispara una bolita de comida. Se repite el proceso, y hay un momento, al cabo de quince o veinte segundos, que la paloma parece que intenta dar vueltas a la derecha. Treinta o cuarenta segundos más tarde vemos que la paloma está dando vueltas en el sentido de las agujas del reloj, como si estuviera loca. Y eso se hizo con el condicionamiento operante. Y todo eso llevó menos de minuto y medio. Un observador que llegara a ese sitio y ve a la palomas dando vueltas, preguntará ¿que le ocurre a esa paloma? ¿Se ha vuelto loca?

Bueno, pues eso es un ejemplo del como funciona el condicionamiento operante.

Los controladores de los niños, suelen ser los padres. Y si el niño es un poco estúpido y solo le interesa negarse a las peticiones que su madre le hace, es porque esa madre ha ejecutando un condicionamiento de muy mala calidad con el niño. Solo ha conseguido que se niegue para todo, para acudir a la mesa a comer, para lavarse un poco, o irse a la ducha, para vestirse y ponerse los zapatos pues es la hora de ir a la escuela.

Ese niño, como la paloma de mi ejemplo anterior, ha aprendido a negarse a todo lo que le piden. Solo está a gusto cuando le dejan hacer lo que quiere. Como jugar con videojuegos, o con la Internet o viendo vídeos.

Y la cosa curiosa es toda esa basura de conducta nadie le ha pedido que la haga, sino todo lo contrario. Le están diciendo constantemente que no lo haga. Le dicen, deja ya de ver la tele. Deja ya de jugar con ese video-juego, deja de escuchar esa mierda de música, etc.

¿Podríamos decir que la paloma dando vueltas tiene fuerza de voluntad para dar vueltas?

¿Podríamos decir que el niño que se resiste mucho para prepararse para ir al cole tiene fuerza de voluntad para oponerse a obedecer las órdenes de su mamá? ¿O se trata más bien de cierto automatismo que la madre ha condicionado por accidente?

¿Podríamos decir que un niño al que tratas de convencer para que acuda a la mesa a comer, tiene fuerza de voluntad para negarse a ir a la mesa y comer?

Para que me quede clara la idea de la voluntad, tendrás que explicarme por qué la mayoría de los niños se resisten a ir a la escuela, o se resisten a las razonables peticiones de su madre.

¿Cómo ocurre este accidente de la conducta de un niño que se parece tanto al experimento de la paloma?

¿Cómo podríamos explicar que esos niños con notable conducta basura lo hacen porque tienen fuerza de voluntad?

 

Does high IQ means anything in the real world?

 

It would depend on how high it is the IQ. A little over the average, like 120, 130 or 140 points, it could be a good indication. But a much higher IQ could be detrimental.

It all depends on the interpretation of the word intelligence. According to the Oxford dictionary, intelligence is language.

Intelligence: Intellect, understanding. 2 Quickness of understanding, sagacity.

In case we have doubts about intellect, it is easy.

Intellect: Faculty of knowing and reasoning, understanding.

You cannot know most questions if you lack a language. To know is to understand some verbal statements, and reasoning is the capacity to discern if some statements are false, true or doubtful. Reasoning is also the capacity of arriving to a provisional conclusion if some statements can not be verified physically.

Then, if you had watched ever a TV program of the style Jeopardy…

Jeopardy! – Wikipedia!

You would see that too know too much is detrimental to our intelligence. There is a lot of trash information involved, and to memorize such a volume of data is a waste of time and resources.

Just image someone memorizing a phone book. It is surely a waste of energy and time. I had seen some videos about people training to memorize the order of some decks of cards. There are people training for some concourses about this.

Any career you are going to make would take a lot of effort, and you must memorize also a lot of trash. This occurs for they are making a barrier to limit the number of people with a degree about this matter. But at least you are memorizing this trash for you need to pass some exams. You need to learn a lot of trash to earn a degree of something, or a master, or a doctorate whatever. Then, to memorize for the sake of it is waste of energy and time.

Then high IQ is a fetish some people have. Nobody is going to pay you a salary because you have a high IQ. It does not make any sense. You can earn your life, because you had earned a degree of something the work market needs.

To have a high IQ is similar to say, I had read 200 novels. Nobody is going to pay you a salary because you had read 200 novels. But novels can help you a lot to learn a foreign language, by example. I can write in English because I had read a lot of novels. I never had been living in any English speaking country, and I never had worked or earned a dime, because I knew English. But English was very useful to read about a lot of science articles in a number of magazines. It also helped me to teach English to my children, and now to my granddaughter.

 

2 Upvotes

How is intelligence defined?

Originally Answered: How can intelligence be defined? · 

 

I was writing a book about children’s intelligence. Then, in some moment I needed to define intelligence, for in spite all my readings on the subject, I never read a definition of intelligence. It is amazing that such a common word is so rarely defined.

I remember some 50 years ago, I asked for the IQ Test of Lewis Terman of Standford in a public library . I was shocked when I read the author saying

I am not going to define intelligence.

It looked absurd to me that the author of an IQ test would decide not to define intelligence. Perhaps he has some political reasons, for he was saying that intelligence innate. If you define what is intelligence it does not make any sense to say it is innate.

I contented myself with the negative of Lewis Terman by thinking, I would get what idea the author has about intelligence by watching the items contained in the test.

The first thing I observed was that the IQ test of Lewis Terman was measuring the language of the child. Nothing less. Why the language? Language was a necessary ingredient of the test, for the examiner was presenting questions to the child. Then, it was obviously a test of language. If the child is unable to understand the question, he cannot reply. But the child can apparently understand a question, but could be unable the reply for he does not know some word. I live in an island that has not trains, and most people had not yet TV as to see a train. only people a little older that was given money to watch movies would had an opportunity to watch a train. But he could had missed perhaps the word train if nobody was telling him. One of the questions was “what is a train?” Other question was about the word lawn. If you ask a child what is a lawn, perhaps he can ignore the meaning of this word. Unless the family has a garden with a lawn, the child cannot understand the word. I have a grand daughter of 25 months of age. We have a lawn but she does not know this word yet. She knows this is grass, bothy in Spanish and in English, but the word lawn had not come out yet in her universe. A child living in a poor family that had often crossed a park, needs his mum to inform him, this you see here is grass, but it is also called a lawn. In a test if the examiner ask a child what is a lawn? The child would be unable to reply if he had not learned yet this word. This do not mean he has some innate ignorance. We all are born ignorant. It is with time that we learn.

Well, I had been arguing with some people in some places about intelligence, and it is rather rare the person arguing with me would know that intelligence is mostly language. Someone was disputing my argument, then I consulted the Concise Oxford dictionary.

Intelligence: Intellect, understanding. 2 Quickness of understanding, sagacity.

In case we have doubts about intellect, it is easy.

Intellect: Faculty of knowing and reasoning, understanding.

You cannot know most questions if you lack a language. To know is to understand some statements, and reasoning is the capacity to discern if some statements are false or true. Reasoning is also the capacity of arriving to a conclusion if some statements can not be verified.

The main purpose of language is to learn things or questions. A part of language is related is mostly to reasoning and it is cognate to doubt. Doubt must be then a component of language.

Some people had tried to befog me by telling intelligence is how fast a person is learning. I replied with the simile of someone playing tennis or playing the piano; the more practice have had this person the faster he learns. A person that never had played tennis or a piano before would have a dirty half hour learning the first steps of those plays. The same happens with language. The more trained is a person with language, the better and faster he understands a relatively complex question. A child with only a poor level of language cannot understand complex phrases or arguments. Like many persons that were arguing with me, they do not understand the meaning of intelligence. But they are able to repeat a lot of classifications of intelligence, like naturalistic, musical, logico-mathematical, existential, interpersonal or social, kinesthetic, linguistic and others.

Basically anything we learn, including language, is not other than a set of “conditioned reflexes”.

We can understand well what it means conditioned reflexes if you watch someone playing tennis. The ball comes to your side, and you must run with the racket in a hand to hit back the ball towards the other player. You can do this better or worse. The more you practice this game, the better you can do it. It is not different to play the piano. You see some notes printed in a paper, and you had learned where to put the fingers to play those notes. In advanced stages you can be able to memorize the whole sequence of a melody and play it. It takes a lot of work to learn this. The more you practice with the piano, the better you play. The same can be said of playing chess, or whatever.

I was talking one day with someone that told me I do not know what mathematics is. I told him, mathematics is not different to playing the piano. You have to build a powerful set of conditioned reflexes.

I remember when I was in a religious school as a child. One of the things I had to learn was the catechism. It started with a small booklet of only 150 questions and replies. Later as you were getting older, the catechism had 3,500 questions and answers. The quid with the catechism was not to confuse the questions, for some have some similarity to others. In maths is not different. You must memorize many hundreds of thousands of algorithms and questions, and you should not to confuse the sheep with the goats.

Anything you would learn needs a lot of work. The more complex is something you have to learn the more work you need to master it. And work means time.

Then, it does not make any sense to speak of different forms of intelligence. Intelligence is what you had learned to do. If you play chess like a grand master, your main intelligence is to play chess. If you are on your way to win the Roland Garros trophy this is your main intelligence, and so on.

Our capacity to know is limited, thus our intelligence is also limited. The more you want to know the more time you need. And also, the more you know in general, the more wrong ideas you can have stored in your brain. To reduce the common situation of committing errors, all sciences had been divided in many different specialties. Nobody has an infinite capacity to memorize.

 
 
 
3 Upvotes
 

Sobre el independentismo catalán

El por qué del independentismo catalán

La respuesta es muy simple. El independentismo halaga la vanidad de los catalanes sugiriendo o afirmando que son una raza superior, y los españoles de Madrid unos mierdas y bastante fachas. Esto es muy halagador y los votantes votan al partido que les dice esas cosas tan bellas. Una vez que gobiernas la comunidad puedes ganar buenas comisiones por las obras publicas, aparte de los lindos sueldos por ser gobernantes o parlamentarios. No solo tienen cargos en Cataluña, sino que los tienen también en el parlamento de España. Esta preciosa fórmula viene funcionando desde que se inventó la democracia y les va muy bien. ¿Por qué iban a cambiar de fórmula? Si una religión te da buen dinero, no te vas a pasar a otra, digo yo. Es cuando menos arriesgado.
Respuesta de


Todo el mundo es vanidoso en más o en menos.  Y las provincias catalanas tiene riqueza y belleza de sobra para creerse que son superiores a los demás.  No todo el mundo te va a restregar eso por las narices pero algunos lo hacen.  Y en este mismo sitio, Quora, me salió un tipo diciendo algo de este estilo. Eran más ricos, porque eran superiores, más trabajadores, con más inventiva, etc.  Esto es un poco como un rico que te dice, que se hizo rico debido a sus virtudes y su voluntad de ahorro.  Y que los que son pobres lo son por causa de su vagancia y su escasa inteligencia.

 

To make my 14 year old daughter keep her door open

 

To let a five year old do whatever she wants

Is it alright to let a five year old do whatever she wants? 

Well, the question has a root. It has a root. I mean something is being done badly with the child. This makes me think the one deserving a punishment is her mother or father for doing something wrong.

 

 

AFRODISIA

Afrodisia

–1–

De las fuerzas con que nos gobierna Palas Atenea, la diosa por Siempre Virgen

Hay una lucha continua, entre Atenea y Afrodita, que gobierna nuestras vidas. Es algo así como la lucha entre el frío y el calor. Es una lucha entre la castidad, inculcada por la virtud de la fusta, y la fuerza indómita de la entrepierna que nos asalta de pronto en el calor de la noche.
Nuestra vida está gobernada por la severa influencia de Palas Atenea; la diosa virgen por los siglos de los siglos. Y esto nos hace cerebrales, guerreros, y bastante frígidos. Atenea promueve las artes y es la diosa de la tecnología. Entre los amigos de la diosa está Hefestos, el divino herrero, que le regaló una milagrosa lechuza voladora, hecha de puro bronce. Constaba esta máquina divina de piezas innumerables y era una maravilla de la herrería olímpica.
Sabemos que el espíritu de la diosa se penetra en sigilo por la mente matemática de los hombres, generando el casto regocijo de las cuentas bancarias y los saldos positivos. Ella nos protege de los riesgos en la mar. Para eso, llevada de su astucia mantiene entretenido al viejo Poseidon en unas partidas interminables de damas. Entretenido en estos juegos inocentes, el viejo se olvida de agitar con su tridente las embravecidas y temibles olas. De ese modo, nuestros barcos llegan felizmente a los puertos donde descargan sus mercancías y se vuelven a cargar de trigo y de cebada en las tierras ricas en grano del mundo.
Atenea es una divinidad poderosa y una Virgen Recia, por demás. Y, a pesar de los milenios transcurridos, todavía no se le conoce ni un desliz que ponga en duda su virginidad. Es la protectora de las doncellas estrechas y de las viudas virtuosas; todas ellas castas por decreto divino. También se la conoce como la Virgen Vengadora de las doncellas ultrajadas y como castradora de violadores.
En un libro sobre el amor, parece fuera de lugar que se traten las cosas de Atenea y las ataduras con que nos gobierna. Pero, en verdad que la diosa misma, y toda su legión de servidores, nos gobierna mucho antes de haber nacido. Lo gobiernan todo. Desde las castas costumbres, pasando por la milicia, el comercio, y hasta los chismorreos mismos de la gente.
Todo lo que hace a Atenas fuerte y poderosa, gravita en torno a la castidad; virtud obligada de toda civilización. Y esta castidad está inspirada y controlada por Atenea, la Virgen Guerrera, por los siglos de los siglos.
Así que siendo esta diosa tan importante para la civilización de Atenas, me veo obligado a empezar este libro cantando sus hazañas y sus virtudes innumerables.

Autor: Leopoldo Perdomo