A thicker tail means, in a finite population, a longer (visible) tail. Consider a world with 100 men and 100 women. Suppose IQ is a normal distribution, the women have standard deviation 10 IQ points, and the men have standard deviation 15 IQ points. Since about 1% of any population will be 3 standard deviations above the mean, you expect the smartest woman to have IQ 130 and the smartest man to have IQ 145.
Good point. The finite nature of the populations means that the expectation is that the thicker tail will correspond to a larger observed maximum. So my statement was wrong.
A thicker tail means, in a finite population, a longer (visible) tail. Consider a world with 100 men and 100 women. Suppose IQ is a normal distribution, the women have standard deviation 10 IQ points, and the men have standard deviation 15 IQ points. Since about 1% of any population will be 3 standard deviations above the mean, you expect the smartest woman to have IQ 130 and the smartest man to have IQ 145.
Good point. The finite nature of the populations means that the expectation is that the thicker tail will correspond to a larger observed maximum. So my statement was wrong.
Thanks for making me think it out well enough to explain.