Liberalism and Atheism Linked To IQ 33
Pharmboy writes "CNN is reporting that Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national US sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly."
Re: (Score:1)
From TFA: Neither Bailey nor Kanazawa identify themselves as liberal; Bailey is conservative and Kanazawa is "a strong libertarian."
So where exactly is the part where Liberals are stereotyping and ridiculing anything? Or are you suggesting scientific research should be suppressed when somebody's feelings might get hurt?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Shut the fuck up. I'm betting that this stupid research was faked by 4chan as a joke.
Yep, and really smart people choose for themselves (Score:2)
They don't associate themselves with or identify themselves as a member of some class. They make their own decisions.
Sorry, but stereotyping and other forms of generalization don't work very well when you are dealing with the long tail, on either side of the peak.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, that was my point. Note "really smart people". Minor variations to either side of the norm might produce measurable statistics. Once you get to the extremes, you can no longer make such generalizations.
So, if he wants to establish some equivalence between higher IQ scores and higher "liberalness" he fails because people that score higher than the stated 103 will not classify themselves in such a simple minded manner. This is probably why he did not include any stats about people that score 120, 130, or
Re: (Score:2)
So, if he wants to establish some equivalence between higher IQ scores and higher "liberalness" he fails because people that score higher than the stated 103 will not classify themselves in such a simple minded manner. This is probably why he did not include any stats about people that score 120, 130, or even more. Unfortunately for him, they don't fit his vision.
Citation needed.
You might be brilliant and have personally decided upon many values. But it doesn't mean that those values don't tend to follow the patterns generally accepted as being called "liberal" or "conservative". This report says the participants self-identified as liberal. That does not translate to 'They checked the box marked liberal". I would hope that anyone with a published paper would have a better study design than that.
You claim that he does not report trends with people with higher IQs
No citation available (Score:2)
I know it is a small sample, but I've just been fortunate enough to know well and frequently fraternize with several(4 in particular I'm thinking of) really bright people. They are hard for me to classify. As simply as I can state it, they are all very interesting. There are certainly variations among them as they are from the 4 corners of the continent. Yet there are some common features. All came from relatively poor to mid class families. All are well read, but with different interests. All consume drugs
Re: (Score:2)
I happen to agree with the sentiment that the farther out on the bell curve, the less categorizable you are. But that surely has to work both ways. Maybe the reason that the average is 6 points apart is because everyone in the bell curve shakes out even, but more people with genius level IQ tend to fit "liberal", or maybe more people with numbers below 70 fit "non-liberal". Without the actual data, it's impossible to say. However, no matter how it shakes out, I don't think it effects the fact that the n
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but stereotyping and other forms of generalization don't work very well when you are dealing with the long tail, on either side of the peak.
The article is about a whopping single digit difference. Not exactly the long tail in the 160s range or the 40s range.
"Participants who said they were atheists had an average IQ of 103 in adolescence, while adults who said they were religious averaged 97, the study found."
Now if they tested for gullibility instead of intelligence, I'm sure the correlation would be far stronger.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They don't associate themselves with or identify themselves as a member of some class. They make their own decisions.
Right, and that's a good point. I would imagine that there would be a just as significant, but higher-strength correlation between high IQ and having different religious views than what you were brought up with.
High IQ enables you to examine what you grew up with critically. Sometimes that results in atheism, sometimes it results in moving from fundamentalism to the mainstream, and sometimes it leads to non-traditional religious positions such as Bahai, John Shelby Spong-style ultra-liberal Christianity,
Meh (Score:1)
There'll be more of a connection between social standing and life experiences to liberalism and atheism than IQ. I have a pretty high IQ to be honest, so here are my experiences.
I grew up in a home where religion was never ever talked about even though my grandmother was treasurer of the church. I was atheist from a young age, 4 or 5 is when I recall a conversation coming up with my uncle's new wife. Cancers and other experiences kept me on that path, but I'm not anti-religous, I understand its role in soci
Re: (Score:2)
Certainly there will be far more connection with social standing and life experiences...but at the same time those things might "average" out. Not in ~mathematical sense though; I imagine life stories are too diverse to be usefull, and with too many possible outcomes from similar storylines; a helluva of interweaving.
The results would probably greatly depend on subtle sorting criteria. With great opportunity for biases of all kind. So also easily dismissed if somebody doesn't like the criteria and results.
I
Re: (Score:1)
>Politically I'm a moderate, which for most people on /. means I'm either a right-wing nutjob or a RINO lefty.
Not just on /.
Re: (Score:1)
Exactly, everything is so polarized now that people like Reagan or TR would either be called a "lefty" or a "fascist", theres no more "in the middle" in US politics.
RINO ? (Score:2)
"RINO" being an acronym for "Republican In Name Only"?
Which, if I understand American politics correctly means "someone pretending to be a lunatic right-winger", as opposed to someone who actually is a lunatic right winger.
Which raises the question of why would someone pretend to be a lunatic? Well, that's America for you.
Re: (Score:1)
The mainstream Republicans are not "lunatic right-wingers". Mainstream Republicans are the folks who engaged the People's Republic of China, believe trade is good, don't like abortions but don't call people names over it.
The National Review crowd generally are "main stream Republicans".
Tea Bag Party is a spin to the right of the "main stream Republicans".
"Lunatic Right Wingers" are your Ron Paul types, you can find them over at Lewrockwell.com and past them to the right killing Abortion Doctors.
Saying all R
Certainly (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Certainly you don't think that this study was about few handpicked individuals and not about large scale dynamics of human populations, do you?
I think Georges Lemaitre would disagree (Score:1)
.
Lemaître proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, which he called his 'hypothesis of the primeval atom'.
No reasons why faith & science can't co exist
Re: (Score:1)
They do co-exist.
They just completely contradict each other, as well.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, a literal interpretation of any religious book usually can't coexist with reason and rationality. But taking religion as a moral tradition, it really doesn't have to have any issue with science.
And please remember, no matter how many single instances of intelligent conservative religious sluts you want to break out, it doesn't change the data of a large pool or respondents like this. That isn't how statistics work. You average them in. And the fact that they achieved statistically significant resul
Re: (Score:2)
That's a rather complex example (nvm that the story is not about individual examples...); it's quite possible that one of the inspirations for Lemaître was the need to reconcile the state of science at his time with the story of clear beginning from his religious texts.
Now - would you be so good and give us examples contrary to your punch line? There's plenty of them. Also happening right now.
That and (Score:3, Interesting)
vegetarianism:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061215090916.htm [sciencedaily.com]
And people's prejudices affect how food tastes:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080716205208.htm [sciencedaily.com]
But IQ is a load of crap.
Same item, but on ScienceDaily:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100224132655.htm [sciencedaily.com]
Conclusion? (Score:1)
Bullshit (Score:1)
As a liberal and an atheist with a high IQ, I'd like to call bullshit on this study. It is VERY suspicious. It's like all that Bell Curve bullshit from a few years back that tried to say that black people averaged a lower IQ because of their genetics. Bullshit.
So you got it from me first. This thing is bullshit. I haven't looked him up, but if the author doesn't turn out to be a pure bullshit artist, I'll have sex with Cowboy Neal.
It's bullshit.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Boo-yah! (Score:1)
'nuff said.