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Tempting... Isaac Send a noteboard - 03/02/2012 11:17:43 PM
Too easy though, I appreciate the effort, we haven't had a good scuffle in a while, I'll give it a go anyway.

Short form, these sorts of studies generally fall apart on scrutiny and play up to the core virtue a given group aspires too. In the case of the cult of liberal intelligentsia, that's generally the 'We're smart, and by association you'll be smart, and can sneer at people who are dumb, which is what you really want to do' which is not particularly exclusive to libs. Another common one, used by both libs and cons, is 'join us and by association you'll be moral and can get self-righteous, which is what you really want to do'. I'm immune to both such since my ego is so big I do not require external validation regarding my vastly superior intellect and morality. The big one from a lot of the more apathetic but egotistic moderates is generally "Our neutrality and ability to see both sides of an argument makes us more intelligent and enlightened, and allows us to cover over our apathy-generated ignorance of virtually all important details of a given issue"

Anyway I'm not going to rip this one up like I did the last 3? times one of these has gotten posted, mostly because trying to drag those up on a search distracted with an old favorite and I don't think I can duplicate that today.

Bigots of a racial variety probably are lower IQ, if they're open about it to be identified as such, but will tend to fall in with whichever political group most equates to nationalist sentiment. Not including non-white bigots, who are rather plentiful, there are quite a lot of racists hanging out in the unions in my experience. I'd not be surprised if the GOP had more of them, but I'd not bet on it either. Lot's of bigots with liberal sentiment just avoid getting hammered on it. I daresay there's #1, many forms of bigotry which get moderate acceptance on the left probably aren't going to be flagged as bigotry in a study on it by a professor. If prior examples are any example don't be surprised if the researchers in a moment of supreme cleverness decided to try to detect racism by asking "Do you believe the US does enough to prevent illegal immigration?" or "Do you feel that more public funds should be diverted to help underprivileged minorities?"

So, what with asking people "Are you a racist?" probably not producing much reliable data, with many racists not thinking they are and thus not wanting to answer 'yes', and many people harboring just a speck of it and a lot of guilt answering 'Yes', the thing would either be meaningless or would require attempts at 'subtlety', like above. And I'm just gonna toss off that a researcher who thinks he's both very smart and has keen insight into the human psyche, and also thinks bigotry is connected to IQ, is likely to proceed with about all the subtlety of a claw hammer to the head. Based on the limited intellectual prowess and social skills of most social scientists I've met, I anticipate the claw hammer approach may be generous. I also never like to miss a chance at hypocrisy by grossly over-generalizing from biased anecdotal evidence while accusing others of doing it, though I stand by my slander, because I don't like social scientists. Especially when they disagree with me.

Of course, I haven't read this study yet in depth, so I could be utterly wrong, and simply biased by the last five jillion "We're innately better than" articles which get posted with frequency [and terribly inaccuracy to the study itself] at the various right and left red meat hack rags, of which HuffPo is usually the worst offender, so I'm taking a boy who cried wolf attitude on this one. As far as I'm concerned, IQ's a really iffy metric in the first place and has damn near nothing to do with political affiliation. All of these, IQ or other things, are basically attempts at bigotry themselves 'see, here's proof we're innately superior' and are done with all the legitimacy and finesse of some supremacist group that cherry picks and distorts articles to prove their genetic superiority. And we've been here, done this, anyway. It is one thing to believe you are superior to others in some specific respect heavily keyed to your group, like believing you are more knowledgeable about economics because you're a Fiscal Conservative or Communist. It is also reasonable to specifically identify with a group as intelligent "Us brain surgeons, we are smarter than most people", as this is likely true. It is another to attribute superior intelligence to an entirely ideological faction, and it varies not at all from those who do that shit with their religion, their gender, their race, or their nationality.

Even when you do find statistical differences it usually is minor and boils down to factors like someone having asked flawed questions like above or something effectively irrelevant. Take two small local Christian denominations, one of which decides it needs to hit the colleges and try to get young people to avoid excessive sex, drugs and booze in favor of prayer, and the other goes out and says they need to go after prisoners or recently paroled offenders or those living in poor high crime neighborhoods. Anyone want to guess, should someone poll it, which group's congregation a few years later will have higher average IQs? Anyone actually think that, should those two groups argue about who has the right doctrine, one can really claim an edge by showing how their members have a higher IQ?

The world is full of lots of people who aren't too bright, often ditzy and cheerful, and don't have a bigoted bone in their body, possibly because they're too busy being distracted by various bright shiny objects to care. And an awful lot of very intelligent people, even doctors and scientists, who harbored some very nasty sentiments. If there's a linkage at all, it likely only indicates intelligent racists keep their mouths shut because it's the smart thing to do.

I just find this one amusing because it brings up bigotry as a figure and whether it is right or wrong most of the people who will read about how this proves liberals are more intelligent and less bigoted probably won't catch the irony while they're busy gloating.

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
- Albert Einstein

King of Cairhien 20-7-2
Chancellor of the Landsraad, Archduke of Is'Mod
This message last edited by Isaac on 04/02/2012 at 12:04:58 AM
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By referencing it… - 03/02/2012 10:50:59 PM 1479 Views
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It was a mostly facetious comment…. - 03/02/2012 11:49:28 PM 921 Views
Clearly you endorse it. - 05/02/2012 02:23:41 AM 659 Views
Only endorsing its validity, not its soundness. *NM* - 04/02/2012 02:24:24 AM 413 Views
Tempting... - 03/02/2012 11:17:43 PM 813 Views
I expected no less. - 05/02/2012 12:25:14 AM 839 Views
Still fun though - 05/02/2012 01:30:26 AM 914 Views
Well, that is the main thing. - 05/02/2012 02:25:36 AM 955 Views
Well, racists are dumb. What's to discuss? - 04/02/2012 01:23:27 AM 655 Views
I think that generally agreed, though we need a study PROVING what we already know. - 05/02/2012 12:41:26 AM 921 Views
Proving is something you do in maths, not science. - 05/02/2012 09:05:30 AM 639 Views
So the Moon might still be made of green cheese? - 05/02/2012 10:20:57 AM 749 Views
Yes. It is not very likely, though, since no measurement we have done so far indicates that it is so - 05/02/2012 02:28:18 PM 587 Views
Oh, let us not go THERE. - 05/02/2012 02:54:30 PM 832 Views
Bad comparison - 05/02/2012 03:36:12 PM 700 Views
Well, that last part will make sure this gets ugly.... - 04/02/2012 02:05:11 AM 539 Views
Do you not think it's true then? - 04/02/2012 07:32:13 AM 848 Views
Same here *NM* - 04/02/2012 12:13:44 PM 330 Views
Not in my experience. - 04/02/2012 04:17:01 PM 740 Views
Granted, you do move in different circles than I (or Jens, for that matter.) - 04/02/2012 10:24:52 PM 709 Views
Corfirmational bias much? - 04/02/2012 04:25:24 PM 703 Views
I did mention that I didn't care enough to look into it. - 04/02/2012 10:22:09 PM 738 Views
As a few others have noted, it is important to preserve the causality chain. - 05/02/2012 02:35:02 AM 714 Views
I dont see that it matters. - 13/02/2012 01:40:45 AM 905 Views

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