Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
"The current study showed that high intelligence does not, as one might assume, lead to radical political positions. Instead, highly gifted adults are on average just as politically diverse and moderate as the rest of the population."
Well that headline is...misleading.
Imagining a world where the headlines aren't click bait and the articles are well researched. One day...
You'd need media that wasn't predicated on advertising revenues.
"Solid ice colder than liquid water, study finds."
Proof that academia cultures the left, neglecting real science like the fact that you can pressurize water into ice while preserving its warmth!
~ a conservative somewhere
"My social media isn't an echo chamber"
from a logical standpoint, conservatism is lacking any kind of sense or logic. I think it's safe to assume that, in order to follow blindly an idea that crumbles as soon as you critically think about it, you have to lack the ability to critically think.
What I think tho is that it's empathy what we should link to intelligence (or whatever you want to call the skill set that allows you to question and critizice everything).
Conservatism is a lack of empathy (which comes with a lack of said "intelligence").
I also believe this, and want to add that conservatism is mostly a combination of ideals based on grievances and a complete lack of critical thinking thinking as well.
I know plenty of intelligent conservatives, but all them lack empathy for anyone outside their circle.
From where? No university I've worked at has a significant amount of conservative thought.
As a high IQ person I would like to remind everyone that IQ has been coopted by a scientific racism and eugenics agenda, and the originator, a French man by the name of Alfred Binet,
"stressed that intellectual development progressed at variable rates and could be influenced by the environment; therefore, intelligence was not based solely on genetics, was malleable rather than fixed, and could only be found in children with comparable backgrounds."
We can only assume that any correlation in beliefs and scoring is the product of an environment which tends to produce both or inhibits the production of both. IE Fox News makes you dumb, and Fox News makes you conservative, concurrently. The study does not mention TV.
Here's a link to the paper, so you don't have to read an article about an article.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289625000893
A fact so obvious and apparent only a German would even bother asking.
Higher IQ is also associated with higher Critical Thinking Skills, which help you recognize and avoid conservative propaganda.
Aaah a feel-good article for leftists.
Plenty of dumb dumbs among us, don't worry.
There's a reason universities lean heavily left
I would disagree on the "heavily" unless you accept the US definition of the right-left paradigm.
Of course. There's a reason why conservatives don't want the masses educated. Because they'd see how much they're getting fucked by said conservatives.
That's why they've been attacking public schools for decades, and why they push religion in schools.
The kids of the filthy rich go to private schools that teach capitalism the same way they have for generations.
Duh
To be liberal requires empathy. A deep understanding of others and their situations and the knowledge that your own personal needs dont always automatically outweigh others.
Empathy requires emotional intelligence.
Its easy to see it in action. Pick a problem and then look at the solutions offered by populist politicians to solve them.
In the UK one of the problems is immigrants arriving on small boats. The populist "solution"? "STOP THE BOATS" shouted far and wide.
How we ask?
And then silence. And when pressed, the likes of Reform offer more soundbites like "use the navy" and "send them back" but without any substance.
Meanwhile Liberal politicians offer actual solutions that are not sound bites, and they won't work quickly. Things like working with the French to find and arrest the people organising it. Helping to improve facilities in France and the rest of Europe so the UK isn't seen as somewhere an immigrant needs to travel to.
Basically, intelligent people aren't fooled by meaningless slogans. Morons aren't able to understand that deep problems require deep and complex solutions.
It is not just a question of emotional intelligence. As an autistic person, this is really a weak point in my statistics.
I'm simply not stupid enough to fall for their ideas.
Men with high net worth are more conservative leaning?! Isn't that weird. Learning about the world builds compassion, while feeding your own greed breeds self interest. So weird. Remind me why we ask the opinions of rich people again?
Because if we make them feel valued they might give you some money. Do this enough times and you can be a rich asshole too!
IQ testing is pseudoscience. It's one of the preferred methods of the far right to try to differentiate between races for that very reason. Pseudoscience is a lot more malleable for their purposes than the settled science that says race doesn't exist biologically.
Having a "high IQ" is only proof that you're good at IQ tests.
[H]owever much all this soothes my vanity, and however much I appreciate being vice-president of Mensa, an organization which bases admission to its membership on IQ, I must, in all honesty, maintain that it means nothing.
What, after all, does such an intelligence test measure but those skills that are associated with intelligence by the individuals designing the test? And those individuals are subject to the cultural pressures and prejudices that force a subjective definition of intelligence. [...]
The whole thing is a self-perpetuating device. Men in intellectual control of a dominating section of society define themselves as intelligent, then design tests that are a series of clever little doors that can let through only minds like their own, thus giving them more evidence of "intelligence" and more examples of "intelligent people" and therefore more reason to devise additional tests of the same kind. More circular reasoning!
--Isaac Asimov, "Thinking About Thinking," 1975
Great quote, thanks!
Veritasium made a video talking about IQ tests, their validity and so on. https://youtu.be/FkKPsLxgpuY
One of my key takeaways: IQ tests have some validity as a diagnostic tool for asessing cognitive disabilities or illnesses, but they should not be taken as serious and significant as many less informed people seem to do.
For your own privacy, and the privacy of everybody else interacting with you.
When you share a YouTube link, if you don't remove the si=ID, anybody that clicks on that link will then be associated with you. It's one of the tools Google uses to track your internet usage.
It's not completely pseudo-science, as there are a lot of correlations with things like academic success or job performance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Social_correlations
I am pretty sure that I would flunk IQ tests, and I have leftist preferences. Mathematics and other subjects of high learning are not something I really understand. While I appreciate neat things like electricity, chemistry, design, and AI, I simply don't understand them to any meaningful extent.
That sucks. I would like to have a character sheet with +10 bonuses across the board, and a platinum piece to start my game with. Same goes for the rest of the neighborhood.
There's no flunking an IQ test, but you are probably a normal median person.
The fact they don't think they're a genius and know their limits suggests they're probably smarter than average. I've found the dumbest people have an unshakable confidence they're always correct.
This is because reality itself has a strong left-leaning bias, and intelligence makes you encounter that a lot more as you interact with reality.
Sure, there are highly intelligent right-wingers, but intelligence only gives you the cognitive tools to discover reality, it doesn’t force you to use them. Just because a person is intelligent doesn’t mean they can’t slide off into wharrderp fantasy land.
Yeah, well, I've never felt smarter than when conversing with a conservative.
IQ is bullshit.
In my opinion IQ measures only a narrow field of the brains capabilities. Namely logical thinking.
Fuck IQ. Literally political stance is a better measurement of intelligence.
Wait...
I will count of the list of Conservative scientists:
End of list
In before everyone trashes IQ for being racist and pointless.
And I'm not saying it isn't ethnocentric and a bit arbitrary. But walk around a Mensa meeting and you'll see things in common.
Mostly that everyone is really socially inept if not outright problematic.
But 90% liberal, yeah.
Mensa is not a good selector. First off it not that high of an IQ requirement, second, they have to want to join Mensa. Real brilliant folks have little interest.
So IQ is still a valid measuring method is it?
The criteria for what counts as "valid measure method" is not "metrics that would make your ingroup look good".
I think there's a litany of problems with this assertion.
Firstly the sample size is 150 people, too small for any meaningful conclusion.
Secondly the article doesn't make any attempt at a causal relationship. Are men with higher IQs more progressive because they have higher IQs? Or is there some other reason.
One hypothesis is simply that students in the 80s and 90s who were more comfortable with STEM work (and IQ tests) were more likely to go on to tertiary academic studies, and we know that there is a causal relationship between academic achievement and progressive politics. Given the era, perhaps women were less likely to follow that path than their male counterparts.
I'm not saying that's the answer, it's just an example of how statistical links aren't always helpful.
Edit: most of what I said is really dumb and wrong!
150 is actually appropriate for this type of study and effect size.
Especially considering it was a longitudinal study that spanned 35 years. Impressive they could maintain that many participants.
Sure we could always use bigger samples but 150 is really good actually.
Secondly.
Causal research is a whole other thing.
Correlation research comes first. Once that's established , Then causal research.
Causal research is much more different to conduct for social factors like this. Nearly impossible actually.
So don't be surprised when such research doesn't exist.
You can't manipulate someone's IQ. And you can't really manipulate their political leaning.
There is no real way to run an experimental study to find out causes.
Best you can do is find more correlations.