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"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"
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.
I wonder if there’s a similar study that uses executive capacity (multitasking etc.) as a more objective measure of intelligence. When I was in school, this was the most supported way to objectively measure intelligence (but of course, is that actually intelligence? Intelligence is just a word we have. Having the word doesn’t mean that the concept exists.)
Maybe, but I think that's still going to be a function of environment vs innate. There's not really an objective measure when existence is subjective, and an individual's capacity for effort is very dependent on their resources that they can consume. All sorts of effort, not just intellectual.
A fact so obvious and apparent only a German would even bother asking.
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.
IQ is bullshit.
In my opinion IQ measures only a narrow field of the brains capabilities. Namely logical thinking.
Duh.
I think being knowledgeable leads someone to be more liberal than they otherwise would have been. Less inclined to fear the outgroup and fear change. This is why a college degree is so associated with liberalism. I don't know how well that corresponds to IQ, which itself is kind of wishy washy.
being knowledgeable
IQ has nothing to do with being knowledgeable. Shit headlines like this play into the exact same eugenics theory of humanity that gooners like RFK Jr and Peter Thiel have been pushing.
I don’t know how well that corresponds to IQ
It's quite literally just a measurement of one's pattern recognition speed. Has nothing to do with your politics.
Case in point, Christopher Langan, who regularly outperformed on these cognition tests, was a total nerd on trivia, and ended up becoming a forest ranger because he had a perpetual chip on his shoulder. Once his reputation blew up as someone who could ace cognitive tests, he leveraged that into becoming a right-wing grifter.
The guy is a total piece of shit who tests well. Go out to any of the Ivy League universities and you'll find this kind of person in spades. Silicon Valley, the DC Beltway, Wall Street, Raytheon Acres, the Florida Real Estate scene - very intelligent assholes are a dime a dozen. FFS, we built our rocket labs on Nazi scientists. No shortage of right-wingers in the "High IQ" space.
Yeah, being knowledgeable is quantifiable. IQ is wishy washy and easily misused
This isn’t enough info right? Wouldn’t we need to know the baseline before they state women dont shift to the left at a higher IQ?
Like if when are 80% progressive already, a high IQ might make them 85% progressive
But if men are 30% progressive an a high IQ makes them 70% progressive.
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").
it would be easy to fake. its not hard know how to be a good person in theyre given socity, manipulator do it all the time. also are you going to define morality for all of humanity for this test? yah good luck with that lol.
There are very few actual republicans or conservatives now. What you are describing is not historical conservatism either socially or fiscally.
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.
Aaah a feel-good article for leftists.
Plenty of dumb dumbs among us, don't worry.
Don't worry. Let a non dumb dumb explain.
There are many causality relationship kinds.
In case 1, all leftists have big IQ. But NOT all big IQ ppl are leftist.
In case 2, all big IQ ppl are leftist. But NOT all leftists have big IQ.
In case 3, all big IQ ppl are leftist, and all leftists have big IQ.
In case 4, some NOT all leftist have big IQ. And NOT all big IQ ppl are leftist. But some are.
Assuming having big IQ is desirable, leftists would want either case 1 or 3. Since that would mean they have a big IQ.
However, the headline seems to suggest case 2. And in reality. And it could still be case 4.
Of course, in reality there is an uncountable number of parameters, not just 3, so don't take the "all" in my comment as literally "all". Reality probably resembles more case 4.
If this were a feel-good article for leftists, the headline would suggest case 1 or 3. Since that is what leftists want.
Even assuming the best case scenario of case 2 where all big IQ people are leftists. If you define big IQ as "top 10%" and low IQ as "not big IQ": it is technically possible for 90% of leftists to be low IQ. And if low IQ is 50-50 leftist-conservative, 78% of leftists would be low IQ.
what about big PP tho?
Could be the third parameter that causes both leftism and big IQ.
Someone would need to do the study on that to be sure though.
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.
Higher IQ is also associated with higher Critical Thinking Skills, which help you recognize and avoid conservative propaganda.
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!
its better then getting a low score on a IQ test.
Fuck IQ. Literally political stance is a better measurement of intelligence.
Wait...
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.
Here's a link to the study, so you don't have to read an article about an article.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289625000893
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!