The study excerpted below is amusing. It is coming out in a sociology journal but concentrates on psychology to the exclusion of sociology! Amazing what can happen when you have an axe to grind!
The article is mostly speculation and theorizing but it does have some actual findings about IQ on which to build its house of cards. But the writer totally overlooks the social context in which the findings were gathered. They are not IQ findings from adults but rather findings about adolescents. The fact that data about adults were not presented is of course the giveaway.
The study found that the more intelligent adolescents were more liberal. So what does that prove? As someone who has taught both psychology and sociology at university level, I have little doubt what it means: It means that more intelligent kids are better at picking up and absorbing the lessons drummed into them by our Left-dominated educational system. It means no more than that. The sociological context overlooked is, in other words, the fact that the individuals concerned were still at school. I think that can reasonably be called: “Overlooking the obvious”.
For the findings among random samples of adults, see here. Much more pesky!
More intelligent people are significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history. Specifically, liberalism and atheism, and for men (but not women), preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.
The study, published in the March 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed scientific journal Social Psychology Quarterly, advances a new theory to explain why people form particular preferences and values. The theory suggests that more intelligent people are more likely than less intelligent people to adopt evolutionarily novel preferences and values, but intelligence does not correlate with preferences and values that are old enough to have been shaped by evolution over millions of years.” ….
In the current study, Kanazawa argues that humans are evolutionarily designed to be conservative, caring mostly about their family and friends, and being liberal, caring about an indefinite number of genetically unrelated strangers they never meet or interact with, is evolutionarily novel. So more intelligent children may be more likely to grow up to be liberals.
Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) support Kanazawa’s hypothesis. Young adults who subjectively identify themselves as “very liberal” have an average IQ of 106 during adolescence while those who identify themselves as “very conservative” have an average IQ of 95 during adolescence.
Similarly, religion is a byproduct of humans’ tendency to perceive agency and intention as causes of events, to see “the hands of God” at work behind otherwise natural phenomena. “Humans are evolutionarily designed to be paranoid, and they believe in God because they are paranoid,” says Kanazawa. This innate bias toward paranoia served humans well when self-preservation and protection of their families and clans depended on extreme vigilance to all potential dangers. “So, more intelligent children are more likely to grow up to go against their natural evolutionary tendency to believe in God, and they become atheists.”
Young adults who identify themselves as “not at all religious” have an average IQ of 103 during adolescence, while those who identify themselves as “very religious” have an average IQ of 97 during adolescence.
More HERE
Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here
4 users commented in " “Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent” "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackMan cannot heal himself or raise the dead. A car doesn’t just appear on the road all put together perfectly. Someone had to build it. Same with the universe. Perfect order and dependability. I don’t think it’s stupid to look higher up for the answers.
People often categorize those who don’t think like themselves in a negative light, so to reassure themselves. I’ve always felt that the truly religious should be the most socially liberal and progressive in their thinking, just like Jesus. Scientists use their God-given brains and talents, just like He told us to do. I know several agnostics who have passed on and have no doubt that they are in heaven, but for my bible-loving Grandmother, I’m not so sure.
ABOUT WHY LIBERALS AND ATHEISTS ARE MORE INTELLIGENT BY SATOSHI KANAZAWA
I’m an atheist ressurectionist Christian, So I still believe in life after death, the only difference is God the Father is an astronaut king from another world. I wonder how I’d fit into this study? Chant with me Klaatu, Nemo, Moreau,Oz, — Truman. God is a man ascended from the apes on another world, he’s a bit of Klaatu (The Day the Earth Stood Still), a galactic Capt. Nemo, and a interplanetary Dr. Moreau (Island of Dr. Moro), a Wizard of OzEarth(just pull back the curtain and see for yourself). We may be the ultimate reality TV show, a planet of the Truman show, where super advanced technology allows them to read your thoughts and everything you do is instantly transmitted by rods circling the earth to the mother planet. It may be interactive!
Creationism The Final Frontier of Insanity
The Bible says “come now let us reason together as men” Isaiah 1:18, not as babbling, drooling idiots. Every man and woman that preaches creationism is an enemy of God, Jesus and everyone that serves truth and sanity. Every verse in the Bible that teaches creationism can be argued. Man was created in the likeness and image of God, Gen 1:26, so God is a man from another world, a Wizard of Ozearth. It’s time you creationists stop being like the munchkins of Oz, it’s nice you sing and dance praises to God, but you really do have an obligation to speak the truth.
Of course liberals being smarter than a conservative sounds bogus. After all conservative really only means “cautious”, as in if someone tells you to jump off a cliff because it’s cool, a conservative will want to wait and see first.
So I’m inclined to suspect this IQ test is another Kendrick Schon fantasy perpetrated by one of the sciences that could get away with fixing to test and results, social psychology!
I am a atheist and a libertarian, not a liberal. Why liberalism is so popular among many and they consider themselves intelligent. Perhaps they are intelligent, but it seems to me that their morals leave a lot to be desired in that IMHO that they are not much better off in how they treat their fellow men (and women) than a common thief does. To justify abridging my financial freedom to support people or persons who have not worked for their own savings and financial responsibilities. To get the government to steal from hard working responsible people to give (at someone’s else’s call), in my opinion they are enabling the government to steal and are accessories to that crime. Which I think is immoral, intelligent people should know better than to support that action. There are many needy people in the country and the world. It is not everyone’s responsibly to support them by being forced to. If we are not financially free, we are not free. They might say “it’s for the public welfare”, aren’t I part of the public? Is it for my welfare for someone to, at the point of a gun, take a part of what is rightfully mine that I earned? Where’s the freedom in that? Who am I working for? Myself, or the state? Liberals may be smart, but I don’t think they are as smart as they think. Ever try arguing with a liberal? They know what’s best and tell me I have old fashioned conservative ideas. Well I’m not a conservative and what is old fashioned about keeping what is rightfully mine? Even a two year old solidly knows what is his/hers. Have you heard one say, MINE, MINE! When your willing to share, that’s one thing but to be intimidated and if necessary forced to by the point of a gun or jail. That’s outright theft. I don’t think I need to go further on level headedness of people who think because the explanation for all things around us is attributed to some deity that we cannot see or see any physical evidence of. You might as well explain the world around us as being created by magic. Invisible pink unicorns. See also the youtube of George Carlin’s take on Religion is B.S. I can’t understand the continued attraction of religion, I think perpetuates itself, and it may never go away. I think that the smartest people don’t have to impose their views, put burdens on others, takes the world just for itself and it’s beauty without creating fairy tales of how it came to be.
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