Study Findings

[Vigile]

Liberals and Atheists Smarter? Intelligent People Have Values Novel in Human Evolutionary History, Study Finds

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100224132655.htm

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

 

So sorry LR. I know you complain about the imbalance of political opinion here, well here's a likely reason why.

 

Anyway, I hate for this to turn political. I think the above quote is more interesting and apt for this site. It's something I've always strongly suspected. Now there is scientific proof.

[mwc]

Suuuuuuuuure they are.

 

Everyone knows that crap like this is funded by the godless liberals and is part of their agenda sent down from their ivory towers.

 

Nice try hippie.

 

mwc

[NotBlinded]

Hey, I didn't become a liberal until I went to college.

 

Now, pass me that doobie...

 

[OpheliaGinger]

...and for men (but not women), preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.

 

So, to go with the theme of the article, if you want to find a man is less likely to cheat on you, go for on in academia who is a leftist atheist--but don't except the same for women.

 

Although, I don't really understand how being a night owl plays into intelligence. I had always been taught that being a night owl correlated to there being a need for someone to keep vigilance during the night against any predators (be it human or non-human).

[★ Citsonga ★]

...and for men (but not women), preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.

 

So, to go with the theme of the article, if you want to find a man is less likely to cheat on you, go for on in academia who is a leftist atheist--but don't except the same for women.

 

I didn't quite take it that way. It may simply mean that sexual exclusivity is more prominent in more intelligent men than less intelligent men, while sexual exclusivity is more consistent between more and less intelligent women. In other words, women with lower intelligence may not be as prone to promiscuity as men with lower intelligence.

[Shyone]

...and for men (but not women), preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.

 

So, to go with the theme of the article, if you want to find a man is less likely to cheat on you, go for on in academia who is a leftist atheist--but don't except the same for women.

 

I didn't quite take it that way. It may simply mean that sexual exclusivity is more prominent in more intelligent men than less intelligent men, while sexual exclusivity is more consistent between more and less intelligent women. In other words, women with lower intelligence may not be as prone to promiscuity as men with lower intelligence.

Smaller cojones => Less sex drive => Greater marital fidelity.

[Neon Genesis]

I'm a godless liberal but I'm not getting straight As in college! I demand a refund!

[Legion]

I'm not even going to take the time to criticize this bit of "science". If many of you here want to believe that liberals are smart and conservatives are idiots then I hope you will feel free to do so. Savor the idea like pigs in slop for all I care.

[The-Captain]

I'm not even going to take the time to criticize this bit of "science".

 

Kind of hard to do without access to the full journal.

[Legion]

I'm not even going to take the time to criticize this bit of "science".

Kind of hard to do without access to the full journal.

It wouldn't matter to me even if I did have access to the full journal. I have had long abiding misgivings about psychology's claim to science anyway. And this is ironic to me because I also have an abiding interest in the mind. The fact that many psychological models are statistical is very indicative to me. Perhaps some day psychology will mature. I hope so.

[The-Captain]

I have had long abiding misgivings about psychology's claim to science anyway.

 

Care to elaborate?

 

The fact that many psychological models are statistical is very indicative to me.

 

Empirical data is required. The researchers themselves typically take it at face value.

[Legion]

I have had long abiding misgivings about psychology's claim to science anyway.

Care to elaborate?

For you Doc, sure. Why not?

 

I suppose the most damning criticism I could level is this. What do psychologists study? I bet they don't even agree among themselves about this. The name would imply that they study the psyche. But what is it?

[Vigile]

I have had long abiding misgivings about psychology's claim to science anyway.

Care to elaborate?

For you Doc, sure. Why not?

 

I suppose the most damning criticism I could level is this. What do psychologists study? I bet they don't even agree among themselves about this. The name would imply that they study the psyche. But what is it?

 

Perhaps you are right about this. Who knows? But anecdotally just compare the freepers and the dittoheads with those on the Huffpo boards.

 

This isn't a question of who's right and who's wrong. I don't necessarily agree with either group.

 

And I've met some pretty sharp conservatives including yourself and Snake. By and large though my own personal observations of the two collective groups indicates there's merit to the study's findings.

[Legion]

And I've met some pretty sharp conservatives including yourself and Snake.

The thing is Vigile, I'm not even a conservative. I'm a moderate. I only appear conservative in contrast with the others here. If I were to go elsewhere I would be thought a liberal.

[The-Captain]

I suppose the most damning criticism I could level is this. What do psychologists study?

 

The human mind, cognition, behavior, development, malady etc. There are different disciplines and fields of study but they all do this.

[florduh]

By and large though my own personal observations of the two collective groups indicates there's merit to the study's findings.

Not without irony I must say "ditto" to this.

[Vigile]

And I've met some pretty sharp conservatives including yourself and Snake.

The thing is Vigile, I'm not even a conservative. I'm a moderate. I only appear conservative in contrast with the others here. If I were to go elsewhere I would be thought a liberal.

 

See, there ya go. That's probably why you aren't hanging out on the freeper boards. That and the thing the study alluded to.

[Legion]

I suppose the most damning criticism I could level is this. What do psychologists study?

The human mind, cognition, behavior, development, malady etc. There are different disciplines and fields of study but they all do this.

To me this seems to be the substitution of the vague word psyche with other vague words: human mind, cognition, etc.

[The-Captain]

To me this seems to be the substitution of the vague word psyche with other vague words: human mind, cognition, etc.

 

There are intangible elements to the mind, if that is what you are alluding to, psychology also involves study at the operational level.

[Shyone]

To me this seems to be the substitution of the vague word psyche with other vague words: human mind, cognition, etc.

 

There are intangible elements to the mind, if that is what you are alluding to, psychology also involves study at the operational level.

I shouldn't comment because it's pretty far from my field, but I did take some courses in college and medical school...

 

Here's some of what they study now: 1) behavior, 2) opinion, 3) steps in reasoning, 4) simultaneous processes that take up the same areas and/or functions of the brain, 5) calculation and memory limits, 6) "intelligence" including what it is and how to measure it, 7) anatomic versus functional studies.

 

Psychology and neuroscience are meeting one another in the middle, so that the distinction is blurring.

[Legion]

I'm not well versed in psychology either. But if I were to do a hardcore study of the human mind then this is what I'd do.

 

I would clone many men and women and emerse them in exact environments. I would then systematically ablate, or otherwise alter, various parts of their nervous systems and compare the behavior of the altered groups with a control group. This would give me raw data. Then would I begin to reason from the data.

 

But this study would be unethical in the extreme.

[Shyone]

I'm not well versed in psychology either. But if I were to do a hardcore study of the human mind then this is what I'd do.

 

I would clone many men and women and emerse them in exact environments. I would then systematically ablate, or otherwise alter, various parts of their nervous systems and compare the behavior of the altered groups with a control group. This would give me raw data. Then would I begin to reason from the data.

 

But this study would be unethical in the extreme.

That would be the current strategy for studying neuroscience, but psychology iw benefitting as well.

 

Controlled studies with clones are not available and won't be for the foreseeable future, but to the extent that humans can be shown to be similar to one another functionally, this experiement is exactly what has been done. Look up Split Brain studies for example.

 

A better study is to use the unhindered and undamaged brain under different circumstances to see what it does.

 

A fascinating study showed that if people are given two tasks, one of which involved short term memory and the other rational decision making, that if the short term memory task is complicated (more than 5 things to remember), people chose more irrationally whereas for simple tasks (2 things to remember), they would choose rationally. The short term memory and rational brain are using the same circuits.

 

Actually, there are thousands of studies filling up journals and books and students' schedules.

[Antlerman]

I'm not even going to take the time to criticize this bit of "science". If many of you here want to believe that liberals are smart and conservatives are idiots then I hope you will feel free to do so. Savor the idea like pigs in slop for all I care.

Yeah, this is highly speculative and hardly conclusive "proof". I really don't care to dissect it much either, other than to just say it makes a lot of claims touching a lot of fields of inquiry for a single hypothesis. Again, "here's your proof", is a faith statement.

[The-Captain]

Yeah, this is highly speculative and hardly conclusive "proof".

 

Agreed, it was obviously intended to stir controversy.

 

From the abstract it doesn't sound like the hypothesis itself is so extreme. Like I said before without access to the full journal it is hard to evaluate their statistics and how strong the correlation is and whether it supports the hypothesis.

 

The Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis, derived from the Savanna Principle and a theory of the evolution of general intelligence, suggests that more intelligent individuals may be more likely to acquire and espouse evolutionarily novel values and preferences

 

Mind you, they are correlating IQ with preferences. That hardly is a definitive value for "smartness".

[NotBlinded]

I'm not even going to take the time to criticize this bit of "science". If many of you here want to believe that liberals are smart and conservatives are idiots then I hope you will feel free to do so. Savor the idea like pigs in slop for all I care.

Of course it's not true Legion. I have room in my slop if you wanna come in and wallow with me.

 

Personally, I think it has to do with what a person values not how smart they are. Anyone's intelligence is going to be directed to the ideas and ideals they hold dear.