* My review of Philosophy: Basic Readings, by Nigel Warburton.
* Jon Stewart and John Oliver get it right on what's wrong with American democracy.
* Paul Krugman on what the Republicans brought to the health care debate: nothing.
* Can't run for office in North Carolina if you are an atheist. Apparently, there it's still the 17th century.
* Obama politely tells Lamar Alexander that he is a liar.
* The line up for the 2010 The Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas includes yours truly...
* Stolen letter by Rene Descartes found.
* You knew this, right? Liberals and atheists are demonstrably smarter than conservatives and religious.
* Scathing review of Fodor and Palmarini's book "What Darwin Got Wrong." Stay tuned for my review to appear in Nature.
* If you can't find a boyfriend, it may be your parents' (genetic) fault.
* eSkeptic's Harriett Hall on mythbusting psychology.
* Cult starves boy to death because he didn't say amen before a meal.
* The importance of historical data in philosophy of biology.
I think I'm officially addicted to your blog. I was getting super antsy the last few days waiting for an update :)
ReplyDeleteThe "liberals are smarter" study is highly dubious. But the other links are very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe attempt to target blacks by the anti-abortion movement is especially disgusting and disturbing. It's another example of how the right wing creates a problem and then points to the very problem they created as justification for their cause. The disproportionate number of blacks getting abortions is almost certainly due to the fact that a disproportionate number of blacks live in poverty. And the right stands in the way of welfare, affirmative action, and pretty much anything else that might help that problem.
God, I really have to comment on that ridiculous article about liberals having higher IQ. Here's a passage from it:
ReplyDelete"An earlier study by Kanazawa found that more intelligent individuals were more nocturnal, waking up and staying up later than less intelligent individuals. Because our ancestors lacked artificial light, they tended to wake up shortly before dawn and go to sleep shortly after dusk. Being nocturnal is evolutionarily novel."
30 seconds on Wikipedia led me to this:
"The earliest evidence of human usage of fire comes from various archaeological sites in East Africa, such as Chesowanja near Lake Baringo, Koobi Fora, and Olorgesailie in Kenya. The evidence at Chesowanja consists of red clay sherds dated to be 1.42 million years (Ma) Before Present (BP).[2] Reheating on the sherds found at the site show that the clay must have been heated to 400°C to harden.
At Koobi Fora, sites FxJjzoE and FxJj50 show evidence of control of fire by Homo erectus at 1.5 Ma BP, with the reddening of sediment that can only come from heating at 200—400°C.[2] A hearth-like depression exists at a site in Olorgesailie, Kenya. Some microscopic charcoal was found, but it could have resulted from a natural brush fire."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_of_fire_by_early_humans
How the hell do people like Kanazawa get their shit published?
God's teeth.
ReplyDeleteOne hopes that laws such as that of North Carolina and the other states mentioned in that post are the kind of anachronisms one finds now and then lurking in state statutes and constitutions, dusty from lack of use. But, this shows us that they can create problems. Which Almighty God must be believed in to attain public office in North Carolina, I wonder?
Dubious is about it. Confirmational bias anyone? Lol!
ReplyDelete"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."
Neither number seems particularly high. Those are just average numbers actually. My last professional IQ test between elementary and high school was at 138 which I didn't think was all that special compared to my husbands. While I can't necessarily even remember words for a song, He remembers a song and how to play or sing it almost perfectly if he hears it once. People tell me all the time that he's amazing. Our son similarly sees a procedure once and from that point forward he always knows what comes next. He often fixes various things when no one else knows what to do. He clearly could not have traveled 12000 miles across the USA and Canada in a 72 VW bus if he were not so versatile mechanically.
So to reiterate, Our son is very bright and he was not raised liberally. If anything, the misconstrued data is indicative of the opposite. One cannot TRULY learn if one does not believe that learning is solely to prevent one from error, and ERROR (and not to really learn) is bad. "Error" is synonym for sin, incidentally.
Learning not being a tool for preventing ULTIMATE ERRORS would be for what purpose exactly?
Pardon, your slip is showing.
ReplyDeletere:"Skating review of Fodor and Palmarini's book"
I read almost all of the review of "What Darwin Got Wrong" and never did figure out what it had to do with skating. It was a great review though. The first 40 or so paragraphs kept my interest and made a convincing point about Fodor and Palmarini but eventually it did get tedious and I finally gave up on reading it to the end.
Liberals and atheists ...
ReplyDeleteMassimo, I'm sure you believe this to be true but, PLEASE tell me you don't take this study seriously. It's so flawed, I wouldn't know where to begin.
calania,
ReplyDelete"My last professional IQ test between elementary and high school was at 138 which I didn't think was all that special compared to my husbands. "
Meaning that you were married between elementary and high school? Otherwise, if you compared the score to the other students, it should have felt differently.
On the other hand, IQ doesn't discriminate when it comes to nutcase logic and facility for rationalizations. Like believing that learning is solely to prevent one from error, and error means sin.
Does this mean you stopped learning and you are no longer prone to error? Is your knowledge to date complete to a certainty?
The Guinness Book of Records just called, they want to list you as the highest IQ ever registered to a doofus.
"On the other hand, IQ doesn't discriminate when it comes to nutcase logic and facility for rationalizations."
ReplyDeleteThat's right. So saying that people who lean left and liberal have higher IQs isn't necessarily even close to being true, is it. The scientific reasons for IQ have more to do with grand-parentage and birth order.
"Like believing that learning is solely to prevent one from error, and error means sin."
ULTIMATELY that's ALL that learning is for.
"Meaning that you were married between elementary and high school?"
ReplyDeleteSilly. We were both tested between elem/highschool THO WE DIDN'T know each other. Have you been tested? If anything, I know my social IQ is not very high. Probably minus 5. I can live with it. Its debatable if anyone else can tho.
"Otherwise, if you compared the score to the other students, it should have felt differently."
Not really. I scored years ahead in certain subjects but always stunk at technical (math oriented) subjects. One simply doesn't feel above average if that is the way one processes information.
Benny,
ReplyDeleteI think the evolutionary explanation of the iq study is weak at best (you know my opinion about evopsych), but the data is data... The fact that you are a smart libertarian (and not really a conservative) is simply the quintessential exception that proves the rule, my friend.
Calania, usually when people post their IQ it's a feeble attempt to show that they must be right because at some time in the past they were smarter than average. So I wrongly assumed that was your point. Nice to know it was simply that IQ proves nothing and you're no smarter than the average liberal atheist. And that you've stopped learning and are free from sin..
ReplyDeleteThe IQ article is a hot topic it seems.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link to your Amazon reviews. I love the philosophy of science though I've never stepped foot on a campus. For some reason, I take more to you and Shermer than many other science/philosophy authors. Orson Scott Card for fiction. I do think I'll try Philop Roth, you'd reviewed one of his books.
I think the evolutionary explanation of the iq study is weak at best (you know my opinion about evopsych), but the data is data... The fact that you are a smart libertarian (and not really a conservative) is simply the quintessential exception that proves the rule, my friend.
ReplyDeleteMassimo,
I love your blog and usually agree with you, but this is one point where I think that you are completely wrong, and your preferences are strongly influencing your conclusions.
There are many good reasons to think that IQ is not a reliable measure of "general intelligence". These tests are flawed.
And I say this even as a person who agrees with the hypothesis that liberals and unbelievers tend to be smarter. If you look at any correlations you like, those who fall on the more intellectual side tend to be atheists and liberals.
But this ev psych study of IQ doesn't contribute anything to that data. It's just BS.
Why should one not believe that IQ is a reliable measure of general intelligence? Why are the studies in question flawed? I don't understand the skepticism here.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how the relationships change when we break social conservatism and fiscal conservatism into two different groups. Fiscal conservatism has theoretical and practical foundations that are supported or partially supported by many academic economists. I imagine that the correlation between liberalism and intelligence is greater for social values than it is for economic issues.
I agree with MP. That study may be dubious, and we should be receptive to further criticisms of the collection and/or filtering of the data, and we certainly should be suspicious of its interpretation.
ReplyDeleteBut we must provisionally accept (absent evidence to the contrary or evidence for fraud or methodological errors) that the relationships if not the conclusions based upon them are true.
Some ideologies are more appealing to intelligent people than others. For example, I think that, all else being equal, self-consistency is more highly valued by intelligent people. So, if two ideologies were very similar with one being more self consistent than the other, many intelligent people would simply shift from one to another.
When we think of what gets defined as "conservatism" in the U.S. today, it is pretty tied to the politics of the Republican party. This is a party that argues that national debt is bad and that taxes are bad, but has actively supported expensive wars, increased entitlement spending, and cutting taxes. This certainly does not lead to decreased deficits.
For the American context ca. 2010 and for the American-flavored version of what it means to be "conservative" (as opposed to "moderate", "liberal", "libertarian", or an eclectic mix), I think it is perfectly reasonable for that conclusion.
That's not to say that an intelligent person should necessarily agree with the goals of the self-described "liberal" political party of the United States, but it would describe why people who are intelligent in the U.S. avoid the label of "conservative", as it is very highly associated with Republican policy. Even if you dislike "liberal" policy in the U.S., it is hard to argue that the alternative isn't anti-intellectual, inconsistent, etc.
If nothing else, intelligent people who consider themselves conservative have more incentive to avoid association with Republicans than intelligent people who consider themselves liberal.
Some parties really have some seriously questionable reputations that smart people wouldn't want to be associated with. Even if the dominant "liberal" party is slightly less anti-intellectual than the dominant "conservative" party, I would expect a self-selection bias.
To think otherwise would be require that mythical "fair-and-balanced, all-alternative-opinions-are-always-equal" perspective.
Of course, the data may or may not show that. I'm not enthusiastic about evolutinary psychology, so I probably won't explore it. But, for today's context, smart people that vote Republican would still probably deny their "conservative" affiliation more often than smart people who vote Democratic deny their "liberal" affiliation.
Of course, this isn't necessarily evidence that liberals are smarter than conservatives. It could just as well be that some sort of reverse Bradley effect may afflict smart conservatives.
Well, what exactly is intelligence? The way I, and I guess most people, use the word would imply something a bit more complex than being able to answer what the next number in a sequence is, which is basically the level of complexity to be expected from an IQ test. Anyway, the word is extremely hard to define, even if we may feel confident to label other people as possessing more or less of it after knowing them well enough.
ReplyDeleteAs for some conservatives or believers being exceptionally intelligent, well, some posters here might want to consider what "on average" means. Or to cite John Stuart Mill:
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
Well regardless of what various people might think "average" means there are markers of what many think looks like intelligence.
ReplyDeleteThose being "Wisdom" or "Sophistication" and the two virtually opposite extremes of the other. I believe that secular philosophy ascribes more so to sophistication while nonsecular philosophy tends to prefer wisdom.
Sophistication (how one finesses a situation or functions socially) speaks to having a facade or pretentiousness and I wouldn't think of that as being either wise or intelligent. Therefore I would have a hard time finding the secular ideal of sophistication as being a good indicator of intelligence. Most everything is judged by what is on the surface.(teenagers think this way)
I, otoh, would only care about what others REALLY DO WITH THE INFORMATION THEY HAVE. Is it practical does it make sense? That would be indicative of a truly intelligent person.
Caliana, why do your replies so rarely match the posts you are replying to? Or to ask a slightly tangential question, is reading comprehension perhaps not your strongest suit? Or perhaps you could understand, but you never bother to read carefully?
ReplyDeleteMy second point was simply that even if the ten most intelligent persons on the planet were conservatives, conservatives could still on average be significantly more stupid than liberals, because of the way statistics work.
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ReplyDeleteMassimo, for those of us who are sense of humor challenged, I suggest that you flag your pick of pseudo-scientific papers as such (no smileys please). Some of us may think you're serious. Thanks in advance.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteConservative without shame/ End of life issues.
ReplyDeleteShame would be the result when taking a short cut that one should not and both euthanasia and abortion qualify as taking a short cut.
This writer shaming people for saving their children? THAT is about as backwards as it gets. People who want to help black families save their children surely must have BAD MOTIVES? Another piece with poor scholarship. At least there are few young people who can still think well and are not part of the DEATH PACT.
"In another powerful and articulate address, the young Toronto native explores the devastating consequences Canada would face if it welcomed euthanasia, and implores Canadians to find ways of caring for suffering patients rather than killing them."
Remarkably this 13 year old does not sound AT ALL like she has been promoted to say this. This is clearly her own point of view.
Video:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10030212.html
No, Roy, sometimes one REALLY HAS TO CHOOSE between the superficial and the enduring.
ReplyDeleteAs for me, we all realized when I was 12, doing cartwheels down the concourse with my mini purse flying through the air at DFW airport,(my sis was a flight attendant for Delta) that I was never gonna be sophisticated. :) Bless her heart, she tried SO HARD to turn me into a lady. I was such a wild child, it was ridiculous.
So how many cartwheels can you do in row? LOL! :)
"In true blowhard fashion, the person who continually makes the least amount of sense on the this blog was the one voluntarily disclosed their "IQ."
ReplyDeleteWhat's your arbitrary IQ, Occam?
An interesting question might be if people higher numbers can actually and always out think people with lower numbers. I'd say no. There too, it might depend on what group you happen to be with.
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ReplyDeleteRoy,
ReplyDeletethe "great" Mary Midgley"? The woman has never written anything sensible about evolution that I know of.
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ReplyDeleteI've been lurking for a while, but have reluctant to participate because, frankly, I have a problem with Christian trolls, and I've been waiting to see if yours would go away. However, I couldn't let this one go by:
ReplyDeleteOne cannot TRULY learn if one does not believe that learning is solely to prevent one from error, and ERROR (and not to really learn) is bad. "Error" is synonym for sin, incidentally.
So, Caliana, if someone says, "Two plus two equals five" - that's sin?
"The woman has never written anything sensible about evolution that I know of."
ReplyDeleteThat is because there is nothing whatsoever sensible to write about evolution. Environments don't CREATE they are created by the very things they are said to act on. Natural Selection as well has not a thing to do with astronomy and many other scientific disciplines. Given ALL THE THINGS IT CANNOT EXPLAIN how that can be used as a filter by which every other issue of life has to flow through is beyond my stretchable imagination! You guys can hang on to it if you need to tho.
"So, Caliana, if someone says, "Two plus two equals five" - that's sin?"
ReplyDeleteIt could be, if for instance, someone is mixing certain ratios of drugs (I work in health care) and they know the ratio is wrong and doesn't "add up" but they do it anyway. That could lead to murder. In many and most instances the correct answer really does matter.
It could be, if for instance, someone is mixing certain ratios of drugs
ReplyDeleteBut that isn't what you said earlier; you made a blanket statement - error = sin.
"That is because there is nothing whatsoever sensible to write about evolution."
ReplyDeleteAnd this is based on what degree of study? How much of the primary literature have you gone through? To what degree have you actually investigated what you are so willing to render judgment upon? From what I have read of your comments on this blog, you don't seem to have even a rudimentary understanding of the subject, and yet you can come to that judgment? As an evolutionary biologist, I find that blanket statement, written in ignorance and prejudice, to be profoundly insulting.
No matter what you may say your understanding of what "learning" is, it certainly isn't to avoid error, and it certainly isn't to, well, learn. You seem too prideful and willfully blind to realize that. I seem to recall pride being considered a sin in the Christian tradition. Perhaps you didn't learn that.
ReplyDelete