Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent.

[Demeter]

http://reason.com/blog/2010/02/24/why-liberals-and-atheists-are

That's the title of a new study by London School of Economics management professor Satoshi Kanazawa just published in Social Psychology Quarterly. As ScienceDaily explains the professor's findings:

More intelligent people are statistically 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....

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....

One intriguing but theoretically predicted finding of the study is that more intelligent people are no more or no less likely to value such evolutionarily familiar entities as marriage, family, children, and friends...

[NecklyTyler]

1. Does this imply that right wing religious fundamentalists are stupid?

rhetorical question

[rury]

17. Do you mean that

you didn't know THAT??

[Orrex]

2. We need more threads about this pointless study.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=7807253

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=7787156

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=7806983

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=7810697

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=7804487

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=228&topic_id=63486

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=7810697

[Chemisse]

5. LOL - I missed all the others

So am happy to see this one.

It's always seemed as if liberals and atheists are more intelligent, and highly religious people are outright dumb. I am always surprised if an intelligent person turns out to be right-wing.

But until now, I have never seen a theory that could explain that.

[Orrex]

6. I just think that the methodology is suspect, and the findings inconclusive,

and it will feed the meme that science is an evil, liberal religion.

[Chemisse]

11. You're probably right about the study itself

I just like the proposed explanation for the differences, if they exist.

[bananas]

13. PZ Myers: "freakishly fact-free evolutionary psychology"

"And then look at the source: Satoshi Kanazawa, the Fenimore Cooper of Sociobiology, the professional fantasist of Psychology Today. He's like the poster boy for the stupidity and groundlessness of freakishly fact-free evolutionary psychology. Just ignore anything with Kanazawa's name on it."
:rofl:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/02/stop_patting_yourselves_on_the.php

Stop patting yourselves on the back over this study

Category: Stupidity
Posted on: February 25, 2010 10:40 AM, by PZ Myers

Good grief. This ridiculous study is making the rounds of the atheist community, with its claim that liberals and atheists are smarter than conservatives and religious people. Look at the numbers!

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.

Seriously? Show me the error bars on those measurements. Show me the reliability of IQ as a measure of actual, you know, intelligence. Show me that a 6 point IQ difference matters at all in your interactions with other people, even if it were real. And then to claim that these differences are not only heritable, but evolutionarily significant…jebus, people, you can just glance at it and see that it is complete crap.

And then look at the source: Satoshi Kanazawa, the Fenimore Cooper of Sociobiology, the professional fantasist of Psychology Today. He's like the poster boy for the stupidity and groundlessness of freakishly fact-free evolutionary psychology. Just ignore anything with Kanazawa's name on it.

[Orrex]

21. +1,000,000

[LARED]

3. I noticed the study was limited to adolescence

and young adults.

Political and religious views of adolescence often change as the enter the real word and gain experience. And there is a huge gulf between "not religious at all" and "very religious". I would be skeptical of drawing the conclusion atheists and liberals are more intelligent on that basis.

People are people and intelligence is far more diverse than political or religious orientation. IMHO

[Kolesar]

8. As an adolescent, I was struggling with ending the paranoia that God was on my shit 24/7

It took me almost three decades to free myself from that superstition.

[LARED]

19. Did your intelligence change

as your views changed?

[stray cat]

4. So those in the former USSR were the most intelligent people ever?

[soleft]

7. I wouldn't necessarily consider them liberal

It seems they utilized a lot of archaic repressive and conservative tactics to control and oppress its citizens.

[Kolesar]

9. Damn good at chess...eom

[jotsy]

10. Well, it ain't Johnny Cash or Frank Sinatra, but

Don Henley's End of the Innocence album has a cut called "Little Tin God" I think. One of the verses suggests we listen well to those who tell us we are better than others.

As for the phenomenon of a more intellectually capable left...hard for me to go there and feel like it's a conclusive truth. I guess I'm more inclined to follow the school of thought that our political ideologies are more of an expression of our insecurities, or more directly, ineffective coping mechanisms to combat such challenges.

k and r

[elocs]

12. Posted here 3 days ago:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x63486

[DavidDvorkin]

14. And even before that, I posted it here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7787156

It's a popular news item. It keeps getting "newly" posted all over DU.

[Orrex]

16. And that same point was made here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=521099&mesg_id=521102

Funny how people keep missing it. :evilgrin:

[madrchsod]

15. i`m going with the Zoroastrian post from a few days ago

[Better Today]

18. This is ridiculous. It isn't that liberals and atheists are more

intelligent. . . it is that those who are intelligent reject the stupidity of religion and current conservative stupidity. Similarly for gay men, because they are smarter, they recognize that same sex relationships will offer more of what they want in a relationship.

BTW, yes, I believe sexual preference is in fact a preference, a choice. . . and I believe that choice should be respected at all levels of legislation, adjudication, etc. and I vote accordingly. I'm one of those that worries that if sexual orientation is pegged to genetics as its sole reason for becoming a protected right then rights regarding other choices about other issues will be minimized and/or rejected, like say religious choice, or parenting choices (ie abortion rights). I also believe that any two persons that choose to co-habitate in such a way as to rely upon one another for support (personal and financial) should have "marriage" rights regardless of whether sex is involved or not, like say adult mothers and daughters, whom I see more and more co-habitating out of necessity lately.

But back to the topic. This is a cart before the horse presentation of the data, imo. It isn't that we are liberals, atheists, and gay that make us smarter, it's that we are smarter that makes up liberal, atheist, and gay.

[theorbiter]

20. Of course..

the irony of this study is that only those with a below average to average IQ would swallow such a load of rubbish altogether. Much akin to studies on IQ which claim racial differences, this is just another in a long line of scientific studies with an ideological ax to grind.
Far to many heroes of the left have had superior intellect combined with deep spirituality, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, MLK to name just a few. Not to mention multitudes of artists, musicians, poets, philosophers etc in both recent and ancient history.

It surprises me that these types of stereotypes often go unchecked on this board.

[riverdale]

22. Can memorize data but not make sense of it?

No matter how smart a person may be, if s/he is religious, s/he doesn't have any critical thinking skills.