The American Underground

Controversy Grows over Study Claiming Liberals and Atheists Are Smarter
The author of a study claiming liberals and atheists are smarter than conservatives and believers is called 'great idiot of social science' by prominent evolutionary biologist.
March 5, 2010 |
Photo Credit: Creative Commons LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?
Join our mailing list:
Sign up to stay up to date on the latest Belief headlines via email.
Advertisement There's a lot of buzz over a controversial study released in the journal Social Psychology Quarterly, titled "Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent," that compares IQ levels among liberals and conservatives, atheists and religious believers.

The widely circulated study (pdf) claims that "more intelligent individuals may be more likely to acquire and espouse evolutionarily novel values and preferences (such as liberalism and atheism...) than less intelligent individuals."

The study was written by Satoshi Kanazawa, a social scientist at the London School of Economics, who employs evolutionary psychology to analyze the social sciences, such as economics and politics, and who has a history of attracting ire over his studies and opinions.

But before drawing any conclusions about Kanazawa's latest study, it's worth expanding on the data he bases his claims on. First of all, quantifying intelligence on a societal level -- and even from person to person -- is incredibly tricky, if not impossible. As an evolutionary psychologist, Kanazawa likely recognizes this and that may be why he decided to limit his intelligence measures to IQ points, a convenient and notoriously narrow way of assessing cognitive abilities.

The first problem in the study comes with Kanazawa's use of IQ as an accurate measure of intelligence. PZ Myers, a leader in the field of evolutionary developmental biology (and an avowed atheist and progressive), is not surprised. He calls Kanazawa the "great idiot of social science" and points to a 2006 paper in which Kanazawa took the mean IQ of various countries and used those to draw conclusions on their dedication to health care.

For example: Ethiopia has a mean IQ of 63. This low IQ explains why Ethiopia's health care system is awful, according to Kanazawa.

Talk about simplistic. Not only does this ignore the fact that IQ might better measure cognitive capabilities in the developed world, where it was designed, but it completely tunes out the fact that Ethiopia has been embroiled in wars for many years, which would appear to be a better explanation for why the health care system there hasn't developed to western levels yet.

"Intelligence is such a complex phenomenon -- there are multiple parameters," Myers says. "And IQ is extremely sensitive to social conditions. Kanazawa wants to reverse it and say that IQ is causing problematic social conditions."

In this more recent study, not only does Kanazawa wax over structural inequalities that may lead to varying IQ levels in American society, even the disparities he finds in this imperfect measure of intelligence are relatively miniscule. For the most part, he is not speaking of a difference of more than six IQ points between liberals and conservatives, atheists and believers -- a negligible difference one would never notice in real person-to-person interactions.

Kanazawa isn't the first to study the intelligence-religiosity nexus. Other studies have also found a three- to six-point IQ difference between atheists and religious believers, in the atheists' favor. But those studies didn't claim that atheists were more evolved, as Kanazawa presumes, and merely conclude that they are more skeptical due to a certain kind of schooling and cultural exposure (which might also account for why some people perform well on IQ tests), leaving room to account for why so many people -- say, like William F. Buckley, Jr., the late conservative public intellectual -- can be so religious and conservative and yet quite intelligent.

Liberals read more books than conservatives. The Liberal head of the book publishing industry’s trade group says she knows why — and there’s little flattering about conservative readers and their explanation. ‘The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: “No, don’t raise any taxes, no new taxes,”‘ Pat Schroeder, president of the American Association of Publishers, said in a recent interview. ‘It’s pretty hard to write a book saying, “No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes on every page.”

It’s “the” Pat Schroeder, too! “Schroeder, who as a Colorado Democrat was once one of Congress’ most liberal House members, was responding to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that found people who consider themselves liberals are more prodigious book readers than conservatives.” You know, this can’t be true. When it comes to nonfiction lists, the conservative books outsell the libs. It’s practically automatic.

“As head of a book publishing association, she probably shouldn’t malign any readers,” said Mary Matalin, a GOP strategist who oversees a line of books by conservative authors, Threshold, at Simon & Schuster. Matalin said conservatives and others aren’t necessarily reading less, but are getting more information online and from magazines.

History is the best indicator of where Liberals ideology has failed. Liberals are known for calling conservatives dumb, stupid, intolerant, racist, nazis, Fascists, hicks, bla, bla,bla. But who is really smarter? They called Reagan dumb, lazy and educationally challenged. They derided as “trickle-down” Reagan’s “outrageous” notion that America increases its strength, prosperity and vitality with a limited federal government that allows people to enjoy the maximum benefits of their labor. But what do they say now? Today, many of Reagan’s critics grudgingly give him credit for the following: hastening the demise of the Soviet Union; ushering in an era of long-term prosperity (even if they don’t understand the formula: limited government equals growth); showing that tax cuts produce increasing government revenues; and attempting to rein in the ever-increasing and intrusive nature of the federal government.

Reagan beat those smart liberals every time. The Liberals were on the wrong side of history in one of the most dangerous times this country ever faced. Reagan was right Liberals were wrong. They fought everything he did and when the soviet Union fell they came up with every excuse for it other than the way Reagan fought it “to win”.

A Washington Post editorial from October 1984 informed us that Reagan’s so-called “age problem” was actually a mental light-weight problem: The same things are being said about Bush. And barely midway through his first term, a January 1983 New York Times editorial pronounced his administration a catastrophe:

“The stench of failure hangs over Ronald Reagan’s White House. The people know it, judging by the opinion polls”. Is history repeating itself? Are liberals again on the wrong side of history?

Let us take a look at Ronald Reagan who the left said was the dumbest man ever to hold office. And Bill Clinton who the press said was the smartest man alive married to the smartest woman alive. Look at Ronald Reagans legacy. What is he remembered for? The most important Reagan economic legacy, of course, is the tax rate. When he came into office, federal tax rates reached 70%. As he left, the highest rate in the code was 33%. In foreign policy the Reagan record may prove to be the culmination of a forty-year Western effort to contain the expansion of the Soviet Empire. And he did. The Libs bring up Iran-Contra. This is just proof that they are ignorant to truths of war. In the Cold War as now the U.S. must do things with undesirables for the price of victory. It is useless to explain this to Liberals since they have no concept on how to win a war. Proven by the fact that they are famous for surrendering to the enemy before the fight is even over.

Now lets look at Clintons Legacy. Monica, Monica, oh yeah Monica. Renting out the Lincoln Bedroom. Ushering in the Contract with America, presiding over the deaths of over 800.000 in Rwanda without lifting a finger. Sending Elian back to Cuba. Waco. And doing nothing to prevent a man called Osama Bin Laden from killing Americans around the world. And after knowing where this killers base was. doing nothing to take him out because of the fear that his poll numbers would be where George Bush’s are now. And failing to prevent 9/11, which planning was done under his watch.

This brings us to the liberals next stupid POTUS George Bush. The Liberals claim this guy is dumber than Reagan who beat them at every turn. George Bush beat Al Gore the messiah of the left. The prophet who say’s we have ten years before we are all living in house boats while he burns a carbon footprint that would take 100.000 common Americans to burn a month. He beat John Kerry who has changed his mind every five minutes on Iraq and is such a joke now that Liberals begged him not to run in 08. He has destroyed the Liberal leadership in Congress so bad that the approval rating for that congress is the worst in history 18%.

“If liberals were prevented from ever again calling Republicans dumb, they would be robbed of half their arguments,” Ann Coulter writes. “To be sure they would still have racist, fascist, homophobe, ugly, and a few other highly nuanced arguments in their quiver.” But not having “dumb” to throw around, she says, “would nearly cripple them. Like clockwork, every consequential Republican to come down the pike is instantly, invariably, always, without exception called dumb. “Noting that this is exactly the way six-year-olds argue, that they call everything “stupid,” Coulter says the lefts resort to the “stupid” stratagem comes out of its inability to mount an intelligent counter-argument when faced with undeniable facts.

Liberals especially hate being called “liberal,” because they know it describes a “dastardly individual.” They prefer Progressive for now. So again are Liberals really so dumb that they must refer to their enemies as dumb? I’m waiting for them to say how dumb this sounds

It is useless to explain this to Liberals since they have no concept on how to win a war. Proven by the fact that they are famous for surrendering to the enemy before the fight is even over.

That statement is no more true than if I said all conservatives are stupid since they are conservative. The guy just has a bone to pick, Robot. The thing is that politicians and think tanks have devised strategies to get people like him and you mad at liberals, instead of multi national corporations and their employed politicians who are truly to blame.