Liberals and atheists are smarter than other people

[Carol]

I read part of this study and it is nothing but prejudices and stereotypes liberals have about religion and conservatism. It was reported in Social Psychology Quarterly

link

DavidDvorkin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Wed Feb-24-10 04:33 PM
Original message
Liberals and atheists are smarter than other people

Edited on Wed Feb-24-10 04:34 PM by DavidDvorkin
Science says it's true:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0224132655.htm


Being both a liberal and an atheist, I'm smart enough to anticipate some angry objections to this item.

Angry? No. Just amusement at the study and liberals beliefs about what "science" consists of.

Deep13 Donating Member (1000+ posts)
2. Gottah love those infuriating, but accurate scientific conclusions.

handmade34 Donating Member (1000+ posts)
5. no objection from me

being one of those smart, liberal, athesists.

"Similarly, religion is a byproduct of humans' tendency to perceive agency and intention as causes of events... Humans are evolutionarily designed to be paranoid, and they believe in God because they are paranoid... 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"

explains so much

And just what is the SCIENTIFIC PROOF of this?

Understand I want scientific proof, not speculation, opinion, or something the authors made up.

Here's another quote from it

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.

and another

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."

[Gingersnap]

The article doesn't disclose the study design so it's hard to evaluate but the researchers evidently equate novelty with "liberalism". However, there isn't any discussion of novelty that produces better outcomes versus novelty that produces worse outcomes. Impulsivity is a "novel" behavior but not a good one.

Also, the adolescent I.Q. differences were around 5 points which is just not significant in terms of "smartness" (as the liberals like to call it).

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.

This is interesting since the "novel" detachment from friends, family, children, etc., almost always is a strong predictor for early death and social problems. Being 5 points smarter due to your liberal and atheistic leanings hardly seems worth it when your quality of life and life expectancy are so crippled.

[Dan D. Doty]

Here goes that condesending thing again

Moonbats don't believe in God for one simple reason; each one thinks they are the smartest, best thing the Universe has come up with. They can't handle the thought that something might be smarter then they.

[nightflight]

Hmmm. Blacks vote Democrat overwhelmingly. Blacks by and large are also very religious. Are they saying..............? Nah, couldn't be.

[swirling_vortex]

Here goes that condesending thing again

Moonbats don't believe in God for one simple reason; each one thinks they are the smartest, best thing the Universe has come up with. They can't handle the thought that something might be smarter then they.

I think the real reason is that they don't want to be held accountable for their actions. The idea that you have to constrain your animalistic impulses is appalling to a far-left liberal, who often believes that you should just do whatever "feels good". But yeah, the elitist "I-think-I-know-it-all" attitude certainly is another factor as well.

[FlaGator]

That reads more like an opinion piece than a scientific report.

[AmPat]

Liberals and atheists are smarter than other people

It's true, just ask them.

[movie buff]

Just more liberal elitism, backed up by a study with no hard evidence.

Hmmm. Blacks vote Democrat overwhelmingly. Blacks by and large are also very religious. Are they saying..............? Nah, couldn't be.

That actually makes for a very interesting paradox. While black voters tend to support Democrats in terms of which candidates to vote for, their views on various social/ moral issues (i.e. gay marriage, abortion, crime- related issues) tend to be pretty conservative.
Case in point: The 2008 elections. In California, while the vast majority of black voters voted for Obama (As was the case throughout most of the rest of the country), they were also the racial group which voted most heavily in favor of Prop 8 (70% of them voted yes on Prop 8).

[nightflight]

The article quotes a one Satoshi Kanazawa, a psychologist who has made some controversial statements. For example, he has stated that African nations are poor because of low i.q. levels. Here's the article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/no...ation.research

Pass it on to an liberal who touts the "study" featured in the OP.