An article published this year in Social Psychology Quarterly suggests that liberalism correlates with higher intelligence. Titled Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent, the study, conducted by Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics and Political Science, is based on the thesis that "General intelligence, the ability to think and reason, endowed our ancestors with advantages in solving evolutionarily novel problems for which they did not have innate solutions. As a result, more intelligent people are more likely to recognize and understand such novel entities and situations than less intelligent people, and some of these entities and situations are preferences, values, and lifestyles."
In using the term "evolutionarily novel" Dr. Kanazawa is referencing his Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis. In it he contends that, after a changing climate forced our ancestors to move from forest habitats out into the open savannas of East Africa, intelligence evolved as a way of helping humans deal with conditions to which they were unaccustomed. For example, helping those within one's kin group is routine behavior for homo sapiens and is considered to be "evolutionarily familiar", while helping people who are genetically unrelated, by, for instance, being willing to pay a higher tax rate to assist strangers in need, is evolutionarily novel behavior and thus a sign of higher general intelligence. Again in Kanazawa's own words:
"while sharing of food and other resources with genetic kin may be part of universal human nature, sharing of the same resources with total strangers that one has never met or is not likely to ever meet is not part of evolved human nature. The Savannah-IQ Interaction Hypothesis would therefore predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely to espouse liberal political ideology than less intelligent individuals."
I should note here that Dr. Kanazawa considers himself a libertarian, so he is presumably not biased towards thinking liberals are smarter. On the other hand, he champions some notions which are highly controversial, and his work has at times drawn vehement criticism from some of his colleagues, one of whom went so far as to call him "the great idiot of social science."
Some other findings from the study;
Atheists are smarter than believers. The reasons given for this supposition are closely related to the reasons for liberals' allegedly superior intelligence.
Monogamous men are more intelligent than those who aren't monogamous, but the same isn't true for monogamous women. To put it another way, "more intelligent men are more likely to value sexual exclusivity than less intelligent men, but general intelligence makes no difference for women's value on sexual exclusivity."
People who identify with TV characters as friends are generally of below-median intelligence (do ya think?).
Less intelligent individuals tend to have more children, even when they don't want to. The premise here is that mastering evolutionarily novel notions such as birth control is too much for some people.
Intelligent people tend to live longer.
Persons who listen to "young country" music are by definition idiots (OK I made that one up, but seriously, anyone who likes Lee Greenwood needs their head examined).
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This is a brilliant application of the thesis!
Watching Boehner cloud up and snivel again is further proof of the theory, Dr Naneh!
I know plenty of truthtellers who cannot spell and plenty of liars pitch perfect in their words. It's the one with a future who's intelligent.
You think people who unquestioningly believe everything Mommy and Daddy told them about an all-powerful invisible sky-spy (whom they have never seen, heard, touched, or tasted, and neither have any other human beings, to their knowledge, in the last few thousand years) are just as intelligent as those who stand back, look at the stories about talking snakes and rivers of blood and downpours of amphibians and say,
"...REALLY?...You believe that, without a shred of evidence, with your whole being? Seriously?"
Wow.
What? They're not my friends? Why that dirty little lying magic box that sits in my living room and transports friends to me!! Pfffft!!
"I don't know about libertarianism though."
I know, they're chewy and don't taste very good, even if you stew them up into a 'Hobo Stew', with some carrots you stole from Farmer Ben, they taste like old shoes, actually worse, at old shoes have a hint of flavoring of whatever they stepped in last, those old libbies, as my grandfather called them, can step into a river of molten butter and still taste like, well, old libbies.
Stick with the children, nowadays, they got more meat on their bone, well, okay, mostly fat, but with some corn biscuits and honey, you got yourself a meal.
What did you write about again? Oh yea, recipes from the Road, a Traveller's Guide to Eating Good while on the run from the police, train yard detectives, or your baby's mama.
I wrote the book, I know what's good!
Libbies ain't good, stop drooling, if you need a politic, go with a Repub, or Democ, they good eats, lot of bones, get stuck in your throat if you're not careful, but with enoug patiences, they'll go down soon enough, drink lots of stolen wine(grandpa called it the Champagne of the Road---and if you stole actual champagne, good for you!!!)
Yeah, I guess I should write this all down as a new post, but heck, I'm a busy cat, big meetings, cute secretaries with you know(Penises!! What you mean, "That's no lady! That's my wife!"??) and billions of dollars to spend on intelligence for the U.S. of Fucking A!!!
God love you, hope Jesus doesn't eat you, your friend,
George S. Milfred the III
Wait don't answer that..:)
rated with hugs
I don't know why I come here anymore.
All the blue links, things I gotta read, italics, arguments about this, or that. Sheessh. Kanazawa - sounds very London ; maybe not Presbyterian, probably Marxist, the social science idiot his best friend said he was.
When are you gonna just shoot stuff again ?
Why've we gotta read this stuff for ?
So how come half of Africa came to Australia ?
What's your Kawasaki buddy say about that ?
Then how come they reverted to Stone Age ? Hmmm?
Your S-IQ IH proposition falls face-down right there.
Give them a TV and some mythical friends and they'll have 18 children, drink a lot of beer and listen to substandard country & western like the rest of us.
'part from that, was a good ( hic ) post I thought.
But then again I'm biased ... and liberal. I never take these studies too seriously. I do however whole heartedly agree on the "new country" hypothesis ....
Harry; agreed, completely.
Anthony; with extreme prejudice.
Denise, I just finished a book by Matt Rossano called Supernatural Selection which posits that religion is an evolved characteristic of our species, and there is much evidence to support that position. Given that data, I would agree with you that religion is evolutionarily familiar, whereas an ability to not be religious would be evolutionarily novel. That said, I am no longer an atheist, though what that means exactly I can't say.
Linda, Kanazawa proves in the article that people who like disco and punk and soul are higher on the scale than those benighted folk who languish on a diet of "classic rock." ;-)
Dave, there is much to be learned from watching re-runs of Friends.
Julie, scientists are often wrong, contrary to popular opinion. I'm reminded of my Aunt Mary's two sons, my cousins J and S. They're both extremely intelligent, IQs in the 140-150 range, but J, from his youngest days, was always politically conservative, while S was far to the left. Of course, the kind of study I cite in this post speaks to averages and averages only.
Stellaa, every single characteristic of our species, physical and psychological, evolved as a response to conditions at the time we were becoming *us*. From an evolutionary stand-point, selfishness is useful, but Kanazawa's point is that higher levels of general intelligence are expressed by doing what often seems, on a biological level, counterintuitive. Or to phrase it differently, the debased form of conservatism so in vogue now in this country can be seen as a behavioral analogy for the amygdala or "lizard brain." In the 21st century, it is an evolutionary anachronism.
David, thanks for visiting my blog. Is our country truly "right of center"? That would depend on definitions and on the agenda of the person describing it as such.
Kim, my apologies for the blue links and the italics; that's just the kind of geek I am. :( You are correct though; half of Africa (or thereabouts) went to Australia, while the other half went everywhere else. My take is that they were seeking the ideal environment in which to drink beer and shoot stuff, and that didgeridoo music was just a fortunate side effect.
Myriad, it's a regrettable truism that common sense isn't that common.
Scarlett, so far the only consensus I'm getting here is that new country sucks ass.
Cathy, I agree that we are largely at the mercy of our gene pool and our parents. Dr. Kanazawa's belief however is that intelligence can and does mitigate against what might be considered foregone conclusions. Though I'm skeptical of some of his conclusions, I agree with him in that regard.
The definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" are still fluid and seem to be able to mean what any particular individual wants them to mean. I've seen "true liberals" arguing with other "true liberals" about what constitutes "true liberalism". Same for conservatives.
So far as survival and progress (whatever your definition of that) are concerned, he who makes the least errors does the best. If intelligence aids in that, good. If luck, the result is just the same. And it's the results that count now isn't it?
Sky, as I mention in the post, Kanazawa considers himself a libertarian, so it's unlikely that he engineered the results of his study to fit his biases. Regarding definitions, here is what Kanazawa himself says:
It is difficult to provide a precise definition
of a whole school of political ideology like
liberalism. Further, what passes as liberalism
varies by place and time. The Liberal Democratic
Party in the United Kingdom is middle-of-
the-road, while the Liberal Democratic
Party in Japan is conservative. The political
philosophy which originally emerged as ‘‘liberalism’’
during the Enlightenment is now
called ‘‘classical liberalism’’ or ‘‘libertarianism,’’
and represents the polar opposite of
what is now called ‘‘liberalism’’ in the United
States (Murray 1998).
In this paper I will adopt the contemporary
American definition of liberalism. I provisionally
define liberalism (as opposed to conservatism)
as the genuine concern for the
welfare of genetically unrelated others and
the willingness to contribute larger proportions
of private resources for the welfare of
such others. In the modern political and
economic context, this willingness usually
translates into paying higher proportions of
individual incomes in taxes toward the government
and its social welfare programs.
Defined as such, liberalism is evolutionarily
novel.
I know I'm not love!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
**goes off to the liquor store to buy himself some wine** More like steal it.
**Boohoohoo* Hiccup **Boohoohoo**
God, I'm sooooo not going to rate this, no, I won't do it, no way!! I'd rather go talk to that gay bulldog on his ideas on how the country should be ran, into the ground with a pitch fork.
UNRATED!!!!
Twice!!!
agnostic does not mean "away from knowledge", it means "away from pretending to know" Is it "stupid" to know or acknowledge that you don't know?
So, to answer your question. yes. If you like people, yes.
John, without Gilligan you'll have no chance of scoring with MaryAnn.
Tink, my God, I missed your comment! I blame my grief over Raman11 Kumar's recent murder, or the syphilis, but either way know that I love you as I've never loved before. Let's run off to Ginny Rose's place in San Blas and fornicate endlessly under the royal palm tree in his front yard as we gorge on tacos pescado and home-brewed mezcal. It was an accident, please don't pee on my carpet!
Token, it's great to see you. If there is a conservative who can put a lie to this post (and in truth, I know there are plenty) it's you. There is of course a difference between modern definitions of liberalism and those used two or three centuries ago, but Kanazawa, as per my comment to SkyPixie, was using the current, American definition.
Rob, you are the very of model a modern major exemplar of the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis at work. ;-)
Mary, watch out for the Spam Slaughterers!
And Token, that is why I drifted away from pure atheism. To me, it seems as arrogant to say "I know there is no God" as it does to claim that God exists and that I can describe his/her/its nature.
Let's see, Thomas Jefferson re-wrote the bible to remove all references to any of Jesus' miracles. He said that the idea of the immaculate birth would eventually be "classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
Einstein, did not believe in God most of his life but started to come around when they got closer to meeting.
Hawking said "It is better not to use the word "god" to describe what I believe because most people use the word to mean a being with whom one can have a personal relationship."
Franklin, you got mostly right. Better get back to work on that list.
However, it takes a fair amount of intellect to realize the limitations of intelligence. Taken as the ability to absorb, retain and articulate facts, intelligence alone can produce results ranging from abysmal to glorious. It's a crap shoot.
So intelligence is proven inadequate by the fact it can produce results that could be obtained by any half wit.
Politically, in this case, to take a broad range of facts and synthesize a functional resolution is an ability that transcends mere intelligence.
Intelligence is only a pair of pliers in the toolbox of the Enlightened.
Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....
I really don't see how monogamy can have anything to do with intelligence. Aren't conservatives more likely to be monogamist? But then I forget most of them are hypocrites.
Note: To anyone interested, agnostic the adjective has a different meaning than agnostic the noun.
If we would just quit the political BS and power struggles, we would stand a much better chance of succeeding in our mutual goal of carrying on our civilization. For example, My JOB is administering food stamps, and it is frightening to see how callous and cruel are the people hired to dole these goodies out to the “needy”. I can tell you personally of a homeless family that was denied Thanksgiving dinner ( and food until the next Monday) because a social worker wouldn't verify their zip code, which would have enabled them to use the benefits on their card. ( How much sense does it make to use a New York City zip code as an identity verification for a homeless person?) my church doesn't wait for people to apply for food stamps, we give them food. I hire a couple from my town to do odd jobs that I don't really need done so that they can keep dignity and earn enough money for food. And I buy food for them to cook for us all. Which works better at feeding people? Either works if done with compassion. Let's focus on the ENDS, then we can work out the means.
Conservatism did, originally, well before becoming a cult clown show, embrace Jefferson's individualism and perhaps stronger assertion of state's rights.
But now they don't have any use for Jefferson's anti-corporate attitude, wealth redistributing or "death tax" estate busting.
Reciprocally, Jefferson would have kicked every conservative's ass to the curb over their gratuitous use of religion to divide Americans and corporate lick-spittle subservience.
Token, your real conservative hero is Machiavelli on one of his better days, or Burke on one of his worst.
If Conservatism was Liberalism, classical or otherwise, they'd be spelled the same.
Soylent Teen is PEOPLE!!!
I think caution is in order here because there are, in fact, different kinds of intelligence, as well as different ways of defining intelligence. Book learning, common sense, visual, auditory, geometric, analytic, artistic, … It’s a long list.
I haven’t read the study or its conclusions. In terms of being more evolutionarily adaptable, liberalism would most likely be advantageous only in terms of being able to consider more complex interrelationships of variables that affect well-being. I think that is probably the underlying foundation for Kanazawa’s comments about liberals being more “intelligent”.
As has been shown here, even the definition of “liberal” requires context to have any value. Political definitions are not necessarily the best for this particular discussion. I think the reference is to an innate tendency toward more liberal perception of reality in the sense I have presented; being able to connect dots in complicated processes that may not be particularly intuitive. This innate tendency does, however, lead to the difference between liberal politics versus conservative politics. But I don’t think Kanazawa is suggesting that we use politics to determine intelligence.
Too often, politics is an abuse of intelligence. Just consider the current state of American politics; the conservatives are having their way with the so-called liberals in Congress, but I don’t think their actions display higher intelligence except on the level of deviousness. They are dismissing the well-being of their fellow citizens in the name of some greedy-power-grabbing-fantasy-world. Meanwhile, the congressional liberals continue to bend over and take up the …, and then turn around and ask for more. That does not seem to display intelligence, either.
It’s a fascinating topic. I think there is an evolutionary difference that supports an innate predisposition to liberal or conservative mindsets, like two different strains of humanity.
RATED
__________
Agnostic
1870, "one who professes that the existence of a First Cause and the essential nature of things are not and cannot be known" [Klein]; coined by T.H. Huxley (1825-1895) from Gk. agnostos "unknown, unknowable," from a- "not" + gnostos "(to be) known" (see gnostic). Sometimes said to be a reference to Paul's mention of the altar to "the Unknown God," but according to Huxley it was coined with reference to the early Church movement known as Gnosticism (see Gnostic).
I ... invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic,' ... antithetic to the 'Gnostic' of Church history who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant. [T.H. Huxley, "Science and Christian Tradition," 1889]
The adjective is first recorded 1873.
Stellaa, that one stumps me! Kanazawa say in his study:
Much of what we call interpersonal
crime today, such as murder, assault,
robbery, and theft, were probably routine
means of intrasexual male competition in the
ancestral environment. This is how men likely
competed for resources and mating opportunities
for much of human evolutionary history;
they beat up and killed each other, and they
stole from each other if they could get away
with it. We may infer this from the fact that
behavior that would be classified as criminal
if engaged in by humans, like murder, rape,
assault, and theft, is quite common among
other species (Ellis 1998), including other primates
such as chimpanzees (de Waal 1998),
bonobos (de Waal 1992), and capuchin monkeys
(de Waal, Luttrell, and Canfield 1993).
and:
Applied to the origin of preferences and values,
the Hypothesis suggests that more intelligent
individuals may be more likely to acquire
and espouse evolutionarily novel preferences
and values than less intelligent individuals,
while general intelligence may make no difference
for the acquisition and espousal of evolutionarily
familiar values. In particular, the
Hypothesis leads to predictions about three
evolutionarily novel values of liberalism,
atheism, and, for men, sexual exclusivity,
and how general intelligence may affect their
acquisition and espousal.
Janie, do you have any empirical evidence to back up that assertion?
MoMA and Major Mojo/Dave (it's good to see you btw, I wish you'd post more often), I'm guessing that the two of you have more in common than not.
Black Candy, thanks for visiting my blog! I'll put that down as a "yes."
Conrad, that is another check in the yes column. Why you gotta confuse the issue by differentiating between nouns and verbs?
by the way there is a good article in slate recently about how most scientists are apparently democrats, a surprising finding.
“While it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it IS true that most stupid people are conservatives.” (John Stewart Mill)
I believe that JK Brady, is a communist. I hope she doesn't get spooned by the Spam Police!!!
And a combative attitude and mindless drivel don't make your farts smell like strawberries, no matter what you think. I was trying to make a point to Nanatehay, part of that point is that wisdom often consists of knowing that you don't know. and thereby being open to trying something else. (Liberal?) Anyway, it's pointless to get into it with you.
Come back and try me some other time when I feel more like wasting some time arguing over the trivial.
Boko, I agree, but few people are as genuinely pleasant as the average anarcho-syndicalist. ;-)
Rick, John Stewart Mill is a hoot. You say:
Too often, politics is an abuse of intelligence. Just consider the current state of American politics; the conservatives are having their way with the so-called liberals in Congress, but I don’t think their actions display higher intelligence except on the level of deviousness. They are dismissing the well-being of their fellow citizens in the name of some greedy-power-grabbing-fantasy-world. Meanwhile, the congressional liberals continue to bend over and take up the …, and then turn around and ask for more. That does not seem to display intelligence, either.
Agreed. As I understand it,Kanazawa's definitions of general intelligence don't have much applicability in a highly polarized, largely dysfunctional governmental system which is mainly controlled by corporo-fascistic elements.
VZN, I included a link to the full text of the article; have you bothered reading it? If you haven't, spare me your request for DATA, and as far as ANALYSIS, that's what is going on in this thread. I'm not a sociologist but I can see it from my living room. :-P
Craze, can you cite me a study which demonstrates that CEOs have a higher IQ than, say, art history professors?
And Mary L; Janie is not just a communist, she's a fucking Trotskyite!
Si!!
TEQUILA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's all the SpanishCat I know. I hope it's enough when we're down Mexico way.
TEQUILA!!!
By the way, yes, General Brady is a communist, she give it away for free!! Advice, tacos, her nosey next door neighbors, all FREE!!!
Like a communist.
I like free. And General Brady too, except when she's sober and wants to assarama, that hurts, she no uses the lube.
Anyways, did I mention it was fucking cold outside? Too cold to walk down to the store to get my medicine ala TEQUILA!!!!!!!!
P.S.
Nana, your blogs always seem to get the 'goodness' in people to flow out, you should be a reverend or a dance club owner, I'd go with dance club, you could buy the ole Devil Inn or whatever the hell it was called, as it already has a glass dance floor(people LOVE to look upskirts, for FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!)
I miss Raman, he always knew how to make me laugh. Dear friend, I need to laugh, and General Brady won't return my phone calls, she could make me giggle with her...uh...wait...I LOVES THE ASSARAMA!!!
Alalalalalalalalala!!
Happy Ganutzen Day, one and all, may your ass be filled with joy, and your tacos, no sour cream, light on the lettuce, just like you like them, lots of hot sauce!! Oh my!!
Also, when your kids ask stupid questions, push them into the cold and let them stay out there for weeks!! Man, that General Brady knows everything!!
I LOVE YOU ALL!!!
**Big group grope**
VZN, I've heard that neurological research mentioned before. Do you have any links? It's a fascinating topic, and by no means am I letting this one study by a somewhat eccentric professor inform my views on intelligence vs. political beliefs.
But that was someone else's point I believe rather than the poster/blogger guy.
So I rated this for the Australian guy showing up and getting the poster/blogger guy to mention "didgeridoo music" which doesn't happen enough.
------------------------------------------
http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx
- AND -
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=galen_29_5
------------------------------
In the second article, there is a real juicy quote, which seems to indict not just the average religious believer, but also perhaps the average American conservative as well:
“One characteristic predictive of lower
religiosity (or at least lower fundamentalism)
was the personality trait ‘Openness to
experience,’ which involves a high need for
cognition, intellectual engagement, and
xenophilia (interest in new experiences).”
"Our vision is more obstructed by what we think we know than by our lack of knowledge." - Kristen Stendahl
I've known more than a few physicists and none, not a one, believe in God. Most scientists do not believe in God.
I do not believe in God. I am a left wing socialistic liberal. I am not stupid. I also mastered the art of birth control and have never eaten any children, my own or those belonging to someone else.
I am not optimistic about our future as a species, or the planet as a whole, though my very nature compels me to retain hope that we won't actually blow ourselves up in the immediate future our myriad other problems requires action now lest we hasten the inevitable.
Then there are the things completely beyong our control, catastrophes that could happen tomorrow. As Carl Sagan warned, if we wish to survive as a species we should make plans to spread out -- in the universe. We don't live in a very good neighborhood, except for our proxmity to our sun, that part worked out pretty well. But all it would take is one decent sized asteroid and poof, gone.
The very survival of man is dependent upon socialist liberals with rational, curious, and intellectual minds able to create humane and dynamic solutions to the problems and challenges we are facing.
Faith in a magic man/power in the sky deal is for little children and even that's debatable. As a species it is long past time to put away our childhood things.
What?
AKA, Kim has a way of getting at the important stuff. There is a band called Inlakesh who use didgeridoo very effectively in their music. Though some would say it's just for stoners, a beer or three, if accompanied by an open mind, renders their music accessible to all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MVtNrESwCI
It's a cool track, but a better one is "Fire Gathering", which I can't find anywhere, dammit.
Daniel, thank you for visiting my blog, and for your comment. "Openness to experience" is exactly the definition used by Kanazawa when he discusses peoples' ability to deal with evolutionarily novel situations. It seems, to me, an obvious conclusion that openness is a prerequisite to intelligent thought.
QuattoSpeaks, likewise, thanks for coming by. I like the quote, but from my own observations I'd suggest that conservatives are far more prone to gullibility than liberals. The latter fell for "Hope and change" after 8 years of the surrealistically bad governance of the Bush administration, while the former fell, and are still falling, for "I promise not to come in your mouth. This time."
Ablonde; you rule absolutely.
Tink, God would never kill Mary Magdalene, that's his girlfriend!
rate
rate
Tink's right and Ablonde, what are we going to do about dinner ?
sorry nan, probably off-topic.
Amy's here.
That's just dandy.
"Hi gorgeous ! How you doin'?"
BTW, Happy Holidays, if I don't have another chance to say it.
Oh, and to keep on topic, god sucks.
Given the divisive, failing political platforms of today, it seems wiser to remain independent and open and deeply entrenched in civic responsibility without the negative distractions and stop gaps of party lines.
Pure intelligence likely exists only in the minds of small, untainted children or in the last moments of the sick and dying, where clarity shines brightly, leaving prejudice and judgment in the dark.
Dr. Lee, when you allow for the tendency of positive traits (in the evolutionary sense) to be self-selecting, at some point in the future we'll all be atheists. Of course, that is contingent on our species living long enough for natural selection to work its magic.
Kim, is Alice Springs that town right next to Ayer's Ro... uh, I mean Uluru? One of my life-goals is to go there and watch transvestites perform "I Will Survive":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zraQ_H2vjCY
MoMA, we all have things we cling to. For instance, as I said earlier, I used to be an atheist; nowadays I'm not so sure. Am I gnostic or agnostic (or just a self-deluding imbecile) for trying to believe, in the face of what seems most likely, that our soul continues to exist after our physical death? What the fuck is a soul, anyway?
Cindy, thank you! And as Stellaa correctly asserts, we're LOTS more fun to hang out with.
David P, you've obviously seen through my sorry charade. :-P
Kim, Amy, Ablonde's culinary skills are beyond reproach. I've begged her before to let me pitch a tent in her back yard but so far she has cruelly rejected my (mainly f00d-oriented) advances on the grounds that I need to go through a couple more karmic cycles before I'm ready for that level of pulchritudinous goodness. :(
Cathy, you say:
"I have a hard time buying that any true intellectual would align with either party or any system or ideology that is clearly failing it's citizens, intrinsically, economically and has stripped away all definition of purpose"
I do too. However, there are some things, general intelligence for instance, or evolutionary necessity, which transcend politics. The ability to use one's intellect to cut through the murk of meaningless, day-to-day, partisan bullshit as fed to us by our useless media is a function of our how smart we are combined with our unwillingness to swallow bullshit 'til it flows out our ears.
Also, agnostic LITERALLY means stupid. Gnostic/gnosis is a knowledge or understanding, specifically an esoteric knowledge of the spiritual. The prefix 'a' denotes a negative or lack of.
Oh, for goodness' sake, MoMA Fett. If you're saying that a lack of knowledge literally means being stupid, you're simply wrong. And as for the historical origin of the term "agnostic", which I'm not familiar with, it's obvious that the meanings of words change over time.
Do I really have to have my brain examined for loving that patriotic song. You should be ashamed of yourself, you commie fruitcake.
Wait, how can this be a free country if everything costs money?
One thing is for sure, Nan. Your post has stimulated intellectual discourse and diverse points of view and priceless sound bites. Good to keep our noodles stirred and removed before stickiness sets in.
We hang the petty thief while electing the higher ones to office. So I dont think either one is more inteligent than the other. Both have their own issues.
b.russell
r
In any case, my engagement to Alan Shore and Denny Crane (simultaneous) ended when Boston disappeared from my living room. I doubt I'll ever love like that again, enormous sigh, and another sigh.
No, wine in the house. Damnit. WTF.
Its a crazy diet, but it seems to be working. Sadly my tits seem to be shrinking.
Wine on Tuesday, no wine on Monday. I could have had a martini on a Monday, but we're out of olives and lemons so, maybe on Wednesday.
And who is the Museum of Modern Art? What the hell!
More bad news, intelligent people live longer? WHY DID I HAVE TO BE SUCH A SMART ASS?
rated anyways cause smarterer people rated it
Seriously, I don't think conservatism is lack of intelligence exactly, it's being conditioned to not trust your own emotional IQ and to encourage others to do the same.
Hey, and lay off Mary Magdalene. She'll cut ya.
Sadly, there are some really brilliant people I've come across who really have a lack of common sense when it involves irony and hypocrisy. It wouldn't surprise me if I suffer from the same symptoms as well.
Harmonious, Kanazawa says in the article that he's using the current, American definition of liberal.
Kent, are you saying smart people don't like sex? :(
I see that this convo continued on after I retired last night. Thank you all for reading and for taking part in the discussion. Scrolling up the thread now to see what went on...
An an agnostic, according to Julian Huxley who coined the term, is one who professes ignorance of the existence or non-existence of God. Therefore, agnosticism is not stupidity, as the Greek clearly indicates. 'Gnosis' is knowledge. So 'gnosis' with the privative prefix appended would be lack or privation of knowledge. Stupidity is lack of intelligence, not lack of knowledge.
All of us are mostly ignorant, be we intelligent or no. For example, it is safe to assume that most readers are ignorant of the Mongolian language. We may in fact be accomplished linguists, speaking three or more languages (certainly denoting some intelligence), but we will, alas, remain ignorant of the majority of the hundreds of human tongues.
Ignorance can only be equated with stupidity if it be willful. A fine, current example of such is the refusal to entertain evidence to the contrary of one's gut feeling that a foreign dictator must possess nuclear armaments, and subsequently ordering an invasion to confiscate said (non-existent) weapons.
Liberals are just as likely to believe absurd things. Far more liberals than conservatives put faith in the thoroughly discredited ideas of homeopathy and astrology, for example.
But this is a good post, well-presented. And all CW music after Hank Sr is suspect.
HOVA, the essential problem is you arbitrarily limit the definition to a clinical one, and fixed in time; also you pretend a word is defined by its parts. (Find a linguist who finds that credible in the slightest.)
No such original use as the one you offer can be found in the OED either. Token cites, correctly, the first normative use, by it's coiner, but even without this no one can decree a word is simply what its root parts combine to make. Colloquial use wins, every time, at least eventually. With Token's example, he wins on both fronts: it's first real usage, and the general understanding of the word (which has not changed).
You were a bit foolish to bet so much on a technical point you were sure to lose. And for what? the "joke" of your first assertion is pretty weak tea. "Me smart you stupid" can only be sustained by impeccable, if not perfect knowledge
One truth I've learned, though it took me a long time: the moment you begin bragging about your superior mind and learning, someone twists the scope on you, fixes the sight, releases half a breath. Better to just say, and do, than to insist everyone notice your "better brain".
The ones who are persuaded by braggadocio aren't worth it, and the rest of us do a fact-check.
I once prattled on about fossils at a party in Manhattan only to discover one of the people I was talking to was a paleontologist. Imagine what happened next. Humbled me for good. For very good.
Nikki is right: you dared, nanathay. This is great, like the old OS days, lots of good comments.
High Lonesome, some of the smartest people I know are also some of the most religious, so I'm rarely surprised by such things.
Greg, the comment thread on this post grew so lively the other night that I, too, was reminded of the old days. We even had old-school OS folk like Rob St. Amant and Verbal Remedy weighing in, and despite the broken crockery (I see that plates are still being hurled against the wall in fact) it's been a great discussion.
Mary, Boulder is a hotbed not only of intellectualism but of flag-burning, America-hating commonist hippie-dom. :-|
Pierre, I'm reminde of this prayer:
"Let us praise God. Oh Lord, oooh you are so big. So absolutely huge. Gosh, we’re all really impressed down here I can tell you. Forgive us, O Lord, for this dreadful toadying and barefaced flattery. But you are so strong and, well, just so super. Fantastic. Amen."
Black Eddie, thank you for reading, and for the definitions.
MoMA, what are we arguing about now? Is it still the agnostic thing? I've lost track. :(
And again, thanks to everyone who read this post, and especially to everyone who has taken part in the conversation. For as long as I've been in OS, the back and forth of discussion and debate in the comment thread on a post is often more interesting to me than the post itself.
Finally, I need to note here that I have reservations about Dr. Kanazawa's conclusions. His work on this topic, while interesting, should by no means be taken as the final word on political affiliation as a function of intelligence. I'm thinking, just for the heck of it, of putting this post on a conservative web site to see what kind of reaction I get.
BTW, what's with your Bonnie reference here? Just curious?
On a recent post, Ms. Russell made a comment to me which includes the following:
"your fixation on me means likely means I'm performing a valuable service for the women in your town you might target."
She apparently thinks saying such a thing is amusing, but I am not laughing.
Who targets women? Obviously, sexual predators, including rapists, target women. Therefore, anyone reading the comment, let's say someone who runs across it while Googling my name, will see a statement which strongly implies that I'm a sexual predator, possibly even a rapist. While I am neither of those things, all it takes is one crazy person making such accusations in a public forum to render guilt or innocence of the charge irrelevant. Of couse, from the standpoint of a smear artist like Bonnie, that is the beauty of publicly implying something which it is impossible, in this venue, to prove or disprove.
In a series of personal messages to Ms. Russell, I respectfully requested, several times, that she delete the comment, as it was highly irresponsible and potentially harmful to my good name. In return I received vitriol and an apparent belief that this was all some sort of funny game. I emphatically do not view it as a game. Things are going to get ugly.