Controversy Grows over Study Claiming Liberals and Atheists Are Smarter

[h3rm35]

Controversy Grows over Study Claiming Liberals and Atheists Are Smarter
By Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet
Posted on March 5, 2010, Printed on March 5, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145903/

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.

Then there's the issue of Kanazawa's definition of liberalism, which he writes is the "contemporary American" denotation: "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." Practically speaking, this means Kanazawa's "liberalism" is defined as a willingness to pay a higher tax rate and donate money to charity.

This definition of liberalism, says Ilya Somin, a legal scholar whose expertise includes popular political participation, does not actually distinguish it from, say, conservatism or libertarianism.

Somin writes, "a libertarian who believes that free market policies best promote the welfare of 'genetically unrelated others' and contributes a great deal of his money to charities promoting libertarian causes counts as a liberal under this definition. The same goes for a Religious Right conservative who believes that everyone will be better off under socially conservative policies and contributes lots of money to church charities."

On this last point, it should be noted that recent research shows American political conservatives actually give more money to charity (and donate more blood) than their political liberal counterparts.

The problem inherent in Kanazawa's vague definition of liberalism is further compounded by the fact that he gleans his data on intelligence and attitudes toward topics of religion, politics and charity from two massive national surveys -- the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the General Social Survey.

These huge studies are greatly compromised by self-reporting. Most Americans don't even really know where they fall on the left-right political continuum. Polling shows, for example, that more African Americans self-identify as conservative than liberal, but when it comes to actual votes, data indicates that blacks overwhelmingly vote for traditionally defined liberal causes and candidates.

And libertarians -- estimated to be about 15 percent of the U.S. population -- don't neatly identify as liberals or conservatives, or even centrists, depending on whether they more closely identify as economic conservatives or social liberals. Even progressives shy away from identifying as liberals, a term that carries a negative connotation for many of them.

A particularly problematic idea presented by the study is how Kanazawa defines certain values and preferences as "evolutionarily novel." While he does not come out and say being atheist is a sign of having evolved more than those who are religious, he does infer this, not only by referring to the slightly higher mean IQ levels of American atheists, but also by pointing out that atheism goes against the grain of general human history. (Kanazawa doesn't even touch upon the idea that beliefs are more likely colored by one's cultural background than one's genetics.)

In the end, Kanazawa's study reinforces long-standing prejudices against conservatives and religious believers. To think that conservatives or religious people "are dumber than you and me," says Myers, "fosters this tribalism that we're out to replace people rather than to educate and inform them." And that's not very smart.

Daniela Perdomo is a staff writer and editor at AlterNet. Follow Daniela on Twitter. Write her at danielaalternet [at] gmail [dot] com.
© 2010 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/145903/

[rsol]

its easy. just do a biology test. watch as the Christians keep repeating "god did it". you have to be dumb to believe in father Christmas at 40 but an invisible man who watches over you?? nah that's different thick as week old shit

[FastTadpole]

Sounds a lot like this guy claiming Jews are inherently smarter (credit to torbarker for the find):

Quote:Steven Pinker - Jews, Genes and Intelligence
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?doci...9149306352

A lecture by Steven Pinker - Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. A recently widely publicized study claims that Ashkenazi Jews have been biologically selected for high intelligence and tend to suffer genetic diseases as a by-product. Steven Pinker will discuss this claim in the context of current debates on nature, nurture, intelligence and race. To read the unpublished study that started the recent debate, "Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence" by Gregory Cochran, Jason Hardy, Henry Harpending.

So I'll echo my response:
Intelligence is subjective and there are over 500 ways to quantify and measure it. There is also symbiosis between different types of intelligence. Just another case of him researching based on a pre-drawn conclusion mainly based on naturally Jewish papers. It also largely discounts environment as his Blank Slate theory does as well. A common theme is his superior race belief. Perhaps a study should be done as to whether the entire school system and monetary reward system places emphasis on particular aspects of intelligence that Jews (may) be predisposed to giving them an inherent advantage by design.

and one by s1nt3k:

Quote:Good point! I've seen that video in which he makes that claim but I also happened to notice when I got a book on IQ test that they are set up to give the Jew an edge in certain questions where words and phrases whose meaning, linguistics, and etymology are derivative of Yiddish or Hebrew which in turn would point to an unfair advantage in questioning for their culture. In other words they cheat!

The same sort of arguments can be made by pitting any two demographics against eachother be black / white, male / female etc...

[yeti]

While I question this guy's methods, my personal experience matches his claims.

[rsol]

I have to agree with yeti(not that I hate agreeing with you. religion and logic are mutually exclusive.

[Deathaniel]

(04-06-2010 08:32 PM)yeti Wrote:  While I question this guy's methods, my personal experience matches his claims.

Agreed.... anyone with a closed mind is unable to learn, hence stupid!

But abstract thinkng goes beyond intelegence...

[persecuted in alberni]

Yes I can beleive this to be true lets face it religious people have a hard time pulling their heads out of their bibles to read anything else that might make them more educated.

Smart people need proof god exists,if they cannot see it ,touch or smell or hear it then they cannot eccept god exists.

The catholic church hunted down destroyed/burned anybooks coming into europe for over a thousand years and it is because they were well aware atheist are not just smarter but MUCH smarter than the god fearing.

[---]

bullshit

[mastermg]

If this is true, I must be an idiot!

[persecuted in alberni]

All I am saying is that there have been plenty of times where a smart person could have gotten smarter but due to the religious brainwashing they would not educate themselves because it conflicts with their religious beleifs.

If you live your life according to somebook that was written by humans who told everyone it was written by god and told you you must live in a certain way and wanted you to live by a set of rules laid down by humans not god then there are certain things you are not allowed to engage in.

Since you cannot engage in these certain areas then you can never be educated in these certain areas because your religion has told you you must avoid and stay away from certain things.

It is safe to say that those that live by the rules of a book are not very OPEN MINDED and shows that there is only so much they can learn untill it conflicts with their book.

I do not say this to attack it is just an obsevation.

When I was younger I allways looked up to my grandmother because she was beautiful and very intelligent BUT was raised to believing in the bible.

She was very smart and knew alot about all the things I was interested in and had many great discutions about life and I could never figure out why such a smart woman who beleives in the bible would allow my grandfather to abuse her and her children.

I allways looked up to her but found fault in her system of beleifes and allways thought she could be a much smarter woman if she would just realize it was that very book that she beleived in that made her think she deserved what she got.

From what I have seen there realy trully is only so much you can teach the god fearing