[extropy-chat] IQ as a function of political philosophy (was TheNeoCon Mind-Trick)

[spike]

> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Davis
...
> 
> > There was a clear positive correlation between the
> > average IQs of states that voted Democrat in the
> > 2004...

We can't get at the average IQ for states 
unfortunately.  There are just too few who take 
IQ tests, and even those tests are suspect.  Let 
us admit it, those who like to take IQ tests (that 
would be us) tend to be oddball characters.


> "While it is not true that all conservatives are stupid
>    people, it is nevertheless undeniable that practically
>        all stupid people are conservative."
>                     John Stuart Mill

Hmm, I wonder what John Stuart Mill's political
persuasion might be?  {8^D  Of course if sufficiently
stupid, their political leaning is irrelevant, for
they are unable to find the polling place, or once
there, they accidentally vote for Pat Buchanan.

We can suppose it depends on one's frame of reference.  In 
my admittedly insular world, I go to work, those I see 
there are nearly uniformly conservative and smart.  On
those occasions when I am at home sick, turn on
Oprah, the audience is nearly uniformly liberal
and profoundly stupid.  So Mill's comment works
just as well if reversed, or better in my world.

...
> ...  I'm looking for something like ETS
> or SAT scores, but where the test takers are also
> identified by some red/blue, lib/con, left/right
> metric...Data anyone?  Best, Jeff Davis


Jeff I have been looking around for this kind
of stuff, but my efforts have been so consistently
thwarted it appears to be intentional.  I suspect a
vast both-wings conspiracy.  {8^D

My earlier post concerning red state/blue state
correlation with SAT scores is invalid, for I
determined the smartness of a state by its average
SAT scores corrected for percentage participating.

This signal is defeated however by the fact that some
states require a different test than the SAT.  I went
to theology school in Tennessee, where they required
the ACT.  I proudly showed them my sparkly 540/790 on
the SAT but it didn't buy me a cup of coffee ("Look at 
this, I'm a freaking genius!"  {8^D  Sorry pal, get in 
line, take the ACT.  {8-[  )

It might still be possible to do these kinds of studies
however, if we can get all the states' SAT, ACT and
any other college entrance test scores along with percent
participating, convert the raw scores to percentiles,
then do the same trick I did before.  Of course the
results are much shakier than a nice clean simple
SAT by state corrected for percent participating.  But
it does point to another interesting result: my own
simple analysis is overturned, but so is the controversial
studies by Murray and Herrnstein of the Bell Curve fame.  If
we cannot get at this data, they could not either.

Damien introduced an interesting angle on
this last time around.  He suggested that students
themselves might be motivated to intentionally defeat
classification by test scores, especially if the
high school requires taking college entrance exams
even for non-college-bound students.  I can easily imagine
the counter-culture types reading thru the test and
intentionally picking out the most absurd answers.  Or
simply showing up, signing the test and walking out.  It
would only require a few such students to mess up 
the statistics.

My conclusion at this point is that it might be
theoretically possible to show that red/blue states
are smarter/dumber, but it hasn't been done yet, and
it isn't clear how to do it.

spike