Smart people voted for Bush

yanny made it pretty clear that he just found it funny

My God, it’s true! Only dumb poor people vote for Republicans! This changes everything I ever thought! Henceforth, I’m voting Democratic, lest I become one of those dumb and poor Republicans!

This “poll” is bogus, because what is happening is most of the idiots live in the south and half of them are immigrants who got to be citizens only yesterday and they are on the low end of intelligence. They mix in with the smarter people, but bring down the averages to a point where the state as a whole looks dumb. Meanwhile, the older and  more developed areas of this nation have given rise to a class of people who want to not live in the swamp or the dust ridden hills of the midwest and can afford to live away from the peasants. They are invaribly more intelligent and rich. Thirdly, the poll does not acknowledge that in every state most of the upper class and smarter are republican but are overshadowed by more numerous “children” who are politically active Liberals (money from daddy types) and find themselves into this polling data that compiles the results.In these cases actually most of the smarter peeps are republicans, but they are not in the majority… as stated before they have children and other leeches that followed them (and with it “the money”) to these more afluent states. In another sense “the students” and the organization that sent people to schools to sample these results created the abomination that was posted. Any “REAL” person of intelligence would not have the time of day to participate in any Intelligence test…
   Its like you never find people who have self confidence participate in any study of having a self esteem issues, and you never see people in a diet study for fat people, if they aren’t in fact fat…PEOPLE WHO ARE “A”  DON’T WASTE TIME WITH ISSUES THAT ARE RELATED TO “B”. Thats why that poll is bogus.

Utah, Idaho, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming are neither southern nor immigrant-heavy.

These states are major agricultural areas, where migrant workers from other lands are employed. THEY are moving further north, however in California, Texas, Arizona, and Florida gets the worst of it. Parts that looked like a modern metropolis have turned into downtown Tijuana inside of 20 years.

an IQ test shouldnt be something that can be accused of bias. if its got a bias, that means it is in some part based on education or knowledge, which it should not be. problem solving and reasoning are the issues it should focus on.  if posed with a question that really measures intelligence, it shouldnt matter what you already know, or how good your education was.

All poles are faulty. Why? because theyve never asked me. Unless they get every last persons opinion, its faulty.

BTW- The stupidest people in the nation live in Connecticut, I know, I lived there. All the people I knew in Connecticut where hopeless party people, completely brainwashed by the commie media.

Hmmm…

I’m just glad to see that all the kids in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota truly are “above average” as Garrison Keillor proclaims… :)

BW

You may want to think so, Janus, but non-biased IQ tests are ridiculously hard to create, if it’s even possible.  Remember, a “pure” IQ test has to be founded on a widespread sample of data.  So, you frequently get communication problems, like using words common in one area but not another, or worse, different intepretations of those words, particularly when testing between cultures.  Some test-designers have tried to get around this by designing puzzle or picture based tests, but that can skew things as well.  This is particularly the case if you’re trying to define intelligence.  For example, are we simply talking about logical thought processes?  Self-interested reasoning?  Creativity?  Particularistic conceptions or holistic conceptions?  There’s just never been an effective definition of intelligence that will satisfy all the possible criteria.  For example, how intelligent would you call an individual who has a successful musical career, but who constantly mismanages money and is always running away from creditors?  This would be Mozart, by the way.

The test was originally administered by the French in the 19th century, I believe, under what are probably the best circumstances possible:  a single school district with a homogenous data set (children from similar backgrounds all living in the same area).  Even then, the test designer pointed out all the problems I mentioned.  And of course, there is the history of eugenics that IQ tests are often associated with, which of course have been repeatedly disproven.  Nevertheless, there is a…proclivity to treating IQ as something immutable and hard-wired even today, as evidenced by the importance of SAT scores in certain U.S. college admissions processes, for example.

As for the post that started this thread, I’ve seen the chart before, although adding in average incomes is a nice touch.  And no, marine, you’re not correct.  Not all polls are faulty.  In fact, depending on how a poll is conducted, it’s a pretty scientifically and methodologically solid field called statistics.  It’s less useful in examining this kind of question, but in general, at a certain point, a larger sample size actually distorts the sample’s reflection of the entire population.  Below that point, however, you can get very accurate predictions of certain types of information/trends/etc.  I’ll agree with you that IQ might not be the best test case (for all the reasons I point to above), but don’t be so quick to dismiss something without knowing or articulating the mechanics behind it.

yanny made it pretty clear that he just found it funny

Correct, he did. And I thought my blatant sarcasm was evidence enough that I took it as a joke; had I considered it an actual argument, I would have replied reasonably, not in the way I did.

But then, is anything like that ever entirely a joke? I think you’d have a hard time convincing me that most Democrats don’t consider most Republicans idiots, and use jokes like that to express their feelings of superiority. I don’t think Yanny is like that, but the point can still be made that were a Republican to post that, it would instantly be seen as a joke; if a Democrat does it, it’s unlikely it was entirely in jest.

@M36:

BTW- The stupidest people in the nation live in Connecticut, I know, I lived there.

You said it. I didn’t.

Damn, I wonder how much my alleged 165 brought up the IQ average of North Carolina when I moved here???  LOL

As for that average income thing… that HAS to be per resident, not per wage earner.  As a result, New England would rate higher on income due to an aging population (more adults, fewer children) while the sunbelt would be averaged down due to kids being thrown into the mix.  The “Graying of America” is hitting New England far harder than elsewhere (thus Pennsylvania has a lottery that benefits ‘Senior Citizens’ while southern states have lotteries to benefit ‘education’)

And… um… Where do the Badnarik voters fall on that IQ/Income scale?  Curious, since that is who I voted for in '04.

I don’t doubt this as fact for an instant.  I moved to TN 2 years ago and it astounds me how moronic these inbred white trash rednecks are.  I knew a lot of dumb people in IL., but nothing compared to here.

As with everything, I don’t mean everyone.  Both sides of the political spectrum has their idiots.  Down here they don’t like dem Homosexools and kneegrows.  Up north you have people who firmly believe that AIDS was invented by our government.  :-o

That being said you are missing a very important point which makes the IQ/voting thing almost irrelevant, stupid people don’t vote.  Some do granted, but the 1/2 of the population that doesn’t vote I bet you can find a lot of where these numbers come from.  Do a poll of IQ with voters and I think the results will be much different.

Lord knows there is a TON of white trash down here who if brains were dynamite they couldn’t blow their nose.  They bring down the numbers, but I bet they don’t vote either.  Which to me is a good thing since most are on welfare and would vote democrat anyway.

Damn, I wonder how much my alleged 165

Wtf are you some kind of genius, Ike?

They could have done the IQ tests in Spanish.

I think Spanish speakers have a greater tendency to vote for one who they can directly communicate with.

@trihero:

Damn, I wonder how much my alleged 165

Wtf are you some kind of genius, Ike?

Supposedly.  Well… “Gifted” was the phrase that was always used…

They could have done the IQ tests in Spanish

Thats very funny… good use of latent sarcasm!

Does it matter IL?  I mean folks claim that IQ tests favor WASP’s anyway… so translating them to Spanish not likely to do much good :-P

Intelligence is overrated anyway, IMO.Â

To mirror one of Chengora’s points, what good is it for the genius who can compose entire symphonies in his head, but is unable to balance his checkbook?  Which skill really indicates the more intelligent individual?

Another point from personal experience, when I was in college I also saw many brilliant students flunk out, or otherwise do poorly, not because they could not understand the material, but simply because they did not have the discipline to do the studying, the homework required, or even go to class.  Certainly they were disadvantaged on the tests, having missed the lectures where the professor would say "this will be on the test."  And missing the pop quizes because they were not in class didn’t help them either.  Intelligence is useless without discipline and hard work.

Savants. they are prodigious talents in one area of endeavor, but fail in all others.

I took an IQ test in HS and got a 128, took one a year ago and got 128.  I think the real focus with these tests is problem solving, there could be some bias, but a large part of the test is dots and colors as to “what comes next”, or number sequences which I think makes it fair.

The poster who commented on how effort is more important is right.  In HS I was pretty much a C student, because I did not have to work to pull Cs.  A good example is my senior year human anatomy class, I did little work, but the guy next to me would do his homework (meaning he would ask me what the answers were while I was screwing around doing something else).  I got a C in the class, off of my knowledge he got an A.  Needless to say I had a lot of growing up to do.

“Catcher in the Rye” changed my life.  The chapter with Mr Antolini and his speech motivated me to go out and find that “knowledge I would find so precious”.

IMO the main reason for attaining knowledge should be to gain wisdom.  I think from a problem solving perspective a higher IQ test rating may help with that.  Education is nice, but most academic stuff is more concerned with knowing… rather than understanding.

A vice of mine is WW2 history, as it is with a lot of us on this board.  We have all gotten into hair splitting over the subject (pick your sub-topic).  What we do when we are arguing is academic bull IMO (and I am just as guilty as all of you).  Wisdom is rarely the goal of our arguments, it is to prove a point, whatever that point may be.  I think that is the goal of most higher education, to know is important, to understand is secondary.