Category Archives: Science

Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism

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Are racists dumb? Do conservatives tend to be less intelligent than liberals? A provocative new study from Brock University in Ontario suggests the answer to both questions may be a qualified yes.

The study, published in Psychological Science, showed that people who score low on I.Q. tests in childhood are more likely to develop prejudiced beliefs and socially conservative politics in adulthood.

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. . . People of low intelligence gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, which stress resistance to change and, in turn, prejudice[.]

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PZ Myers: Irrational Humans

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I really have a hard time wrapping my mind around the strategies of anti-choice activists. I’ve encountered a few, and I’ve browsed some of their websites, and am so unimpressed with their tactics . . . but they seem to work effectively with some people. . . .

The argument is never about whether some state is alive or not. Your appendix and tonsils are great masses of living cells, but if the organ becomes inflamed, doctors will cut them out and throw them away. Every time you poop, about a third of that mass that you excrete and flush away consists of living bacterial cells, yet no one hesitates and feels regret at the tragic loss of life when their hand is on the handle.

The argument is about whether that living thing is a person requiring extensive legal and moral protection, and it’s entirely clear that “life” is not a sufficient criterion, or people would be lobbying for the protection of turds and tonsils. We are not absolutists about protecting all life; we can’t be.

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STUDY: More Conservatives Than Ever Distrust Science

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Just 35 percent of self-identified conservatives said they had a “great deal of trust in science” in 2010, a new report published in the journal American Sociological Review reveals. The finding marks a 28 percent decline since the first survey taken in 1974, “when 48 percent of conservatives—about the same percentage as liberals—trusted science.”

Source: ThinkProgress.org

What Are Conservatives [i.e., Reactionaries] Trying to Conserve?

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About a month ago, Jonathan Chait published an important article in New York Magazine arguing that demographic changes in the United States will before too long spell doom to the political influence and hegemony of conservatives [i.e., reactionaries], and that conservatives [i.e., reactionaries], well aware of these changes, regard the 2012 elections as their last, best chance to reverse the course America is on. “Conservative America,” Chait writes, “will soon come to be dominated, in a semi-permanent fashion, by an ascendant Democratic coalition hostile to its outlook and interests.” The Republican [i.e., Reactionaries] Party, Chait explains, had over decades found itself increasingly confined to white voters, “especially those lacking a college degree and especially rural whites.” Meanwhile, Democrats have increased their standing among whites with graduate degrees, secular whites and racial minorities. . . .

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