New Study: Liberal Atheists = Smartest People

Dostoyevsky · February 25, 2010, 3:04am

My favorite blog links to a new study from a London School of Economics professor. As the title of the study suggests “Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent” this is a heavily opinionated research piece and I (the unscientific layman) would like someone with knowledge of science to validate/invalidate its findings. Please.

Many thanks,
A Politically Centrist Religious Pantheist

Diogenes_the_Cynic · February 25, 2010, 3:15am

I don’t think it’s any surprise that the more intelligent people are the more skeptical they’re likely to be, and the more critical in their thinking – also the more iconoclastic, and the more complex in their ethical thinking.

The less intelligent thy are, the more likely they are to stay entrenched in tribalism, religionism and simplistic ethical thinking.

I saw a new study a few days ago that also showed a correlation between religion and racism. the more religious someone is, the more racist they are likely to be.

I’ve always liked the observation by John Stuart Mill that not all conservatives are stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

Qin_Shi_Huangdi · February 25, 2010, 3:18am

This doesn’t prove anything. Once eugenics, communism, and fascism were all "
waves of the future" and widely accepted by the intellectual elites.

Diogenes_the_Cynic · February 25, 2010, 3:19am

Link to article about religion/racism study

Dostoyevsky · February 25, 2010, 3:20am

Not sure if this is related to the OP, but does anyone know of a study that says Religious Conservatives are more intelligent?

Qin_Shi_Huangdi · February 25, 2010, 3:21am

Mill would be with his advocacy of free-market capitalism a libertarian today.

Diogenes_the_Cynic · February 25, 2010, 3:21am

This is not true of eugenics or fascism (somewhat true of Marxist idealism, but Soviet style Socialist totalitarianism wasn’t really Marxism), and not relevant in any case.

Qin_Shi_Huangdi · February 25, 2010, 3:23am

Eugenics were widely accepted back in the early Twentieth Century.

Diogenes_the_Cynic · February 25, 2010, 3:23am

American political liberals are also believers in free-market capitalism. That’s pretty much universal across the entire mainstream political spectrum in the US.

Diogenes_the_Cynic · February 25, 2010, 3:24am

No they weren’t.

Dostoyevsky · February 25, 2010, 3:25am

True. It’s easy to define “atheist” but “liberal” is more of a stretch to peg with precise criteria, and that raises questions about the study. Today’s liberalism is tomorrow’s conservatism.

ETA: maybe if I was more liberal I’d understand the study better!

Qin_Shi_Huangdi · February 25, 2010, 3:38am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

United States

One of the earliest modern advocates of eugenics (before it was labeled as such) was Alexander Graham Bell. In 1881 Bell investigated the rate of deafness on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. From this he concluded that deafness was hereditary in nature and, through noting that congenitally deaf parents were more likely to produce deaf children, tentatively suggested that couples where both were deaf should not marry, in his lecture Memoir upon the formation of a deaf variety of the human race presented to the National Academy of Sciences on 13 November 1883.[54] However, it was his hobby of livestock breeding which led to his appointment to biologist David Starr Jordan’s Committee on Eugenics, under the auspices of the American Breeders Association. The committee unequivocally extended the principle to man.[55]

During the 20th century, researchers interested in familial mental disorders conducted a number of studies to document the heritability of such illnesses as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. Their findings were used by the eugenics movement as proof for its cause. State laws were written in the late 1800s and early 1900s to prohibit marriage and force sterilization of the mentally ill in order to prevent the “passing on” of mental illness to the next generation. These laws were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927 and were not abolished until the mid-20th century. All in all, 60,000 Americans were sterilized.[56]

[…]

In the USA, eugenic supporters included Theodore Roosevelt[citation needed] , pre-1960’s Democratic Party[citation needed], the National Academy of Sciences[citation needed], the American Medical Association[citation needed] and the National Research Council[citation needed]. Research was funded by distinguished philanthropies and carried out at prestigious universities.[citation needed] It was taught in college and high school classrooms.[citation needed] Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood of America to urge the legalization of contraception for the lower classes.[citation needed] In its time eugenics was touted by some as scientific and progressive[citation needed], the natural application of knowledge about breeding to the arena of human life. Before the realization of death camps in World War II, the idea that eugenics would lead to genocide was not taken seriously by the average American.

Sounds pretty widespread.

Dostoyevsky · February 25, 2010, 3:41am

Um, the part you bolded contains nothing but statements without cites:

**In the USA, eugenic supporters included Theodore Roosevelt[citation needed] , pre-1960’s Democratic Party[citation needed], the National Academy of Sciences[citation needed], the American Medical Association[citation needed] and the National Research Council[citation needed]. Research was funded by distinguished philanthropies and carried out at prestigious universities.[citation needed] It was taught in college and high school classrooms.[citation needed] Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood of America to urge the legalization of contraception for the lower classes.[citation needed] In its time eugenics was touted by some as scientific and progressive[citation needed], the natural application of knowledge about breeding to the arena of human life. Before the realization of death camps in World War II, the idea that eugenics would lead to genocide was not taken seriously by the average American.

**

Marley23 · February 25, 2010, 3:47am

Curtis LeMay, when you quote from an article, please use just enough to prove your point and link to the rest. I shortened your Wikipedia quote.

Qin_Shi_Huangdi · February 25, 2010, 3:48am

Still does not remove the fact that several states passed sterlization laws (which are cited).

Diogenes_the_Cynic · February 25, 2010, 3:54am

Only one of those sources in that article is cited.

Eugenics was not widely accepted among intellectuals, at least not as anything other than a theoretical proposition,

This whole angle is an evasion from the topic, though. The more intelligent people are, the less religious they tend to be. Does that prove there aren’t any gods? Of course not. It just means they tend to be more critical in their thinking and less likely to accept what they’re told just because they’re told it.

There are exceptions, obviously. Some of the most brilliant individuals have been theists. Newton, for example.

Diogenes_the_Cynic · February 25, 2010, 3:56am

Those laws were not written by academics and intellectuals, but by pandering politicians.

BrainGlutton · February 25, 2010, 3:58am

All I see at the link is the abstract. Is there a link to the whole article? If so, I hope it would be a bit more lay-accessible; the abstract is full of specialized jargon. E.g., what exactly do “evolutionarily novel” and “evolutionarily familiar” mean – do they have anything to do with biological evolution, or are the psychological terms of art completely unconnected with that?

Lakai · February 25, 2010, 4:07am

I don’t understand how this is supposed to disprove the article in the OP. Were the intellectual elites who supported eugenics and fascism liberals?

Communism was misguided, but the people who consider themselves to be liberals today don’t support communism.

Qin_Shi_Huangdi · February 25, 2010, 4:09am

As to eugenics most of it’s supporters were “progressive” reformers.