Liberals Proving Intelligence-Liberalism Connection (like conservatives proving god)

[Pangloss]

My hypothesis: Some far-left ideologues feel a compulsion to prove a connection between liberalism (though as Severian so neatly pointed out this morning, they really mean an enforced progressive agenda) and intelligence. And that this desire for a connection is fundamentally equivalent to the desire by some on the religious right to prove the existence of god through faux scientific evidence.

 

By way of example, I offer this Slate opinion piece about a new scientific study published in this month's Nature attempting to connect liberalism and intelligence. I'd link the study itself, but it's under subscription so we can't read it without paying (how convenient).

 

http://www.slate.com/id/2173965/?GT1=10436

 

The abstract from the study reads:

 

Political scientists and psychologists have noted that, on average, conservatives show more structured and persistent cognitive styles, whereas liberals are more responsive to informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty. We tested the hypothesis that these profiles relate to differences in general neurocognitive functioning using event-related potentials, and found that greater liberalism was associated with stronger conflict-related anterior cingulate activity, suggesting greater neurocognitive sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual response pattern.

 

Without the gobbledygook that reads "conservatives are rooted in inflexible, traditional thinking, and liberals are more open-minded and accepting of evidence".

[ecoli]

I think that, according to the classical conservative ideals (like Ron Paul) conservatives aren't unflexible, they just think that traditional thinking is the perfect way to run things today... you don't need extra bureaucracy to get the job down.

[Saryctos]

Considering that college campuses are breeding grounds for liberal idealogy, it only makes sense that the two would appear connected. Since the longer you're in college learning(getting smarter hopefully), the longer you're exposed to a heavily liberal environment.

[Pangloss]

I would assume that one category or the other MUST have at least a slightly higher number. That's obvious -- basic statistics. And as you say, Saryctos, it's quite possible that college influence has an impact here. What's that old addage about liberal when you're young and conservative when you get older and have a family to protect? I've always felt that there's a lot of truth in that notion.

 

But that's not really what this thread is about. What I'm suggesting is that some people on the far left feel a need to prove that liberalism is the only possible ideology that a sufficiently intelligent person can possibly choose. The obvious correlary being that if you're conservative it has to be because you lack sufficient intelligence to be liberal.

 

Not only is that notion ludicrous, and not only is it astonishing that people who ostensibly believe in the importance of scientific evidence and reasoning would follow that kind of mallarky (ok it's not astonishing, we see it every day right here at SFN -- just go check out the Pseudoscience board).....

 

.... but it strikes me as incredibly similar to the far-right need to prove the existence of GOD. There's something to this similarity, I believe. A desire for acceptance? A desire for objective confirmation? I don't know.

[D H]

From my reading of the Slate article, this is not an intelligence test. It tests visual acuity and reaction time, both of which are highly correlated with age. A person's political orientation is also highly correlated with age. It is not surprising at all that the testers found a correlation between the test results and policical orientation.

 

This made it into Nature????

[Pangloss]

Then why doesn't the study "show" that reaction times and visual accuity are more likely attributable to age than to political leaning?

 

Answer: Because that wouldn't have been published.

[bascule]

Let me give my own totally unscientific opinion on liberal versus conservative intellectuals:

 

Conservative intellectuals tend to be diabolically evil (e.g. Milton Friedman)

Liberal intellectuals tend to be unrealistic blowhards (e.g. Noam Chomsky)

[Pangloss]

Agreed, except I'd have called Friedman the unrealistic blowhard and Chomsky diabolically evil. (grin)

[Sisyphus]

Real intellectuals tend not to get held up as champions of liberalism or of conservatism, because their ideas are too subtle for sound bites or marching chants. I've met some of the people who are held up. Once they finish their shtick, if you're not there to cheer them or jeer them, they don't know what to do or say.

[Dak]

Then why doesn't the study "show" that reaction times and visual accuity are more likely attributable to age than to political leaning?

 

Answer: Because that wouldn't have been published.

 

abstracts are limited to 250 words.

 

no doubt the observation is made somewhere within the paper, but the abstract has to be uber-consice.

 

and, tbh, i'm not sure i see the relevence of the study? if it claims that liberals are more intelectual, then this justifies liberals' desire to make this claim (as it lends weight to the idea that it's actually true). if it doesn't claim this, then i don't see the relevence...

[Pangloss]

Dak I've explained what the relevence is, you're just determined to make a huge leap of faith that the authors buried a major contrary admission deep in their paper. I've no idea why you would make such a leap unless you were just determined to see what you want to see. I also have an predisposition here, but at least I'm up front about it. There isn't even the slightest hint that what you're suggesting is true. ........ <---

 

Oh and hang on, let me throw extra dots on the end of my first paragraph to dismissively hint that all normal people must feel as I do. There we go.

 

I've made a prima facie case here. The onus is on others to disprove it, not just assume it's false and hint that anyone who shares my concern must be an idiot.

[john5746]

http://dericbownds.net/uploaded_images/Amodio.pdf

 

and a blog

 

http://neurocritic.blogspot.com/2007/09/david-amodio-responds.html

 

I still see nothing about the age of the participants, but there were 36 liberals of varying degrees(as self-described) and only 7 conservatives. There seems to be a correlation, but does it mean anything?

[Dak]

Dak I've explained what the relevence is

 

you offered it as an example of far-left ideologies being determined to prove a correlation between liberalism and intelligence. so, what, science is a "far-left ideology" now is it, because one paper was published that youve interpreted as an attack on conservatism?

 

you're just determined to make a huge leap of faith that the authors buried a major contrary admission deep in their paper.

 

contrary to what? and omitting something from the abstract != 'burying'

 

I've no idea why you would make such a leap unless you were just determined to see what you want to see. I also have an predisposition here, but at least I'm up front about it. There isn't even the slightest hint that what you're suggesting is true.

 

 

followed by:

 

Oh and hang on, let me throw extra dots on the end of my first paragraph to dismissively hint that all normal people must feel as I do. There we go.

 

I've made a prima facie case here. The onus is on others to disprove it, not just assume it's false and hint that anyone who shares my concern must be an idiot.

 

talk about kettle calling the pot black! those 'extra dots' are called elipses, and indicate an ommision from the sentance. in this context, they indicate that i was after a responce, but was too lazy to type 'so would you mind telling me?' on the end (i.e., it was a question, despite not being phrased as such).

 

they're pretty standard punctuation, pangloss. interesting how, from "..." you managed to infer what you did, just after you admonished me for seeing what i wanted too.

 

I wonder if, after i critisised your logic, you just wanted too see and dismiss me as some kind of 'liberal nut' then...

[Pangloss]

Do you really wonder? I wonder....

[PhDP]

Wait a minute.... They present evidences, they publish it in a science journal with a strict peer review policy, you make unfounded speculations about their motives, you associate this kind of study to the belief in God, and somehow, THEY are the ideologues, not you?

 

In reality, the article from Nature is not very significant to the debate. It might contain mistakes and errors, I'll have to look at the details, but I doubt it's as bad as the article on stale. The truth is, there are many articles, from many journals, showing about the same thing from different perspectives.

 

If some scientists are biased and can't do their job properly, we should publish articles to prove they are wrong. But making personal attacks and speculating about other people's motives, that's the tactic of an ideologue.

[swansont]

Considering that college campuses are breeding grounds for liberal idealogy, it only makes sense that the two would appear connected. Since the longer you're in college learning(getting smarter hopefully), the longer you're exposed to a heavily liberal environment.

 

But that would be a correlation with education, not intelligence. They aren't the same thing.

 

It was a small-sample study. There's a reasonable chance it was meaningless/wrong; the kind of test is a zero-sum game, and Pangloss has already alluded to this.

 

But the Slate article is wanting:

 

"participants had one-tenth of a second to look at the letter and another four-tenths of a second to hit the button. One letter, one-tenth of a second. This is "information"?"

 

That's scientific criticism? No, it's not. It's science-bashing rhetorical crap. The whole article is full of it. Saletan is making a huge extrapolation of a relatively simple test, and adding a lot of his own interpretation to the science, from what I can tell.

 

And I have to ask: where does the conclusion come from about the motivation for the study? The scientists saw a claim made by "political scientists and psychologists" and devised a simpler test to investigate and see if there was any weight to the claims. Is it so unreasonable to hypothesize that there might be some difference in function between people who have different world views? He doth protest too much, methinks.

[Pangloss]

I had much the same reaction to the Slate article -- the author extrapolated quite a bit. (And that's why I'm not an ideologue on this issue, Phil, because I see both sides of a debate. You see one undeniable truth, when actually quite a bit of reasonable doubt has already been cast. So... who's the ideologue, again?)

 

I find myself wanting to reiterate the original premise, which is about a larger subject that doesn't seem to have generated much response thus far:

 

My hypothesis: Some far-left ideologues feel a compulsion to prove a connection between liberalism and intelligence. And that this desire for a connection is fundamentally equivalent to the desire by some on the religious right to prove the existence of god through faux scientific evidence.

[PhDP]

And that's why I'm not an ideologue on this issue, Phil, because I see both sides of a debate.

 

This is not about seeing both side of the debate, it's about speculating about other people's motivation while we should concentrate on the facts. How can you say you see "both sides of a debate", you talked about "faux scientific evidence". Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems you have decided, with no hard evidence, that these studies were false.

 

You see one undeniable truth, when actually quite a bit of reasonable doubt has already been cast.

 

Undeniable truth? I said that? No, it's absurd. I'm very open to all rational discussion about the evidences. But I'm suffering from severe allergic reactions to any attempt to undermine an argument by transforming a scientific debate into a political debate.

[Pangloss]

That's an understandable reaction, and one that I have myself sometimes, but I think it's unjustified in this case -- I haven't accused the authors of this paper of using "faux scientific evidence". I was speaking about a larger issue and raising the question of whether this might be an example. As I said from the start, I cannot read this paper because I'm unwilling to pay for it. I am willing, therefore, to keep an open mind about its methods and focus instead on why they chose this subject in the first place.

 

If you work in academia you know that chosing a research topic is 9/10ths of the battle. I think it's possible this paper was written with an eye more on either ideological agenda or name-making than on actually proving a scientific point.

 

And I think it's interesting to ask whether scientists who try to prove a liberalism-intelligence link are suffering from the same human frailty as religious zealots who try to prove the existence of god. I know it's not very politically correct to ask that question on a science board, but scientists are supposed to be above that sort of thing, and they're supposed to be above hypocrisy too.

[PhDP]

Still, credibility is everything for scientists; I don't think it's fair to suggest they might be publishing biased studies for ideological reasons. I feel a lot of empathy toward the experts (not just scientists) which are being strongly criticised, not because they are not doing their job correctly, but simply because some people don't like what they hear. We really have to give them the benefits of the doubt (of course it doesn't mean you have to accept their conclusions, it's because it's published by an "expert" that it's true).

 

You have to prove they are wrong first, and then questions can be asked about their motives, and even then we should be careful. However, it has to be done after something wrong was found, not the other way around. For now, you just say "far left ideologues" want to prove a link between conservatism and intelligence, but the real question is; is it true. If it's not and some people are still trying to promote this idea, then I think you would be right, it might be similar to conservatives pseudoscientists trying to put God in every equations, but until then...

 

And BTW, it's also not "politically correct" to study intelligence and political ideologies. What I find amusing about this is that, in the last 30 years, psychology has got much closer to biology, genetics, and evolution. There has been a lot of controversial discoveries and they always lead to accusations of bias; homosexuality is genetic (leftist propaganda!), women are more important in sexual selection than men (feminist propaganda!), hypersexualisation might reduce violence against women (anti-feminist propaganda!), rape is an adaptation (pro-rape propaganda!), and sociobiologists are often accused of being part of a vast right-wing conspiracy.

[Pangloss]

Again you raise important points, and I agree that it's unfair for the right to brandish these labels and presumptions. But I think they chose this topic for a reason. I think it's reasonable to question what that reason might have been.

 

You mention cases where science was unfairly admonished when the facts said the scientists were right. What about cases where the facts ultimately showed the science to be wrong? How many drugs were withdrawn from the market over the last couple of years? How many chemical products were hastily withdrawn amidst scientific speculation that later turned out to be false, and we lost a powerful and helpful ally like DDT, a drug which has never shown any solid evidence of harm and yet which people even right here in this forum continue to challenge the use of on the grounds that it harms people?

 

I know you don't claim that scientists are demigods with supreme knowledge and authority, and I'm not chastising you. I'm saying that society puts too much power and authority in the hands of individual paper-writers who mash the press release button too early just so they can get published and get a name for themselves. If it turns out later they were wrong, well they just shrug and move on, hey it's not their fault the follow-up studies weren't done, if only we had a government that would do what it's supposed to do! Yeah, that must be it, it's the government's fault. Riiiiight.

 

Scientists don't deserve canonization any more than they deserve demonization.

[PhDP]

Science has a very special class of experts, where the opinion of individuals doesn't matter much. Nobody would ever let an amateur perform neurosurgical procedures, but in science, an amateur could publish articles and destroy theories built by dozen of PhDs. So you're right, scientists don't deserve canonization or demonization, but the most important thing is that we should not care too much about the individuals. Unless you can prove scientists are biased, I think we should focus on articles and publications.

 

I really don't think we can agree on this. I think you ought to give the authors the benefits of the doubt, and you should criticize content, not the authors, or if you have to criticise the authors you should wait for evidences.

 

You mention cases where science was unfairly admonished when the facts said the scientists were right. What about cases where the facts ultimately showed the science to be wrong?

 

Actually, my point is not that science was unfairly admonished, my point is that scientists are often, very often, accused of having some sort of motivation, and that "argument" is used to undermine science. Of course, while all the attention is on the scientists themselves, nobody cares about facts. It's very trendy.

[ParanoiA]

Actually, my point is not that science was unfairly admonished, my point is that scientists are often, very often, accused of having some sort of motivation, and that "argument" is used to undermine science. Of course, while all the attention is on the scientists themselves, nobody cares about facts. It's very trendy.

 

So, would you listen to the science being presented by global warming skeptics rather than dismiss them because they work for "big oil"? I've seen that particular trend right here on SFN.

[Dak]

So, would you listen to the science being presented by global warming skeptics rather than dismiss them because they work for "big oil"? I've seen that particular trend right here on SFN.

 

if they publish in peer-reviewed journals so that any errors can be discovered by others who don't share their biases, then yeah -- tho i'd be sceptical at first (i.e., would wait untill it had actually survived peer-review for a bit).

 

insidentally, i've seen on a few papers a 'full disclosure' bit, where it says something like 'this research was funded by blah', so maybe some journals demand that potential biases be stated?

[MrSandman]

Polictics, Religions (Evolution, and Creation) should keep away (unless provened by facts) from science!!!! Tell me whatever you want. I got the time to answer.