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

[pcollins]

do i take it you get nature and have read these arguments and answres? if so, was the age factor that pangloss(?) brought up earlyer mentioned? i.e., that both conservatism and the mentioned mental traits correlate with age?

 

ta.

 

I subscribed to Nature at the time, but the Jost-Greenberg exchange is available online. The original Jost et. al. paper claims that 37 percent of participants were undergraduates, while the remainder spread the across the spectrum. Whatever correlation there is with age is not addressed in this discussion.

 

They present evidences...

 

It's evidence insofar as anyone can follow the inferences behind the operational definitions.

 

...they publish it in a science journal with a strict peer review policy...

 

Why is that worth anything, or say worth more than observing that these authors work in a field that tips overwhelmingly to the left? There's a simple matter of trust we should establish first.

[Dak]

To a certain extent this is because I have seen what 'change' can do. Being in higher education, I have seen the unbelievable drive in recent years of the 'liberals' to make education more 'inclusive'. This has undeniably led to a reduction in standards which make everyone suffer. We now have much more difficulty finding students capable of doing scientific research than we did before.

 

So conservatism is often rooted in a desire to preserve systems that work. Once something has been broken by tinkering liberals, it may never be the same again, and everyone will be worse off.

 

for the record, this is exactly what i meant! changing things that need changing is all well and good, but it is risky and can go wrong -- which isn't even addressing the cost of changing things -- neither of which are problems that conservatism has.

 

otoh, sometimes things need changing, in which case there's nothing wrong with being conservative in your changes if that'll suffice (small, cheap, reletively risk-free cautious changes, rather than dramatic, expensive, risky ones).

 

I guess I can see how 'easy and risk-free' could come across as glib, but they are the benifits of conservatism, same as 'actually improving the situation' is the benifit of progressivism.

 

I subscribed to Nature at the time, but the Jost-Greenberg exchange is available online. The original Jost et. al. paper claims that 37 percent of participants were undergraduates, while the remainder spread the across the spectrum. Whatever correlation there is with age is not addressed in this discussion.

 

cheers

[JohnB]

not a comment on progressivism v conservatism (presumably, if our societies became truly liberal, then all the liberals would change to conservatism), but as a comment on liberalism v bigotry (which, i think, has some justification to the claim 'liberalism is smarter').

I'm having trouble with the above as it seems to imply that Liberalism is not Bigoted but I'm sure that wasn't what was meant. It's been my experience that all groups are bigoted somewhat against people not of their group.

conservatism is an easy, cheap, low-risk 'if it aint broke, don't fix it' approach afaict, which is cool tho theres a time and place for it.

Certainly true but there's one question that Liberals can't seem to answer. "What logical or rational reason can be given for trying to fix something that isn't broken?".

 

If there is one large difference I've noticed. *gets out broadest brush I can find* History shows us that societies rise and fall and all previous civilizations have fallen. Conservatives accept the fact (consciously or unconsciously) that our civilization may also fall and we should therefore be very careful about messing with it's structure. Liberals seem to have a belief that no matter how we tinker with it, our civilization won't fall.

 

I doubt that anyone here would consider boarding an aircraft or crossing a bridge that was engineered on the "Let's tinker with it to make me feel better" principle. Social engineering is a far less precise and far more dangerous pursuit than Mechanical engineering.

 

Dak, your post above clears things up for me. I won't delete the first part of my post in case you are currently answering it.

 

Cheers.

[pcollins]

I guess I can see how 'easy and risk-free' could come across as glib, but they are the benifits of conservatism, same as 'actually improving the situation' is the benifit of progressivism.

 

I don't see how this follows from anything stated in Jost et. al.

[Dak]

it was in refference to pangloss' earlyer accusation of an unfair bias against conservatism, not directly related to the paper being discussed.

 

the thread's all over the place, if you hadn't noticed

 

I'm having trouble with the above as it seems to imply that Liberalism is not Bigoted but I'm sure that wasn't what was meant. It's been my experience that all groups are bigoted somewhat against people not of their group.

 

with that bit, all i meant is that some conservatives/traditionalists don't want to conserve aspects of our society due to any aversion to tinkering, but rather because certain aspects of our societies are bigoted, and they quite like that because they themselves are bigots (of the 'don't like gays' variety).

 

I'd be quite happy to differentiate them from 'true' conservatives, same as i'd like to differentiate the more loony 'tinker till it explodes without thinking' and 'femnazi' liberals from the majority, but the fact is that these bigots usually get lumped in under the umbrella term of 'conservatism'.

 

when talking about 'liberalism' being intelectually superior to 'conservatism', i get the feeling somewhat that what's being compared is liberalism with bigotry, as opposed to with conservatism of the lets-not-do-anything-drastic variety. if that makes sense?

 

Certainly true but there's one question that Liberals can't seem to answer. "What logical or rational reason can be given for trying to fix something that isn't broken?".

 

lol, depends on wether you count sub-optimal as being broken, but i do recognise the kind of liberal to which you are alluding

 

they're stoopid

 

I doubt that anyone here would consider boarding an aircraft or crossing a bridge that was engineered on the "Let's tinker with it to make me feel better" principle. Social engineering is a far less precise and far more dangerous pursuit than Mechanical engineering.

 

agreed. you certainly shouldn't tinker without thinking nor when it's unneccesary -- in fact, i'd go as far as to say that even when you do tinker you should be conservative (just not neccesarily so conservative that you don't tinker in the first place).

 

Dak, your post above clears things up for me. I won't delete the first part of my post in case you are currently answering it.

 

Cheers.

 

doh. should've read the whole post first...

[D H]

if so, was the age factor that pangloss(?) brought up earlyer mentioned?

 

That was my sole contribution to this thread.

 

I'm surprised no one made the connection between the article cited in the OP and the thread "Why Most Published Research Findings are False". Positive results might well result even if the underlying hypothesis is false. I suspect this is not the case here. They simply didn't measure what they purported to measure.

[ParanoiA]

I now find myself as somewhere between liberal and conservative. I would like to see change in many areas, but that shouldn't be knee-jerk 'lets have a group hug' change. It should be well thought out, reasoned and motivated change, with honest tests and safety measures put in place to ensure the change is an improvement and a facility for changing it back if it is not.

 

This seems quite reasonable to me. This was more or less my initial impression of conservatism. Probably is more likely to be considered moderate, or middle of the road - which is just a way of each ideology saving face. I've always thought liberalism came across far more whimsical.

 

But then again, that's why I like a libertarian federal landscape. Liberalism can afford to be more whimsical and progressive when effecting one state, while the rest of us observe and adopt what works and stay conservative with what doesn't.

[Pangloss]

Dak, what I object to is the ongoing, systemic, socially-accepted view on this web site of conservatives as backward, unintelligent boobs. That point of view has been put forth and supported in this thread, and it is every bit as ignorant and moronic (not to mention immature and sophmoric) as it would be for a conservative to bash liberals in the same way. But for some reason it's accepted here when it's done to conservatives. Accepted and supported as if it were some sort of universal, undeniable truth.

 

So what does that make Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas? An ignorant boob? A stupid non-thinker? Incapable of rational thought? Unable to string two sentences together? A complete half-wit? ORLY? That guy came out of absolute poverty and went on to graduate at the top of his class and get a JD from YALE. Could he be merely mislead? Perhaps he's simply not considered all the issues fully?

 

The sheer audacity of such comments are utterly astounding coming from a group of people that prides itself on intelligence and scientific objectivity. ASTOUNDING. Not to mention irresponsible, immature, and just plain knuckle-headed. I am disappointed beyond words.

[ParanoiA]

Perhaps partisanship isn't just for politicians...

[iNow]

So what does that make Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas? An ignorant boob? A stupid non-thinker? Incapable of rational thought? Unable to string two sentences together? A complete half-wit? ORLY? That guy came out of absolute poverty and went on to graduate at the top of his class and get a JD from YALE.

Actually, by his own admission just this last week on 60 Minutes, he was NOT top of his class, but just an adequate and "middle of the road" student at Yale. He was an honors student while at Holy Cross Catholic high school, and he did well during his time in the seminary. Either way, you seem to have some serious blinders on regarding what is and is not being said in these fora. Perhaps instead of focussing on your disappointment you could instead focus on areas where bridges and compromise might be built.

 

 

Just the facts, ma'am.

[pcollins]

Actually, by his own admission just this last week on 60 Minutes, he was NOT top of his class, but just an adequate and "middle of the road" student at Yale.

 

At Yale Law School. The top law school in the country. At a school where the lowest graduating grade is historically a B-.

[iNow]

Your point?

[PhDP]

I'm surprised no one made the connection between the article cited in the OP and the thread "Why Most Published Research Findings are False". Positive results might well result even if the underlying hypothesis is false. I suspect this is not the case here. They simply didn't measure what they purported to measure.

 

Don't be surprised, very few people in this discussion seem to care about the actual validity of the studies.

[MrSandman]

Yeah, they all send websites as source that are secondary from another secondary source.

[MrSandman]

And Harvard.

[swansont]

At Yale Law School. The top law school in the country. At a school where the lowest graduating grade is historically a B-.

 

Either grade inflation, or the fact that many post-bac programs have similar standards. I went to a state school for my PhD, and a "C" was a failing grade. BFD.

[foodchain]

A bit of confusion I see. There is no typical liberal as there might be more on average a typical conservative. See you can have liberal hippy types, which are really just hippies, then you can have another type of liberal like the metrosexual type in cities, the list could go on. Conservatives on the other hand seem to be on average more of the same mold. You can even find variation in liberal to conservative in regards to religious beliefs, such as homosexuals that attend church to comparison to other conservative types you might find at some gathering of evangelicals. Also, libertarian conservatives are another branch of conservative thought, and some liberals are not anti gun to boot, so its not an easy or decisive cut off on what is what.

 

Typically though the main difference in the two is time and situation dependent. Such as republicans and democrats of say sixty years ago are nothing compared to what they are today.

 

ON average I would state a good chunk of modern day liberalism is a very diversified group of people, much like modern conservatism. You can find a gross amount of conservatives simply being conservative because they want to retain there position and power or status, nothing more, or basically you can also find a giant cult of very religious conservative types in which change is the product of satans work. You can also find liberals that basically would like to emplace for all intensive purposes communism and happen to be rather out of touch with reality, its not cut and dry.

 

ON average I don’t know if it rates to intelligence as much as it simply rates to worldview. It would be very easy to say that the middle east is the bastion of what conservative thought is all about in many regards, or you will not find progressive liberal thinking in Iran period. Liberalism for what its worth is not known for being super aggressive warmongering, or hating on people for difference for the most part, though of course exceptions exist. I think really that is the prime difference, such as bush wanting to ban same sex marriage for various reasons that its the anti christ in short and liberals not being exactly nice to the concept but at the same time allowing a more open atmosphere to exist on the issue, that’s really the only real difference in my opinion of the two. They both produce crappy results most the time and of course both happen to be profoundly dumb for the most part. You can see an easy divide in regards to how environmental issues are handled by both groups for another example.

 

Well that’s my two cents on the topic anyways.

[pcollins]

Either grade inflation, or the fact that many post-bac programs have similar standards.

 

The latter, which is why I brought it up.

[JohnB]

lol, depends on wether you count sub-optimal as being broken, but i do recognise the kind of liberal to which you are alluding

Something that may amuse you. The "Republic Debate" came up at work today. (As in should Australia become one.)

 

I support the current Constitutional Monarchy. My reasons are simple;

1. It ain't broke, so don't fix it.

2. Oz has had 106 years of Civil peace. No Civil War, Insurrection, Troops on the streets, Reign of Terror, Military Coup or such nonsense, no Republic afaik can say the same.

3. The decision we make affects not just us, but our children and grandchildren so we have to be very sure before we mess with our system of government.

 

The reasons given why we should change;

1. We'll feel better about ourselves.

2. The Egyptian President would meet our President at the airport rather than recieving the Prime Minister in his office.

3. It's been 100 years, time to try something new.

 

I do so love a reasoned debate.

[Prof Reza Sanaye]

It is a pity that "left/right" distinction has given way to "liberal/conservative" blur. Things appear to have become so blunt.   

 

 

[iNow]

And you feel a thread that has been dormant for nearly 14 years was the best place to highlight this?