Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - IQ and Politics - Do lower income, lower IQ voters, Elect our Leaders?

Ustwo · 11-02-2006, 01:31 PM

http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/stateiq.asp

Quote:

The IQ numbers were originally attributed to the book 'IQ and the Wealth of Nations,' though they do not appear in the current edition. The tests and data were administered via the Raven's APT, and The Test Agency, one of the UK's leading publishers and distributors of psychometric tests. This data has been published in the Economist and the St. Petersburg Times, though this does not mean it should be taken as fact.

Origins: Some pranks are so good they keep working over and over again.

Back in November 2002, someone (using the name Robert Calvert) created and posted to a USENET newsgroup a phony chart which purportedly showed the average IQ per state in the U.S., along with the average income and a column indicating how that state voted in the 2000 presidential election. The gag was that all the states that voted for Vice-President Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election were clustered at the top of the IQ scale, while all the states that voted for then-Texas Governor George W. Bush were clustered at the bottom.

The chart's creator claimed to have been inspired by the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations and to have drawn his IQ data from the Ravens APM, but — save for the average income per state numbers, which were valid but outdated figures taken from the 1994 World Almanac — the chart was completely bogus. (The Ravens Advanced Progressive Matrices is not really a general intelligence test, nor do its publishers offer state-by-state test results data.) Nonetheless, a number of news publications (including the staid Economist) were taken in by the hoax — some mistakenly citing the information as having come from the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations, or even IQ and the Wealth of States — and published portions of the chart, and discussed it as if it were valid. (A similar hoax about presidential IQs produced similar media-fooling results back in 2001.)

Now, someone has dusted off the same chart and (omitting the economic data) applied it to the 2004 presidential election, keeping the primary gag intact: the "blue" (i.e., Democratic states) are all clustered at the top of the IQ scale, while the "red" (i.e., Republican) states are clustered at the bottom. Same hoax, different year. If 2008 produces another close presidential election as 2000 and 2004 did, expect to see this same joke again four years from now.

Last updated: 12 November 2004

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevo

Just imagine if only land owners could vote. man that sure would solve a lot of problems.

Ironicly I was thinking the same thing today.

Oh btw living in Illinois the richest counties I'm aware of voted for Bush and tend to vote straight Republican. No idea where this would be going as voting and IQ is not a state wide thing. I'd be happy, no elated if those who didn't graduate highschool were not allowed to vote, and it wouldn't be because Democrats would win

Oh and I found this
http://sq.4mg.com/IQpolitics.htm

Which uses ACT/SAT scores, shows there isn't a really big difference, and of course only counts those going to college and taking the exam. I'm sure its all those inner city republican droppouts that sway elections!

And beats hosts edited version.

Also since it doesn't say WHO is voting, its only by state, and states which have large urban centers tend to go to the Democrats, you have to wonder if anything really being measured here?

In other words, host give me a break, your side ain't smarter.

Ahhhh finally here someone did my homework for me.... I knew someone would understand.

First, the 'IQ' gap.

Quote:

A casual glance at the chart reveals two things: first, that the IQ differences between the states are actually quite small; and second, that there really isn't such a noticeable difference between the "blue" and "red" states after all. Kerry does seem to have a slight advantage, as the handful of states at the top of the chart are in his camp. But how great is the difference really?

It's easy enough to figure out. Since electoral votes are based on population (the more people that live in a state, the more electoral votes it has), one merely has to multiply each state's average IQ by its electoral vote count, then add up the totals in each candidate's column, and divide by each candidate's electoral vote total. The results will be a highly accurate average IQ of the voters for each side.

And without further ado, here are the results (feel free to do the computations yourself to confirm them, if you choose to):

Kerry voters: IQ 100.96 ~> 101
Bush voters: IQ 98.73 ~> 99

Kerry supporters have an average IQ of just under 101; and Bush supporters have an IQ of just under 99. For simplicity's sake, we'll round them both up to 101 and 99.

So, the evidence seems to show that the average Kerry voter has an IQ of 101, while the average Bush voter has an IQ of 99. While this 2-point difference may appear significant to partisan advocates, in truth the difference between 99 and 101 is negligable, so statistically insignificant as to be meaningless. If the average IQ is 100, it is not possible to tell the difference between someone who is 1 point above average and someone else who is 1 point below average. In fact, in casual conversation, you couldn't distinguish between someone with an IQ of 95 from someone with an IQ of 105.

This result alone is enough to show that there is in fact essentially no difference in intelligence between Bush voters and Kerry voters. But further analysis reveals something even more startling -- and a bit controversial.

To the above may I say 'duh'

Now for the grim reality to the democrats....

Quote:

One of the reasons standardized tests are so controversial and so disliked is that certain minority groups tend to score lower than average on them. I'm not here to defend these tests, or to theorize why these groups score lower on average (and there are many convincing and reasonable explanations); I'm merely pointing out a well-known and universally acknowledged fact. Specifically, that Native Americans, Hispanics, and African-Americans tend to score slightly lower on the SAT.

Why bring up this uncomfortable fact? Well, look at the map above again. In particular, look at New Mexico, Texas, and Mississippi, as examples. All three of these states went for Bush to varying degrees. But certain counties within each state voted for Kerry. In New Mexico, as the map reveals, the northern areas went for Kerry. Yet northern New Mexico is where most of the Native American reservations are. Thus, Native Americans tended to favor Kerry. Now look at Texas; the state went almost entirely for Bush, except for the area along the Mexican border, which has a high concentration of Hispanics. Thus, it seems that Kerry got a lot of Hispanic votes. Now on to Mississippi: mostly Bush, except for the counties that border on the Mississippi River -- counties which are majority African-American. (The same principle applies to many other states as well.)

It doesn't take a genius to see where this is heading. IF you accept the validity of IQ (which Kerry supporters unearthed to support their "Bush voters are dumb" thesis), and IF IQ can be accurately approximated from SAT results (as most statisticians believe), and IF you acknowledge that certain minority groups, for whatever sociological and economic reasons (poverty, language barriers, cultural differences), score slightly lower than average on SAT tests, THEN you can come to only one conclusion: that those residents of "red" states that are voting for Kerry are the ones with the lower-than-average IQs. Which means that the higher-IQ residents of many "red" states are the ones voting for Bush.

(I would like to repeat here that I personally do not ascribe to the validity of IQ tests, nor of standardized tests in general. I only use this data in order to rebut the false conclusion derived from it. Kerry supporters have dug this hole themselves, and now must suffer the consequences of their folly.)

The end result of this county-by-county analysis is that the tiny apparent IQ advantage held by Kerry voters is wiped out, if not reversed. By casting aspersions on southern and western states with high African-American and Native American populations, calling the people who live there "dumb" for voting for Bush, and attempting to prove it by dragging out statistics, the Kerry camp is flirting with behavior that borders on the offensive. Their accusations only highlight the fact that, even in pro-Bush states, it is those voters who are Kerry supporters that are the ones which account for the states' low test rankings.

CONCLUSION
a. There is no discernible intelligence difference between Bush voters and Kerry voters.
b. Kerry supporters who insist that Bush voters are "dumb," and who point out as evidence state-by-state IQ scores, are engaging in behavior that could be construed as racially inflammatory.

http://www.zombietime.com/iq_of_2004_voters_by_state/

host this was an easy one, add more links next time so I don't bother reading it.