Before another person emails me this article, yes I’ve seen it.
(CNN) — Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds.
Anyone who follows the blog should already know I’m highly skeptical about such stories and their purported findings (although I am confident they result in lots of traffic online at the url). I have not seen the primary source, but want to respond to the emails I’m receiving.
In short, the reason this troubles me very much is because–regardless of what the actual study says–the way it’s been written up as a ‘news‘ item is misleading (especially for those who don’t read past the headline). Of course many of the factors considered will show interesting correlations in a sample, but correlation does not equal causation. Each is extremely dependent on social mores, cultural norms, hormones, relationships, socieoeconomic status, and much, much, more. Still, I would be interested to see the data and read the methodology.
That said, I can’t help but wonder if this is a classic example of ‘The Science News Cycle‘.
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February 27th, 2010 at 11:53 am
I haven’t had a chance to read the original peer-reviewed report yet, but the author has a history of using questionable statistical practices to support some of his claims.
And yes, now that it’s out, it’s very likely going to get repeated even if someone debunks it.
February 27th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Given the fact that Satoshi Kanazawa is involved, I am actually inclined to think that he would have made those claims. He was the author of Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, which is generally considered pretty poor science (misusing statistics etc.)
February 27th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
No matter. You can never accuse Chris of not giving his followers exactly what they want.
February 27th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Re: 3. The author is listed at the end of the post text.
As far as I can tell, the study isn’t normalized to educational history, so it could just be that intelligent people are more likely to go to college and get exposed to liberal athiesm.
The authors don’t state if there is a correlation between any of these factors and the propensity to rush to the press with a half-baked theory full of generalizations.
February 28th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Hm. Kind of like
http://www.xkcd.com/552/