Right-wingers are less intelligent than left wingers says DM

[TankRizzo]

Aren't the BNP effectively left-wing anyway?

[CoopR]

Anyone who talks about right wing and left wing like they are footballs teams should be treated as too stupid to vote.

[0a]

Anyone stupid gets classed as 'far right' by this lot, when in many ways they believe in lefty policies.

[angularocelot]

there are some rightwingers clutching at some very thin straws on this thread. lol, you thickos.

[Randy Winkman]

angularocelot said:

there are some rightwingers clutching at some very thin straws on this thread. lol, you thickos.

[Jackleman]

Judging by the way the left fked our countries finances I think it is fair to say they didn't have many maths boffins or economics brains in the left over the last 10 years.

[turbobloke]

Old news - it was liberals and atheists last time (February 2010) making Einstein an interesting illustration.

http://inventorspot.com/articles/study_equates_hig...

There's been lots of it about for some time, here it was vexing somebody in 2006.

http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/06/liberals_smarte.h...

Meanwhile if you think you're smart and left, you could be right.

Well-educated people often believe themselves to be more left wing than they actually are a study has found

[Sticks.]

turbobloke said:

Meanwhile if you think you're smart and left, you could be right.

Very good

[ukwill]

Statistician doesn't think too highly of the science...

http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5118

[davepoth]

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

Wikipedia says that Fascism hates conservatism, liberalism, social democracy and communism. So technically speaking they're neither left wing or right wing, but stood out in the foyer arguing about where to sit.

[EDLT]

EDLT said:

It is a very old study and they used the much disputed IQ test to work out how intelligent the subjects are. Also it was done in America, America's "left wing" politicians would be called right wing over here.

Seems I'm not the only one who thinks this:

[otolith]

quote=Twincam16]The problem with this survey is that it makes the old mistake of clumping together social and economic policies assuming one automatically goes with the other.

[/quote]

Quite. Besides which, most people I have known for a long time have changed some of their politics since they were younger.

[AJS-]

turbobloke said:

Meanwhile if you think you're smart and left, you could be right.

Well-educated people often believe themselves to be more left wing than they actually are a study has found

I reckon they're going to eat that ginger too.

[Guybrush]

turbobloke said:

Meanwhile if you think you're smart and left, you could be right.

Well-educated people often believe themselves to be more left wing than they actually are a study has found

There is often the mistake made of confusing education with intelligence. By which I mean, in this case, they are probably thinking they're a bit 'left' because of some idealism (as are most lefties) but when they wish to actually apply their ideals upon themselves, they suddenly find that they may after all be a bit 'right'. A case of being honest with oneself really. I know many people who would like to impose lefty principles upon others but not themselves. Dim but sometimes educated.

Edited by Guybrush on Saturday 4th February 08:56

[bucksmanuk]

Guybrush said:

There is often the mistake made of confusing education with intelligence.

Nail. On. Head

[turbobloke]

There may well be confusion in some quarters but the article referred to focused on education, though the two are often linked given that high intelligence often leads to academic success which encourages individuals to continue with their studies and gain more qualifications.

In the case of the OP, a large sample size is giving a figleaf of respectability in terms of statistical significance when this says nothing about the quality of the instruments used to take measures of intelligence or political allegiance, and that's bad enough without any mention of the methodology.

Whichever way these 'studies' come out they usually get publicised in a way which pleases one side and annoys the other. They're not worth bothering with beyond mild distraction.