Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 July 23

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July 23

IQs and political affiliations

First, this is not intended to be a trollish post. I am genuinely interested and am asking seriously.

I wish to know if there are good studies that link IQs and political affiliations, including those with no political affiliations, in the United States.

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:43, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

High IQ correlates well with self-identification as a liberal, and low-IQ with self identification as a conservative[1]. It's not an enormous difference, with "very conservative"s averaging out at 95 IQ points, and "very liberal"s averaging out at 105 (so a difference between slightly below average and slightly above, rather than a difference between genius and brain damaged as some might suspect). This correlation is consistent in the UK as well. It's interesting to note that intelligence also correlates similarly well with degree of religiosity, so there could be a connection there. Also, now please also consider all of the problems with measuring IQ. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:54, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

The group of papers that cite the one I linked also provide some interesting reading material [2]. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:57, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Someguy1221. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:45, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

FYI, that guy Satoshi Kanazawa is a well-known firebrand, and some of his ... let's say "odd" views are described in our article. He used to write blog posts for Psychology Today, but his work seems to have been purged from the site, and he's also written there with similarly sensational and not-that-well supported content, e.g. "Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?" [3]. I'm not saying he's a liar or charlatan, and I do think that he has shown in that work linked by Someguy a very slightly significant and weak correlation between IQ and liberal self-identification, but I think readers should know he is an economist by training who seems completely willing and able to spin statistics into saying nearly whatever he wants, often with controversial and click-baity headlines. Even when an article is peer reviewed, caveat emptor. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:21, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

There is some discussion at Biology and political orientation. But a lot of content has been thrown out of the article because people don't like it, e.g.:

According to the ASA, IQ data from the "Add Health" survey averaged 106 for adolescents identifying as "very liberal", versus 95 for those calling themselves "very conservative". An unrelated study in 2009 found that among students applying to U.S. universities, conservatism correlated negatively with SAT, Vocabulary, and Analogy test scores though there was a greater correlation with economic differences.

In a survey of the perceived severity of moral transgressions, conservatives were more affected by the taste of a bitter drink than liberals. "...taste perception significantly affected moral judgments, such that physical disgust (induced via a bitter taste) elicited feelings of moral disgust. Further, this effect was more pronounced in participants with politically conservative views".

[On moral choices (PMID 20699405) may be relevant but seems hard to summarize - should see full text]

I'll add that I find it interesting that the Republicans refuse to pass any sort of reasonable bill to budget money against the Zika outbreak. As I understand it, Cuba has intensively used mosquito eradication to keep the disease from getting a foothold, while the U.S. has allowed it to spread to the world from Yap Island, has given up Puerto Rico entirely without firing a shot, and now stands poised to accept it as part of life in Florida while Congress is out on vacation. Perhaps they hope that a Zippy the Pinhead brigade will bring them a much-needed demographic counteradvantage in future polling? Wnt (talk) 20:35, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

But the Northern tier of Florida is majority-Republican so they wouldn't let it spread too far. Republican logic! Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:34, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

References

If liberals are so smart, how come they keep losing elections? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:37, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

1. Cold War 2. Electoral College 3. 9/11. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:36, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

"Persistence" often trumps "Intelligence" in the real world. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:16, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

remind me who won the last General Election? Oh, that's right. The non-conservative!DOR (HK) (talk) 21:51, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

remind me of the makeup of the House and Senate. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:20, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Easy: They have principles that they don't give up just to win elections. Arguably, sticking to liberal principles is what makes them liberals. With about half the population below average intelligence, elections in a two party system with "The Bright" vs. "The Steadfast" would be about even, so small changes would give the win to one party or the other. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:06, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Berlin blockade

Why didn't the Soviets blocked all forms of traffic between Berlin and West Germany? Maybe at a first glance they didn't realize that the airlifts would save the day for West Berliners, but day after day they must have been aware that lots of planes were supplying the city. They could have easily closed the airspace against a non-stop stream of cargo airplanes. What blocked them of doing it? --Hofhof (talk) 17:49, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

The risk of starting a new war, perhaps. Road and rail traffic is easy to block without using force. The only way to reliably block air traffic is to shoot down planes or destroy their airfields. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:01, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

But didn't they need to ask East German air traffic for an authorization to enter their air space? That's also simply a question of general safety. --Hofhof (talk) 18:06, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

See Berlin_Blockade#The_decision_for_an_airlift. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:11, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

The West Berlin Air Corridor was outside of the control of the Soviet occupation forces (it was then the Soviet occupation zone, the state of East Germany didn't exist until 1949). Air traffic between the US, French and British Zones and Berlin was controlled by the Berlin Air Safety Center, which was jointly operated by the four occupying powers. Blockading the Air Corridor may well have been seen as an act of war. The first Soviet atomic bomb wasn't tested until August 1949, putting the Soviets at a severe disadvantage should a full-scale war break out. It really was "peace through superior firepower" at that point. However, that didn't stop the Soviets from harassing the Allied flights, resulting in the 1948 Gatow air disaster. Alansplodge (talk) 19:28, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

A more interesting question might be why the Soviet Union didn't try again, including shooting down relief aircraft, to starve West Berlin into submission, after they had tested and stockpiled atomic bombs, gambling that the West wouldn't risk a nuclear exchange. I would argue that the West's propaganda advantage from winning the Berlin blockade made trying something like that again look like a bad idea. Trying to starve a city of innocent civilian bystanders just doesn't look good, no matter what spin you put on it. And TV would have made it look even worse. StuRat (talk) 02:48, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

There's no evidence that Stalin had the slightest concern whatsoever for the starvation of civilians; in fact quite the contrary. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:06, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

No, but he was concerned about the propaganda it would provide the West. Within the Soviet Union and maybe the Warsaw Pact nations, he could control the press, but not outside. StuRat (talk) 02:06, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Jehovah's Witnesses and Purple Triangles

When Jehovah’s Witnesses were imprisoned in Nazi Germany’s Concentration camps they were assigned an identifying mark for identification, a Purple Triangle. (Star of David for Jews, Pink Triangles for Homosexuals, etc)

Were there any others that were assigned Purple Triangles, other than Jehovah’s Witnesses? 74.176.238.227 (talk) 21:35, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

In Nazi concentration camp badge#Single triangles, it is said that the purple triangle identified "small religious groups", 99% of which were Witnesses. However, this website emphatically disagrees (apparently based on the source given at the end), saying that only a minority of the "Bibelforscher" who were identified with the purple triangle were Witnesses. This is apparently a highly politically loaded question, and as a layperson, I cannot judge. In any case, it is clear that not all inmates who were assigned this badge were Witnesses. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:58, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

A reference librarian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum responded to my Submit a Research Question request with a link to the museum's Holocaust Encyclopedia article, Classification System in Nazi Concentration Camps", which, alas, adds no details on other wearers of the purple star. Two articles in Historical Dictionary of Jehovah’s Witnesses (edited by George D. Chryssides; Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008 ISBN 978-0-8108-6074-2) read:

PURPLE STAR. A triangular purple badge worn by the Bibelforscher during their imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Approximately 250,000 members of the Watch Tower organization wore such badges. Apart from the Jews, who were forced to display a Star of David on their prison uniforms, the Jehovah’s Witnesses were the only religious group who were formally identified as such. (p. 115)

BIBELFORSCHER. Literally “Bible students” in German, the name continued to be used in Germany for some time after the Watch Tower Society’s adoption of the name “Jehovah’s Witnesses” in 1931. The Bibelforscher were banned by Adolf Hitler in 1935 and persecuted by the Third Reich. Approximately 13,400 Bibelforscher spent time in prison or concentration camps during World War II. Some 2,000 perished, and 270 were executed before the survivors were finally liberated in 1945. (p. 18)

Most promising is the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's annotated bibliography on Jehovah's Witnesses - including hyperlinks to find cited sources in your library. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 23:26, 26 July 2016 (UTC)