catzmeow
Gold Member
- Aug 14, 2008
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- #41
It's preposterous to link conservatism with low intelligence because a study suggests liberals are more likely to have brains that have a larger anterior cingulate cortex while conservatives have larger amygdalas and the structural differences point to a greater ability of liberals to cope with conflicting information and a greater ability of conservatives to recognize a threat. How people use their brains results in the ideological differences between liberals and conservatives and there is no direct co-relations with their IQ scores.
The study doesn't imply that American conservatives are more likely to be stupid. It's a study that was conducted in Great Britain, and the terms are not interchangeable with American terms. Secondly, you've gotten it backwards.
What the researchers found was that people with lower IQs were more likely to hold what they defined to be socially conservative beliefs and racist views. I don't agree with how they structured the questions around social conservativism, however, the questions around racial views were much less problematic. In no way does the study make characterizations of the overall population who adhere to conservativism.
Based upon the way the research was conducted, it was clear that the people who were surveyed who had lower intelligence levels were also more likely to acknowledge disliking and feeling uncomfortable around people of other races, and holding racist views. You've attempted to imply that the study takes it from the other direction, and that's probably because you didn't read the OP very carefully.
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