I saw this and Laughed

TAG...

I thought this thread was about IQ and not educational attainment. However, since you brought it up, perhaps you did not scroll down far enough or lacked the interest in interpreting the numbers.

To my eye, the data would indicate the better educated college graduates voted for Kerry. Why so? Apparently when you add in post graduates with those who just graduated from college, Bush got 49% and Kerry, 49%.

Do you see an alternative explanation?

Perhaps, you overlooked that among non-college grads, Bush easily won with 53% to 47%. Thus, it might be argued that Bush attracted the less intelligent and poorer educated.

jay



VOTE BY EDUCATION BUSH
KERRY NADER
TOTAL 2004 2000 2004 2004

No High School (4%) 49% +10 50% 0%

H.S. Graduate (22%) 52% +3 47% 0%

Some College (32%) 54% +3 46% 0%

College Graduate (26%) 52% +1 46% 1%

Postgrad Study (16%) 44% +0 55% 1%



VOTE BY EDUCATION BUSH
KERRY NADER
TOTAL 2004 2000 2004 2004

No College Degree (58%) 53% n/a 47% 0%

College Graduate (42%) 49% n/a 49% 1%

Jay -- I did notice that and had even pointed out in my original post that Kerry won the majority of post-grad voters.

As far as IQ vs. Education, I read somewhere a couple months ago when I first ran across this bogus chart, that the state "IQ" was derived from SAT scores and college education, hence my association of the two.

I merely brought the CNN data up to show that in general, Bush supporters aren't all the red-necked, uneducated idiots that we keep getting referred to. There are a good percentage of us out there that have our college degrees and still voted for the man.

Personally, I'm started to get sick and tired of being considered a moron just b/c I voted for the guy. I don't knock down Kerry voters, but constantly feel like the butt of jokes and comments about the idiots/morons that voted for Bush. Granted - that's probably my fault for being on an overwhelmingly liberal board, but I actually like the people here, regardless of who they voted for or how much they bash Bush supporters.

But, to get back on topic: The non-college grads still include those that have some college education, but just haven't completed their degree. Nearly 1/3 of the voters fit in that category. Perhaps that's the explanation that you are looking for.

The "better educated" (those that have finished their college degree and those that also have done post grad study) voting population is split down the middle, ie. Bush supporters aren't all idiots afterall.

MZ - here's one I found. There was a better one that I ran across a couple months ago that cited all of his sources. I'll keep looking for it. http://www.zombietime.com/iq_of_2004_voters_by_state/

edit: here's another - http://www.sq.4mg.com/IQpolitics.htm

TAG,

Sorry that I stepped on a sensitive area. However, I and most statisticians would conclude from the CNN data that among college grads Kerry supporters had higher educational attainment. As I remember in your original post, you implied that among college educated Bush captured the majority of the vote: 52 to 46%. This is not the case, and that was the point I was making.

jay

I was surprised to find that the mean of these numbers is 97.36. While that is not too much of a deviation from the expected mean, I am still surprised. It was not so long ago, i.e., when I was in university (1974), that the mean IQ of the United States people was established as 104.5.

This is a good reason to question the validity of the data used, assuming an adequately large sample was involved.

Just remember, as with penis sizes, it has never been demonstrated, let alone proven, that human intelligence follows a normal distribution. Yes, you can make the scores fit a normal distribution - and this is what psychometricians do - but that is akin to Sherlock Holmes' warning that it is a capital error making the facts fir the theory, rather than vice versa. It's only value is in saying "Hey, you're two standard deviations above the mean."

jonb mentioned Richard Lynn. Richard Lynn was involved with a journal of exceedingly dubious scholarship: The Mankind Quarterly. Sadly, this publication, often distributed free of charge to academic libraries to give it the patina of scholarship, has a thinly veiled agenda that is - at best - disenheartening and at its worst downright dishonest. And yet, I can take you romping through academic libraries all over the map where you will find the lovely matched buckram bound sets of this rag - may its name be spoken with a bad taste in one's mouth forever.

Anyone can compile anything and give it enough "polish" to lead most people into thinking that it is scholarly - witness the recent spate of nonsense papers that are finding their way into "respectable," peer-reviewed journals. Some of these papers are written by computer programs. I have long believed that Richard Lynn and his henchmen did this with far more flash and style than any computer can manage.

A long time ago, I wrote as novel in which an addict to drugstore fiction himself wrote a computer program called "Schlock 86" into which you put in names of characters, settings, and the basic plot and the result was appropriately turgid prose in whatever vein you chose, be it science fiction, detective, western or romance.

Now, life imitates art, yet again.

So, are Americans getting dumber, even if only in terms of whatever IQ tests purport to measure?

Is academia going down the tubes in obsessing over falsely profound questions of racism, political correctness, and whether, at bottom, we are all animals with the blessings of an opposable thumb and hand to eye coordination?

Is the United States in some stage of cultural de-evolution?

Is "evolution" a now bad word - even in that connotation?

Alas, I fear that the answer to each of these four is becoming a resounding yes.

Sad....so very, very sad.

Jay- I think you're under the impression that I am trying to say that the smarter people voted for Bush. That isn't my goal. My intention from posting the CNN data was to show that Bush voters in general aren't idiots like we are so commonly referred to.

I'm trying to see the point that you are making. Are you putting the "Some College" educated into the "less intelligent and poorer educated" group?

It is indeed the case, the figures are right there. I personally am considering the "some college educated" as higher educated. Also, I realize there is a difference between "some college educated" and those that are "college grads".

Of the entire voting population, 74% of them had at least some college education. Of that 74%, (if I did my calculations right) about 50% voted for Bush and 49% for Kerry. I do realize however, that more of those with Post-Grad study voted for Kerry, but even then...that's a real small minority of the voting population: 55% of 16% - about 8% of the voting population if I figured that out right. That I understand. But, that also still leaves a very large portion of educated people voting for Bush.

Again, my point wasn't to try to say that Bush supporters were smarter than Kerry supporters...only that the overall numbers are closer than everyone would like to believe. The "educated" people were pretty much split down the middle when it came to the election.

Yeah, but the fact that blue states actually do something about pedophilia while red states keep ranting about homos (and fallaciously connecting that to pedophilia) should tell you something.

hung_big: Damn, this wasn't supposed to turn into an actual conversation! :D ;)

However, the figures that you quoted: 52 to 46% did not imply this...now do they? Quoting 49 to 49% would be a split down the middle.....now wouldn't they?

About "some college" I do not remember mentioning this category. However, you might be on to something. Some college includes those who enrolled but never completed a course; those who dropped out after one, two, three, or four years; those who accumulated 200 hours but never found a degree; and of course, those that flunked out. On the other hand, some high school grads in four years or so work themselves into responsible support positions. So who has attained more education the dropout or the worker bee? This is a delicate issue for demographers and statisticians.

jay

So where do I apply for a passport? :P

jay

Oh, it's aboot 50 kilometres north of Vancouver, eh.

Cyber..

I do not know the precise methodology in which they inferred state IQ's from ACT and SAT scores. However, if one had access to student IQ scores and ACT and SAT scores in several large high schools, regression analyis [multiple] would lead to an equation such as:
IQ = A*ACT + B*SAT
where A and B are constants arising from regression
Assuming that state education agencies collect from the companies administering the ACT and SAT the average scores, then "calculating/estimating" state IQ's is possible.

It is not possible to know the accuracy of the regression analysis since r-square [the coefficient of determination] is not given. Assuming a large sample and few widely dispersed data, I would assume very good predictability.

jay

True...but don't forget that "some college" also includes those that are still in. In fact, I think I voted in the last Clinton election during that time frame in my life.

The 52% - 46% referred only to the "college graduate" group - which you referred to as "college educated" in post #19. When I did the average of those two groups plus the Post Grad group, it came out to be 50% to 49%, hence my split down the middle among those with at least some college education. By the way...you were the first to quote those figures. Not me...I never implied that those specific figures included all of the educated voting population. I did however, mix up the "college grad" group w/the "some college education" group in Post #21. I'm sorry for that.

I should point out that deriving IQ from SAT scores like deriving blood sugar level from height: They measure different things. (The authors of The Bell Curve did something similar with the AFQT.)