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ilex  ·  1764 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The magical thinking of guys who love logic

While it's certainly true that there is some level of correlation between conservatism and intelligence, the picture is certainly more complicated:

1) measures of intelligence are all flawed and some are very much so. See all the work done debunking that aspect of "race realism"/"scientific racism". I'd be inclined to say that these studies overstate the relationship.

2) this relationship doesn't explain everything -- there are plenty of unintelligent liberal/left folks and plenty of very smart conservatives. Also, plenty of intelligent liberals who hold bigoted views! It's honestly very comforting to think that better education will solve these kinds of problems -- and it certainly will help -- but there's more to it than that.

3) You don't have to be smart to be powerful, and dismissing conservatives as unintelligent ignores how much power they hold over marginalized folks.

I'm not quite critical of the studies you posted -- or the relationship between conservatism and intelligence -- as I am of conclusions people are fond of drawing from those results. Not trying to say you're wrong; just trying to add some context around what you said!