Comments Off on Stupid Religious, Conservative People
That’s the conclusion of a study (if you wish to call it that) highlighted by CNN.
Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds.
Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.
The IQ differences, while statistically significant, are not stunning — on the order of 6 to 11 points — and the data should not be used to stereotype or make assumptions about people, experts say. But they show how certain patterns of identifying with particular ideologies develop, and how some people’s behaviors come to be.
The thing is, here’s how they define their terms.
The study takes the American view of liberal vs. conservative. It defines "liberal" in terms of concern for genetically nonrelated people and support for private resources that help those people. It does not look at other factors that play into American political beliefs, such as abortion, gun control and gay rights.
"Liberals are more likely to be concerned about total strangers; conservatives are likely to be concerned with people they associate with," he said.
But even using their (extremely flawed) definition, conservatives are more likely to give to charity, and do charity themselves, than liberals. We’ve covered that topic before, a long time ago, in regards to giving for those victims of the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami in 2006; clearly people who are "genetically nonrelated". And Rev. Don Sensing, for whom the hat tip goes (including the title of this post), makes one (of many) points against this study’s presuppositions and conclusions.
Last Friday, Sen. Joseph Biden, the Democratic candidate for vice president, released his tax returns for the years 1998 to 2007. The returns revealed that in one year, 1999, Biden and his wife Jill gave $120 to charity out of an adjusted gross income of $210,979. In 2005, out of an adjusted gross income of $321,379, the Bidens gave $380. In nine out of the ten years for which tax returns were released, the Bidens gave less than $400 to charity; in the tenth year, 2007, when Biden was running for president, they gave $995 out of an adjusted gross income of $319,853.
That’s liberal Joe Biden, btw. What about conservative (well, comparatively) John McCain?
In 2007, the Arizona senator reported $405,409 in total income and contributed $105,467, or 26 percent of his total income, to charity. In 2006, Mr. McCain said he had $358,414 in total income and donated $64,695, or 18 percent of his total income, to charity.
You really should read his whole disassembly of this sham.
There is currently, as is well known, a debate on health policy. Within this debate it seems to me there is a fundamental misunderstanding between right and left on this matter. I’d like to make as pointed a expression of this misunderstanding in the hopes that those on the left might clarify for my their views on this matter.
The left makes the following claims:
Restructuring healthcare is required because of the millions without any health insurance coverage.
Controlling the rising costs of healthcare is a major concern as well. Therefore the healthcare bill contains measures to contain and regulate pharmaceutical and insurance firm profits as well as doctors compensations.
These items are problematic especially in the light of the three proposals on the table from the left.
Regarding item 1, a plan which would provide a minimal adequate universal catastrophic health care coverage is neither complicated nor cost prohibitive. It does not require a 2.5k page plan, one more of the nature of 40 pages would suffice, i.e., not much larger than the heath care coverage legal statement/booklets which most of of have for our own plans. This is not by any stretch of imagination the healthcare plan on the table. Therefore it cannot be construed that this issue is in fact a real feature/concern of the plan(s) in question.
As to item number 2, the first and more natural explanation for rising costs is due to a relationship between supply and demand. That is rising costs are symptomatic of rising demand in comparison with a supply. The bill(s) in question instead of consisting of a mechanism for increasing supply and/or attempting to ameliorate expectations or demand is instead more of the nature of a price control and regulatory scheme. In the real world, price controls of commodity items lead to lowered supply and scarcity … not increased production. That is price controls are in reality very good ways to choke off and decrease the supply of a thing. Furthermore the profit margins of insurance companies and “big pharma” are not out of line when compared to comparable industries. Expectations of large cost savings by regulation are not warranted, and this is in addition to the above noted deleterious effects of cost controls.
Putting these two remarks and their objections together alongside the much touted (by the left) reminder that those on the left are so very much smarter than we knuckle-dragging dim-witted conservatives that the left is aware of this disconnect between their policy proposals and the expected effects of their proposal. Thus those clever fellows on the left realising that a universal reasonable catastrophic insurance coverage plan is 40 pages and that cost controls do lead to shortages.
Now one might propose that the Democratic politicians and pundits are aware that their proposals and justifications for the same have little if anything to do with each other and that instead that they prefer these proposals for very different reasons than those stated. For example, these proposals may ease the passing of any number of other social measures which the increase in social control and power these bills might afford. That, while dishonest at best, is at least understandable after all they see this measure to be one which is to their personal advantage. The problem is the rank and file member of the left. Why do they support a bill which so badly fits the stated aims? This, for me, a mystery.
I had heard a story a number of times since attending a Christian & Missionary Alliance church; the missionary who couldn’t raise any money to buy a property, but when one child sent in a buck, the seller sold it for that one dollar. The details changed a bit each time I heard it (one time it was China, another Hong Kong; one time it was a building, another it was a property; the circumstances around the final sale changed a bit, etc.), which is a hallmark of an urban legend, and so I was a little skeptical.
But sometimes the story is true; it’s just that gets the old "Telephone Game" treatment. But at our Missions Conference this week, they played a video of the missionary to whom this happened. So straight from the horse’s mouth, here’s the story of a child’s ice cream money that opened up an avenue of ministry to reach over 1 million young people with the gospel message.
January 2010 was the world’s warmest January since satellite tracking began in 1979. Hard to appreciate in Washington, D.C., NY and the capitals of Europe, which have experienced remarkably wintery weather. But NY is not the world, as hard as that is to believe for New Yorkers and the NY-based national media. And the worldwide average last month made it the wamest January on record.
Also:
“Last November was the hottest November we’ve ever seen, November-January as a whole is the hottest November-January the world has seen,” he said of the satellite data record since 1979.
The World Meteorological Organization said in December that 2000-2009 was the hottest decade since records began in 1850, and that 2009 would likely be the fifth warmest year on record. WMO data show that eight out of the 10 hottest years on record have all been since 2000.
Two truths for the day: Weather is not climate. A cold winter in one area of the world doesn’t debunk science.
During George Bush’s term in office, every renewal the Patriot Act became grand theater, with newspapers inveighing against the overreach of Bush and the danger to American liberty in the bill, which wasn’t an entirely vacuous argument. Protesters would fill streets, and reporters would demand positions from various members of Congress.
The House of Representatives reauthorized the Patriot Act for one year Thursday.
The vote was 315-97 .
Many liberals in the House opposed the controversial act, saying it tramps Constitutional protections and civil liberties.
It’s not so much that the Congressional Democrats didn’t want another major battle in the middle of trying to get other massive legislation passed that I noticed as much as the lack of outrage from the grassroots Left prior to this. Massive protests did not seem to appear on the MSM radar, or perhaps they ignored them. But there’s certainly been a lot less harping on civil liberty issues from that side of the aisle ever since their guy sat down in the Oval Office.
But apparently, this was a battle that Democrats just didn’t seem to think mattered enough to fight. Now that’s change hypocrisy we can believe in.
When he says “sexy”, I don’t think that word means what he seems to think it does. 😀
Equality and defaults. A friend of mine asked his daughters if they would prefer having one get 4 cookies and the other 6 or both get 3. They preferred the latter, which makes little sense to me.
Satan. A word which the LXX and translators of the Masoretic Old Testament chose different methods. A translator has two different choices when dealing with a proper name or title. Transliteration or translation … that is make the word sound the same, or literally translate the meaning of the title. The LXX more often than not used the latter method, thus translating for example Philistine (transliterated) as Allophyle (or “Other”) which is a translation. Similarly with Satan, the term “the slanderer” is used instead of the transliterated Satan. My thesis in the following is that there is a hermeneutic, all to common, which is best described as Satan’s (the slanderer’s) hermenuetic and that this in turn is to be set aside where and when ever one notices its use.
What then might be meant by Satan’s (or the slanderer’s) hermeneutic and what is the point of discussing such a thing? The term hermeneutic normally means how we extract meaning from text, but one might expand it to mean (as I do in this case) to mean how we extract meaning from any of a variety of forms of communication, i.e., including not just text but speech as well. Satan’s hermeneutic is then is when we (all too often) take the words of another, usually because of associations external to the topic at hand, and interpret them in the worst way we can find. We take the narrowest (or widest) or most literal (or most figurative) interpretation possible. Whatever way we can find to interpret their words in the most outrageous or most negative way possible is the meaning to which we attach their words.
This hermeneutic is often seen in discussions between parties arrive in a conversation with an implicit or explicit understanding that they have important or strong disagreements. Whether it is for lack of confidence in one’s one position, a debaters desire to “win points” in an argument and not a seeking just to understand the other’s position, or just a customary discussion style seen in the blogging and debating environments. And I have to say, this is a failing (sin?) of which I participate fully in just as do my interlocutors in discussion threads.
The primary problem, not just that this is a Satanic hermeneutic and should therefore be avoided on principle, is that in my experience it has the opposite effect from the one intended. Time after time in discussions with parties on both sides resorting to this method my observation is that the ultimate effect of this discussion is that one comes away convinced more than before the conversation began of the correctness and mistakes of your and the other points in discussion. The lesson here is obvious, … don’t do it. Instead of hunting for the most unreasonable interpretation of the others words, seek to find the core of their point and address that.
Bruce McQuain at Q&O has a good round-up of the day’s talkfest.
I’ve been watching and/or listening to the health care summit today and it became fairly obvious from the opening bell that there wasn’t going to be much of anything worthwhile or substantive accomplished – not that I’m surprised. 5 hours into it, it has been mostly the exchange of talking points.
Did anybody really think this was anything more than a very long press conference? Or perhaps a fig leaf of "transparency" for a bill that has been worked out almost entirely in back rooms.
One thing I thought was interesting was that tort reform, often handwaved away as not really saving much, was shown to be something that, if Democrats are serious about controlling costs and not beholden to the trial lawyers, should be in any reform bill.
Republicans have argued for tort reform for medical malpractice. Democrats (Dick Durbin in particular) have argued against it. McCain used the Texas model to make the point for tort reform. Texas, which has instituted tort reform has seen malpractice premiums reduced by 27% and has had a net gain of 18,000 doctors – extrapolated nationally using direct savings (malpractice insurance premium cost) and indirect savings (reduction of the “defensive medicine” practiced by doctors) the amount saved could be in the $150 billion range.
Certainly worth putting in if the Democrats are serious. We’ll see.
In going through anecdote after anecdote trying to prove their points, it seems one Democrat got the wrong moral of the story.
Chris Dodd is now telling a story about a guy who privately put together a small business health care association in CT. Of course the point lost on him as he argues for the government to act is it was done privately and perhaps the government’s role ought to be enabling that. Rep. Joe Barton is now making that point.
Local solutions to local problems, not one-size-fits-all square pegs in round holes. Give the people the freedom to get done what they need to, and whadaya’ know; they will!
Bottom line – no bi-partisan attempt on either side to reach a compromise. And again, that’s fine.
Cool, Mr Kuznicki is blogging a the Ordinary Gentlemen … although he’s started with (at least) one error in his post. The most recognisable Levitical verse is “love thy neighbor.”
Considering the topic of the last post, this post stands in stark disagreement with the last.
Comments Off on Low Approval Ratings: Then and Now
When Democrats in Congress refused to vote for Republican bills during the Bush administration, they’d often cite the President’s poor approval rating numbers as demonstrating that the country didn’t want what Republicans were selling. Never mind that their own approval ratings were often lower, that reason was used as a bludgeon over and over.
While Obama’s number have been tanking faster than any President in half a century, he’s not at Dubya-depths yet. (Though, stay tuned.) Congress, however, can only pine for those heady days of 20-something approval.
Voter unhappiness with Congress has reached the highest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports as 71% now say the legislature is doing a poor job.
That’s up ten points from the previous high of 61% reached a month ago.
Only 10% of voters say Congress is doing a good or excellent job.
I don’t think legislation passage should necessarily be tied to approval ratings, but if you live by the polls, you’ll die by the polls. Will this Democratic Congress judge itself by the same standard it holds others to?
I’d like to pose a question to any out there who might support SSM. Allow me a moment to set the question up with some numbers.
The percentage of the population, based on a John Fund essay some years ago which I’m not going to dig up for y’all, offered that if finds that upwards 6% of the population are gay then in Canada, where SSM was legalized, then it was observed that about 6% of that gay population was availing itself of the opportunity to get married. This means that the SSM question affects just under .4% of the population. Conversely 94% of the population is not gay, and a considerably higher proportion of that population does get married. Within that larger set, a certain number of the marriages are “weak”, that is have significant difficulties in staying hitched. Today’s high divorce rate is a symptom of that fact.
Marriage itself is a institution and a practice which involves many things, including the relational aspect between the two individuals, the community, and immediate and extended family (that is kids). The arguments for SSM stress the first as being the primary aspect, i.e., that marriage is primarily a bond between two people in a loving and nurturing relationship. This argument consequentially reduces the emphasis on the other aspects of marriage. For the “weak” marriages above that in turn improves the chance of those marriages breaking up, because if marriage is “about” relationship and the relationship is sour or lost, then there is no point in continuing.
So here’s my question: If SSM were enacted, say federally, it seems quite plausible that the number of SSM marriage partners is roughly commensurate with increase in the number of children from broken families due to a new emphasis on the partner aspect of marriage. So, for argument, grant that these numbers are about the same, that is the number of people in new gay marriages is equal to the number of children abandoned to state care. If that were the case, would legalizing SSM still be the right thing to do?
We are in a war because the Generals want to play with their toys and don’t give a damn how many people get hurt in the process. We are in a war without direction, or discipline, led by a disengaged simpleton who will do whatever he is told by the unelected war mongers who are running our government.
Now, we seem to be in a fight against a force of vicious murderers, using civilians as human shields, and misleading us at every turn, while taking a high toll on NATO troops. But the military is not supposed to kill anyone?!!!
(Emphasis hers.) Same DailyKos diarist, and encouraged in both statements by droves of commenters. The difference? The first was written in September, 2008 against the military causing the death of 90 civilians. The second was written yesterday, against the president of Afghanistan condemning the deaths of 27 civilians.
That was then as well, by another Kos writer, who gets front page access.
One million dead. And each day, a few more. If that isn’t a reason to flood the streets in D.C. tomorrow and in your hometown all this week and next Friday for the Iraq Moratorium, what is?
But this is now, and it looks like the Left is going all warmonger on us in the Middle East. Hey, it’s their guy doing it, so now they can take credit for it and declare victory.
The double-standard-bearers are certainly hoping we won’t notice. They probably don’t really notice themselves.
