Sometimes, when I look at the political spectrum in this country and look at people who disagree with what are, to me, common sense ideas about equal opportunities, taxing the rich to help everybody, universal heath care, doing something about global warming, making peace, not war, I look at the other side and think that these people have to be a bunch of slobbering Neanderthals. Well, I might be more correct than I believed…
CNN.com reported yesterday that a new study finds that political, religious and sexual behaviors are factors of intelligence.
An evolutionary psychologist at 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. Also, it appears that men who exhibit sexual exclusivity may also have higher IQs (this is not found in women). The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.
Of course, the study downplays the IQ differences, saying that the differences are not great, 6 to 11 points, and the data should not be used to stereotype or make assumptions about people. But the results are statistically significant, showing how certain patterns of identifying with particular ideologies develop, and how some people’s behaviors come to be. (And I will not restate the obvious issues with IQ tests.)
The reason may be counter to Darwin. Sexual exclusivity in men, liberalism and atheism all go against what would be expected given humans’ evolutionary past, or none of these traits would have benefited our early human ancestors, but higher intelligence may be associated with them.
Religion, the current theory goes, did not help people survive or reproduce necessarily, but goes along the lines of helping people to be paranoid. This has not yet been bred out of people since this would have had great use in prehistoric times, when, for example, a noise in the distance may have been a signal of a threat.
The study 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.
Unfortunately, this does not mean that the human species is becoming more liberal, since more intelligent people have fewer children, so, as we all believe, the stupid will continue to outnumber the rest of us.
I only wonder what the IQ is of the former Governor of Alaska, or the collective IQ of the tea party people? I bet it can be counted on one person’s fingers and toes.