tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16677876187683225072024-02-26T23:09:36.528-08:00FreakoStatsGarth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-22305784336572127922013-07-16T14:40:00.002-07:002013-07-16T14:40:28.046-07:00How much reading makes you educated, expert or erudite?<div class="MsoNormal">
Have you ever encountered one of those deeply literate
people who are able to quote aptly and accurately from a wide range of
classical literature? Have you ever met
someone who has a prodigious general knowledge?
Did you envy that knowledge? Did
you think they must be superbly well educated? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most of us assume that formal education is what imparts
useful skills and important knowledge.
On the other hand some think formal educational credentials don’t
signify real knowledge as much as signal pre-existing intelligence,
conscientiousness and compliance. Nonetheless
it’s hard to deny that skill acquisition depends on practice, and that knowledge
depends on exposure. A greater amount
formal education should leave a person with more skills and knowledge. For example on all 5 science questions in the
General Social Survey, both a higher IQ and more education increase the chance
of a correct answer. They do so even
when the effect of the other (and a number of other variables) is accounted
for. Therefore even if formal education
doesn’t impart as much knowledge as we think it does, it does impart some.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, by no means all extremely erudite individuals are
university educated. Almost half of
those in the top 1/3<sup>rd</sup> of science knowledge, or the top 15% of
vocabulary, do not have a formal degree.
Still those with lots of formal education are fairly over-represented
among the very knowledgeable. I asked
myself, just how much knowledge do formal degrees impart, and how much formal
education, or independent reading, would one need to be erudite? I hope to answer these questions below.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>How much reading is a degree worth?<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Recently I read a study done by the National Endowment of
the Arts in the <st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place>,
entitled “To Read or Not To Read – a question of national consequence”. This study surveyed the amount of reading
done and its relationship to reading scores among children still in school, and
showed there is a very strong connection.
Of more interest to me were two small tables. One looked at the number of books (or
equivalents thereof) required to be read in a typical year in college. The other at the number of hours spent
preparing per week.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Table 1</div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-insideh: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-border-insidev: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-padding-alt: 0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 480;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; width: 147.6pt;" valign="top" width="197">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; width: 147.6pt;" valign="top" width="197">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; width: 147.6pt;" valign="top" width="197">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Percentage of Seniors</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; width: 147.6pt;" valign="top" width="197">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Number of assigned textbooks, books or book-length packs
of course readings</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; width: 147.6pt;" valign="top" width="197">
<div class="MsoNormal">
None</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1-4</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
5-10</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
11-20</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
>20</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; width: 147.6pt;" valign="top" width="197">
<div class="MsoNormal">
1%</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
28%</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
39%</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
20%</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
12%</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Table 2</div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-insideh: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-border-insidev: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-padding-alt: 0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 480;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; width: 147.6pt;" valign="top" width="197">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; width: 147.6pt;" valign="top" width="197">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; width: 147.6pt;" valign="top" width="197">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Percentage of Seniors</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; width: 147.6pt;" valign="top" width="197">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Preparing for class (studying, reading, writing, doing
homework, etc)</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; width: 147.6pt;" valign="top" width="197">
<div class="MsoNormal">
0 hrs/week</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1-5 hrs/week</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
6-10 hrs/week</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
11-15 hrs/week</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
>15 hrs/week</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; width: 147.6pt;" valign="top" width="197">
<div class="MsoNormal">
0%</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
18%</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
26%</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
19%</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
35%</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I calculated (from Table 1) that over the course of a four
year degree the median number of assigned books is about 29 books and (using
Table 2) that the median senior spends about 11.6 hrs per week in
preparation. The academic year is roughly
34.8 weeks long, so the median total time spent in preparation over the full 4
year degree is about 1610 hrs. I also
found that it takes around 3¼ min for me to read a page once, and that the
typical textbook is about 500 pages long.
Therefore it takes 55.5 hrs to read a 500 page book, or 6.7 min per page,
implying that each assigned book in college is being read twice on average. This is what one might expect if the material
were being studied.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>How much reading is a PhD worth?<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now about 30% of college graduates go on to graduate school.
Let’s assume these are the top 30% of
college graduates. The median graduate
student would therefore be at the 85<sup>th</sup> percentile of college
seniors. The 85<sup>th</sup> percentile
of assigned books read is 74 books over a 4 year degree. The 85<sup>th</sup> percentile of time spent
preparing is more than 15 hrs so I used the percentiles to work out z scores
and from that estimated that the median is 11.57 hrs and standard deviation is
10.354 hrs. Using that information I
calculated that the 85<sup>th</sup> percentile is 22.3 hrs of preparation per
week, or 3100 hrs over the full 4 years.
That works out 41.9 hrs per book, or 5 min per page. That implies an average of 1.55 readings per
book (or perhaps also twice each if the typical 85<sup>th</sup> percentile student
read 30% faster than the 50<sup>th</sup> percentile student).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Suppose our graduate goes all the way to a PhD and goes
through books at the same pace as during college. The average PhD takes 5.5 years to complete. At that rate the PhD candidate will have twice
read a total of 102 assigned books after his BA and a total of 176 books since
high school. The average professor who
gets tenure takes another 8.5 years to get there. That’s another 157 books, or a total of 333
books since high school (each read twice on average).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>OK, what’s that for those of us who aren’t at university?<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The typical text book is 500 pages long but the average soft
cover book in the serious sections of bookstores is only 250 pages long. So let’s convert all the above to a number of
such ordinary books, read once each.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
An associate degree from a junior college is the equivalent
of 58 books and 800 hrs of reading.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A basic BA is the equivalent of 116 books or 1610 hrs of
reading.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A PhD is the equivalent of 704 books or 7363 hrs of reading.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Academic tenure is the equivalent of 1332 books or 13930 hrs
of reading.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gladwell’s ten thousand hour rule for expert level
performance is about 956 good books, or maybe 704 like a PhD, and the rest of
the time taken up discussing them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The complete works of Shakespeare come to the equivalent of 11
such books or 1/80<sup>th</sup> of what it would take to really be part of the
literati.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>How much time would it take? <o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How hard would it be to do that amount of reading? Only 4% of adults read as many as one book
per week. At that rate it would take 3.7
years to cover 193 books, 16.9 years to cover 704 books (and reach expert
level) and 31.9 years to read 1332 books.
You could halve that time by reading 2.5hrs per day – less time than
most spend watching TV. In addition to
that some sort of regular discussion and arguing about the material should be
taking place throughout. Still it is easily
possible to acquire, by the age of 35, the knowledge equivalent of a PhD on one
subject, or of BA degrees in 4 different subjects.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>A word on the quality of books read.<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These numbers refer to high quality material only, and not
to mental chewing gum or cheap thrills.
Serious non-fiction books cover aspects of a subject correctly and in
depth. Serious novels would be those
that might be regarded as part of the classics.
Each book should cover new concepts, arguments, facts, angles or points
of view, metaphors, new moral choices, and/or involve a fresh or superior
style. The material should require you
to be intellectually engaged and should stretch you moderately. It shouldn’t be no challenge at all (mental
chewing gum) or be exceedingly hard to grasp or work through. When pitched at that level, interest is
highest and learning is fastest. Books
that are currently tough should become only moderately challenging after one
builds up a larger concept base and masters the easier material on which
understanding depends.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If one is smart and well read then being wrong is usually
the result of a confirmation bias i.e. always reading stuff that confirms, and
never stuff that challenges, your beliefs.
Stepping outside such information bubbles is not really natural for
people so one would need to take deliberate steps in that direction. These would involve making a point of seeking
out respected writers on each subject with views you don’t like. Also in discussing texts it’s more productive
to seek out bright informed people who will disagree, than people who will
agree.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>How much formal approved reading is optimum for creative
achievement?<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Formal education in the form of officially approved prescribed
books, to be absorbed in detail, comes at some cost. Studies have shown that creativity scores
decline with each year of formal education.
Dean Keith Simonton (in his book Genius, Creativity and Leadership)
showed that creative eminence has a historically invariant inverse U-shaped
relation to amount of formal education.
The peak comes just shy of a BA for the humanities and just into the
graduate years for the hard sciences.
Similarly, measures of dogmatism among elite leaders show a U shaped
relationship with formal education. The
dogmatism minimum among leaders is at about the same point as the creativity
maximum among creators. Leaders with
PhDs were even more dogmatic than those who were high school drop outs. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To convert the optimum amount of formal education in those
studies into a number of prescribed books read, it makes most sense to confine
ourselves to students capable of graduate school. The optimum for creative achievement is therefore
56 for the humanities, and 93 books for the sciences, respectively. The average book would be 500 pages long and would
be read twice. This converts to a single
reading of 224 and 372 ‘ordinary’ books for the humanities and sciences respectively. That number only refers to the formal approved
material in a single subject area. There
is evidence that a high level of <b><i>other</i></b> reading aids creativity. For example creative adolescents tend to read
more than 50 books a year. In other
words, the ideal is no more than 224 to 372 solid approved books on one subject
area (or the study of no more than 56 to 110 basic text books), and in addition
to that the more outside (or unapproved) reading the better. At least 50 total books, approved and
unapproved, should be read per year<span style="color: red;">. </span>That’s a total of over 1000 books of
all kinds in 20 years<span style="color: red;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>How many books do you need to have read to be erudite?<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s return to the issue of erudition. To be erudite means to be very widely read
and knowledgeable. It would be pretty
unusual for a busy person to read as many as 2 ‘ordinary’ books per week or say
2500 by the age of 40. That’s the
equivalent of three PhDs or 6-7 BA degrees.
Such a person would certainly be erudite but is it necessary to cover
quite so many books in order to be erudite?
Half that number is 30% more than the 10 thousand hours needed for elite
performance. That many books would be
the equivalent of at least 3 BA degrees, or a PhD plus an extra BA in a different
subject. On the other hand it seems highly doubtful that as many as one in
twenty 40 year olds could be described as “erudite”. I propose we split the difference between the
ten thousand hours type of elite performance and the upper limit. That means a reading rate halfway between 50
and 100 books a year for 25 years – or 1875 ordinary books. If one aims to be creative then one should limit
the time devoted to officially approved works, or to obtaining a formal
qualification. Approved reading should
take up no more than 1/8<sup>th</sup> of one’s reading time in the humanities,
or 1/5<sup>th</sup> in the sciences.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>It helps to be smart<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The numbers above assume an IQ of 110 (73<sup>rd</sup>
percentile) for the average college senior, 125-130 (95<sup>th</sup>
percentile) for a PhD, around 135-140 (99th percentile) for academic tenure,
and maybe 140-144 (99.5<sup>th</sup> percentile) for erudition. By way of compensation lower IQs would
require <b><i>a lot</i></b> more, or closer, reading.
Compensating for an IQ shortage will be tough because smarter people are
inclined to read more anyway</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>How much fact and how much fiction should you read?<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>The Literati<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One might ask what proportion of the reading should be
fiction and how much non-fiction. It
appears from surveys that people read fiction at six times the rate they read
non-fiction. That ratio implies 268
works of non-fiction and 1607 serious literary novels. That’s OK if one was
aiming to be one of the literati e.g. an English PhD or commentator like
Christopher Hitchens or Stephen Fry. One would have made an in depth study of
67 text book length non-fiction works relevant to literature e.g. literary
theory, history, philosophy, psychology and biography. One would also know, <b><i>in quotable detail</i></b>, 34
times as much good fiction as all of Shakespeare, War & Peace, Don Quixote
and both Homer volumes, put altogether.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Alternatively the fiction specialist would read 5-6 good
novels per month (going back to each novel once again over the years), and just
read through an ordinary non-fiction book once, every month. A ‘novel’ could also be an equivalent length
anthology of poetry or a play.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>The Sage <o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For someone with a non-fiction bent (or career) – Gore Vidal
say - a ratio of 6 novels per one non-fiction book is far too high. Since it is appropriate for 6/7<sup>th</sup>s
of a literature specialist’s reading to be fiction, a similar focus on non-fiction
is appropriate for others. That means 64-65
ordinary books of basic facts, theories and techniques across various subjects,
every year. In addition to that a single
reading of 10-11 serious books of fiction – equivalent to reading all of Shakespeare,
or War & Peace, Don Quixote plus one Homer volume, every year.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Alternatively, a non-fiction specialist would read one good
novel through once, and study a good textbook hard (like one needs to pass an
exam on it), every month. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>The best way to structure reading<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are two extremes with respect to structuring your
reading. In the first you could
exhaustively cover, or master, a single subject or author, before moving on to
another. In the second you dip into
subjects and books as you see fit. Which
is best for picking up knowledge? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are experiments that shed some light on this. Studies in sport comparing the performance
outcomes of training one sub-skill per session versus training a variety of
sub-skills in the same session show that the latter results in better long term
performance. This is particularly so
with complex skill sets because one is also learning to combine the sub-skills. Creativity requires exactly this sort of
combining and integrating concepts from disparate sources. The ideal might be as radical as reading bits
of several books per reading session, or as moderate as changing the author or
subject after each book or two. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Boredom is the most effective killer of learning so it is
essential to keep interest levels high.
Reading that is guided by interest ought to be remembered better than
reading dictated by a curriculum schedule.
That implies moving on before getting bored and that might mean putting
a particular book aside before finishing it, and starting to read another. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Learning is better over frequent short sessions than a
single long session. It’s not just the
boredom factor playing a role here.
Outside of material that is memorable for other reasons e.g. being vivid
or emotionally charged, the first and last bits you focus on are easier to
recall than the middle. So it pays to
increase the number of starts and ends in your reading. The same effect as having two reading
sessions could be achieved by changing the subject or author in the same
session. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not all of us have photographic memories so if we are to
recall what we read we will have to read the material again – perhaps more than
once. Studies show that repeating the
exposure at the point where you are about to forget maximizes long term recall. The first repeat will need to occur quicker
than subsequent repeats.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>The ten “How to Become Erudite” rules of thumb.<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To become erudite the rules of thumb are </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b><i>read 6-7 ordinary length books per month –
that’s on the order of 2½ to 3 hours per day;</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b><i>the books should be very high quality;</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b><i>deliberately read some materials that challenge
your beliefs, or debate them with people who do, whatever those beliefs may be;</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b><i>let interest guide your choice of reading
matter, even within the official approved list; </i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b><i>make sure at least 4 to 7 times as much reading
outside the official approved list as in it;</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b><i>vary the subject matter and the authors as
much as possible;<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b><i>if you are getting bored with what you are
reading change to another book;<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b><i>if you need to know a book well return to it
at least once, ideally at the point when you are just about to forget its
contents;<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b><i>engage other knowledgeable people on the
subject matter of your reading, or apply it to something; </i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b><i>keep doing that for 25 years or more</i></b>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Erudition isn’t everything.
Without an experimental and empirical approach to life i.e. life
experience, it becomes mere flash. <st1:place w:st="on">Reading</st1:place> copiously, while
never leaving a room, will leave large gaps in one’s knowledge of life. Such gaps would make it impossible to be wise.</div>
Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-20973943204155671612013-04-23T04:13:00.002-07:002013-04-23T04:13:50.952-07:00INTELLIGENCE AND THE BATTLE OVER THE ENVIRONMENT<br />
You can’t watch TV these days without being confronted with the way the environment is endangered. This is not to say everyone is on board. The state of the environment is a deeply divisive issue. Environmental groups of varying degrees of radicalism regularly protest what they see as dangerous environmental destruction or dire threats; environmental skeptic groups are no less vigorous, calling environmentalism a form of religious or political fanaticism; international meetings are held to attempt to reach agreement on measures to take; scientists and political pundits issue warnings, and less frequently denials; economists are divided on the economic impact of environmental issues, and much more. Few issues separate the political left and right as strongly as this one. If ever there was a controversial issue that could do with some light being shed on it, this is it. The Smart Vote is one way to illuminate the issues.<br />
<br />
Fortunately the General Social Survey asks a number of environmentally relevant questions. I had a look at them all and using multiple regression analysis I assessed which factors play a significant independent role in determining attitudes toward a host of environmental issues. There are a large number of questions so I am not going to provide a table of regression results but will simply list those environmental issues that have a significant independent association with a particular factor included in the regression. The independent variables in each regression were – IQ, education level, log of personal income, gender, age, year of the survey and political ideology.<br />
<br />
Let us start with political ideology.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Political Ideology and environmental attitudes</u></b><br />
<br />
Below are the attitudes which were favored by conservatives relative to liberals in the USA.<br />
<br />
- There are more important things in life than saving the environment.<br />
- We worry too much about the environment.<br />
- We worry too much about progress harming the environment.<br />
- Economic growth does not always harm the environment.<br />
- Deny that almost everything we do harms the environment.<br />
- Deny that the environment affects their everyday life.<br />
- Deny that nuclear power is dangerous either for the environment or for their family.<br />
- Deny that warming from climate change is dangerous for the environment.<br />
- They are not opposed to eating genetically modified foods.<br />
- Deny that economic progress depends on the state of the environment.<br />
- America needs economic growth in order to protect the environment.<br />
- The US isn’t doing too little to protect the environment.<br />
- Americans are doing enough to protect the environment.<br />
- Government spending on the environment should not increase.<br />
- Spending on improving and protecting the environment is not too little.<br />
- Do not do what they can to help the environment.<br />
- Consider it too difficult for them to do something about the environment.<br />
- Not willing to accept a cut in living standards to help the environment.<br />
- Not willing to pay higher prices to help the environment.<br />
- Not willing to pay higher taxes to help the environment.<br />
- Has not given money to an environmental cause.<br />
- Does not belong to an environmental group.<br />
- Government is not responsible for making business less destructive to the environment.<br />
- Government should not make laws for the protection of the environment, rather people and business should decide for themselves how to do so.<br />
- International bodies should not enforce environmental protection.<br />
- We don’t need international agreements for environmental problems.<br />
- In order to get business to protect the environment they favor the use of education and the tax system to fines.<br />
- In order to get people to protect the environment they favor using education over the tax system.<br />
<br />
<b>Conservatives don’t think environmental issues are problems that pose a danger to the environment, the economy or their family; nor do they think they justify greater expense, government interference or personal sacrifice. Liberals tend to take the opposite view</b>.<br />
<br />
Studies have found that scientific knowledge does not lead to a convergence of conservative and liberal environmental opinion – rather it further hardens and polarizes attitudes. Obviously values and motivated reasoning – and not facts - are driving opinion here, and the force of these values are very strong.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Gender and Environmental Issues</u></b><br />
<br />
Like political ideology gender seems to play a strong role in attitudes to the environment. Specifically women favor the following attitudes relative to men.<br />
<br />
- There are not more important things in life than saving the environment.<br />
- We don’t worry too much about progress harming the environment.<br />
- Economic growth always harms the environment.<br />
- Almost everything we do harms the environment.<br />
- Nuclear power is dangerous for the environment and for their family.<br />
- Warming from climate change is dangerous for the environment.<br />
- Genetically engineered crops are dangerous for the environment.<br />
- They are opposed to eating genetically modified foods.<br />
- Economic progress depends on the state of the environment.<br />
- Spending on improving and protecting the environment is too little.<br />
- In order to get business to protect the environment they favor the use of fines or education to using the tax system.<br />
<br />
This list is a lot shorter than the one for political ideology but nevertheless <b>women are much more inclined than men to perceive danger to the environment from a wide variety of sources, and to think we ought to be worrying about them. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><u>Age and Environmental Issues</u></b><br />
<br />
Given that generational gaps exist on many issues and that environmental issues are relatively recent it would be surprising if age wasn’t related to environmental attitudes, and indeed age is associated with the following opinions on environmental issues.<br />
<br />
- We worry too much about the environment.<br />
- We worry too much about progress harming the environment.<br />
- Economic growth does not always harm the environment.<br />
- Deny that almost everything we do harms the environment.<br />
- The environment does affect their everyday life.<br />
- Deny that nuclear power is dangerous either for the environment or for their family.<br />
- Economic progress depends on the state of the environment.<br />
- Government spending on the environment should not increase.<br />
- Spending on improving and protecting the environment is not too little.<br />
- Business and government do more for the environment than people.<br />
- Do what they can to help the environment.<br />
- Consider it too difficult for them to do something about the environment.<br />
- International bodies should not enforce environmental protection.<br />
- We do need international agreements for environmental problems.<br />
- Poor countries should not have to do less than rich countries to help the environment.<br />
- In order to get business to protect the environment they favor the use of education to fines or using the tax system.<br />
- In order to get people to protect the environment they favor the use of education to fines or using the tax system.<br />
<br />
<b>The young are more likely to perceive of progress, growth and nuclear power harming the environment and to think we should worry more about it, spend more on it and rely more on international pressure – particularly on wealthy countries. However they are less likely to try to do their bit. They have more faith in the efficacy of financial incentives than education to change behavior</b>. As is so often the case, age has a similar (but milder) effect on attitudes as conservatism. The effect however is independent to that of political ideology.<br />
<br />
<b><u>The Trend in Environmental Attitudes</u></b><br />
<br />
Over time there has been an increasing trend in the US to endorse the following attitudes.<br />
<br />
- We worry too much about progress harming the environment.<br />
- Economic growth does not always harm the environment.<br />
- America needs economic growth in order to protect the environment.<br />
- Government spending on the environment should not increase.<br />
- Spending on improving and protecting the environment is too little.<br />
- We can save the environment even if others aren’t doing the same.<br />
- Do not do what they can to help the environment.<br />
- Not willing to pay higher prices to help the environment.<br />
- Not willing to pay higher taxes to help the environment.<br />
- Does not belong to an environmental group.<br />
- Government should not make laws for the protection of the environment but let people decide for themselves how to do so.<br />
<br />
<b>Attitudes toward the environment, except toward more non-governmental spending, are becoming more conservative</b>. Note this does not apply to an increase in personal willingness to spend more.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Income and Environmental Issues</u></b><br />
<br />
Income often affects attitudes but surprisingly very few attitudes toward the environment proved to be independently associated with income. They were as follows.<br />
<br />
- There aren’t more important things in life than saving the environment.<br />
- We don’t worry too much about progress harming the environment.<br />
- Deny that nuclear power is dangerous either for the environment or for their family.<br />
- They know whether their way of living helps or harms the environment.<br />
- Do not consider it too difficult for them to do something about the environment.<br />
- Belong to an environmental group.<br />
- Poor countries should not have to do less than rich countries to help the environment.<br />
- Government should make laws for the protection of the environment and not let people decide for themselves how to do so.<br />
- In order to get business to protect the environment they favor the use of the tax system rather than education.<br />
<br />
<b>The wealthy are more aware of their personal environmental impact and are more active in environmental causes - in spite of being less likely to see progress or nuclear power as environmental threats. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Education and Environmental Issues</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Education is another variable that frequently relates to
attitudes and behavior. Achieving highest
qualifications is related to the following attitudes</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
- We don’t worry too much about the environment.<br />
- We don’t worry too much about progress harming the environment.<br />
- Economic growth does not always harm the environment.<br />
- Deny that almost everything we do harms the environment.<br />
- Deny that nuclear power is dangerous either for the environment or for their family.<br />
- Deny that warming from climate change is dangerous for the environment.<br />
- Genetically modified crops are not dangerous for the environment.<br />
- Do what they can to help the environment.<br />
- Knows if their way of living helps or harms the environment.<br />
- Don’t consider it too difficult for them to do something about the environment.<br />
- Can save the environment even if others aren’t doing the same.<br />
- They are willing to accept a cut in living standards to help the environment.<br />
- They are willing to pay higher prices to help the environment.<br />
- They are willing to pay higher taxes to help the environment.<br />
- Has given money to an environmental cause.<br />
- Belongs to an environmental group.<br />
- Government should make laws for the protection of the environment and not allow people to decide for themselves how to do so.<br />
- In order to get people to protect the environment they favor using the tax system rather than fines.<br />
- In order to get business to protect the environment they favor the use of the tax system over education or fines.<br />
<br />
<b>The well educated are more environmentally concerned and active, and are more likely to trust legislation over voluntary action by the general public – in spite of being less likely to attribute environmental harm to economic growth, nuclear power, genetically modified crops, climate change, or to many other things humans do. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><u>The Smart Vote and Environmental Issues</u></b><br />
<br />
Finally we get to the light intelligence shines on these issues – independently of the other factors. The attitudes that were significantly associated with higher intelligence were the following.<br />
<br />
- We don’t worry too much about the environment.<br />
- We don’t worry too much about progress harming the environment.<br />
- Economic growth does not always harm the environment.<br />
- Deny that almost everything we do harms the environment.<br />
- Deny that nuclear power is dangerous either for the environment or for their family.<br />
- Genetically modified crops are not dangerous for the environment..<br />
- They are not opposed to eating genetically modified foods.<br />
- Deny that economic progress depends on the state of the environment.<br />
- America doesn’t need economic growth in order to protect the environment.<br />
- Americans are not doing enough to protect the environment.<br />
- Government spending on the environment should increase.<br />
- Spending on improving and protecting the environment is too little.<br />
- Poor countries should not have to do less to help the environment.<br />
- Don’t consider it too difficult for them to do something about the environment.<br />
- We can save the environment even if others aren’t doing the same.<br />
- Knows if the way they live helps or harms the environment.<br />
- Willing to accept a cut in living standards to help the environment.<br />
- Willing to pay higher taxes to help the environment.<br />
- Government should make laws for the protection of the environment and not allow business to decide for itself how to do so.<br />
- In order to get people to protect the environment they favor using the tax system over fines.<br />
- Government does more for the environment than does business.<br />
<br />
<b>It’s more intelligent to reject most green hysterias but nevertheless be aware of one’s own environmental impact and be optimistic about effective personal action, and to consider the environment something to worry about and doing and spending more to protect and help – including accepting significant financial sacrifices. It’s smarter to think government does more for the environment than business, and that it should make laws for business to do more</b>.<br />
<br />
It’s also instructive to look at those attitudes toward environmental issues for which intelligence is irrelevant. <br />
<br />
The following environmental attitudes are <b>not</b> associated with intelligence.<br />
<br />
- The environment affects one’s everyday life or whether there are more important things in life than saving the environment.<br />
- Government is responsible for making business less destructive of the environment and the US state does enough to help the environment.<br />
- International agreements are needed to help the environment and international institutions should enforce the rules.<br />
- The general population does more for the environment than either the government or business.<br />
- There is no way to decide between government making laws or letting people decide for themselves how to help the environment.<br />
- Education isn’t preferable to fines or using the tax system to motivate people or business to help the environment, and there isn’t anything to choose between fines and the tax system for motivating business either.<br />
- Doing what one can to help the environment, joining environmental groups, donating money to environmental causes or paying higher prices.<br />
<br />
<b>It isn’t necessarily intelligent to consider the environment the most important thing in life, to believe that it impacts your personal life or to actually donate money or time to environmental causes</b>. Furthermore <b>intelligence doesn’t shed any light on whether it is any business of the US government, or an international institution, to be involved in environmental action and has little to say about how much the general population is doing for, or how they should be encouraged to help, the environment</b>. Finally <b>it sheds no light on whether or not climate change is an environmental threat</b>.<br />
<br />
In sum <i><b>it’s stupid to accept green hysterias but still smart to favor more concern about, and action and spending on, the environment, but it isn’t necessarily smarter to make the environment your dominant concern or even do anything about it personally. While it’s smarter to think governments do the most for the environment it isn’t necessarily smarter to think governments or international bodies should be involved</b>.</i><br />
<br />
<b><u>Overall Conclusion</u></b><br />
<br />
It’s liberal to be indiscriminately green and conservative to be indiscriminately anti-green, and even though the youth are greener in attitude the conservative attitude is becoming more fashionable in the US. In spite of the lower classes being more prone to perceive various things as being environmentally threatening, environmentalism is an upper class concern – those with more education and money are better disposed toward it and more involved. It’s a girly bias to be scared of environmental threats and manly bias to dismiss them.<br />
<br />
One can see clear bias operating with gender and ideology, and to a large extent one can detect the imprint of self interest with class i.e. education and income. Hopefully most of the bias and interest effects have been stripped out of the Smart Vote by including these variables in the regressions.<br />
<br />
So what does the ‘unbiased and disinterested’ Smart Vote say about environmental issues? Well it doesn’t lend support to either extreme of the environmental controversy. It says simply that <b><i>the smart thing is for more people (not necessarily everyone or governments) doing something, and spending more, to help and protect the environment, but it would be stupid if that action and advocacy took the form of repudiating or resisting technological and economic progress</i></b>.<br />
<br />
Seems reasonable to me.
Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-9150570439607843092012-09-07T02:25:00.000-07:002012-09-07T02:25:03.750-07:00Racism is not cleverOn August 19 Alex Tabarrox over at Marginal Revolution responded to a Chris Hayes quote “It is undeniably the case that racist Americans are almost entirely in one political coalition and not the other” with a blog post entitled Racism by Political Party. He checked out data available on the General Social Survey and found that there was no difference in the extent of racism between the Democrats and Republicans. This no doubt came as a surprise to many on the left. I thought it would be interesting to extend his analysis beyond party identification. In particular I wanted to see what the Smart Vote i.e. intelligent opinion, had to say about racism.
Without any controls racism varies strongly with IQ. The higher a person’s IQ the less likely they are to be racist. Every 2-3 IQ points reduces the chances of some racist view by about one percent among whites. It is negligible at IQs above 132 (Mensa level), jumping to 1in 10 at average IQs and to 1 in 3 at IQs below 70. Now IQ also varies with education and income, and maybe with political outlook, so it would be a good idea to control for these variables before we deduce that intelligent opinion per se is opposed to racism. It could be that what looks like intelligent opinion is simply the effect of more education in a system that explicitly tries to eliminate racist views.
Consider the Table below. The column under each heading is the list of regression coefficients and the column to the immediate right of those are the significance levels. The first two rows of results utilized linear regression on racism variables with more than two alternatives. The third row utilizes logistic regression to predict the probability of one answer on binary racism questions. Firstly note that while racist views increase with age there has been a decline in racism across all groups over the years. Secondly Political Party identity is indeed unrelated to racism on seven of eight questions. Republicans are only more likely than Democrats to think the relative lack of achievement of blacks is due to ‘lack of will’. On the other hand, conservatism is strongly related to racism on seven of eight questions. Only on the relative lack of black achievement being due to ‘inborn disability’ do conservatives not differ from liberals. In other words conservatives tend to be racists but Republicans do not so perhaps the equating of Republican with conservative is unwarranted.
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1F5WsAE9e75elRab6xqa-gpShEhJDCtkmIbmmd6meR1BHDiDyDzFq__-Pe8y_QKN9bUnYCnzk_vzxj4npLvBtMQes8DZWLR-3ldCVdtvuiiP0LbSQaYCfVRrIOnSTjpDFTalNHLbZe5c/s1600/Racism.JPG" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="400" width="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1F5WsAE9e75elRab6xqa-gpShEhJDCtkmIbmmd6meR1BHDiDyDzFq__-Pe8y_QKN9bUnYCnzk_vzxj4npLvBtMQes8DZWLR-3ldCVdtvuiiP0LbSQaYCfVRrIOnSTjpDFTalNHLbZe5c/s400/Racism.JPG" /></a>
Women are less racist than men on two out of eight questions (even after their greater liberalism is accounted for). There are economic theories suggesting that poor whites may be more racist because they face greater job competition from blacks however income shows no relationship to racist views – except on one question where higher earners are more likely to oppose laws against interracial marriage.
Lower education and lower IQs are both independently and strongly related to racism on all but one question (and that one they are just outside of statistical significance). So education does persistently and effectively work to oppose racist attitudes but it (and all the other control variables) do not account for the strong rejection of racism by intelligent opinion. Racism is truly a stupid attitude. On a more general level it seems that intelligent opinion is opposed to restricting the freedoms and rights of members of any group.
Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-36558945848268578902012-03-24T04:58:00.007-07:002012-03-24T12:40:43.790-07:00Smart Immigration PolicyAlmost everyone is at least a little suspicious of out group members, so it should come as no surprise that most citizens view foreigners who want to live and work in their country with suspicion. Immigrants tend to be blamed for many negative things. They are accused of taking away jobs that citizens believe should be reserved for them and quite a few countries have laws saying a company can only employ a foreign national if they can show that a citizen could not be found to fill. The presence of foreign labor is frequently protested when labor markets are tight and in some countries this has reached the point of violence and mass displacement of immigrants. Immigrants are disproportionately blamed for crime. Some think immigrants come to live off welfare systems at the expense of citizens. Still others see immigrants as a threat to national culture e.g. Muslims are frequently seen as threat to countries with a Christian or secular history, and no doubt visa versa. Then there is outright racism or ethnocentrism. <br /><br />To be fair suspicion and hostility aren’t the only reactions to immigrants. Some do view them positively. However on balance feelings are negative. So much so that between half and two thirds of the adult population of the USA wish to see immigration reduced from current levels, and only 5-10% wish to see it increased.<br /><br />Before discussing empirical findings on the various purported pros and cons of immigration, and various intellectual arguments around it, I want to explore what intelligent opinion has to say about the issue.<br /><br />The General Social Survey has a number of questions around the possible effects of immigrants. For each alternative on each question I tabled the percentage of public support and a Smart Vote score. The Smart Vote score is a measure of how much and in which direction IQ variations are related to an opinion. It is calculated as follows. <br /><br />I calculate the ratio of the probability that the smartest and dullest IQ groups will support an alternative i.e. p(IQ>116)*(1-p(IQ<85))/((1-p(IQ>116))*p(IQ<85)) – call this the extreme ratio. Next I calculate the same for the intermediate IQ ranges i.e. p(IQ 100-115)*(1-p(IQ 85-99))/((1-p(IQ 100-115))*p(IQ 85-99)) – call this the intermediate ratio.<br /><br />The Smart Vote score is 100*√((3*extreme ratio + intermediate ratio)/4)<br /><br />I restricted the analysis to white opinion only because race is likely to be a strong confounding factor regarding immigration. <br /><br />The table can be seen below.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFIzqbgQjd3c0su7fEE23w7ueXySAWGs31FvZ3ZfDCPO1aY4q0mQ_MLE9hG4VM2CwOVuXBfBEyyphyphenhyphenLfbiHFDkgJ76VNtJBR7OGb4a8G0nc6x78RWvzQiRKR-Cshoafb70EtOSh_BqyRg/s1600/Immigration+benefits+SV.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFIzqbgQjd3c0su7fEE23w7ueXySAWGs31FvZ3ZfDCPO1aY4q0mQ_MLE9hG4VM2CwOVuXBfBEyyphyphenhyphenLfbiHFDkgJ76VNtJBR7OGb4a8G0nc6x78RWvzQiRKR-Cshoafb70EtOSh_BqyRg/s400/Immigration+benefits+SV.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723433720692832802" /></a><br /><br />Overall it seems more intelligent opinion thinks immigrants are good for America and that they contribute to improving America and making it more open. More intelligent opinion denies that immigrants make things bad. The Smart Vote is against immigrants increasing crime, taking away local jobs or undermining national unity. Finally more intelligent opinion is that there a small but non-zero chance that immigrants lead to economic growth. In short, <span style="font-weight:bold;">the more intelligent the person the more likely they are to think that immigrants are not bad but good for America</span>. The general public however tends to think unintelligently on immigration taking jobs away and undermining national unity.<br /><br />In line with this more intelligent opinion is also in favor of treating immigrants better. The table below shows that more intelligent opinion is in favor of solid rights for immigrants, and that it doesn’t think immigrants are too demanding about it. More intelligent opinion is also in favor of helping immigrants overcome bias and extending government assistance if needed and doesn’t think the government spends too much on them.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXPVpBLSFRM0IF1CofjitA6A5fNyBvMYGPkduybES1BrbyFbgWucDMBph13BbNYCb87WXlos4oCHwI-cNxHBJQ6rVn0X6TAMZ5z5yvzubiruICkdX7ACTnPm1IM8Mx-h2LS8LljpUB9HA/s1600/Immigrants+-+what+to+do+with+them.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXPVpBLSFRM0IF1CofjitA6A5fNyBvMYGPkduybES1BrbyFbgWucDMBph13BbNYCb87WXlos4oCHwI-cNxHBJQ6rVn0X6TAMZ5z5yvzubiruICkdX7ACTnPm1IM8Mx-h2LS8LljpUB9HA/s400/Immigrants+-+what+to+do+with+them.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723433986296752466" /></a><br /><br />On the other hand more intelligent opinion is against illegal immigrants getting work permits and access to public education. However, intelligent opinion seems neutral on whether the US should exclude illegal immigrants altogether. Finally, should the USA let in more or fewer immigrants? In spite of intelligent opinion regarding immigrants as a good thing generally this doesn’t translate into advocating letting in more of them. More intelligent opinion seems to think current immigration rates are close to ideal. Overall, <span style="font-weight:bold;">more intelligent opinion is for assisting legal immigrants to overcome problems and bias, and perhaps granting them equal rights, but for keeping the rate of immigration close to the current rate</span>. The majority of the general public, however, seem to lean toward the less intelligent choice of being unhelpful to immigrants and toward greater exclusion of them – both legal and illegal.<br /><br />Before we accept this picture the issue of special interests associated with intelligence need to be addressed. The following table is a summary of the multiple regression results on all the questions dealt with above, controlling for education, income, gender, age and ideology. Race is already controlled for because all results apply to white opinion only. The table shows the significance level achieved and the direction of the relationship. <br />** Means a significance level > 5% but less than 10%.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwV0fd8llWWlkTrr3gQqIFjCOPsF3vfwSRExzvJYz-1rKJcSEo7YIFGptda3Z0QNMSV___xBgfY4BUTUufMGaWRtOPOtKGPS9o4-35GqulvREglPyGMxMSb3qUyjMI9eOcEtPmUiR60OQ/s1600/Immigration+regressions.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwV0fd8llWWlkTrr3gQqIFjCOPsF3vfwSRExzvJYz-1rKJcSEo7YIFGptda3Z0QNMSV___xBgfY4BUTUufMGaWRtOPOtKGPS9o4-35GqulvREglPyGMxMSb3qUyjMI9eOcEtPmUiR60OQ/s400/Immigration+regressions.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723436879475040530" /></a><br /><br />Note that the more intelligent view i.e. the Smart Vote, that immigration is good rather than bad, is confirmed. On the other hand it seems the seemingly intelligent view that legal immigrants should be assisted and granted equal rights, or that illegal immigrants not be given access to work permits or public education, is probably special interests speaking rather than intelligent opinion per se. The intelligent opinion that current rates of legal immigration are about right is confirmed. <br /><br />It seems that increased education in the US leads to a strong pro immigrant attitude across the board. The interests associated with gender or income differences don’t seem to matter much. A Conservative outlook is associated with believing immigrants lead to crime and unemployment, with the view that they shouldn’t be assisted or given more rights and the view that illegal immigrants should be totally excluded. Liberals tend to hold the opposite view. Surprisingly, at least to me, is that while older people tend to reject giving immigrants greater rights or helping them they are more inclined to think immigrants are good rather than bad for America than are younger people.<br /><br />To summarize – <span style="font-weight:bold;">the smartest view on immigrants is that they are good and not bad for America, and that the current rate of legal immigration is about right. Whether to help them or give them greater rights is unanswered. The general public’s view however is that immigrants do have a few bad effects and leans towards reducing the rate of immigration generally</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Why should we restrict immigration?</span><br /><br />So much for the arrow of the Smart Vote in the absence of evidence and argument, but what does the evidence say? Here are some of the findings.<br />The labor force participation rate among immigrants is higher than that of the native born and higher still among illegal immigrants1.<br /><br />Immigrants tend to self select states with lower social or welfare spending especially illegal immigrants who have no reason to favor welfare states since they aren’t eligible. Immigrants clearly aren’t moving in order to live off American welfare1. <br /><br />The fiscal effects of illegal immigrants was very slightly negative – they consumed 24.4% more in services than they paid in taxes - but the economic effects are very strongly positive – over 35 times the fiscal loss!2<br /><br />Since people don’t like paying for people different from themselves immigration will undermine welfare spending and not increase it.<br /><br />Low skilled immigrant labor frees high skilled natives to do more productive work thereby increasing the growth rate.3<br /><br />Low skilled immigrants e.g. those whose comparative advantage is manual labor, open up slightly higher level coordination and integration jobs for low skilled natives who speak English, and improves their pay.3 <br /><br />Immigration keeps America young and mostly working – good for growth and maintaining the social security system.4<br /><br />Immigrants have lower per capita crime rates.<br /><br />Border enforcement is costly – much more so than the fiscal costs incurred by illegal immigrants.<br /><br />What we gleaned from intelligent opinion alone is correct – immigration is good and not bad for America.<br /><br />Why should they be treated as criminals for wanting to do an honest day’s work? Why should a free transaction between a US citizen and a foreigner be banned? Free trade is almost an article of faith among economists of all ideologies so why not free trade in labor? The most convincing arguments I’ve seen for open immigration are those of Bryan Caplan – professor of economics at George Mason University. I lifted the following verbatim from his blog EconLog.<br /><br />Many libertarians would condemn [the American government's treatment of immigrants] as "inexcusable." I rest my argument on a weaker premise: whether or not the facts are "inexcusable," they do require an excuse. On the surface, it seems wrong to prohibit voluntary exchange between natives and foreigners. Proponents of immigration restrictions have to show why, moral appearances notwithstanding, immigration restrictions are morally justified.<br /><br />They fail to do so. Immigration restrictions are not necessary to protect American workers. Most Americans benefit from immigration, and the losers don't lose much. Immigration restrictions are not necessary to protect American taxpayers. Researchers disagree about whether the fiscal effects of immigration are positive or negative, but they agree that the fiscal effects are small. Immigration restrictions are not necessary to protect American culture. Immigrants make our culture better--and their children learn fluent English. Immigration restrictions are not necessary to protect American liberty. Immigrants have low voter turnout and accept our political status quo by default. By increasing diversity, they undermine native support for the welfare state. And on one important issue--immigration itself--immigrants are much more pro-liberty than natives.<br /><br />Even if all these empirical claims are wrong, though, immigration restrictions would remain morally impermissible. Why? Because there are cheaper and more humane solutions for each and every complaint. If immigrants hurt American workers, we can charge immigrants higher taxes or admission fees, and use the revenue to compensate the losers. If immigrants burden American taxpayers, we can make immigrants ineligible for benefits. If immigrants hurt American culture, we can impose tests of English fluency and cultural literacy. If immigrants hurt American liberty, we can refuse to give them the right to vote. Whatever your complaint happens to be, immigration restrictions are a needlessly draconian remedy.<br /><br />Elsewhere Caplan argues that immigration is fantastically beneficial to immigrants themselves. Unskilled labor from the developing world earn on average 10 times more in the developed world as they would in their country of origin, and that open immigration globally would double global GDP. Open immigration is by far the best anti-poverty measure in existence.<br /><br />Mat Yglesias on Moneybox (part of Slate) – another superb commentator but from a different ideological camp to Caplan – argues that immigration should lead to improved labor conditions in the country of origin, because good workers would vote with their feet and employers would have to increase wages and improve working conditions to compete. He has also argued that immigrants (including illegal immigrants) will need houses, food, medicine, transport, clothing, entertainment, etc which means more business for suppliers of those things and therefore more jobs for locals.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Intelligent opinion is that a policy of increasingly restricting immigration is likely to be stupid and badly thought through</span>. The arguments and evidence above strongly confirm that view. I don’t know why the Smart Vote is not more frankly for open immigration.<br /><br />References<br /><br />1. Immigration and the Welfare State by Daniel T Griswold<br />2. Immigration and Economic Growth by Gordon Hanson<br />3. Immigration, Labor Markets and Productivity by Giovanni Peri<br />4. America’s Demographic Future by Joel Kotkin & Erika Ozuna<br />5. Why Should We Restrict Immigration? by Bryan Caplan<br />6. Economics and Immigration: Trillion Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk? by Michael A ClemensGarth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-15690724100601956912012-03-16T03:41:00.005-07:002012-03-16T03:51:32.293-07:00Chess, intelligence and winning arguments<span style="font-weight:bold;">Arguments</span><br /><br />We have all had arguments. Occasionally these reach an agreed upon conclusion but usually the parties involved either agree to disagree or end up thinking the other party hopelessly stupid, ignorant or irrationally stubborn. Very rarely do people consider the possibility that it is they who are ignorant, stupid, irrational or stubborn even when they have good reason to believe that the other party is at least as intelligent or educated as themselves. <br /><br />Sometimes the argument was about something factual where the facts could be easily checked e.g. who won a certain football match in 1966. <br /><br />Sometimes the facts aren’t so easily checked because they are difficult to understand but the problem is clear and objective. One famous example is the Monty Hall dilemma. In a certain game show a contestant is presented with three doors, behind one of which is a really desirable main prize and behind the other two are booby prizes. The contestant is asked to choose the door he thinks the main prize is behind. The game show host, who knows where the prize is, then opens a booby prize door. He can do that even if you picked the main prize door. The contestant is now offered the chance to change his choice to the other closed door. The question is – should he? The correct answer is that he should because it would double his chances of winning the main prize. This fact proved so hard to grasp that only 8% of the laymen and 35% of academics who tried it, got it right initially. Many of them damned Marilyn vos Savant for misleading the public with her answer in her Parade column Ask Marilyn. Among those academics getting it wrong, were a fair number of senior professional mathematicians and statisticians, including the great Paul Erdos. After a great deal of explanation, the proportion of people who accept the correct answer increased to 56% of laymen and 71% of academics. The figure is more like 97-100% for those who carried out an experiment or simulation, so in essence a large proportion of those approaching the problem through pure logic continue to fail to grasp it. <br /><br />Sometimes the facts aren’t as mathematical or logical as the Monty Hall solution. Each party to the argument appeals to ‘facts’ which the other party disputes. The disputed facts could be anything from the validity of the theory underlying a phenomenon, or the empirical results supposedly shedding light on the topic. A good example would be the debate among economists about the causes of the most recent US recession and the most useful way out of it. On one side are those who think the solution is less government spending to reduce deficits, and simply leaving the economy to painfully sort out major structural mal-investments and imbalances. They believe intervention is likely to create worse problems later. The other side says aggregate demand is the problem and that the recession can and should be fixed via some kind of fiscal and monetary intervention. This side believes intervention will make things better, not worse, in both the long and short term. Both sides claim that the other side’s view has been thoroughly discredited by empirical events in the past, and will point to current events ‘obviously’ supporting their expectations, or when they haven’t will issue dire warnings that it will, soon. A similarly insoluble argument is being had around the ‘facts’ of global warming.<br /><br />Sometimes the arguments boil down to differences in values. For example, what tastes better chocolate or vanilla ice cream, or who is prettier Jane or Mary? In these cases there isn’t really a correct answer – even when a large majority favors a particular alternative. Values also have a strong way of influencing what people accept as evidence or indeed what they perceive at all.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The unreasonableness of continuing disagreement</span><br /><br />The interesting thing is that when the disagreement isn’t a pure values difference it should always be possible to reach agreement. Robert Aumann, a Nobel winning game theorist (who I’ve had the pleasure of chatting to) proved that under conditions of common knowledge it isn’t possible to agree to disagree – even when the parties start with completely different information, facts and theories. In a simplified format it goes like this. Party A says the answer is X. Party B, who considers the answer to be Y, hears this and, if rational, will think “A must either have access to evidence that I don’t or doesn’t have access to some evidence that I do.” Under the notion of evidence I include not only facts but also the reasoning process. B may say that “Notwithstanding the possibility that I may have missed evidence I am still very confident in the evidence that I have so I will say I think the answer is Y”. A now hears B’s answer and goes through a similar chain of reasoning. He thinks “Gosh B has evidence he is so confident about that exposure to the knowledge that I have different evidence hasn’t shaken him. He must think his evidence is particularly strong. I should take that into account when evaluating my own evidence.” At this point A could decide he isn’t all that confident in his own evidence, and concede the argument to B. Alternatively he could decide that in spite of B’s confidence he still considers his own evidence to be persuasive, and re-affirm that he thinks the answer is X. <br /><br />The ball now passes back to B, who now faced with A’s continued confidence in his evidence, even after making allowances for B’s confidence in his own evidence, must upgrade his view of the strength of A’s evidence relative to his own. He must then decide whether he is still thinks his evidence is strong enough to carry the day. He can decide “No it isn’t”, and concede the argument to A, or “Yes it is” and say he still considers Y to be correct. The process goes on until one of the parties concedes. At any point either party’s actual evidence can, and probably will, be shared and explained. Some readers may recognize this as an iterative Bayesian process. Others have extended Aumann’s analysis, and have shown that the process won’t go to infinity and should come to a conclusion in a reasonable number of iterations. The upshot of this is that if an argument doesn’t result in an agreement, at least one of the parties involved is being irrational or dishonest.<br /><br />The rest of the article makes the unrealistic assumption that people will be rational and honest when arguing.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">IQ and relative correctness</span><br /><br />Item response theory connects a latent trait e.g. intelligence or IQ, with the probability getting a particular item in a test correct. Typically they look like this.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9h57CnjF-GgTdFCDK_7L0BSfxoYLjt6KqQEP2IPtDL8HmrCbDYnYzNFHKqQJsqh2Voh6w8VjYR2oodLZRb3ATtm3Lqub4NRXmU6wqBuNot3thcq1RXmzTJ6vQlf_ts1I2coWtQmNmyEY/s1600/Probability+by+IQ.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9h57CnjF-GgTdFCDK_7L0BSfxoYLjt6KqQEP2IPtDL8HmrCbDYnYzNFHKqQJsqh2Voh6w8VjYR2oodLZRb3ATtm3Lqub4NRXmU6wqBuNot3thcq1RXmzTJ6vQlf_ts1I2coWtQmNmyEY/s400/Probability+by+IQ.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5720443933546830146" /></a><br /><br />The formula producing these lines is <br /><br />p(X)=exp(a*IQ+b)/(1+exp(a*IQ+b)).<br /><br />The “a” coefficient tells one how steeply the probability rises as IQ rises i.e. how much solving the item depends on ability as measured by IQ versus how much the solution depends on uncertainty and luck. The “b” coefficient tells one the difficulty level of the item.<br /><br />Suppose we select two IQ levels and compare the probabilities of a correct answer for each IQ level. With a bit of arithmetic we can show that the ratio of <br /><br />p(IQ2)/p(IQ1)=exp(a*( IQ2 - IQ1)).<br /><br />Suppose two people with IQs at level 1 and 2 respectively disagree about the answer. In effect they argue about it. Then the probability of person with being right in the event of a disagreement is <br /><br />p(2 is right) = p(2)*(1-p(1))/((p(2)*(1-p(1)) + p(1)*(1-p(2))). Similarly for p(1 is right).<br /><br />More arithmetic gives <br /><br />p(2 is right)/p(1 is right) = exp(a*( IQ2 - IQ1)) too.<br /><br />Therefore, <span style="font-weight:bold;">when two people argue over the correctness of something, the probability of who is right is determined by the difference between their respective abilities and the degree to which solving that problem actually depends on ability</span>. The difficulty of the item is irrelevant.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">A chess diversion</span><br /><br />Chess’s ELO rating system uses a similar method to calculate the probability of a player winning, but use base 10 rather than base e. So according to the ELO rating system used by FIDA <br /><br />p(player a)/p(player b)=10**(Ra – Rb)/400 (which obviously = exp(a*( IQ2 - IQ1)).)<br />- where Ra is the ELO rating of player a.<br /><br />This means that if the player’s ratings differ by 200 points then the highest ranked player should take roughly 3 out of every 4 wins between them. A ratings difference of 400 points means 10 wins for the highest ranked player for every win for the lower ranked player. The median rating for members of the US Chess Federation was 657 and rating of 1000 is regarded as a bright beginner. International Grandmasters typically rate 2500+, and the very best players have ratings slightly over 2800. To give you an idea of the differences in skill, consider that if the very best were to play an average player the ratio of wins is likely to be 227772 to 1. The difference between a grandmaster and a good beginner would be 5623 to 1. <br /><br />The identities above mean that we can easily convert an IQ difference into an equivalent ELO ratings difference, using the following formula<br /><br />Ratings difference = 173.7178*a*(IQ difference) <br />- “a” is the coefficient telling us how much the item depends on IQ for its solution.<br /><br />I looked at the distribution of FIDA ratings in order to convert them to an IQ metric. For example, about 2% of chess players have ratings as 2300 or higher and 0.02% have ratings over 2700. If IQs are normally distributed, with an SD of 16, then these ELO ratings would correspond to 132 and 157 on the IQ scale. Note this doesn’t mean that chess players with a rating of 2700 will actually have an average IQ of 157 – it’s just a different way of specifying the same thing e.g. like a change from the Imperial to the Metric system. <br /><br />I did however find a study (1) that allowed me to map real IQs onto chess ratings in experienced players. The equation is <br /><br />Chess rating = 18.75*IQ – 275.<br /><br />It turns out that the expected real IQs are very close to the IQ metric I calculated from the ratings distribution. (Note that the equation I developed is quite different from the one hypothesized by Jonathan Levitt (3) i.e. Rating = 10*IQ + 1000.) One should also be aware that the equation gives an average IQ – the actual IQs vary quite a bit around the expected figure. For example, the authors show that threshold effects exist and that the minimum IQ needed to achieve a rating of 2000 is around 85-90. This is 30-35 IQ points lower than the expected IQ. Also from his peak rating Garry Kasparov’s expected IQ is 167 (and wild claims of 180+ have been made) but his actual IQ was measured at 135 (in a test sponsored by Stern magazine), some 32 IQ points lower. <br /><br />I suppose one could derive a rule that the minimum IQ required for a peak rating is some 32 IQ points (or 2 SDs) below the expected IQ. Alternatively, it means that if you have a combination of memory and industry in line with elite professional chess players, your peak rating is likely to be 600 ELO points higher than it would be if you were like an average chess player in these respects. Your chances of winning could be as much as 31.6 fold higher than your IQ suggests – or that much lower. That says something about the relative value of focused application.<br /><br />Assuming that the distribution of combined effort and memory is symmetrical, it also means that a 64 IQ point advantage can not be overcome - even if the brighter player is also among the very laziest with a bad memory, and the less intelligent player has a superb memory and is among the most dedicated.<br /><br />Even after accounting for IQ and work the predicted ratings are still a little fuzzy so perhaps random factors play a role too. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">IQ and ELO rating differences in other domains</span><br /><br />Here I look at converting the effect of IQ gaps to ELO rating differences, across a variety of domains<br /><br />Let’s get back to the IQ to ELO rating conversion. Recall that the equation is<br /><br />Ratings difference = 173.7178*a*(IQ difference).<br /><br />All that remains is to find “a” for everything we are interesting in. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Clear Objective problems</span><br /><br />The obvious place to start is IQ test items. The “a” coefficient for more fuzzy IQ test items tend to be around 0.046, and around 0.086 for really efficient IQ test items. That means that for fuzzy items each additional IQ point is worth 8 ELO points, and it’s worth 15 ELO points for good IQ items. If these items are used in a weird tournament where players compete to solve puzzles instead of play games, and we set the bar at a 3 to 1 win ratio (a 200 point ELO rating difference), then fuzzy items will require a 25 point IQ gap, and efficient items a 13-14 point IQ gap. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Physics mastery</span> <br /><br />Using information from an article by Steve Hsu (2) I worked out that a 3 fold advantage at “winning” at a physics exam – where a ‘win’ is an A in the exam when your opponent failed to get an A – requires an IQ gap of 12 points. If however a win is defined as a 3.5 GPA (where your opponent fails to attain this), then a mere 6 IQ points will provide a 3 fold advantage.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Crime</span><br /><br />We could view cops and killers as being involved in a grim contest. In the USA around 65% of all murders are solved. That converts to an average “murder” ELO rating difference between police and murderers of 108 ELO points. It is also known that the mean IQs of murderers and policemen are 87 and 102, respectively. So successfully solving murders is a puzzle then the “a” coefficient is 0.041, and each IQ point difference is worth 7.2 ELO points. A 3 fold advantage could be had with a 28 point gap between cops and killers. In other words some 31% of outstanding murders could be solved if the USA selected its policemen to have an average IQ of 125 i.e. to be as smart as an average lawyer. I’m not sure if that’s worth it but maybe some cost benefit analysis would help. Such an analysis would have to take into account the drop in murder rates (with a life currently being valued at $2 million) due to the greater odds of being caught, and the opportunity cost of taking professional level IQs out of the pool for other professions, where they might be even more productive.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Controversial issues</span><br /><br />Finally we get back to real arguments – disagreements over controversial topics. According to my Smart Vote concept (see http://garthzietsman.blogspot.com/2011/10/smart-vote-concept.html), if proportionally more smart people systematically favor an alternative then that alternative is likely to be correct or better. Using that definition of “correct”, and information in the General Social Survey, I calculated the “a” coefficients and ELO to IQ ratios etc for a few controversial questions. Typically it would take an IQ difference of 30-50 points to gain a 3 fold advantage in a rational argument. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Tasks with a high level of uncertainty </span><br /><br />For comparison I looked at an intellectual game that includes a large element of chance – backgammon. A rating equation gives <br /><br />p(player a)/p(player b) = 10**Rating diff/2000 <br /><br />for individual games. The difference from chess is that it divides the rating difference by 2000 instead of 400. It would take the result of a string of 21-22 games to provide the same test of relative skill as does a single game of chess. Controversial questions are less fuzzy, less uncertain, or more tractable to intelligence, than backgammon. If people ‘played’ a series of arguments over controversial questions instead of a series of backgammon games, then it would take maybe 5-6 such arguments to provide the same test of relative skill/wisdom in arguments, as a single game does in chess. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">A summary table</span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie3fytW0aDCQZuKxLf-5Yuo2rgDbHGRigvj9zY9hgJh59MU8UcyaQgwNCJQQdm5-76p4KmF9jYodvHMXB4og1TsiZreJCLd5qt81yrbq-MgJIcVs5OZBAYXjLt0TOOgIIZOOvYuq_F2-s/s1600/IQ+%2526+ELO+rating+table.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie3fytW0aDCQZuKxLf-5Yuo2rgDbHGRigvj9zY9hgJh59MU8UcyaQgwNCJQQdm5-76p4KmF9jYodvHMXB4og1TsiZreJCLd5qt81yrbq-MgJIcVs5OZBAYXjLt0TOOgIIZOOvYuq_F2-s/s400/IQ+%2526+ELO+rating+table.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5720444816918764498" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Some meaningful IQ or ELO rating differences</span> <br /><br />Some research shows that friends and spouses have an average IQ difference of 12 points, that for IQ differences less than 20 points a reciprocal intellectual relationship is the rule, for IQ differences between 20-30 points the intellectual relationship tends to be one way, and that IQ differences greater than 30 points tend to create real barriers to communication.<br /><br />An IQ gap of 12 points implies a roughly 67-72% chance of winning an argument over a clear objective issue, like verbal or math problems, and close to a 57-61% chance of winning an argument over a controversial question. A 30 point IQ gap implies an 87-91% chance of winning a verbal/math item argument, and a 63-67% chance of winning an argument over controversial issues. It seems as though there is a very fine line between intimacy and incomprehension on controversial issues (a mere 6% difference) but a fair gap on more objective issues (a 20% difference). <br /><br />Perhaps it isn’t so much the IQ gap that matters to people, as the proportion of differences of opinion they win or lose i.e. the ELO rating difference. That in turn depends on the balance of clear objective, uncertain, and controversial issues in their disagreements. In general however, it seems that people don’t like to lose more than 2 in 3 disagreements, and when they lose more than 3 in 4 of them they feel like they aren’t on the same planet anymore. Those proportions correspond to ELO ratings differences of 100 and 200 respectively. An ELO rating difference of less than 100 feels tolerable and reciprocal while a difference of more than 200 feels unfair or unbalanced. If that theory is right, when most of the issues are fuzzy or uncertain the larger IQ differences should occur between friends and spouses, but when they are mostly clear objective issues then those IQ differences will be smaller. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">References</span><br /><br />1. Individual differences in chess expertise: A psychometric investigation. Roland H Grabner, Elsbeth Stern & Aljoscha C Neubauer. Acta psychological (2006) but I got it from www.sciencedirect.com.<br />2. Non-linear psychometric Thresholds for Physics and Mathematics. Steven D.H. Hsu & James Shombert. http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.0663 <br />3. Genius in Chess. Jonathan Levitt.Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-13545977239037911602012-03-04T15:03:00.004-08:002012-03-04T15:18:16.748-08:00Pornography - an intelligent view<span style="font-weight:bold;">Introduction</span><br /><br />With the advent of the internet, and high tech phones, pornography became significantly easier to access and the porn industry has grown exponentially. Currently in the United States the pornographic film industry is centered in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, with an estimated 200 production companies in the region employing as many as 1,500 performers, making up to 11,000 films and estimated to earn as much as $13 billion a year. This is believed to be larger than Hollywood.<br /><br />So pornography is popular, but some say that pornography has a variety of harmful effects, which argues for it being illegal.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Objections</span> <br /><br />The sociological objection is that pornography decreased respect for long-term, monogamous relationships, and attenuates a desire for procreation. Pornography can “potentially undermine the traditional values that favor marriage, family, and children”, and that it depicts sexuality in a way which is not connected to "emotional attachment, of kindness, of caring, and especially not of continuance of the relationship, as such continuance would translate into responsibilities"<br /><br />The religious/conservative objection is similar to the sociological objection. They argue that this industry undermines the family and leads to the moral breakdown of society. They say that it is amoral, weakens family values, and is contrary to the religion's teachings and human dignity.<br /><br />Some feminists argue that it is an industry which exploits women and which is complicit in violence against women, both in its production (where they charge that abuse and exploitation of women performing in pornography is rampant) and in its consumption (where they charge that pornography eroticizes the domination, humiliation, and coercion of women, and reinforces sexual and cultural attitudes that are complicit in rape and sexual harassment). They charge that pornography contributes to the male-centered objectification of women and thus to sexism.<br /><br />Other objections are that the sex industry is sometimes connected to criminal activities, such as human trafficking, illegal immigration, drug abuse, and exploitation of children (child pornography, child prostitution). However these effects are related not so much to pornography as to prostitution.<br /><br />How valid are these criticisms?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Evidence</span><br /><br />I will only address the consumption issue, not the criticisms around its production.<br /><br />Firstly (using the General Social Survey) I found no relationship between being pro the legality of porn, or propensity to watch porn, and pro social behaviors e.g. volunteer work, blood donation, etc. <br /><br />We can dismiss the feminist (and sociological) charges of porn increasing sexual violence and leading to sexism. The USA, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands (2) and Japan were just some of the countries that suddenly went from no legal pornography to quite widespread availability and consumption of it. These studies all found that greater availability of, and exposure to, pornography does not increase the rate of sexual assaults on women, and probably decreases it (3). Japanese porn is quite frequently violent and yet even there rape decreased from an already very low base. It’s interesting that an increase in porn exposure decreases sexual violence only, and has no effect on other crime. Economists would put this down to a substitution effect. <br /><br />Several countries have sex offender registers – mainly of pedophiles. A wide variety of professions are represented on these registers. Members of professions that supposedly promote morality e.g. clerics or teachers, are quite common on it yet conspicuously absent from such registers are men who have worked in the porn industry. <br /><br />This study (1) found no relationship between the frequency of x-rated film viewing and attitudes toward women or feminism. From the GSS (controlling for IQ, education, income, age, race and ideology) I found that those who are pro the legality of porn are less likely to support traditional female roles, more likely to be against preferential treatment of either gender, and to find woman’s rights issues more frequently salient. Although I found that women’s rights issues are less salient to male watchers, and female watchers are less likely to think women should work, I also found that watching porn is unrelated to negative attitudes toward women and feminism.<br /><br />In short exposure to and tolerance of pornography does not cause anti-social behavior (and may even reduce it in relation to sex) and does not get in the way of pro social behavior either. <br /><br />The sociological and religious charge that pornography undermines monogamy and family values does however receive support. From GSS (and controlling for IQ, education, income, age, race and ideology) I found that men who are pro legalizing porn are less likely to marry and are more pro cohabitation. There was no such association for women. A higher propensity to watch porn movies is also associated with a lesser likelihood of marrying but is unrelated to cohabitation attitudes - in both men and women. So a pro porn attitude is consistent with a reduced respect for marriage. <br /><br />Both genders also tend to have fewer kids in marriage, if they are pro the legalizing of porn. However, for men, a higher propensity to watch porn movies is associated with having MORE children within marriage. Note that pro legal porn attitudes and porn movie viewership is not associated with having children out of wedlock – for men its associated with a lower chance of that happening – so porn doesn’t lead to that kind of irresponsible behavior. <br /><br />Possibly part of this general pattern, I found that both being pro the legality of porn and watching porn are related to lower voting rates in general elections. <br /><br />I found no relationship to a variety of ‘family values’ type questions e.g. importance of family, or to the value of relationships and friendship.<br /><br />Being pro the legality of porn, and porn viewing, are associated with unhappiness with the family or marriage – especially for men. Those who are pro porn also tend to have a greater number of sexual partners and are more likely to have a sexual affair. This supports the 1984 and 1988 discoveries of Dolf Zillman and Jennings Bryant (4) that the effects of repeated exposure to standard, non-violent, commonly available pornography includes: increased callousness toward women; distorted perceptions about sexuality; devaluation of the importance of monogamy; decreased satisfaction with partner’s sexual performance, affection, and appearance; doubts about the value of marriage; and decreased desire to have children. Later research studies further confirm their findings.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Refutations</span><br /><br />I’ve already mentioned that exposure to porn doesn’t increase anti-social behavior or reduce pro-social behavior. However it does have a clear effect on satisfaction with relationship institutions and personal relationships. It can make a person think that what they have is poor in comparison. Naturally they’ll be unhappy if they think what they have is wrong, or can’t be improved upon. Some things can’t be improved upon, but in principle others can. I imagine it’s mostly those things possible in principle but unlikely in practice, that makes porn viewers especially unhappy. <br /><br />Typically at this point the therapist says “therefore stop watching porn and learn to be happy with what you have”. The assumption here is that the solution to unhappiness always lies in going back to the pre-shock situation. While this may sometimes be the best option it is not always and necessarily the best option. Sometimes embracing the shock will not only solve the unhappiness but raise the relationship to a new high. For example what if the other partner comes to the party and is willing to try some of the pornographic possibilities? There are some findings that viewing porn together as a couple can provide some shared excitement and adventure, and lead to a more closely bonded and satisfactory relationship. Isn’t that a better result than what the therapist had in mind? <br /><br />Suppose we divide people into 4 groups – don’t watch porn & think porn should be illegal to all, have watched or seen porn & think porn should be illegal to all, don’t watch porn but think it shouldn’t be illegal to all, and watch porn & think it shouldn’t be illegal to all. Suppose further that the men and women marry randomly with respect to those categories. <br /><br />There will be no marital happiness issue if both partners do not watch porn, or both have seen it and want it banned, or if one partner has seen porn but that partner wants it banned. Naturally there would also be no issue if both partners watched porn and both want it legalized. That would be an example of the high adventure marriage mentioned above. The other combinations will result in unhappiness. If one partner watches porn and wants it legal, while the other wants porn to be illegal to all, then the outcome is bound to be unhappy. Finally, if only one partner watches porn but both want it legalized then there is potential for the non-watching partner to join the party. Based on those assumptions I did some number crunching using the GSS data for married people.<br /><br />The marriages would distribute as follows<br /> - 70.8% ‘no problem low octane’<br /> - 14.3% ‘unhappy by reason of porn’<br /> - 12.6% ‘unhappy by reason of porn with potential to convert to the ‘no problem high octane’ sort.<br />- 2.3% ‘no problem high octane’<br /><br />Restricting things to those marriages where some sort of porn viewing is happening I get <br /> - 16% no problem low octane<br /> - 41% unhappy<br /> - 36% potentially happy<br /> - 7% happy high octane.<br /><br />In theory 26.9% of marriages (14.3% unhappy plus 12.6% potentially happy) could face unhappiness due to the effect of porn. The generally accepted solution of asking the porn watcher to make a sacrifice, and move toward accepting a low octane marriage, is fairly negative. When there is no potential for the other partner to join the party this is a neutral-lose situation. For an economist this is akin to supporting declining industries, which is not in the best long term interests of stakeholders or the overall economy. Chances are there is a fundamental mismatch of outlook within the marriage and both would be better off ending it and searching for a better match. Potential partners who share the porn watcher’s outlook do exist in numbers sufficient to make a high octane life a real possibility. It’s not clear why preserving a low octane marriage is necessarily better.<br /><br />When there is potential for the other partner to join the party the potential outcome is win-win but the standard solution is lose-lose. Attempting to convert the non-viewer is a better option. If that partner doesn’t prove to be open to joining the party then the situation changes to the former i.e. maybe it’s best to move on. <br /><br />The anti-porn perspective on this is that porn negatively influences 27% of marriages and positively influences 2.3% marriages – a ratio of 11.7 bad to good - so exposure to it must be denied. The perspective argued above says that porn improves or has the potential to improve 14.9% of marriages and make 14.3% of marriages unhappy – a ratio of 0.96 bad to good and that even the bad isn’t necessarily bad, if moving on to find greener grass is accepted as an option.<br /><br />The sociological and religious critique would say, correctly, that porn undermines the value of monogamy, marriage, children and a certain kind of staid vanilla sexuality. However they assume that these things are all indisputably good, or better than the alternatives. The Smart Vote (direction of difference between intelligent and stupid opinion) strongly contradicts that assumption. It says not getting married, cohabiting and having fewer children (both in and out of wedlock) are the smarter things to do. <br /><br />It’s also smarter to accept (if not practice) alternative sexuality e.g. homosexual sex, swinging, BDSM, impersonal recreational sex, general sexual permissiveness, etc - especially if one controls for confounding factors. <br /><br />As we shall see the Smart Vote is also pro porn being legally available.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Smart Vote and Pornography</span><br /><br />The General Social Survey has a number of questions on pornography. There are four questions on the effect of pornography – does pornography lead to rape, does it undermine morality, is it a useful source of sexual information, and is it an alternative sexual outlet? The GSS also asks whether pornography should be legal and whether the respondent had viewed an X-rated film during the previous year. I converted each of these to a common scale – a percentage between the most pro and most anti positions, with a higher number meaning more pro. <br /><br />Before looking at these questions I looked at the Smart Vote on how important pornography should be, how well informed one claims to be, and how firmly one should hold one’s opinions. I found that the more intelligent don’t think issues about pornography totally unimportant but they don’t think it much more important than that. They are well informed on issues on pornography but do not claim to know all they need to, and say that while they are unlikely to change their minds on any of the issues there is a chance they will. The least intelligent option is to regard pornography as one of the most important issues or completely unimportant, and be very unlikely to change one’s views, while being extremely uninformed about pornography. <br /><br />In the graph below I plot the mean scores on each of the main questions for each intelligence level.<br /><br />Intelligent opinion is that exposure to pornography doesn’t cause harm, at least in the form of rape or undermining morality. This is pretty much in line with the results of the studies mentioned above. On the other hand intelligent opinion is also very slightly against the view that porn has benefits in the form of useful information or being an alternative outlet. In light of the above it should be no surprise that intelligent opinion is in favor of porn being legal. The Smart Vote though is for porn being illegal for those younger than 18 rather than for it to be legal for everyone. Actually watching pornography appears to have no relationship to intelligence.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghGRYJT-81pZDkqco91yFrn82t8RxQ5FtVB-q5RNSFOFT7MnWLlgY8Ri-raKQIT5XOEIVCFAHCmlEZHNKHn2Z_DFA0MqNcltQLBfahSdA4fHH0564tuqdvWotB0rdqfhXhTEfCblu_Pa8/s1600/IQ+%2526+Porn.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghGRYJT-81pZDkqco91yFrn82t8RxQ5FtVB-q5RNSFOFT7MnWLlgY8Ri-raKQIT5XOEIVCFAHCmlEZHNKHn2Z_DFA0MqNcltQLBfahSdA4fHH0564tuqdvWotB0rdqfhXhTEfCblu_Pa8/s400/IQ+%2526+Porn.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5716183114942005122" /></a><br /> <br />It is possible however that there is no direct relationship and that these results could however be due to something else - like class, gender or age interests etc. To test this I ran multiple regressions on all these questions controlling for education, income, age and ideology separately for each gender – for whites only, to control for race too. Men are more positive about porn on every question than women.<br /><br />Among men, only ideology matters with respect to any possible benefits of pornography. Only liberals think it provides useful information or serves as an outlet. Among women, younger and less intelligent women are more likely to agree with liberals.<br /><br />The Smart Vote holds up strongly on pornography not causing harm – for both men and women – and younger, more educated, higher earning and more liberal people agree that pornography doesn’t cause rape. <br /><br />The patterns are the same on the issue of pornography not undermining morality and the opinion that porn should be legal. The Smart Vote holds up very strongly again. Younger and more liberal people are more likely to accept both. More educated men are more likely to accept them too but income is not significantly related. Higher earning women are more likely to agree but education levels are not significantly related.<br /> <br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRBt-t4m3rv-7M0MsIWjV4xluNATjaeTF6raO4BHzxUnKMkrZ7WGBd3JINQQjSxmlnKbECDaAcopYr822Oqzn9j82o10N5GP-d9f9ls7ZwghopEqcPo01Met6YzyR8-nbZY5uiqRIIaf4/s1600/Porn+Regressions.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRBt-t4m3rv-7M0MsIWjV4xluNATjaeTF6raO4BHzxUnKMkrZ7WGBd3JINQQjSxmlnKbECDaAcopYr822Oqzn9j82o10N5GP-d9f9ls7ZwghopEqcPo01Met6YzyR8-nbZY5uiqRIIaf4/s400/Porn+Regressions.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5716184226351545362" /></a><br /><br />The Smart Vote says pornography is not harmful (and probably not beneficial either) but it cannot tell us which particular choice about pornography consumption is best. Older, and more conservative, men and women are less likely to consume pornography. More educated and lower earning women are also less likely to view X-rated films. In contrast higher earning women with less education are more likely to view X-rated movies.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Conclusion</span><br /><br />The smart approach to pornography is to regard its consumption as a minor, largely harmless issue, and making it illegal for adults is stupid. The actual personal consumption of pornography is neither correct nor incorrect, in spite of its proven potential to change relationships. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">References</span><br /><br />1. Voluntary Exposure to Pornography and Men’s Attitudes Toward Feminism and Rape, Kimberley A Davies, The Journal of Sex Research, Vol 34 No 2, 1997, 131-137.<br />2. Pornography and rape: theory and practice? Evidence from crime data in four countries where pornography is easily available. Katchisky B. International Journal of Law Psychiatry, 1991: 14(1-2), 47-64.<br />3. The pleasure is momentary …. The expense damnable?: The influence of pornography on rape and sexual assault. Ferguson CJ, Hartley RD, Aggression and Violence Behavior 2009, 14(5): 323-329.<br />4. Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations by Jennings Bryant, Dolf Zillmann.Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-3501666396624437922012-02-20T06:56:00.001-08:002012-02-20T07:08:31.662-08:00Ethical and Political Philosophy<span style="font-weight:bold;">Introduction</span><br /><br />A while ago while reading Bryan Caplan’s blog EconLog, he alerted me to The Philpapers Surveys on philosophy. This survey asked some 3226 actual and potential philosophers their views on 30 philosophical questions. It also calculated correlations (for 931 philosophy professors) between the answers, and between the answers and their philosophical field and the philosophers they identified with. This is where I come in. I can’t resist the allure of a correlation, especially when applied to the results of serious thinking.<br /><br />I decided to focus on a few questions of particular interest to me. These deal with ethical theory and political philosophy. I only looked at the question on normative ethics and the question on political philosophy. The normative ethics question asked which of the three main schools of normative ethics - deontological, consequentialist or virtue ethics - the philosopher found most convincing or compelling. The political philosophy question asked which of three main political philosophies – communitarian, equalitarian or libertarian – the philosopher found most convincing or compelling. I figured that a person’s preference for any of these views will tend to hang together with, or be conditioned by, a host of other philosophical positions. If so, the results may shed some light on why the chosen ethic, or political philosophy, tended to be more convincing than the others. All I did was note how each choice correlated with other philosophical preferences and then I summarize the results into a somewhat simplified picture.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Choice of Ethical Philosophy and philosophical fellow travelers.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Deontology</span><br /><br />I’ll start with normative ethics. Deontological ethics is about adherence to rules or principles. It is a ‘duty’, ‘obligation’ or ‘rule’ based ethics. The 10 Commandments are an example. An action is right or wrong in and of itself, and not because of the outcome it may lead to. Deontology is a moral absolutism in the sense that an act is wholly right or wrong in this philosophy. For example, it remains wrong to lie even if the lie were to result in the avoidance of much suffering. The notion of ‘rights’, especially natural rights, is part of this ethical philosophy. <br /><br />Deontology has been criticized for failing to justify the authority of the rules, and because it is vulnerable to incoherence via contradictions and conflicts. <br /><br />I found that a preference for deontology tends to go with a philosophical idealism or anti-materialism – the notion that minds are not physical, that complete free will exists, that value statements in general have a ‘truth’ value e.g. aesthetics is objective, and that the truth is ‘out there’ in a sort of world of PlatonicForms that can be accessed through pure reason or in the form of a priori knowledge. Empirical work is unnecessary as knowledge is directly available through pure thought. There is a greater tendency toward theism in those who chose this form of ethical philosophy. A good example of this outlook is their tendency to believe that zombies are metaphysically possible.<br /><br />Deontologists tended to avoid philosophical fields that have a materialist bent e.g. philosophy of science, or probabilistic decision making e.g. decision theory, and had a greater tendency to focus on fields where rules could be prescribed e.g. political philosophy, philosophy of law, normative ethics, and philosophy of religion. They don’t however favor any particular political philosophy.<br /><br />The appeal of rules of behavior that have pretensions toward absolute truth and authority, seems to be grounded in a more general tendency to believe in the reality of abstractions, and to consider these to be above mere the material. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Consequentialism</span><br /><br />Consequentialism is the view that the ultimate basis for any judgment of the rightness of an act is the consequences of the act. If the consequences are good then the act is moral. Morality in this view is not absolute but proportional to the good done or harm avoided. One of the better known consequentialist views is utilitarianism, where the aim of ethics is the greatest happiness for the greatest number. <br /><br />It seems intuitively obvious that behavior that makes lives better is praiseworthy but consequentialism has been criticized. It is said to permit the unfair imposition of a cost on people who have done no wrong, if the overall consequences are thereby increased. The problem of measuring goodness of outcome has always plagued consequentialism. It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to find a common scale, and even there was one it’s very difficult to rule out contrary long term consequences. It has also been argued that consequentialism is too demanding intellectually and that it requires an attitude to be so impersonal as to be alienating.<br /><br />Unsurprisingly, given that deontology and consequentialism are often contrasted, I found that favoring this form of normative ethic tends to be related to favoring a naturalistic view of the world, and a physical view of the mind. The will is not seen as completely free (if at all) but subject to material causes and effects. Consequentialists tend to believe that the contents of the mind are ‘pictures in the head’ and de-emphasize the ‘feel’ of mental experience. They tend to believe that although zombies are conceivable, they are metaphysically impossible. They are also more likely to be atheists. To them psychological continuity determines whether someone is the same person over time.<br /><br />Consequentialists deny that values can have a ‘truth’ value, or that any a priori knowledge is possible. Naturally they are more inclined to see the need for empirical evidence and have less faith in arm chair rationalism, than deontologists. They are less likely to be worry about ‘how do you know that’ questions and to focus on the fit between belief and the real world. <br /><br />Consequentialists tend to favor philosophical fields that have a materialist bent, or involve some kind of optimization problem e.g. decision theory, and they avoid conservative philosophical fields. Politically they tend to favor egalitarianism and reject communitarianism.<br /><br />A preference for consequentialism seems to be part of a general tendency to believe in material cause and effect, and disbelieve in the reality of abstractions. With such a world view the calculus of material harm or welfare may seem to be the only meaningful option.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Virtue Ethics</span><br /><br />Here the driving force of morality is not adherence to absolute principles, or the outcome (benefit or harm) of the conduct, but what it implies about the character of the person – the virtues or vices developed by the person. For example, saints are deemed especially moral individuals on the basis of their extreme exemplification of the four cardinal virtues of wisdom, justice/fairness, courage/fortitude and temperance/moderation, and the three religious virtues faith, hope and charity/love. Purity is another popular virtue. Some Buddhist virtues are compassion and discipline. Badness, on the other hand, is seen as the possession of certain vices e.g. wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony. <br /><br />This approach has been criticized because there is cross cultural and historical disagreement on what the virtues and vices are, and because the approach often doesn’t tell one what to do in any specific situations. For example, murder isn’t condemned as wrong. Rather the murderer is seen as lacking compassion or fairness. For Nietzsche however, this relativism and lack of focus on the act per se, are things to be sought rather than avoided.<br /><br />I found that philosophers who favored virtue ethics tended to believe that the mind isn’t physical, emphasize the ‘feel’ of mental experience and don’t think mental experience is necessarily connected to sensory data, but they do think mental content is partly determined by outside influences. They also tend to believe in a completely free will.<br /><br />Virtue ethicists tend to think knowledge or truth depends to some extent on context or perspective. They think of truth in terms of ‘how do you know that’ and have doubts about how much one can really know.<br /><br />They tend to believe that whether a person remains the same person depends on more than psychological or bodily continuity, and in particular deny that psychological continuity is decisive.<br /><br />Virtue ethicists are more likely to be theists and to focus on religious and political philosophy, particularly Ancient Greek or Medieval philosophy. They are less likely to be involved in science or critical approaches to ethics. Politically they tend to favor the communitarian perspective and reject the egalitarian perspective.<br /><br />Virtue ethicists lack the deontologist’s belief in the reality of abstractions, see more organic connections around them, and look toward a personal, traditional and community based approach rather than to cold impersonal principle or brute scientific law.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Choice of Political Philosophy and philosophical fellow travelers.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Egalitarianism</span><br /><br />Egalitarianism is a school of thought that favors some kind of equality between people (or even living things). The basic presumption is that people have the same fundamental worth e.g. in the eyes of God, or because we all have the same quality of being rational and therefore should be given the same consideration and respect. Politically this implies being treated as equals and having the same political, social, economic and civil rights. Social equalitarianism stresses greater equality of economic outcomes and/or political power – preferring decentralized power.<br /><br />The basic presumption of equal worth has been questioned. For much of human history this presumption has been denied and even today people don’t really act as though they believe it. If an average egalitarian had to decide between whether a film star or a random working class stranger got a kidney, most wouldn’t be willing to make the decision by tossing a coin. Another criticism is that it is often anti-meritocratic.<br /><br />I found that egalitarians tended to view the mind in physical terms and consider the will to have limited freedom from cause and effect. They de-emphasize the ‘feel’ of mental experience and emphasize the ‘picture in the head’ view. They believe psychological continuity determines whether someone remains the same person over time.<br /><br />Egalitarians tend to believe that truth doesn’t depend much on context or perspective. They don’t think truth applies to moral statements. Although much religion is in principle egalitarian, in practice egalitarians are more likely than non-egalitarians to be atheists. Ethically, egalitarians think personal character is unimportant but good outcomes are important.<br /><br />As philosophers they tend toward normative ethics and political and legal philosophy, and avoid philosophical history and religious philosophy. <br /><br />It’s not at all clear from their other philosophical beliefs why egalitarians favor equality. Insofar as egalitarianism is part of progressivism the picture makes more sense. They are more likely than non-egalitarians to be secular humanists that stress material welfare.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Libertarianism</span><br /><br />Libertarianism is a group of philosophies that stress freedom, individual liberty and voluntary association. It generally favors limited to zero government. Some forms of libertarianism regard property rights as the basis of liberty (and favor capitalism), and other regard property as a threat to liberty (and favor socialism).<br /><br />Libertarianism has been criticized for championing individual liberty to the exclusion of all other values and hold that it should never be sacrificed in the pursuit of other values and causes. Compassion, justice, civic responsibility, honesty, decency, humility, respect, and even survival of the poor, weak, and vulnerable - all are to take a back seat. Sometimes this bias leads to extreme positions e.g. the moral value of saving the lives of a multitude of poor people simply does not register when compared with minor infractions against the liberty of a rich person.<br /><br />As befitting the origin of the term I found that libertarianism is strongly associated with a believe in free-will libertarianism i.e. the idea that free will is incompatible with determinism, and that since we have free will determinism is false. It endorses the notion that mental experience is fairly independent of external influence. The ‘feel’ of mental experience is emphasized and the ‘picture in the head’ view de-emphasized.<br /><br />Libertarianism tends to go with the view that there is no necessary connection between moral convictions and moral motives.<br /><br />As philosophers they prefer the hard sciences, and stay away from the philosophy of life or social issues. They also seem to favor religious philosophy or metaphysics and are more inclined than non-libertarian philosophers to be theists. Naturally they identify more with philosophers with an individualist focus and those that hold that the world we have is the best possible world. They disavow philosophers who wanted to apply the same rules to all, or argue for some kind of collectivism.<br /><br />It seems that libertarian philosophers are very struck by the feeling that their thinking and choices are self-determined, and they obviously want to extend this liberty into the practice of their lives. If our minds are so free to make choices then it’s entirely appropriate to expect people to decide their life courses themselves, and to respect their choices.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Communitarianism</span><br /><br />Communitarianism is an ideology that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. In their view ideologies are incoherent if they see communities as being voluntarily chosen by ‘pre-community’ individuals. Instead they emphasize the role of the community in forming and shaping individuals, and they believe this community role is insufficiently recognized in liberal (or individualist) theories of justice. Politically communitarians tend to be leftist on economic issues and conservative on social issues. In this sense they are the opposite of libertarians who believe in property.<br /><br />Communitarianism has been criticized for leading to moral relativism, for being too defensive of the status quo (which may include many unsavory practices e.g. 2nd class status for women), for standing in the way of progress, and for considering the community or the state as foundational. It has also been accused of being authoritarian and promoting prejudice.<br /><br />I found that philosophers who favored communitarianism tended to be similar to libertarians in having a strong belief in free-will libertarianism, and stressing the independence of mental life from outside causation and the ‘feel’ of mental experience. <br /><br />They differed in having a more non-naturalist or non-physical perception of life. They tended to believe in the reality of abstractions and the truth value of moral statements. They believed that it required more than psychological and biological continuity to determine if a person was the same person over time.<br /><br />Communitarians tended to be theists and are more likely to be attracted to religious or ancient philosophy, as well as philosophical history. They tended to avoid fields such as normative ethics or political philosophy.<br /><br />Finally, they prefer a virtue ethics perspective and reject consequentialism.<br /><br />Communitarian philosophers tend to believe in the reality and authority of some non-material, or non-natural, realm, and they seem to venerate the wisdom of the past and the building of character.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Conclusion.</span><br /><br />Philosophers are generally not fools. Philosophy is close to having the brightest practitioners among all the intellectually demanding professions. Furthermore philosophers comprehensively pick apart the grounding and implications of any view, and have spent years, if not decades, doing so. Chances are they really do understand the strengths and weaknesses of their views.<br /><br />What does all this tell us about the relative virtues of different political ideologies? Not much really. A lot of questions were not asked e.g. existentialism, pragmatism, and those that were asked were too vague. They could have distinguished between left or right libertarianism, egalitarian communist or equal opportunity and rights liberal, etc. Still the questions and correlations do shed a little light on the reasons why these ideologies are compelling to those who adopt them, but not to those who don’t.<br /><br />We can say that a strong secular materialist world view predisposes you toward an egalitarian/progressive political ideology and a consequentialist moral outlook, simply because material cause and effect is more salient and meaningful. <br /><br />We can say that those who have a rather strong belief in free-will will be predisposed toward either a libertarian or communitarian/conservative political ideology, depending on how idealist or non-materialist they are. The more they lean toward materialism the more libertarian they tend to be. Since there tends to be a negative relationship between belief in free-will and a materialist outlook, one would suspect that libertarians have an almost supernatural belief in free-will. <br /><br />A hypothesis occurs to me. It seems to me that the social liberal-conservative dimension lines up with a materialist-idealist dimension, and that the economic liberal-conservative dimension lines up with the degree to which free-will is believed in. So I’m thinking liberals/socialists will be high materialism low free-will believers, libertarians high materialism high free-will believers, conservatives low materialism high free-will believers, and true populists/communitarians low materialism low free-will believers. <br /><br />Scientists are more likely to be in the high materialist low free-will quadrant. A Pew survey of scientists found that Democrats/liberals are highly over-represented and Republican/conservatives highly under-representative among them. <br /><br />One would expect someone in the low materialism low free-will quadrant to believe that supernatural agencies play an active determinative role in everyday life. I think there is plenty of evidence that true populists/communitarians are among the most religious in a literal fundamentalist sense. <br /><br />Libertarians I know (and have read about) do seem to maintain beliefs in both materialism and a strong form of free-will. <br /><br />The conservative combination of belief in personal responsibility and less welfare in the economic realm with a less permissive attitude to social questions, would seem to match a belief in a will free enough to rise above circumstances while at the same time believing in the existence of a moral rules that go beyond mere material welfare.<br /><br />Deontologists seem to be the moralizers across all ideological camps. <br /><br />I suspect much of these belief patterns reflect one’s basic personality and temperament. Professional philosophers are by no means immune to this influence. Ben-Ami Sharfstein’s book The Philosophers details the close connection between the personal demons of various famous philosophers, and the philosophy they developed. It’s as though each philosopher’s philosophy was painted in such a way as to harmonize their own personal psychological dynamics and their relationship to how the world is. Each philosophy is an attempted solution to a personal problem. So to some extent you need to share that problem before the philosophy is likely gel with you.<br /><br />It remains to be seen whether problem type is basically genetic, or whether they arise because of some childhood family dynamics and the like. If the latter it will be interesting to describe the etiology of the core problem leading to various political ideologies. On the other hand heritability estimates of the left-right dimension are fairly high, so genetically based temperament probably plays a fairly strong role. We will always have representatives of the full spectrum of ideologies, although the balance might change if certain camps start out breeding others. Right now conservatives/communitarians are out breeding liberals/libertarians. <br /><br />It may seem like the world would be a better place if everyone had the same ideology, but I think that would be a mistake because each ideology acts in part as a corrective to the excesses of the others. For example, without some conservative to slow them down progressives may push change to absurd lengths – think grand social engineering, like communism. If there were no progressive to drive change a society of conservatives may never develop at all.<br /><br />In the future I hope to explore what intelligence would have to say about all this. I can tell you that the Smart Vote <a href="http://garthzietsman.blogspot.com/2011/10/smart-vote-concept.html"></a>is decidedly in favor of social liberalism and moderately in favor of economic free markets (see for example my post on economic freedom <a href="http://garthzietsman.blogspot.com/2011/12/economic-habits-of-intelligent.html"></a>.) I don’t know what ethical philosophy will be seen as most in line with differences in intelligence.Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-70701385202087217702012-01-31T05:25:00.000-08:002012-01-31T05:43:33.586-08:00Thinking about Extramarital Sex<span style="font-weight:bold;">Introduction</span><br /><br />Extramarital affairs are fairly common. Estimates are that by the age of 60 somewhere between 50-60% of men and 40-50% of women will have had at least one incident of extramarital sex.<br /><br />Affairs are generally very intense and passionate and sometimes loving but tend to end painfully in an average of 2 years. However both men and women who have had affairs consider it a good experience. Some affairs evolve into intimate friendships, and those that do can last a lifetime.<br /><br />A major motive for having an affair is dissatisfaction with one’s marriage. In fact many who have affairs claim that it helps their marriage, but the evidence is that affairs do not stabilize marriages. The desire for a new mate may be compelling and seemingly irresistible but having an affair is very risky because a fairly high percentage of divorces are the direct result of infidelity. <br /><br />Slightly less than 15% of couples are currently in marriages where they agree that it is acceptable to pursue sex outside their marriage however most partners deceive their spouse rather than negotiate an open marriage. Furthermore open marriage is not a successful means of preventing divorce. More than half of all open marriages end in divorce. <br /><br />Another option is swinging. In swinging both partners in a committed relationship agree, as a couple, for both partners to engage in sexual activities with other couples as a recreational or social activity. It provides sexual variety, adventure, the opportunity to live out fantasies as a couple without secrecy and deceit, and the possibility of reconnecting physically and emotionally. About 5% of married couples have been engaged in swinging at some time. Active swingers tend to be happier with their sex life, marriages and life in general than non-swingers, and women were just as happy with the arrangement as men. However when swinging works it’s because the marriage was solid and happy to begin with. Swinging too is not a solution to a bad marriage.<br /><br />So there are reasons to have extramarital sex and reasons not to have it, and large proportions of the adult population find themselves on either side of the divide. The question I want to deal with in this post is whether having extramarital sex is a smart or foolhardy thing to do.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Attitudes and morality</span><br /><br />Let’s start with attitudes toward the acceptability of extramarital sex. Although the practice is very common, social norms in virtually every society are opposed to the open and flagrant practice of it. In the table entitled ‘Smart Vote Score’ the first 4 rows tell the tale of the acceptance of extramarital sex. Opinion differs strongly and systematically along IQ lines. Smart opinion fairly decisively rejects (and stupid opinion accepts) the notion that extramarital sex can never be OK. On the other hand this trend doesn’t imply that extramarital sex is generally OK either. The biggest ratio of smart to dull opinion was found on the “Extramarital Sex is Almost Always Wrong” option, and the next highest ratio on the “Sometimes Wrong” option. So while the bright are much more likely than the dull to think there are circumstances where extramarital sex is not immoral or a mistake, they are also more likely to think these circumstances are fairly unusual and rare. (Bright means an IQ over 116 and dull an IQ below 88.)<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9awBCRH2Rr2jvryADiOpXftEzM5DvUxOv9-cHa0ShoP6d5Px18Q9dO505lE1ac0Qjvg-T7XZz7memjqA5-vKfR_vRRZ7jyURVjg9VevuRierdEWzrEI1JFFPRalt96wn5my6ZWHdATH0/s1600/Extramarital+Smart+Vote.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9awBCRH2Rr2jvryADiOpXftEzM5DvUxOv9-cHa0ShoP6d5Px18Q9dO505lE1ac0Qjvg-T7XZz7memjqA5-vKfR_vRRZ7jyURVjg9VevuRierdEWzrEI1JFFPRalt96wn5my6ZWHdATH0/s400/Extramarital+Smart+Vote.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5703788286441179826" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Moral philosophy agrees with the conclusion of the Smart Vote perfectly. It concludes that an affair is wrong most of the time but that there are exceptions<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span>. There are three basic approaches to morality – utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics. Justifications for affairs can be made in all three approaches. Utilitarianism says having an affair is wrong because it can hurt your spouse (as well as children, other family, friends and co-workers). On the other hand maybe you believe you and your affair partner stand to gain more than the sum of all the hurt, or that by not having an affair you (and your paramour) will suffer more than everyone else will gain in happiness. Maybe the person figures that even if it does create a net hurt in the short term in the long term things will be better for everyone. This approach is very demanding with respect to the foresight it requires, so even though it concludes exceptions are sometimes justified it also concludes that the odds are against a good outcome.<br /><br />Deontology says affairs aren’t wrong because of consequences but because it involves violating important principles – like the duty to keep a promise, tell the truth or respect your spouse, or it violates the other’s right to fidelity, respect and the truth. However, most deontologists place conditions on duties and rights, e.g. ‘thou shalt not kill <span style="font-weight:bold;">unless<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span> your own life is at risk’. A deontological condition for fidelity would be things like a spouse not neglecting their duty to see to your emotional needs. This approach requires less in the way of insight than utilitarianism because it refers to clear conditions around your rights and duties rather than guessing how a multitude of people will feel.<br /><br />Virtue ethics says affairs should be avoided because they would smear those qualities that make you a good person – or character - even if only in your own eyes. Being honest, kind or wise are obvious examples of virtues one should strive to have to be a good person. Some that are outstanding with respect to certain virtues are deemed so good they are declared saints. Fidelity is generally seen as one of the virtues one should have to be a good person. Nonetheless sometimes virtues clash. For example one can be honest to the point of telling unkind truths that hurt, in which case you are failing to be kind, and perhaps failing to be wise too. Virtue ethicists such as Aristotle therefore argued that one not take any virtue to the extreme but try to find some balance or practice moderation. Goethe too preached balance. With respect to affairs there will be some circumstances where remaining faithful would not be virtuous e.g. where denying your own wellbeing is unwise and dishonest to yourself. <br /><br />The justifications of moral philosophy aside, research suggests that one of the biggest contributing factors to affairs is simply opportunity. So those with greater means of controlling their time, and meeting people, are more likely to have affairs. In fact, the greater independence of men almost fully explains why they are more likely to have affairs. When the opportunity is the same, women have affairs as readily as men. That’s why it’s important to control for social class and income, along with marital happiness. The results of a multiple linear regression on attitude to extramarital sex (controlling for important confounding factors) can be seen in the table below entitled ‘Extramarital sex is not wrong’. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOMvV2c5vyR1FTQ6Oc4YJVsSp7RcwiS7lKa16kw6RkabU6f3fInsKrAU52lV1498gE8HnCyX4VAg5D93H5Lf1YVUixC9qbAzHz7by2Kxpuntze4NBA2wBF0A3_VksQLhxv_Q4Gr7vaPPc/s1600/Extramarital+Attitude.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOMvV2c5vyR1FTQ6Oc4YJVsSp7RcwiS7lKa16kw6RkabU6f3fInsKrAU52lV1498gE8HnCyX4VAg5D93H5Lf1YVUixC9qbAzHz7by2Kxpuntze4NBA2wBF0A3_VksQLhxv_Q4Gr7vaPPc/s400/Extramarital+Attitude.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5703789411850288946" /></a> <br /><br />As expected, higher social class is associated with greater acceptance of extramarital sex (especially for men), and being older and more conservative with being less accepting of it. Unsurprisingly, marital unhappiness is clearly a major factor in accepting extramarital sex. There is also a trend toward less tolerance for affairs in more recent years. Nonetheless, even when all these risk factors are controlled, intelligence remains associated with accepting extramarital sex (at a very high level of significance for both sexes).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Behavior</span><br /><br />Attitudes are one thing but actually engaging in extramarital sex is another. The 5th and 6th rows of the table above, entitled ‘Smart Vote Score’, show the ratio of smart to dull people who have actually had affairs, or haven’t had them, by gender. Bright men are 30% more likely to have affairs than dull men. Bright women are 50% more likely than dull women to have an affair. Alternatively bright men are 80% as likely as dull men to remain sexually faithful to their spouse. Bright women are only 75% as likely as dull women to remain faithful. (Bright means an IQ over 116 and dull an IQ below 88.)<br /><br />The table entitled ‘Have had extramarital sex’ below shows the results of a logistic regression on having an affair with a number of risk factors controlled.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnToDiBVdv7gEDybZsnLnYmRw9_GMyAC36Y9Ymg9eF6vACX8IuwgWW59SNEVf0mS0c3n6eckqC6ZElXcgwDmfzyATKAwUCVdBRQBM51ysk4USdJfRaJ0_t_RGEEqCd8PClQ5QnNQECvNI/s1600/Extramarital+Affair.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnToDiBVdv7gEDybZsnLnYmRw9_GMyAC36Y9Ymg9eF6vACX8IuwgWW59SNEVf0mS0c3n6eckqC6ZElXcgwDmfzyATKAwUCVdBRQBM51ysk4USdJfRaJ0_t_RGEEqCd8PClQ5QnNQECvNI/s400/Extramarital+Affair.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5703789883765650818" /></a> <br /><br />Unexpectedly, unlike with attitudes, social class doesn’t seem to play a role in actually having an affair. For men there is a similar trend toward less infidelity in recent years. Conservative men are also less likely to have affairs. There is a trend toward older men being more likely to have had an affair, no doubt because they had far more time. Again, as expected, marital unhappiness is associated with having affairs. Strangely age, ideology and the fashion of the day don’t have any significant effect on female infidelity. Still higher intelligence increases the odds of an affair even when all these risk factors are controlled. This result suggests that <span style="font-weight:bold;">intelligent opinion leans toward the benefits of infidelity often outweighing the risks or costs<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Combining behavior and attitudes</span>.<br /><br />Interesting things happen when one combines attitude and behavior. I call those who both accept that extramarital sex is sometimes justified, and have had extramarital sex, ‘swingers’. Those who ethically accept that extramarital sex can be justified but haven’t been unfaithful I call ‘open’. Those who think extramarital sex is wrong but have had an affair anyway, I call ‘cheaters’. Finally those who consider infidelity to be wrong and have been faithful I call ‘traditional’. Rows 7-10 in the table above entitled ‘Smart Vote Scores’ show that brighter people support all options other than ‘traditional’ in greater proportions than do dull people. Nonetheless the ratio of smart to dull support for ‘cheating’ is close to equal. The Smart Vote is thus not for ‘cheating’ but goes to the ‘open’ group for men (although the ‘swinger’ group is pretty much the same) and strongly for the ‘swinger’ group for women.<br /><br />The table entitled ‘Attitude and Behavioral Interactions on Extramarital Sex’ below shows the results of a multiple linear regression on the combination variable (scored as shown below the title) with the usual risk factors controlled. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY2JtCLpfq0LOYsP87AYe67_OV2GcbHtFbfXWTz9HISSiHKZxdQJhwgVnUmN6I8VKYBTtPa-cbG8m18WOjB8pjZKq9Q8jhoE3R6mLmcHw8Ml81YaeVujTT4cIa4j88OgoZU3by-hHKA8Y/s1600/Traditional+to+Swinging.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY2JtCLpfq0LOYsP87AYe67_OV2GcbHtFbfXWTz9HISSiHKZxdQJhwgVnUmN6I8VKYBTtPa-cbG8m18WOjB8pjZKq9Q8jhoE3R6mLmcHw8Ml81YaeVujTT4cIa4j88OgoZU3by-hHKA8Y/s400/Traditional+to+Swinging.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5703790459350614162" /></a><br /><br />For women being liberal and unhappily married move her from ‘traditional’ toward ‘swinger’. Other factors do not appear to matter much. For men, extra time to have an affair and the status of higher education also make the move more likely. The effect of higher intelligence still matters for men even after controlling for the risk factors (and comes close to significance for women). There is however some noise in this combination variable. <br /><br />The graph below looks at the extreme groups – ‘swingers’ and ‘traditional’ (or rather ‘not traditional’). The chance of a person rejecting strict fidelity, in attitude, behavior or both – ‘not traditional’ - climbs from about 1/3rd for low IQs to around ½ for high IQs. The effect is slightly stronger for men. The chance of accepting both attitude and behavioral violations of marital sexual fidelity – ‘swinger’ - rises from 16% in low IQ men to just over 40% for very bright men. For women the change is even more marked – from 7% to 46%.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5frOWGlF-g6pRF7-UBJ8tJBI5QXnOYnaA2iWRDLUGBmcJQbmMty8W57TbXC7Gbbcpv_pKUa4tjhM7MBrxzsNCKIB3jSMeLG02_yb3E7ySaoiJt1jbky7JqQK-uacqnDEJoFyQPiLRXJ0/s1600/Extramarital+Graph.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5frOWGlF-g6pRF7-UBJ8tJBI5QXnOYnaA2iWRDLUGBmcJQbmMty8W57TbXC7Gbbcpv_pKUa4tjhM7MBrxzsNCKIB3jSMeLG02_yb3E7ySaoiJt1jbky7JqQK-uacqnDEJoFyQPiLRXJ0/s400/Extramarital+Graph.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5703790835052133554" /></a> <br /><br />Many years ago I conducted some research relating a variety of personality scales to sexual attitudes and behavior in women. One of the personality scales was the California Psychological Inventory, which includes a scale called Intellectual Efficiency. This is a scale made up of personality items and interests that correlate highly with IQ. The total of this scale is so highly correlated to IQ that it can serve as a rough IQ test. I found that this scale correlated very highly with many sex related items – particularly those concerned with sexual permissiveness, and impersonal sex (or sex as recreation) such as swinging, sexual attraction toward women, group sex or orgies. Smarter women were very much more accepting of these activities. Alternatively, those who were accepting of these activities were much smarter than those who weren’t. They start expressing positive attitudes toward and admitting to taking part in some of these activities, when their IQs exceed around 130.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Summary</span><br /><br />It appears that <span style="font-weight:bold;">it’s silly to demand or expect strict sexual fidelity in marriage at all costs<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span>. It is often the sensible thing to do if trapped in an unhappy marriage, and not because it will help to preserve the marriage but because the marriage is probably not worth preserving. Also within happy and stable marriages swinging apparently adds spice to life without threatening, and usually enhancing, the relationship. <span style="font-weight:bold;">The fact that the Smart Vote is for extramarital sex, implies that too much stress is being put on the costs, and too little on the benefits, of sexual relationships outside of marriage. Still, it is also silly to undertake sexual infidelity thoughtlessly. Most of the time, extramarital sex really is the wrong thing to do.<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span> Perhaps those who would struggle to think through the issues should avail themselves of help. My results suggest that anyone who isn’t smart enough to get through university should ask for wise independent council to help them think the issues through before embarking on extramarital sex.Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-296566702851162122012-01-13T07:36:00.000-08:002012-01-13T07:53:12.584-08:00Dear GodBy chance I came across some articles and debates involving the late Christopher Hitchens on the question of the existence of God, and the reasonableness of religion. Hitchens was vehemently anti religion but many of his pro religion opponents were very able and erudite people. There is no doubt the existence of God is a very controversial question with a great deal at stake. Those who believe invest a great deal of time and resources into their faith. If they are wrong they face the realization that this has been an enormous waste of the limited time they have and will look ridiculous for having an imaginary friend. If they are wrong then if they had put their weight behind secular humanism mankind would be far better off than it is today. If they are right however those who don’t believe may face a much graver fate and may be missing out on a more meaningful life now.<br /><br />In the US 60% of the adult population are certain of God’s existence. On the other hand atheists are becoming a lot more aggressive and vocal. The divide is being expressed in the struggle over the teaching of evolution or intelligent design at schools. Muslim medical students in the UK recently walked out of class in protest of evolutionary approach taken in the course. I have heard both prominent atheists and a Christian bishop claim, with equal arrogant certainty that the other side privately knows that God doesn’t or does exist. The truth is so obvious to either side that they literally can’t comprehend that someone could genuinely hold a different view. Intellectual argument seems to have very little influence either way. This is one of those issues where there aren’t an infinity of possible answers where you never know if you are right. In this case there are only two options – God exists or does not exist – and one of them has to be right. So which camp is right?<br /><br />Although the two camps don’t seem to respond to reasoned argument the Smart Vote is still perfect for this sort of question. People usually don’t form opinions on the basis of a carefully reasoned argument but instead use arguments to justify their choice after the fact – explaining why those who have already formed opinions don’t change them in response to the other side’s rationalizations. Intelligence is not however irrelevant to the forming of unreasoned opinions. The smart tend to be more correct even when they can’t tell you why they believe something. So if opinion differs systematically along IQ lines, and it cannot be accounted for by vested interest in the answer, then the option preferred more often by the more intelligent is extremely likely to be the correct option. <br /><br />Let’s look at what the Smart Vote says about the existence of God. The General Social Survey asks several questions that are relevant to this issue. The first asks about the person’s confidence in the existence of God. Several alternatives were allowed.<br />1. Confident that God does not exist<br />2. It is not possible to know whether God exists or not<br />3. Does not believe in God but believes in some higher power.<br />4. Basically doesn’t believe in the existence of God but sometimes doubts.<br />5. Basically believes in the existence of God but sometimes has doubts.<br />6. Is very confident, if not certain, that God does exist.<br /><br />I used those responses to form a scale of the degree of confidence in God’s existence. 0 would mean that everyone picked option 1 and 100 that everyone picked option 6. 80 means that the sample has settled on option 5 and 60 that they settled on option 4 etc. Below is graph of the scale over time.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr-x7SJqmcYFungywoyw1q6Nzkrwn-oQtp2nt5fhQWTDTx0lr_y82y9fr_hYOXBjL-S37B7Vrk2B7oBqT6sOReuQMlYOI3xOT5NF0SCV2d_6Q8gm8P3yQQNS5ff5Sy8r8_2chFmLyLQNM/s1600/God+scale.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr-x7SJqmcYFungywoyw1q6Nzkrwn-oQtp2nt5fhQWTDTx0lr_y82y9fr_hYOXBjL-S37B7Vrk2B7oBqT6sOReuQMlYOI3xOT5NF0SCV2d_6Q8gm8P3yQQNS5ff5Sy8r8_2chFmLyLQNM/s400/God+scale.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697144909531220978" /></a><br /> <br />There is a very mild trend toward greater disbelief over time. Below an IQ of 116 there are systematic differences but these are modest. Those who have an IQ above 116 however are considerably and consistently less confident that God exists. While the rest basically believe in God, but have the occasional doubt, the bright tend to hover between belief and disbelief, with a fair amount of doubt either way. Nevertheless it looks like the direction of intelligent opinion, the Smart Vote, points squarely away from theism. I did a linear regression so that I could control for a few possible confounding variables. The results can be seen in the left column in the table below.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxPNF6-3xoIczJyP0Ka9-WYkyLBEmDuCme4tyOiJV9mIHHtFypb-iauG5FcIJI7P5yNii4s67mehWlVSUREbMCkToxl94__GEHNLtw7J3RGVbhvJNajcmtisMmjOzLteolkMy06x8UOGk/s1600/God+regression.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxPNF6-3xoIczJyP0Ka9-WYkyLBEmDuCme4tyOiJV9mIHHtFypb-iauG5FcIJI7P5yNii4s67mehWlVSUREbMCkToxl94__GEHNLtw7J3RGVbhvJNajcmtisMmjOzLteolkMy06x8UOGk/s400/God+regression.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697142214060677954" /></a><br /><br />Women, those who are older or more conservative are more likely to believe that God exists, while those with more education and who are more intelligent are less likely to believe. The association between IQ and non-theism holds up when these variables are controlled. So the Smart Vote is for atheism then. Actually it isn’t.<br /><br />When I calculated the Smart Vote for each of the alternatives allowed in the General Social Survey question I found the following.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyk9zScumr4BMVJVnzNmu_hLXHlzbiIXwc2BTGQFCbURXTbpDF2YMr1ex6ruVdcl-stH2MfQ-_HktJTMu6XMoKGfqcG_Xlmq8SFJELr3Z4DS2rvUF0vY_X4NV3wWxZKvV-Q65hNYzOK2s/s1600/God+SV.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyk9zScumr4BMVJVnzNmu_hLXHlzbiIXwc2BTGQFCbURXTbpDF2YMr1ex6ruVdcl-stH2MfQ-_HktJTMu6XMoKGfqcG_Xlmq8SFJELr3Z4DS2rvUF0vY_X4NV3wWxZKvV-Q65hNYzOK2s/s400/God+SV.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697143511304888050" /></a><br /><br />A value above 100 implies that the intelligent favor the alternative more than do the unintelligent and a value of less than 100 implies the opposite. One can see that <span style="font-weight:bold;">while the Stupid Vote is for Belief in God the Smart Vote is for Agnosticism</span> – the view that the existence or non-existence of God cannot be established either way – and not Atheism (the conviction that God does not exist). In fact in the earlier period Atheism wasn’t even the second most intelligent choice, Belief in a Higher Power was. There has however been a shift toward the more disbelieving alternatives being smarter over time. For example the Smart Vote on Atheism increased from 121 to 131, and for Sometimes Believes it increased from 85 to 117. At the same time the Smart Vote dropped from 166 to 120 for Belief in a Higher Power and from 114 to 106 for Sometimes Doubt. <br /><br />Another way of looking at the question is by seeing who changes their mind. The General Social Survey had some information on that too. Firstly they asked directly about changes of belief in God and allowed four choices.<br /><br />1. Don’t believe in God and never did (Smart Vote 178).<br />2. Don’t believe in God but used to (Smart Vote 241).<br />3. Believe in God now but didn’t before (Smart Vote 122).<br />4. Believe in God and always did (Smart Vote 66).<br /><br />Firstly, whether one ends up a believer or a non-believer, it is smarter to have started from the opposite view. <br /><br />Secondly, for those that didn’t change their mind about God, non-belief is smarter than belief.<br /><br />Thirdly, for those who did change their minds, going from a belief to non-belief is smarter than going from non-belief to belief.<br /><br />Fourthly, if one started with non-belief, it is smarter to stay there than become a believer.<br /><br />Finally, if one started as a believer then it is far smarter to lose the belief than keep it.<br /><br />In short, <span style="font-weight:bold;">everything points towards the intelligence of changing from believing in God to not believing in God, and that whatever one believes, having to change one’s view to get there takes more intelligence than staying in one’s comfort zone</span>.<br /><br />A final way the General Social Survey allows us to look at the question is via shifts among those that believe in God i.e. between fundamentalist, moderate and liberal religious beliefs from what they were at 16 to what they became as an adult. The right hand column of the regression table above shows the results of a regression on the degree of change from fundamentalist to liberal. The scale went from -2 for a change from liberal to fundamentalist to +2 for change from fundamentalist to liberal. As can be seen, IQ is independently and significantly associated with the degree of shift towards the liberal side, and away from the fundamentalist side. What that means is that smarter people are more inclined to cease believing in some of the more literal religious beliefs or alternatively less intelligent people are more likely to seek more literal and less contingent religious views. Younger, more liberal people and males are more likely to change from a fundamentalist to a liberal religious view. There is also a significant trend over time towards a more liberal religious outlook.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">So even among those that believe, it is smarter not to take religious stories and claims literally and maybe not to believe many of them at all. </span><br /><br />I have seen a study that looks at belief in groups with much higher IQs than are represented in the General Social Survey and the trend toward less belief with higher IQ shows no sign of tapering off at even the highest IQs. As we saw though, the effect only seems to start in earnest at an IQ of 116. For 85% of the population IQ has less effect. Disbelief in God seems to be quite a difficult problem to think about.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">At every point along the continuum of belief in God, from absolutely certain literal belief to atheism, the intelligent response is always to move further away from belief in God. The only position more intelligent than atheism is agnosticism. <span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span>Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-25991709072688842192012-01-12T06:48:00.000-08:002012-01-12T06:53:04.755-08:00The Grass IS Greener on the Other Side.With the exception of alcohol and nicotine recreational drug use is illegal in most places in the world. Most take it so seriously that using drugs will get you fired, expelled or even some jail time. Supplying drugs is very likely to result in jail time, and in a few places will get you executed. It’s reasonable to conclude that drugs must constitute a serious threat to social order and wellbeing, if so many societies punish it so harshly. Stories of the problems drug users can cause families, not to mention the violent crime around the supply chain, seem to reinforce this view.<br /><br />On the other hand a World Health Organization survey found quite high user rates. In the US for example 42.4% of adults used marijuana. If such a high proportion of the population use it, without society collapsing, can it be so bad? Some don’t think so. There have been many attempts to have marijuana use made legal. Generally these attempts have failed but in a few places they do succeed. <br /><br />In this article I turn the torch of intelligence on the issue of marijuana legalization.<br /><br />The Smart Vote is clearly for legalizing marijuana, or grass. The graph below shows the support, by IQ level, over time. There was a major drop in support during the Reagan and Bush administrations but support has steadily increased since then. It doesn’t look like <span style="font-weight:bold;">changes</span> in support for legalizing grass have much to do with intelligence. Nevertheless at all times there was a clear ordering of support for legalizing grass along IQ lines i.e. the Smart Vote always pointed toward legalizing grass being the correct idea.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglOeCm3PZorHHQ3UeqDt_l9EAP1ipDu8jwVTA8fas5uDoH6nIPVb-9wdXmKnictS9-LJGwRasbnq5woz9Srlvd4edq41SEACufED_h574zMls2C4qkcVmf3vfBXE0we1rnOdusm1QjuLI/s1600/Grass+graph.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglOeCm3PZorHHQ3UeqDt_l9EAP1ipDu8jwVTA8fas5uDoH6nIPVb-9wdXmKnictS9-LJGwRasbnq5woz9Srlvd4edq41SEACufED_h574zMls2C4qkcVmf3vfBXE0we1rnOdusm1QjuLI/s400/Grass+graph.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696757921239323634" /></a> <br /><br />Maybe the Smart Vote effect is just due to special interests. Recreational drug use is after all something more common in affluent societies and groups. I ran two separate logistic regressions so that the downward trend over time till 1992 and the upward trend since then would hide each other or dampen any other effects. The table below shows the results.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNYIKHNmUYyEiLNKxUP7n2S_wZn-yoc5w2o1T2YzoUd63xJ14dOhHWDsTsM28z7XdWxIezY_19cc8z_kvp35bvX08KsjHT060vfn4sLZI9rGukMeMkl29PCemU1v_Uv38Iv8vWVw5JkWs/s1600/Grass+regression.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNYIKHNmUYyEiLNKxUP7n2S_wZn-yoc5w2o1T2YzoUd63xJ14dOhHWDsTsM28z7XdWxIezY_19cc8z_kvp35bvX08KsjHT060vfn4sLZI9rGukMeMkl29PCemU1v_Uv38Iv8vWVw5JkWs/s400/Grass+regression.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696758216484004610" /></a><br /><br />The different trends for the two time periods show up very clearly. As expected youth, being more liberal or male go with support for legalizing grass. On the other hand that education and income are unrelated is unexpected. For our purposes though the association between higher IQ and support for legalizing grass holds up when these confounding variables are controlled. The independent effect of IQ is so strong that it has a less than 1 in 10000 probability of being due to chance. We can therefore rule out interest biases relating to these variables accounting for the Smart Vote.<br /><br />But why should legalizing grass be the correct thing to do? <br /><br />Economists have long argued that the war on drugs is counterproductive. For example of Chicago University’s Economics Expert Panel 100% agreed that making drugs illegal raises the street price of the drugs because suppliers require extra compensation for the risk of incarceration and other punishments. 79% of them agreed that the Netherlands restrictions on “soft drugs” combined with a moderate tax aimed at deterring their consumption would have lower social costs than continuing to prohibit use of those drugs as in the US. Only 2% disagreed and the rest were uncertain. <br /><br />The evidence suggests these economists are right. Attempting to outlaw an essentially victimless crime (or very low victim), greatly encourages serious crime with a far higher victim count. The experience of the Prohibition in the USA strongly supports this. Policing drugs uses up resources and manpower that could be better employed elsewhere. Furthermore, if it were legal it can be used as a government revenue stream.<br /><br />With respect to drug usage becoming a social problem, note that making drug use illegal doesn’t reduce the actual use of them much, if at all. Some places where cannabis is illegal, like France or the US, have higher user rates than some places where it is basically legal, like the Netherlands or Spain. The US has a user rate of 42.4% for marijuana and 16% for cocaine. For the Netherlands the rates are 19.8% and 1.8% respectively. Furthermore the Netherlands has about 60% of the problem drug user rate as similar countries in Europe. It looks like the other measures the Netherlands takes to discourage drug use work quite well.<br /><br />It makes no sense for something to be illegal if it is demonstrably less harmful than something which is legal. Yet cannabis continues to be illegal in most places, in spite of scientists classifying it as a ‘softer’ drug than alcohol.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Legalize grass (and maybe recreational drugs in general) – it’s the right thing to do. <span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span>Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-88058263507967499172012-01-09T07:26:00.000-08:002012-01-09T07:41:17.685-08:00The Stupidity of Opposing Gay RightsHomosexuality, “the love that dare not say its name”, is far more widely accepted than it used to be. People aren’t jailed for being gay anymore, and gay bashing is way down. Overall public support for the right of homosexuals to marry has quadrupled, and opposition nearly halved, between 1988 and 2010. Opinion is evenly divided on whether homosexuality is a choice or something that cannot be changed. Almost all gays of course think it isn’t a choice and that they should have the right to marry.<br /><br />Still a great deal of opposition to homosexuality remains. It’s regarded as unnatural, sinful, immoral, debauched, promiscuous, an aberration and a threat to normal ways of being and not too long ago was classified as a mental illness. While support is increasing for gay marriage resistance to it is formidable. For example 42 states define marriage as the union between one man and one woman and 30 of these states have gone so far as to add amendments to their constitutions banning gay marriage, in order to make any future recognition far more difficult. In 18 states the constitution bans any kind of same sex union. Some states grant some rights to same sex unions e.g. right of hospital visitation. Only 5 states have, or soon will, recognize same sex marriages and a total of 6 (plus the District of Columbia) recognize some form of same sex civil union or domestic partnership.<br /><br />One would like to know whether homosexuality is a threat to be concerned about and contained or discouraged, or whether it is a normal harmless option that should be embraced, or is it something in between? In this article I will look at what light intelligence can shed on this. My information comes from the General Social Survey and Kinsey’s two volumes on Human Sexuality.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Is Homosexuality a Choice?</span><br /><br />Here the Smart Vote is very decidedly for homosexuality not being a choice. Nearly 2/3rds (63.5%) of those with IQs below 88 believe gays chose to be homosexual. In contrast 74.3% of those with IQs above 116 believe sexual orientation is not something that can be chosen. This association holds up when confounding factors like education, political ideology and gender are statistically controlled (see the right hand column in the table “Regression Analysis of Attitudes toward Homosexuals” below.)<br /><br />The Smart Vote is broadly correct but strictly speaking the true situation is a bit more complicated. Some people can change their sexual orientation. Occasionally the anti-homosexual therapy practiced by some fundamentalist Christian churches does work. In response to the AIDS crisis there was a detectable increase in the proportion of both sexes who had sex exclusively with women. Furthermore, gay sex between female swingers is very common – even among those with a long pre swinging history of exclusively male partners. This suggests that to some extent – at the margin as economists would say - sexual orientation is susceptible to incentives. <br /><br />Nonetheless it’s also clear that very few people do change their sexual orientation and that the orientation seems to exist from the very moment people first become sexually interested. Twin research shows that sexual orientation is moderately heritable. The locus is probably mostly on the X-chromosomes because males have a much stronger either-or sexual orientation than women. There are proportionally fewer male than female bisexuals and proportionally more males than females are exclusively homosexual. Other research has shown that gays have differences in certain brain structures and that these differences may be caused be stress during pregnancy e.g. an especially high proportion of the children born to women who experienced the WW2 bombing of London turned out to be gay. All this points to sexual orientation being inborn – either genetically based or a biological response to circumstances.<br /><br />Why then can a few change their orientation? Alfred Kinsey had the answer. He showed that sexual orientation isn’t clearly either-or but that there is a continuum from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality. By far the majority are exclusively heterosexual in that they only ever been sexual with the opposite sex. He recognized 6 other categories of sexual orientation. The first 5 grade from mostly heterosexual to mostly homosexual and the sixth is exclusively homosexual. The ability to shift sexual orientation is probably limited to those in the 5 intermediate categories who are significantly attracted to both sexes because they have to choose to focus on one of two likes rather than swap a like for a dislike.<br /><br />If sexual orientation is correlated with IQ then one would suspect that choice was possible, and that there existed a correct choice. On the other hand, one would expect deliberate rational consideration to be impotent if choice was irrelevant, or played an insignificant role. It turns out that there is also no statistically significant association between declared sexual orientation and intelligence – further supporting the view that sexual orientation isn’t really a choice. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Is Homosexual Sex Wrong?</span><br /><br />The General Social Survey has asked this question since the 70s. In the graph below you can see that there has been a shift toward greater tolerance for homosexual sex across all IQ groups, since about 1990. The other obvious thing is that tolerance is consistently higher as IQ increases. The Smart Vote leans toward viewing homosexual sex as never or seldom wrong. Furthermore this association holds up well when confounding variables are controlled (see the second column in the table “Regression Analysis of Attitudes toward Homosexuals” below). Morally condemning homosexual sex is, among other things, stupid. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4ErNOFrg4AxP0tNwR6aMB86ymP0QSxbRBJoA-ivzSZ9KDXwPdrSRkm7WC796PmtJWLkN0NN6B_u1Fpt64N9H8qHoXx3Al3_cxbvdt7nDQc-027nw_c7l5tIQXYQ7X64UyYWBsj76UJfc/s1600/Gay+Sex+Graph.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4ErNOFrg4AxP0tNwR6aMB86ymP0QSxbRBJoA-ivzSZ9KDXwPdrSRkm7WC796PmtJWLkN0NN6B_u1Fpt64N9H8qHoXx3Al3_cxbvdt7nDQc-027nw_c7l5tIQXYQ7X64UyYWBsj76UJfc/s400/Gay+Sex+Graph.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5695657474804070226" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Should Same Sex Marriage be Legally Recognized?</span><br /><br />Considering that the Smart Vote says that sexual orientation isn’t something chosen and that there is nothing wrong with gay sex, it would be a surprise is the Smart Vote opposed same-sex marriage. It doesn’t of course, as the graph below makes clear. Support for legalizing gay marriage has consistently been higher among higher IQ groups since the GSS began asking this question. The association also holds up well when confounding factors are controlled (see first column in the table “Regression Analysis of Attitudes toward Homosexuals” below).<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMIinJhRWD7MSEBTZj_ZseoMsCF5XdjCtdkcA8dzPxsIiuTNxByaTS9I0tBM_Vtx83SgzAEyCK3VcS3hkzKbyDYtHyDzKDIT5tg2_c5tWzlq9bdbTvlIlpjzUjdVBcaYdV_VeeYm-fnvc/s1600/Gay+Marriage+Graph.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMIinJhRWD7MSEBTZj_ZseoMsCF5XdjCtdkcA8dzPxsIiuTNxByaTS9I0tBM_Vtx83SgzAEyCK3VcS3hkzKbyDYtHyDzKDIT5tg2_c5tWzlq9bdbTvlIlpjzUjdVBcaYdV_VeeYm-fnvc/s400/Gay+Marriage+Graph.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5695656141426582290" /></a> <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Regression Analysis of Attitudes toward Homosexuals</span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEileL_XoB25qHe1OW33jGLJY8R83K0SjKdXWJZdp46T8JnQDmsWzHLPGgUYXHqw2CDaZ6O4AwtLx1Sr1u_BFDnSE4yI2R4eNYaGWA-2BrwpcsQGMnCCBIEJit4TPMTrs3bIAvI4mJU6NuE/s1600/Gay+Regression.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEileL_XoB25qHe1OW33jGLJY8R83K0SjKdXWJZdp46T8JnQDmsWzHLPGgUYXHqw2CDaZ6O4AwtLx1Sr1u_BFDnSE4yI2R4eNYaGWA-2BrwpcsQGMnCCBIEJit4TPMTrs3bIAvI4mJU6NuE/s400/Gay+Regression.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5695656410521034738" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Summary of Attitudes Toward Homosexuality</span><br /><br />The Smart Vote is for acceptance of homosexuals and homosexuality. It is very probably correct to believe that homosexuals aren’t choosing homosexuality at all (let alone for dubious motives), and that it is rather a state of being they are more or less born into. As such homosexuality is no threat to those who aren’t already gay, and trying to stamp it out will achieve nothing but the senseless suffering of gay people. There is therefore no good reason to attempt to contain homosexuality. Furthermore it is correct, and more compassionate, not to condemn gays when they try to live and gain satisfaction according to their nature, by having homosexual sex, or by wanting to form a union or family with those they love. In an earlier post on free speech the Smart Vote was also in favor of protecting the civil rights of homosexuals.<br /><br />In the regressions one can see that education, being female or liberal (and probably young) predispose people to greater tolerance of homosexuality – quite apart from higher intelligence, and visa versa. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Homosexual Behavior</span><br /><br />Kinsey found that 28% of all women had some kind of erotic reaction to other women in their lives, and 20% had acted on it - 13% to the point of orgasm. He found that men had 2 to 3 times these response rates. For unmarried women 14% were asexual, 72% were heterosexual (or very close to it), 6% were homosexual (or close to it) and 8% were bisexual. For men the figures are more like 5% asexual, 74% close to heterosexual, 14% close to homosexual and 7% bisexual. Even among the married, homosexual experience is not so rare. 3% are at least bisexual, but if they are far along the Kinsey scale they are quite likely to get divorced. Around 1 in 20 people who consider themselves straight have had sex with a member of the opposite sex – often more than once. Being religiously devout doesn’t make a person immune to homosexual feelings or activities either. But what purpose could it serve for a straight person to have a homosexual experience? <br /><br />The table below looks at homosexual experience by intelligence level, and is confined to those who consider themselves straight. The way to read it is as follows. The first column of figures is the % of those with zero homosexual experience in each of the intelligence categories i.e. 16% of those with no homosexual experience at all are Smart. The next column is the same for those who have had at least one homosexual experience. The third column is the % of each intelligence category that has had at least one homosexual experience i.e. 4.6% of the dull have had one. The final column is the ratio of each intelligence category’s % homosexual experience over that of the Stupid category i.e. Smart women are 43% more likely to have a homosexual experience.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm-kdVSigDxx1bZW1aWITmJYwSIeudis26EKOwY8TNiz_GQa5LTFOHffOiQs9beF7HUyUod26QKNXbobenYz2Y0wHJq2UShMLholbLNYImHfBdkrXXy67vw1-JUfccvAloJydLD6kL6UI/s1600/Gay+experience+SV.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm-kdVSigDxx1bZW1aWITmJYwSIeudis26EKOwY8TNiz_GQa5LTFOHffOiQs9beF7HUyUod26QKNXbobenYz2Y0wHJq2UShMLholbLNYImHfBdkrXXy67vw1-JUfccvAloJydLD6kL6UI/s400/Gay+experience+SV.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5695657033106392226" /></a><br /><br />I calculated a Smart Vote index for homosexual experience for each gender. For women it is 144 and for men it is 172. That means is that the propensity to have homosexual sex (relative to not having it) is 44% higher for women with IQs over 116 than it is for those with IQs less than 88. That’s very close to the Smart/Stupid ratio. For Smart men the propensity is 72% higher than for Stupid men. In other words for a straight person to have at least one homosexual experience is if anything an intelligent thing to do, and is probably not so pointless. This seems to contradict my earlier point that sexual orientation isn’t a choice because it seems as though homosexuality or bisexuality, is not only a choice, but is the correct choice!<br /><br />The paradox is resolved when potentially confounding factors are controlled for. When they are the IQ association doesn’t hold up. What looks like an intelligent decision is due to something correlated to intelligence, rather than intelligence itself. For women it’s education. Maybe it’s the ‘experiment in college’ thing or maybe greater autonomy from men allows them to live their real choices more. For men it is higher income. I have no idea why more money translates into a greater chance of gay sex among straight men. <br /><br />For both there is a sign that the politically conservative are more likely to have a homosexual experience than liberals, although the effect is not statistically significant. Perhaps Conservatives are just more likely to declare themselves straight after having a homosexual encounter.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Sexual orientation is neither correct nor incorrect but it is correct to let gays and lesbians live their lives as they see fit – just like the rest of us.<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span>Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-64421177367404923432011-12-30T15:18:00.000-08:002011-12-30T15:32:20.589-08:00Intelligent Thinking About AbortionAbortion is an extremely divisive issue in the USA. Doctors who performed abortions have been murdered, abortion clinics have been bombed and Warren Buffett’s companies were once boycotted because his charities supported Planned Parenthood. 41% of people favor of abortion for any reason and 59% of people oppose it. For reasons of rape, mother’s health or fetal deformation, the percentage of support jumps to at least 80%. <br /><br />A phenomenal number of abortions are performed every year. Almost half of all pregnancies are unintended and 40% of those are aborted, meaning that 1 in 5 of all pregnancies in the US is aborted. In 2008 1.21 million abortions were performed – down from 1.31 in 2000. <br /><br />Although the overall abortion rate is declining it isn’t true for all sectors of society. The over rate of unintended pregnancies has remained stagnant but has increased by 50% among poor women and declined 29% among higher income women between 1994 and 2006. Similarly the abortion rate among the poor increased by 18% and declined 28% among the better off between 2000 and 2008. The poor or disadvantaged now account for nearly 70% of all abortions. In other words, because unplanned pregnancies are mostly a lower class phenomenon, and becoming more so, abortion is increasingly becoming a lower class phenomenon. Due to the tight relationship between IQ and social class, abortion is no doubt mostly a lower IQ problem too. Certainly the odds of an unplanned pregnancy increases strongly as IQ drops – see my post on the subject <a href="http://http://garthzietsman.blogspot.com/2011/06/is-liberal-lifestyle-for-everyone.html"></a>.<br /><br />Since abortions are disproportionately chosen by the less intelligent maybe legal abortion is a stupid policy? On the other hand maybe the stupidity lies entirely within the unplanned pregnancy phase of the process. Maybe the abortion IQ association is entirely explained by the common connection of poverty. Let’s look at what the Smart Vote says about abortion itself. In the table below we can see that the Smart Vote is in favor of abortion being legal – especially when the reason doesn’t get general support. The Smart Vote of 187 for abortion for any reason simply means that those with IQs over 120 were 87% more likely to support abortion for any reason that those with IQs below 85.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU35V2pygryOpNOo6_4Sn6wbVTaQgBXzuEuZ21V28mjw7P5D-kKrBnJBykzfsI7sanB9xNR3Qo7kpuMg7GjtqvBRyCuBhWaR8gcp8bOAMptRpYwrOOAx9iX1jmoRUoQ1NYhDUR_hRh9es/s1600/Abortion+SV.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU35V2pygryOpNOo6_4Sn6wbVTaQgBXzuEuZ21V28mjw7P5D-kKrBnJBykzfsI7sanB9xNR3Qo7kpuMg7GjtqvBRyCuBhWaR8gcp8bOAMptRpYwrOOAx9iX1jmoRUoQ1NYhDUR_hRh9es/s400/Abortion+SV.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5692066982351964978" /></a><br /><br />Note that having most of the information on abortion you need is more than twice as likely among the smart but that, in spite of the greater knowledge, the Smart Vote is against forming a very firm opinion on abortion. Also, in contrast to the extreme divisiveness the issue produces, the Smart Vote is for not taking abortion issues too seriously. For example the Smart Vote is for abortion being salient only sometimes, for being not that concerned about it, and for regarding it as not very important – as opposed to abortion being salient a lot or not at all, being either very or not at all important, etc. <br /><br />I still need to rule out confounding factors, like poverty, before I can conclude that the policy of legal abortion is the intelligent way to go. The table below shows the results of controlling for education, income, age, social class, political ideology (liberal versus conservative) and belief in God. <br /><br />Contrary to expectations, it’s the wealthy upper classes that are more likely to think poverty a good enough reason to end a pregnancy. A small income also increases opposition to rape or not wanting more kids, as reasons for abortion. Finally the poor are more likely to think a husband’s consent is necessary to allow an abortion. <br /><br />As expected, being a political Conservative and belief in God are strongly associated with being against abortion – no matter what the reason. It’s interesting that conservatism doesn’t explain the effect of belief in God, or visa versa.<br /><br />There is a weak unreliable trend for older people to favor abortion – when other factors are controlled.<br /><br />Greater education is associated with higher levels of support for abortion.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgLYPqVv5LptIo4odKHxSk3eLouJ3JrWGN968Y33UB5GAil_7KzdYxVFak0e713Gq78shKoHWALZeonmWv0fz1yARQsmxg1FPYL9xSwaPRtKS_FvTd5xilWP_x2Heiv4sEme-mz4PqB6U/s1600/Abortion+regression.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgLYPqVv5LptIo4odKHxSk3eLouJ3JrWGN968Y33UB5GAil_7KzdYxVFak0e713Gq78shKoHWALZeonmWv0fz1yARQsmxg1FPYL9xSwaPRtKS_FvTd5xilWP_x2Heiv4sEme-mz4PqB6U/s400/Abortion+regression.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5692067389472496914" /></a><br /><br /><br />The interesting thing however is that being smarter is independently associated with greater support for abortion on demand. That is quite remarkable because virtually all the pro abortion control factors are correlated with IQ, and would therefore take away some of the explanatory power of IQ. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">So, smarter policy is to allow abortion on demand. It’s also smarter not to place a great deal of importance or concern on abortion issues – there are more important things to focus on. </span><br /><br />But why should pro choice be a smarter choice than pro life? <br /><br />The General Social Survey offers some help. Two of the questions asked are “What reasons in favor of abortion have you heard of?” and “What reasons against abortion have you heard of?” Respondents were given the opportunity to mention up to 3 different reasons. Unfortunately the questions don’t ask whether the reasons are seen as good, bad or compelling. Nonetheless I think people are more likely to mention the reasons they, or the advocates they identify with, find relatively more compelling.<br /><br />I grouped various reasons that obviously belonged together e.g. those referring to ‘rights’, ‘risk’, ‘abnormal fetuses’, ‘murder’, ‘cost’, etc. I also dropped reasons that were mentioned by fewer than 3% of respondents.<br /><br />Furthermore I only looked at the “Pro” abortion reasons of those who are in favor of abortion on demand, and the “Anti” reasons for those opposed to abortion on demand. Insofar as people adopt positions after hearing arguments then those who adopt a stance are in the best position to judge what it was that convincing to them. However when people look for rationalizations after adopting a stance then those who are attempting to rationalize will be the ones who generate the rationalizations. For both reasons then, pro choicer advocates should judge the pro reasons and pro life advocates the con reasons.<br /><br />Finally I applied the Smart Vote to the responses i.e. I tested the reasons to discover which were relatively smart or daft. The results are in the Table below.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU9Bw-xDPKxXONVVSb8ySHIZoaPxCdimAI0JOeeilt452X3yivApvD-wLeGEdon7Vu1EDyMNMSGLRoZnZxNYc-ULAQ8M1qc_YxfdicgSMtPG50HOqQpozO7RRepPLNha-jFTaAP-Wa-FY/s1600/Abortion+reasons.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU9Bw-xDPKxXONVVSb8ySHIZoaPxCdimAI0JOeeilt452X3yivApvD-wLeGEdon7Vu1EDyMNMSGLRoZnZxNYc-ULAQ8M1qc_YxfdicgSMtPG50HOqQpozO7RRepPLNha-jFTaAP-Wa-FY/s400/Abortion+reasons.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5692067930089221986" /></a><br /><br />Firstly, the ‘none’ category, in both the for and against camps, resulted in very low Smart Vote scores i.e. smart people are less than 1/10th as likely as dull people to fail to mention a reason for their stance. It is exceedingly stupid to stand for or against something for no reason at all.<br /><br />Secondly, a woman’s autonomous right to choose is seen as an intelligent reason to allow legal abortions, and the notion that the woman’s choice should not be autonomous is seen as an unintelligent reason for disallowing legal abortions. <br /><br />In his book Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker gives a superb defense of the morality of autonomous choice. “Until recently women – or rather their sexuality and reproductive capacity – were regarded as the property of men – firstly their fathers and brothers and then their husbands. The humanist mindset has changed that. Instead of grounding morality in power, tradition or religious practice it bases it on the suffering and flourishing of sentient individuals. The mindset has been sharpened into the principle of autonomy: that people have an absolute right to their bodies, which may not be treated as a common resource to be negotiated among other interested parties. For example, with regard to rape it does not seek to balance the interests of a woman not to be raped, the interests of men who may wish to rape her and the interests of the husbands and fathers who want to monopolize her sexuality. The traditional valuation is upended. Now the woman’s own interests count for everything and the interests of all the other claimants count for nothing. This revaluation also underlies the abolition of slavery, despotism, debt bondage, and cruel punishment during the Enlightenment.” “Insofar as violence is immoral, the Rights Revolutions show that a moral way of life often requires a decisive rejection of instinct, culture, religion and standard practice. In their place is an ethics inspired by empathy and <span style="font-weight:bold;">reason<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span> and stated in the language of rights. We force ourselves into the shoes of others and consider their interests and ignore superficialities like age, race, gender, and even species.”<br /><br />The morality of autonomous choice is the result of a morality that stresses reason. That it is seen as one of the more intelligent reasons for allowing legal abortion should come as no surprise.<br /><br />Thirdly, allowing abortion when a woman’s life or health is endangered is seen as intelligent but denying the right to choose an abortion because the process of abortion itself might be risky is seen as unintelligent. Again the reasonableness of the woman making autonomous choices about her own welfare is stressed.<br /><br />Fourthly, the rights of the unborn are seen as an intelligent reason for disallowing abortion. This reminds us that there are two parties with legitimate rights based stakes in the decision whether to allow legal abortion. The intelligent thing is not to forget that but there is no way to get around the issue of which party’s rights are paramount. The Smart Vote says it should be the woman’s rights. One may venture a guess at why that should be so. The woman is clearly an autonomous sentient being while the fetus is not. The earliest possibility of sentience is well after the point at which almost all abortions are performed. In any case the smarter among those who oppose abortion don’t support the idea that abortion is murder.<br /><br />Fifthly, justifications based on not being able to afford a child, or unwanted children imposing too high a social cost, are not seen as reasonable grounds to have an abortion. While extra people do involve additional costs they also end up producing stuff or ideas. In fact economists have shown that additional people are a net benefit. That fact lends weight to the Smart Vote rejection of this justification of abortion.<br /><br />Sixth, the Smart Vote is very weakly for rape or incest being a good reason to allow an abortion. The reason is that this is such an easy ‘problem’. Almost everyone who is explicitly asked if this is a valid reason to allow an abortion says that it is. So the fact that the Smart Vote is above 100 at all is significant i.e. rape or incest is a good reason to allow a legal abortion. The same applies to abnormalities in the child.<br /><br />Finally, religion and the bible are seen as an intelligent basis for rejecting abortion. I confess that I find this difficult to explain. Religious belief and reliance on the bible are themselves both strongly rejected by the Smart Vote, and as a basis for morality religion conflicts with the humanistic reason based rights approach mentioned above. Still the fact is that the Smart Vote is decidedly for legal abortion on demand, which is consistent with placing humanistic morality above religious authority.<br /><br />To summarize – <span style="font-weight:bold;">seeing women (and sentient individuals generally) as autonomous moral entities rather than a common resource appears to be the intelligent way to go. Allowing women to abort their pregnancy for their own reasons, follows logically.</span>Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-22818212158811955392011-12-16T13:22:00.000-08:002011-12-16T13:25:42.606-08:00Trustworthy ThinkingMy Awakening<br /><br />One day in the midst of my primary school years I had an experience that started a train of thought that has continued ever since. A teacher asked the class what we call those sharp teeth 3 over from the centre. I, and a few other kids, answered ‘canines’. The teacher declared that answer incorrect. Perplexed I tried another answer, ‘eye teeth’. Again the teacher’s reply was no. Now I was deeply disturbed. When after a few minutes no one had supplied what she considered a valid answer, she revealed that the correct name was ‘fangs’. <br /><br />Up till then I had implicitly trusted and believed adults when they told me something. In general they hadn’t contradicted each other on the facts so I had no reason not to. Suddenly one of the gods of truth proved to be not only ridiculously wrong but also incapable of learning otherwise. I foolishly corrected her. I went so far as showing her the facts in a reference book on the topic, thinking that she would be pleased to correct her error. I was rebuked in front of the class. That was the day I learned that the thinking of all adults is not equally trustworthy. I did consider the notion that this was merely a once off error on her part. Unfortunately an unhealthy fraction of the facts she taught proved to be unreliable when I checked them against encyclopedias. Perhaps she was a lone bad apple. That hope too was dashed. Other teachers proved just as bad – if not worse. A few years later another teacher instructed the class to laugh at my sister because her mother believed in evolution. <br /><br />I felt disappointment mostly but some other intelligent people say they experienced anxiety when they realized they depended absolutely on very fallible people. Ever since then I have wondered about whose thinking is trustworthy. Ignorance and illogicality are widespread. My own thinking isn’t immune either. The very fact that I’ve changed my mind frequently over the years points to that. This question has morphed into wondering who should be trusted with society’s important thinking? One cannot avoid relying on one’s own thinking, even if you try to give up thinking for yourself and rely totally on someone else. Simply making that choice must have been convincing to you. Still I will be having a look at who society actually does trust to think, and whose thinking it reveres, and what mental ‘horsepower’ one needs to earn this. I hope my discussion will prove convincing for many.<br /><br />Who We Trust to Think<br /><br />Actually there is no single ‘trusted to think’ level – it’s a continuum. Pretty much all people are entrusted with solving some problems and not others. For example society expects virtually all of us to understand that laws exist, in part, to prevent or resolve disputes. The point of laws on many things is obvious e.g. it’s illegal to kill or steal. Society trusts that we can figure that out without special help. However there are some disputes where the right and wrong of it, and the point of the laws applying to the issue, are not clear. For that sort of problem we move trust from ordinary people to especially selected and trained people we call lawyers. <br /><br />Lawyers are carefully trained to understand the complexities of the laws and the legal system, but the people who do get this training are not randomly selected. They are selected for their capacity to master the subject adequately. In the USA prospective law students are subjected to test called the Law School Admissions Test. This test heavily stresses the ability to think logically. One of three subtests is concerned with the ability to comprehend verbal arguments, but both the other subtests test the ability to make correct logical deductions, once the concepts are comprehended. Even before they start training, potential lawyers are well above average. Nevertheless at law school they are further drilled in thinking logically. Getting through that process is not the end. In order to be a reasonably successful lawyer i.e. someone a client trusts with their problem, they have to perform sufficiently well in court against others who were similarly selected and trained. Those are good reasons why lawyers are who we trust when ordinary people can’t sort out a legal dispute between themselves. The average IQ of lawyers is 127. That is at the 95th percentile and their logical ability is probably even higher. At best 1 in 10 people can be trusted with this level of thinking. Thankfully not all of them become lawyers.<br /><br />I am mentioning IQ because it is a useful scheme for organizing all this information.<br /><br />Judges are the second level of advisors. Society wants them to evaluate the reasoning of lawyers, and whoever else is involved in putting cases together, and decide which of these 'advisors to the population' are themselves correct or incorrect. They are chosen because they have a reputation for particularly good judgment, competence and integrity. This is reflected in the fact that the minimum LSAT score of judges puts them in the top 10% of lawyers and the top 1% of the general population. This is equivalent to an average IQ of 142.<br /> <br />Appeal court judges are the third and final level of advisors. (The constitutional court is really about specialist issues rather than a higher level.) They are selected on the basis of a reputation for good judgments, competence and integrity that puts them on a level noticeably above that of other judges. They are trusted to decide the 'truth' when even judges can't agree on the correct answer. The fact that their minimum LSAT score puts them in the top 1/5 of judges i.e. top 2% of lawyers, confirms it. This is equivalent to a minimum IQ of 144 and an average 148.<br /><br />Doctors also have a tier system. Patients try to diagnose themselves. They fail and come to interns in the public system (or their GP). One of 3 things happens - the intern/GP gets it right and the problem clears, the intern doesn’t know or the intern gets it wrong and the problem persists. Often the intern (or the patient) asks for a second opinion but this frequently doesn’t help. Even among physicians, diagnostic disagreements run at about 50%. So when interns don’t know, or the problem persists, they refer the problem to more knowledgeable senior doctors or specialists. The process is repeated until the limit of medical knowledge is reached. If anything getting into medical school is even tougher than getting into law school, however the average IQ of basic doctors or interns is also 127. There is good evidence that medical problem solving ability (like every other problem solving ability) is highly correlated to IQ, and it is not far fetched to say that a doctor with the diagnostic ability of Dr Gregory House would have an IQ much higher than 127.<br /><br />An original finding is required to earn PhD but isn’t for any lower degree, so one could argue that PhD level is where society really starts trusting people to think. The average IQ of someone earning a PhD in a STEM (science, technology, engineering or math) is 138. Tenure (in a STEM field) at a top 50 university is associated with an average IQ of 145. (See Appendix 1 for the method I used.) Another result was that a minimum of 700 on the SAT verbal is needed for truly original PhDs in English literature. That’s an IQ of 142.<br /><br />What about thinkers who are not only trusted, but revered? I have in mind the award winners like Nobel Laureates in science, economics and literature, Fields Medalists or Crafoord and Abel Prize winners in mathematics, and Rolf Schock Prize winners in philosophy or mathematics. Acknowledged geniuses of the past belong here too.<br /><br />Using three different methods (Appendix 2) I estimate the average IQ of those elite laureates as 149 – with a typical range of 132 to 167. The average IQ of historical geniuses is 157 – with a typical range of 150 to about 174. <br /><br />The Kind of Thinking We Trust<br /><br />We begin to trust people with thinking tasks when they can discover general principles and can think theoretically.<br /><br />There isn’t an abrupt dividing line but below an IQ of around 116 thinking is concrete. There is little awareness of rules that may be abstracted from a number of specific situations and hypothetical reasoning tends to be about concrete situations like ‘What would A do if I did B?’, rather than abstraction like “Unemployment should rise if there is deflation.” <br /><br />At IQs above 116, abstract hypothetic thinking becomes possible. At the IQ level of the average lawyer and doctor it is still quite superficial. They are adept at hypothetic thought and abstractions, and although they appreciate that their hypotheses could form a coherent whole they are generally not up to drawing out this whole themselves. At best they can develop low level individual theories but not a whole theoretical system. <br /><br />Judges and STEM or good English Lit PhDs, at an average IQ level of 138-142, are at a level where they are able to create a new, coherent, abstract theoretical system. If they are to be trusted to advance our knowledge and understanding of the world they need to, and are expected to, be able to do it. Some however can’t do it very well.<br /><br />Others however, do it supremely well. We tend to revere the thinking of those – like Appeal Court Judges or Nobel, Math or Philosophy Prize winners – who are very adept at creating coherent abstract theoretical systems. Even at this level there is an intellectual pecking order. There are some Nobel Laureates e.g. Einstein, Feynman, intellectuals e.g. von Neumann, or historical geniuses, that Nobel Laureates themselves revere. These are the people who can build several different coherent theoretical systems on the same information, and possibly bring them all under the ambit of a grand meta-theoretical system. <br /><br />Conclusion<br /><br />We turn out to trust the thinking of the intellectual elite – surprise, surprise. Those that can be trusted to think of new stuff, or with final appeals, are typically well within the top 1% - probably within the top 0.3% - of ability. These are the better PhD types (in the more demanding disciplines), tenured professors at top universities, members of the National Academy of Sciences, or final level appeal court judges. They are at home with theorizing and system building. <br /><br />Of course having a high enough IQ does not necessarily mean someone can think wisely. Furthermore being able to think well is not the same as actually thinking, which is why geniuses are much rarer than IQs in the genius range. The trick is to persuade those who can think to do more of it, to do some reality checking and to apply themselves to useful problems.<br /><br />There are still some issues beyond this if thinking is truly to be trusted. Many Nobel Laureates talk rubbish when they stray outside their fields. Experts are frequently wrong – particularly when hedgehog type intellectuals. Overconfidence, and failure to expose themselves to alternative viewpoints, is the main problem. Still I did learn why the thinking of teachers (mean IQs around 105) is so unreliable. Teachers aren’t known for liking students who ask searching questions either. I guess we should make it a norm to warn kids that adults – even those in positions of responsibility – seldom think clearly and correctly.<br /><br />I think if we want to know the truth we should never completely trust anyone’s thinking – not least our own. We should make deliberate efforts to expose ourselves to the strongest cases for opposing viewpoints. <br /><br />Appendix 1<br /><br />In the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth After 35 years: Uncovering Antecedents of the Development of Math-Science Expertise by David Lubinski & Camilla Persson Benbow the careers of the top 1% of math talent were followed. To estimate the IQs of STEM PhDs I used La Griffe du Lion’s ‘Jewish Method’ – see Method 1 in Appendix 2. I didn’t use Jews versus Gentiles but instead used the 99-99.25 percentiles and the 99.75-100 percentiles of tested math ability as my reference groups. <br /><br />Appendix 2<br /><br />Method 1<br /><br />The first estimate of Nobel Laureate IQs I had seen was La Griffe du Lion’s use of the so called ‘Jewish Method’ in Some Thoughts about Jews, IQ and Nobel Laureates here. He takes the known IQ distributions of Jews and non-Hispanic whites in the US and using Gaussian curves finds a cut-off IQ which would give a similar ratio in the proportion of Jews and the proportion of non-Jews that fall beyond it as we find in Jewish and non-Jewish white Nobel Laureates from the US. That cut-off would be the minimum IQ. He calculated the mean Nobel Laureate IQ to be 148 (if one uses an sd of 16 rather than the 15 he did).<br /><br />Method 2<br /><br />For a second estimate I used figures (in Harriet Zuckerman’s Scientific Elite) of the institutions from which American Science Laureates received their PhDs compared to science PhDs in general. This information permitted me to estimate the ‘educational ability’ distribution of the science laureates in terms of the science PhD distribution. Simply find the percentile of each group that say got their PhD from an Ivy League university and the percentile of each that received their PhD from a university below a set level of selectivity. Convert the percentiles into unit normal i.e. z-scores. Find the difference between the z-scores at each defining line for each group. Now divide the science PhD difference by the Nobel Laureate difference – because the science PhD group is the reference group and if the difference of the Nobel Laureates is a higher number of z-units than the science group then the standard deviation of the laureate ability distribution must be smaller than the science PhD distribution. The ratio of the differences gives you the ratio of the laureate to the science PhD standard deviations directly. Using that I calculated the laureate mean expressed in terms of the science PhD distribution. I got 1.034±0.899 (where the science PhD ability distribution is set at 0±1.<br /><br />Now the actual IQ distribution of science PhDs is 139±9.56 so the Laureate IQ distribution should be 149±8.6 and 95% of them should fall between IQs of 132-167. <br /><br />La Griffe du Lion discusses the essentials of this method here. He calls it the Diversity Space method.<br /><br />Method 3<br /><br />For a third estimate I used national IQ figures and per capita Nobel + Math Prizes per country. By estimating the number of eligible people who lived over the full prize giving period, counting only men between 25 and 80 years old and correcting for the fact that only 25% of professionals choose science as a career, I calculated that the current populations should be divided by 6.4154 to provide a proper population baseline. Logistic regression methodology would connect the per capita probability of winning one of these prizes to national IQ. So I calculated log(p/1-p) and did a linear regression between that figure and national IQ. The linear equation was <br /><br />0.2575*IQ-37.6253= log(p/1-p).<br /><br />That means that someone would have a 50% chance of having the ability of winning a prize of IQ=37.6253/0.2575=146.1. This is essentially an estimate of the minimum IQ which means the average IQ would be 149.<br /><br />The three methods produce almost exactly the same figure – 149 or just over 1 in 1000 people in most developed Western Countries.<br /><br />Historical Geniuses<br /><br />Catherine Cox (with a number of experts in IQ testing) estimated the ratio IQs of 300 historical geniuses by using biographical information to work out the age at which they mastered various tasks and then comparing it to the typical age these tasks are mastered. The result gives a mental age estimate which is then used to calculate a ratio IQ i.e. mental age/chronological age*100. Now ratio IQs are not normally distributed so I converted the ratio scores into equivalent deviation IQ scores. The IQs of the individual IQs might not be as accurate as they would be if they had been tested as children but the average IQ of the group as a whole should be very accurate. I limited the sample to scientists, mathematicians, philosophers and writers – dropping artists, musicians, statesmen, religious figures and soldiers. The kind of person included were Newton, Galileo, Pascal, Leibnitz, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Hume, Locke, JS Mill, Goethe, Byron, Wordsworth, Milton, Dickens, Voltaire, etc. Typically the minimum IQ was 150, the median 157, and the upper end at about 174. <br /><br />By the way, from the link between vocabulary size and IQ and an estimate of how many words Shakespeare knew, I estimated Shakespeare’s IQ at 172. I also used the fact that Einstein read Kant with understanding at the age of 13 (typically it takes an adult IQ of 150 to do so) to estimate his IQ at 165. This figure is in keeping with his math progress as an early teenager.Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-74166346432159118162011-12-12T13:02:00.000-08:002011-12-12T13:29:26.399-08:00Economic Habits of Intelligent Countries and Long Term Economic Growth<span style="font-weight:bold;">Introduction</span><br /><br />We all know individuals differ in their ability to find the correct answers to objective problems and it turns out that that the average ability across countries differs a lot too. I can therefore compare the differences in policy choices and behaviors across countries to their mean IQs and use the results as the Smart Vote with respect to those policies.<br /><br />The mean IQs of countries were obtained from Lynn and Vanhanen’s estimates1,2. The national IQ scores had very high test-retest reliability. They are also showed a very high validity in that they correlated highly with country performance on international science and math rankings1,2,3. National IQ differences are associated with a large variety of developmental outcomes e.g. national income, poverty rates, economic equality, economic growth, life expectancy, infant mortality, AIDS rates, homicide rates, democracy, good governance, patent rates, number of scientists, Nobel Prize rates, and many more1,2,3.<br /><br />Focusing on economics we see that cognitive skills play a large role and that it is measured high level skills and not merely rates of school and university enrolment that counts6. National IQ scores are an extremely robust measure of human capital. Between a quarter and a half of the global income distribution is explained by a single factor – the effect of large, persistent differences in national average IQ on the private marginal product of labor4. . Each IQ point difference is associated with a persistent 0.11% difference in annual GDPpc growth5. That means a relative doubling of income of the top 10% and bottom 10% of countries by national IQ, every 32 years.<br /> <br />Still cognitive capital isn’t everything. The consensus was that the efficiency with which capital is used plays as large a role as capital itself but doubt has been cast on this view7. <br /><br />Economic freedom is something that could play a role in the efficiency with which capital is used and it does appear to explain some of the variation in national income not accounted for by national IQ2. The thing is levels of economic freedom aren’t just randomly distributed across countries, they’re chosen by their citizens and politicians. Since economic freedom is a choice, and may also be a good idea, the degree of economic freedom in each country should depend on the intelligence of the people. <br /><br />In this post I will investigate the Smart Vote on various aspects of economic freedom and the role intelligence and economic freedom play in long term economic growth. I use various measures of economic freedom covered in “Economic Freedom of the World” by Gwartney and Lawson. <br /><br />“Economic Freedom of the World” has an overall Economic Freedom Index, 5 sub-indices - Government Size, Rule of Law, Sound Money, Freedom to Trade and a Regulation Index (made up of 3 further subdivisions – credit regulation, labor regulation and business regulation). A total of 45 individual measures, spanning 30 years, go into it. <br /><br />I constructed a 30 year average for each of these measures and indices. The point of doing that is because temporary variations are cancelled out leaving a far more reliable and meaningful measure, and also because economic freedom most likely works over long periods. Single year economic growth figures are highly unstable too. For example the average correlation between the growth rates of any two years in the last 30 is only 0.07, meaning that the growth rates of any two years have less than ½ a percent in common. Using long term growth figures is also much more reliable and meaningful. The growth rate over the full 30 years has a reliability of 0.68 – still not great but much higher than 0.07.<br /><br />I will compare these more persistent differences in economic freedom with the growth rate over the same period as well as with national IQs, while controlling for national income. I control for income because wealth can effect what policies a country is able to choose, and because poorer countries grow faster.<br /><br />I also look at whether these economic freedom measures do all measure a single variable that we might call “economic freedom”. If the variables seem to tap several different concepts, it doesn’t make sense to talk about economic freedom. It turns out that a single construct does underlay all the measures, but a few measures do not align as the authors would have it. High government consumption expenditure, high transfers and subsidies and the imposition of standards on business turn out to be measures of economic freedom rather than its lack. I extract an economic freedom factor that puts these variables the right way around.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Smart Vote on Economic Freedom</span><br /><br />The first thing to establish is whether average national intelligence has any relationship to economic freedom. Looking at the left hand of the table in Appendix I the answer is “definitely yes.” National IQ is significantly correlated to 80% of the economic freedom measures and furthermore the relationship tends to be strong. Indeed intelligence seems to explain most (59%) of the differences in economic freedom across countries.<br /><br />Now wealthy countries, which tend to have higher national IQs, could simply be indulging in the ‘luxury’ of economic freedom, and the relationship we are seeing with IQ may be just along for the ride. Controlling for income tests this. I found that income certainly does play a role but by no means does it explain away the intelligence connection.<br /><br />Being a poor country (whether the population is smart or not) makes providing some forms of economic freedom difficult e.g. ensuring sound money, private and foreign banking, or that black market rates stay close to official rates. A small economy will find it more difficult to manage the value of its currency in the storms of a large global market, no matter how carefully it tries. The economic ‘freedoms’ of low government consumption and not requiring unemployment insurance are also in this category, but this is the default in poor countries simply because they can’t afford them.<br /><br />On the other hand ensuring that government isn’t a nuisance to business (low regulation of business), not hindering foreign investment or capital movements (including citizens having foreign currency accounts), and making compliance with trade rules cheap, are all genuinely a function of smarter countries being more likely to choose these policies.<br /><br />Ensuring the rule of law and low corruption levels reflects a mixture of income and IQ effects. Rule of law is costly, so being richer helps, but nevertheless being smarter makes it much more likely.<br /><br />So the Smart Vote is very strongly in favor of ensuring economic freedom – particularly in the form of the rule of law, the ease of doing business, and the freedom of capital movements and international trade. This is not to say that the other economic freedoms of sound money and freedom of the financial sector are not also intelligent choices – it’s just that success in providing those freedoms is, like it or not, proportional to the country’s economic clout.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Smart Vote and Opinions on the Merits of Low Economic Freedom i.e. Communism.</span> <br /><br />Let’s look at the Smart Vote on virtues of economic freedom from the opposite end. Much of the world was once communist, and many intellectuals in the non-communist world were in favor of it. Could it be that we are missing something here? Could it be that the lack of economic freedom in certain forms is also a more intelligent alternative?<br /><br />The graph below shows the historic trend of the Smart Vote on communism in the USA. In the 70s (and probably before) the Smart Vote was for communism being at least OK for some countries, if not actually good. The Stupid Vote was for communism being the worst possible system, with “Bad but Not the Worst” a somewhat smart choice in between the two. <br /><br />Many intellectuals are attracted to the idea of a society planned by the likes of themselves, and communism/socialism seemed to be a tradition that presented that opportunity. It also seemed obvious at the time that it wasn’t very clever to allow society to develop in the seemingly random directions a free market would take it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJLlACjqguyMs3B75iW1A9hDRS3c2eH4S__lBP6l00exgcvcZpEP7UlfUoEWH4rII_dKwObGWLuPZp2_XkpzoIFyFfCkMb3o6B2l4tLCusJFr2HkNJMMbBff5k52fah0r5EQQijJHEBJs/s1600/SV+communism.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJLlACjqguyMs3B75iW1A9hDRS3c2eH4S__lBP6l00exgcvcZpEP7UlfUoEWH4rII_dKwObGWLuPZp2_XkpzoIFyFfCkMb3o6B2l4tLCusJFr2HkNJMMbBff5k52fah0r5EQQijJHEBJs/s400/SV+communism.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5685356229453707442" /></a><br /><br />20 years later the Smart Vote is very different. Viewing communism as the worst possible system is still a stupid view, but now viewing it as good, or even OK, is even dumber. The Smart Vote is now that communism is definitely pretty bad, even if it isn’t the worst possible system. <br /><br />So why did the Smart Vote ‘change its mind’? The change is entirely due to the more intelligent changing their minds. Those with IQs less than 85 didn’t change their views at all. The reason for the change wasn’t the obvious failure of the bulk of the communist system in the late 80s. It must have been a form of knowledge that gradually made itself apparent from the start because the Smart Vote in favor of communism has declined at a steady constant rate from the 70s and didn’t slow down after the collapse. I suspect it was the steady and strong improvement of non-communist economies. Free markets obviously weren’t drifting anywhere bad. Another factor was probably theoretical developments. Early in the 20th century Marxism was a well developed intellectual tradition with a lot of seemingly smart things to say about economics. In contrast pro free market economic theory started as a relatively poor intellectual cousin, and only developed gradually as a serious competitor. Perhaps it also gradually dawned on intellectuals that communism was a form of social engineering that required a fairly permanent state of brutality to operate. <br /><br />I also looked at the international trends in economic freedom broken down into quintiles by national IQ. The economic freedom levels of ex-communist countries were added. Ex-communist countries average around the 4th quintile in national IQ. Smarter countries persistently maintain freer economies, but everyone is learning that freedom is better. The change mirrors the change in the Smart Vote on communism in the US. Note the massive change in the economic freedom of the ex-communist countries themselves. They moved from levels lower than those maintained by the most foolish of countries – by this measure they were the most foolish countries, even if they weren’t the least intelligent - to economic freedom typical of their national intelligence levels.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNfTqISu9_rA-3a7DrDuoDD2AzBPVuB225qH3CCSRXNpvTEqwNTVMdxq83fBjSJScb35_VIBTCqrhaPkf1tuGjY78EmnFw18ctTobdDVFvKM0dDVhFePDzL5wizMAL13MYDiFhlMgFxYU/s1600/SV+Econ+Freedom.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNfTqISu9_rA-3a7DrDuoDD2AzBPVuB225qH3CCSRXNpvTEqwNTVMdxq83fBjSJScb35_VIBTCqrhaPkf1tuGjY78EmnFw18ctTobdDVFvKM0dDVhFePDzL5wizMAL13MYDiFhlMgFxYU/s400/SV+Econ+Freedom.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5685352050043258578" /></a> <br /><br />So the answer to the question is a definite no. Communism isn’t, and never was, an intelligent alternative, even if it did take time to realize that. The Smart Vote is for greater economic freedom, and there don’t appear to be any systems that provide a viable alternative for smart opinion.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Relative Contribution of Intelligence and Economic Freedom to Economic Growth.</span><br /><br />The Smart Vote implies that establishing a high level of economic freedom is the ‘correct’ thing to do. In this section I test this idea. Do higher levels of economic freedom per se speed up growth, or is faster economic growth just a function of having a smarter population (high intellectual or cognitive capital). Perhaps economic freedom is purely an indulgence of the smart. Perhaps economic freedom is irrelevant to economic development but it’s just ‘correct’ to have for other reasons – after all Amartya Sen pointed out that freedom is good for its own sake quite apart from any indirect good it may help to establish. <br /><br />The details of the analysis are in the table in Appendix 2. The effect of each individual measure tends to be modest compared to the role of intelligence but when added together general economic freedom has a bigger impact on growth than intelligence. A large part (65%) of the effect on growth lies in what intelligence and economic freedom have in common. 88% of the role intelligence plays in producing faster growth lies in the role it plays in providing overall economic freedom and only 12% via factors that aren’t part of freedom. On the other hand 28% of the effect of economic freedom on growth has nothing to do with intelligence. <br /><br />The existence of the Rule of Law is an important factor in allowing economic development, particularly when applied to economic activity e.g. the protection of property rights and freedom from bribery, etc. Providing rule of law is expensive, which is why there is a tendency for greater state consumption expenditure to go with higher growth rates. Earlier I established that it is smart to ensure the rule of law. Faster economic development is a major reason why it smart.<br /><br />Another pro growth factor falling (with rule of law) under what may be called ‘providing stability’, is sound money, or stable prices and positive interest rates. This is a good reason for assuming that the Smart Vote would be for stable money values when the size of the economy allows it.<br /><br />The next group of pro growth factors relate more directly to economic activity. <br /><br />Firstly, growth is faster if government does not make itself a nuisance to business, by burdening it with lots of administration requirements, making it onerous to start a business or costly to comply with tax. <br /><br />Secondly, economic development is faster when labor regulation is more flexible. <br /><br />Thirdly, growth is faster when foreign investment is freely allowed and international trade is robust and not hindered by procedural barriers. <br /><br />Fourthly, growth is faster when resources are not taken away from the more productive - in high top marginal taxes; or given to the less productive - in transfers and subsidies. <br /><br />Finally, requiring business to meet a certain level of standards seems to speed up growth – probably by reducing waste. (Remember I found requiring higher standards to be pro freedom in my factor analysis. Gwartner & Lawson have not requiring standards as pro freedom.)<br /><br />The Smart Vote is indifferent to, or even opposed to, some of these factors. For example, higher transfers seem to be a smart thing to do in spite of slowing economic growth. The same applies to not imposing minimum standards. Flexibility on labor regulation seems to have intelligent reasons opposing it that match economic growth in importance. I will refrain from speculating on what these anti-growth reasons may be. <br /><br />The equation predicting how many times richer a country got over 30 years is as follows <br /><br />Growth = 0.1106*IQ-0.0005*GDPpc (at start)+1.6913*EF (factor score)-2.3738.<br /><br />It explains 46.7% of the national differences in the rate of economic growth. It sounds like there is lots of growth potential left to be explained but there isn’t really. Unreliability in the measurements accounts for much of it. For example the equation as a whole has a similar reliability to national IQ and the economic freedom index (0.94 and 0.96) and 30 year growth has a reliability of 0.68. Correcting for that gives a correlation of 0.846, which explains 71.5% of the differences in 30 year growth rates. At most 28.5% of the variation in growth rates (less than a third) has something to do with factors other than national intelligence, current income and economic freedom. Some of this is just plain luck.<br /><br />The factor score is in unit normal scores. The difference between being in the top and bottom 10% of economic freedom (Australia and Norway versus Cameroon and Ecuador say) is equivalent to a national IQ difference of 23 points. In individuals an IQ gap of that magnitude makes the difference between being virtually certain of being able to solve a tough problem, and virtually certain of not being able to solve it. Economic freedom is therefore a way of massively increasing the efficiency of a country’s cognitive capital. Hayek often made the point that free markets use knowledge incomparably more efficiently than command economies. The equation both confirms that view and gives it a slightly different slant. <br /><br />One gets another perspective on the impact of such a difference in economic freedom by looking at the likely differences in economic development. The median country more than tripled its per capita income over 30 years - 3.4 fold to be exact. For the bottom 10% of economic freedom it would likely be 2.12 and for the top 10% it would be 4.68 fold. In other words if two countries started with the same income and national IQ, where one chose to maintain a bottom 10% level of economic freedom, and the other a top 10% level, the freer country would have more than twice the income of the less free country within 30 years.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Conclusion</span><br /><br />The results are a vindication of the Smart Vote concept. The policies indicated by the Smart Vote as most likely ‘correct’, proved to be a very important component of economic development. These policies were to provide economic freedom through the provision of stability via the rule of law and sound money, and through leaving business alone to hire, produce and trade as best they see fit,<br /><br />The Smart Vote isn’t always right. It was wrong about communism in the 70s. On the other hand it is very sensitive to changes in the state of knowledge, and very likely makes the best possible decision given the state of knowledge at the time.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">References</span><br /><br />1. IQ and the Wealth of Nations, Lynn R. & Vanhanen T.<br />2. IQ and Global Inequality, Lynn R. & Vanhanen T.<br />3. The g Factor of International Cognitive Ability Comparisons: The Homogeneity of Results in PISA, TIMSS, PIRLS and IQ tests Across Nations, Rindermann H.<br />4. IQ in the Ramsey Model: A Naïve Calibration, Jones G.<br />5. Intelligence, Human Capital and Economic Growth: A Baysian Averaging of Classical Estimates Approach, Jones G & Schneider J.<br />6. The Role of Cognitive Skills in Economic Development, Hanushek & Woessmann. <br />7. Accounting for Cross-Country Income Differences, Francesco Casseli.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">APPENDIX 1</span><br /><br />Out of the 45 economic freedom measures, national IQ is significantly correlated to 36 of them (80%) and is close on 2 more. Of the 9 variables where it isn’t, 6 are from one area – labor regulation. Furthermore the relationship tends to be strong. Indeed if the general economic freedom factor I extracted is anything to go by, intelligence seems to explain most (59%) of the differences in economic freedom across countries.<br /><br />GDP per capita is significantly related to 26 of the 45 economic freedom measures. Mostly, what intelligence and income have in common is what matters for economic freedom. That means is that either the apparent effect of intelligence is a by-product of its close relationship with income, or the apparent effect of income is a by-product of its close connection with intelligence, or some mixture of both. To tell which is which, compare the “IQ alone” and “GDP alone” columns. If, for example, the “IQ alone” number is high and the “GDP alone” is “ns” (not significant), then any apparent income effect is because income rides on the shirt tales of intelligence. If the numbers are the other way around then economic freedom depends on high income and the IQ effect is not real.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDxq2VWAXoH9zK_9HvkLzcOUyEmaAU3PoEHYAkVF6iPOfuiP9MzaRWuyPwjngqF53C1ftpvRLwvNothws4Nhg1_8S_vMYPouXESiEDs8MgM0jIOrDN_3RdU2kJcoDdN7wsRkLRg4hci-s/s1600/Econ+Freedom+Regress.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 354px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDxq2VWAXoH9zK_9HvkLzcOUyEmaAU3PoEHYAkVF6iPOfuiP9MzaRWuyPwjngqF53C1ftpvRLwvNothws4Nhg1_8S_vMYPouXESiEDs8MgM0jIOrDN_3RdU2kJcoDdN7wsRkLRg4hci-s/s400/Econ+Freedom+Regress.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5685352509523655378" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">APPENDIX 2</span><br /><br />29 of the 45 economic freedom variables are associated with economic growth beyond the connection to intelligence. The effect of each tends to be modest compared to the role of intelligence but economic freedom in general has almost three times the independent impact on growth as intelligence. In fact a considerable part (88%) of the role intelligence plays in producing faster growth lies in the role it plays in providing economic freedom.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs7kRi4waJmdDDEZLsrMIHmEOxbdPZATU8IhBDkA67YGL7_5kJvxU_Eb9nk4wpHX90BCJFs4s9fWjEciK0JmZjR1Gqgo7rpE16RBvFdUbH-smHCu2603U9rJMbYXPFi1GcuDBPsgs2b9U/s1600/Growth+Regress.JPG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 354px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs7kRi4waJmdDDEZLsrMIHmEOxbdPZATU8IhBDkA67YGL7_5kJvxU_Eb9nk4wpHX90BCJFs4s9fWjEciK0JmZjR1Gqgo7rpE16RBvFdUbH-smHCu2603U9rJMbYXPFi1GcuDBPsgs2b9U/s400/Growth+Regress.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5685353180867111218" /></a>Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-20946591810200788632011-11-29T12:15:00.000-08:002011-11-29T12:51:49.393-08:00Thinking about Welfare StatesThe provision of welfare or charity by government is an issue that generates a lot of passion. When there are poor or suffering people about we should do what we can to help. On the other hand are the suffering victims of bad luck or irresponsible? We don’t want to people to become a drag on the industrious and get something they don’t deserve. Then is it ethical to be charitable using other people’s money? In other words is it right for government to provide welfare, and if so how much more or less than now? <br /><br />The provision of social security is very popular across the board, with the majority of people supporting higher social security spending. Only 1 in 15 or so think the USA should spend less. On the other hand the provision of welfare by the state is unpopular. Just under half want to see less spent on it and only 1 in 5 want to see more welfare. People who give to charity or volunteer for charity work are slightly less likely to be in favor of increased government welfare spending. Conservatives are very slightly more likely to give to, and volunteer for, charity than liberals and liberals to be in favor of a government role.<br /><br />Are there good reasons to favor the conservative or liberal approach? Let’s look at what the Smart Vote has to say about it. Consider the graph below. It shows the Smart Vote over time for higher, lower or unchanged spending on welfare. Unfortunately it looks quite a mess, as if the Smart Vote can’t make up its mind. For the most part the Smart Vote is for government spending on welfare to remain steady. However I looked carefully at the general drift of the Smart Vote over time and it seems that intelligent opinion moves toward less spending on welfare when economic conditions get worse and toward higher spending as economic conditions improve.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjusQQUkvbXn7sW2mxe_mlpiVoT7Q73wVdrs0r2kvnIRVVR8UdKzHqoJ9JICFKfVe7MhOs_Q0uZlvL_aQcXxXEf_QuCihPgpF3o_le3sGYKn3XVece7nwNfIEvy1D56QRKq-NuJ51luuc/s1600/Welfare.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjusQQUkvbXn7sW2mxe_mlpiVoT7Q73wVdrs0r2kvnIRVVR8UdKzHqoJ9JICFKfVe7MhOs_Q0uZlvL_aQcXxXEf_QuCihPgpF3o_le3sGYKn3XVece7nwNfIEvy1D56QRKq-NuJ51luuc/s400/Welfare.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680515236458160994" /></a> <br /><br />In other words intelligent opinion on welfare spending is that it should be tailored to the means of government rather than the needs of welfare recipients. <br /><br />To check if the pattern is due to bias or real thinking I ran a regression. This was complicated by the Smart Vote being the mid-point option so a linear regression would be useless. Instead I compared More versus Same spending, and Same versus Less spending, separately in two logistic regressions. IQ does show an independent trend toward holding welfare spending steady, even when controlling for various demographics and traits that reflect different interests. White conservatives (and to some extent the older and wealthier) tend to lean toward a reduction in welfare spending and away from an increase in welfare spending.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiRQLZAvLfP0PKPiqfSJTRKLl7DifeiknC7wa7VwXgOaUOtHnznNNfxX4SOF2neXrLAe-L9cmry87HdU913GdS0uF45O_eoMUh02W6TckyuROzNNCNfkR7gzowo9p7zH4Cxz8uhPe3Tzs/s1600/Welfare+regression.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiRQLZAvLfP0PKPiqfSJTRKLl7DifeiknC7wa7VwXgOaUOtHnznNNfxX4SOF2neXrLAe-L9cmry87HdU913GdS0uF45O_eoMUh02W6TckyuROzNNCNfkR7gzowo9p7zH4Cxz8uhPe3Tzs/s400/Welfare+regression.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680516383137160146" /></a><br /><br />The Smart Vote is decidedly against wealth or income redistribution and against the view that government has any responsibility to provide for the needs of citizens in general or for the poor in particular – even after controlling for possible sources of bias (see the regression results below.) However after controlling for bias IQ does not relate to the actual amount government spends on aiding poor children. White conservatives remain anti welfare on every question. Being wealthier or older (probably a generation thing) also predisposes people against state welfare responsibilities or spending.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrY6hZ44GUwpG0vxFsocDUmplctyiu082X75mG1HGd9m7iKOP1WIUIZVE0fsqI8-9NvBebgupZSFeaY3Soe490GTavnPOfmyk9Sf5wAbGnUKIAa4YpfWO_N0TKxPz7Zxjmkd72MBQK3PI/s1600/Welfare+regression+2.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrY6hZ44GUwpG0vxFsocDUmplctyiu082X75mG1HGd9m7iKOP1WIUIZVE0fsqI8-9NvBebgupZSFeaY3Soe490GTavnPOfmyk9Sf5wAbGnUKIAa4YpfWO_N0TKxPz7Zxjmkd72MBQK3PI/s400/Welfare+regression+2.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680517491875557074" /></a><br /><br />In general it seems that an unbiased intelligent view is that it isn’t government’s responsibility to provide for the needs or welfare of its citizens, even if they are poor. The Smart Vote is also very clearly against the government redistributing income or wealth. It is however not necessarily for less spending on welfare by government. In fact the Smart Vote appears to be for maintenance of current levels of welfare spending with minor drifts toward more or less welfare spending as economy rises or falls. <br /><br />In summary <span style="font-weight:bold;">the Smart Vote doesn’t think welfare is really a state responsibility but is not opposed to some welfare spending so long as the country can afford it.</span> <br /><br />What about social security? The Smart Vote trends are very much clearer here. In the graph below the Stupid Vote is consistently for higher social security spending. The Smart Vote for less social security spending starts off extremely high. It then declines steadily, falling below the Smart Vote for Unchanged Spending in recent years. In other words, the intelligent choice was decisively for the very unpopular act of reducing social security spending (and to avoid increasing it) but for some reason that policy became steadily less wise over time. Current wisdom is to keep social security spending steady.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtkPAt5HWapAwR5FZAfoixDUQeGgBxJr6soly8Y59Qjm7aB-zwYasak-ClNHVzzKrRnPrtHiEwTu3Ni4_Oknmu_J2RF6GgODVp7pQFUVbI-LS6PeZcx_C75go3qFczT6Dqoq9WYNsPCvM/s1600/Soc+Security.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtkPAt5HWapAwR5FZAfoixDUQeGgBxJr6soly8Y59Qjm7aB-zwYasak-ClNHVzzKrRnPrtHiEwTu3Ni4_Oknmu_J2RF6GgODVp7pQFUVbI-LS6PeZcx_C75go3qFczT6Dqoq9WYNsPCvM/s400/Soc+Security.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680518900331132050" /></a> <br /><br />The regression analysis below shows that the potential interest factors do not account for the Smart Vote on Social Security – the role of intelligence remains strong.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSwDV_dOPyTVBtQQSAqoqoC_jnjXkxIuCxcQFSMvnvWL2Ri1a7q5v-AHyYqI71OHe0zm_YAkLLc97fRPClK-RzcWKIh8SwVlYL7HuNiJKmkNAfAsx-anZYuOzJBsrS9J_uLvoJ6AqklY8/s1600/SocSecurity+regression.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSwDV_dOPyTVBtQQSAqoqoC_jnjXkxIuCxcQFSMvnvWL2Ri1a7q5v-AHyYqI71OHe0zm_YAkLLc97fRPClK-RzcWKIh8SwVlYL7HuNiJKmkNAfAsx-anZYuOzJBsrS9J_uLvoJ6AqklY8/s400/SocSecurity+regression.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680520313010252338" /></a><br /><br />I don’t know why the Smart Vote changed its mind on lowering social security spending. There is no change in the stupidity of increasing social security spending so presumably there are good reasons for keeping costs within bounds e.g. the long term viability of social security. Maybe the fund was under pressure but has since become sounder, making the downsides of poorer old people less justifiable? Perhaps the fund didn’t need to spend as much before the baby boomers hit retirement age so it was wise to save more, but now it has more people to spend on and less room to save?<br /><br />The Smart Vote favors less retirement spending by government outside of social security. The table below however shows that the Smart Vote is marginal when controls are added, and so may be the result of bias. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH_oW1zxxOv37RBxKA61zN-ImYSTMDvI1wm263Nd-MhCeQcj7YkxrIrsJ5TkGL5Zpe7hVrW0fiOvisxkMI5k3VDJOMl2IENe3Cvy6ysr8gj7l1beIGpakNZz4bAh7mGbkFC3MM7z8-jWs/s1600/Retirement+spending+regression.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH_oW1zxxOv37RBxKA61zN-ImYSTMDvI1wm263Nd-MhCeQcj7YkxrIrsJ5TkGL5Zpe7hVrW0fiOvisxkMI5k3VDJOMl2IENe3Cvy6ysr8gj7l1beIGpakNZz4bAh7mGbkFC3MM7z8-jWs/s400/Retirement+spending+regression.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680522844361265106" /></a><br /><br />Notice that the Smart Vote on welfare and social security spending has been sort of in the direction of prudent politically conservative preferences. <span style="font-weight:bold;">It’s wise for the government not to get carried away by the needs of the poor and elderly, and lose sight of the country’s ability to pay for welfare and social security. It also appears stupid for government to think of a social safety net as one of its core responsibilities. Such a safety net is more of a ‘nice to have’ when the country can afford it.</span><br /><br />On previous posts the Smart Vote came out on the side of liberal preferences. The Smart Vote is in fact not for global political liberalism or conservatism per se. There appears to be wisdom and stupidity on both sides of the political divide.Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-67772534114099669272011-11-24T03:14:00.000-08:002011-11-24T03:57:11.159-08:00Freedom of Speech and Keeping SecretsA few days ago the African National Congress – ruling party in the South African government – passed a ‘Protection of Information’ act that is patently aimed at protecting the corruption of ANC politicians from being exposed. This makes the legal watching and reporting on government behavior almost impossible. They of course say it’s necessary because important state secrets are vulnerable. No one outside the ANC thinks this is true. Indeed it’s difficult to imagine that the South African state needs to keep anything secret at all. The justification for keeping secrets is to gain an advantage over a competitor or enemy and to prevent them from gaining an advantage over you. Another reason is that you are up to something that is likely to be frowned upon. Now of course when at war a whole country stands to gain or lose an advantage or might be embarrassed, but there is no prospect of being at war and the state is a monopoly and has no competitors in South Africa. If there is no reason to fear foreigners it seems suspiciously like the state needs to keep secrets because it has reason to fear the opinion of the people themselves.<br /><br />Another thing the ANC wants to do is have a media tribunal because according to them the press tends to publish a lot of lies or misinformation about politicians and then does a very bad job of retracting allegations when they prove to be false. This is probably partially true, although the ANC exaggerates the extent of it or illegitimately views an alternative interpretation to their preferred one to be false. The press has however also published a lot of embarrassing truths (or legitimate alternative understandings) about politicians. The proposed body will no doubt squash these too and they shouldn’t be allowed to.<br /><br />Freedom of speech and press freedom are two fairly central principles in most democracies. However most of the population thinks that at least one viewpoint shouldn’t be allowed to be aired in public so the principle of freedom of speech generally prevails in spite of the will of the people rather than because of it. Does that mean freedom of speech or press freedom is not such a wise idea?<br /><br />I ran this issue through the Smart Vote. The General Social Survey has 6 questions relating to whether various groups should be allowed to air their views in the USA. These are – racists, homosexuals, militarists, communists, anti-religionists and Muslim clerics preaching hatred of the US. For each of the first 5 about one third of the population wants to see them kept quiet and for the last more than half do. I had a look at the ratio of smart to stupid people who support allowing each of these groups to speak. As you can see from the graph below the ratio for each issue is always very high – above 150. Indeed the above 120 IQ group came close to full support on many issues whereas only a minority of the below 85 IQ group ever supported allowing any of them to speak. The graph entitled “All” refers to allowing all of the first 5 groups to speak i.e. no exceptions. [The Muslim cleric question wasn’t included because it has only been asked recently.] As you can see the Smart Vote on the more radical “All” category is especially strong – as is allowing hate speech by Muslim clerics.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPz5B5eQXzKFHilLpjQviWMHrxAC94T5uia6vlCKgeYC5XT6FkkSX94xlxwlfkNn7i8RT1gkgS-ArOxraQ4iMOtM1oCAtWB3oEV4rr2kVxRKXhJHRH-i9mZwwpTsC52Xr1rp-qNGugSLs/s1600/Free+Speech.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPz5B5eQXzKFHilLpjQviWMHrxAC94T5uia6vlCKgeYC5XT6FkkSX94xlxwlfkNn7i8RT1gkgS-ArOxraQ4iMOtM1oCAtWB3oEV4rr2kVxRKXhJHRH-i9mZwwpTsC52Xr1rp-qNGugSLs/s400/Free+Speech.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5678520489402447906" /></a> <br /><br />Of course this may simply reflect special interests or biases that just happen to align with IQ. I ran some logistic regressions to control for a variety of groups that may have special interests. The + and – below refer to the strength of the independent relationship of the independent variable to the dependent variable i.e. the group allowed to speak.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZkt1hHgIvUSC-2MCsx7-c8GsnUKOFRNYotCYyeGnuEsUx0PkZr5l5MdAk7AQ0_kIaCuNHRk7JyUaxC600XWMRqzRnPm2ybNlRktYw8vKl9hMGbSKKjdmU_PcqMvGNkGHv9bYfLjnpb2I/s1600/Free+Speech+regress.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZkt1hHgIvUSC-2MCsx7-c8GsnUKOFRNYotCYyeGnuEsUx0PkZr5l5MdAk7AQ0_kIaCuNHRk7JyUaxC600XWMRqzRnPm2ybNlRktYw8vKl9hMGbSKKjdmU_PcqMvGNkGHv9bYfLjnpb2I/s400/Free+Speech+regress.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5678521634260423874" /></a><br /><br />As should be plain IQ is still very strongly related to allowing any of these groups to speak even after controlling for these other factors. Being well educated, wealthier, younger, white or liberal predisposes one to support free speech more readily. On most questions, except homosexuality, males are also more prone to support free speech. Note also that there is a trend toward greater support for free speech in recent times.<br /><br />On a few question I could find the group mentioned in the GSS. You can see the table of the regression that includes the group membership (under “Interest”) below. For Homosexuals the variable was “Sexual Orientation”, for Communism it was “Opinion of Communism” and for Anti-religionists it was “Confidence in Existence of God”.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFIvBb4919ZQfT_G_LuKOghisYSXq07vrJc78tNQIRy6ovJAg_m0MR6lrK7ivlUSmdzKl6bJvvO-QcfL1tg3kawhjcD1gv41ER5G6d5efBL9BHcYI7ai9Sxp460akoquxoHGizEJ9FUY4/s1600/Free+Speech+interest.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFIvBb4919ZQfT_G_LuKOghisYSXq07vrJc78tNQIRy6ovJAg_m0MR6lrK7ivlUSmdzKl6bJvvO-QcfL1tg3kawhjcD1gv41ER5G6d5efBL9BHcYI7ai9Sxp460akoquxoHGizEJ9FUY4/s400/Free+Speech+interest.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5678522789114442658" /></a><br /><br />Also the racist question already included a direct interest group i.e. race. Of the four where I was able to find a group three of the groups were clearly more in favor of their interests being aired or banned (for racism and atheism). For the homosexuals they are universally in favor of being able to have their say but the numbers of cases are too low to show statistical significance. Smart blacks are in favor of allowing racists their say. Smart anti-communists and strong believers in God support allowing communists or vocal atheists to argue their points. Note that higher IQ still favors allowing free speech.<br /><br />What this means is that even among people who are conservatives that think communism is the worst possible system the brighter they are the more they think communists should be allowed to speak i.e. the more they support the airing of a view they hate. Alternatively among liberals who don’t think communism is necessarily bad the more stupid are more inclined to still deny communists a voice i.e. to restrict even those they don’t necessarily regard as a threat.<br /><br />The Smart Vote on allowing free speech, especially where the view might be offensive or disturbing, is particularly strong. Disallowing anyone to make the case for something they believe in or hold dear is plainly stupid – even if a majority of the population can’t see that.<br /><br />Now what about state secrets? Below is a table where I list a number of relevant questions and what the Smart Vote and Stupid Vote is for that question. The Stupid Vote is simply the alternative with the lowest ratio of high IQ to low IQ opinion.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfQ-864lb9Alhu6wMOz0wZFpwAXI3HWZoXh0DJbMFUWoGPVFYIcbzOQv-IrYgrhrY8BVWYRLwFtpD9nnTEFtXLR6T16sHLSS5-sHckhPPpnMhu3OvMqBvwpj8ZFVRjTsBf9um1xnB0LYk/s1600/secret1.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfQ-864lb9Alhu6wMOz0wZFpwAXI3HWZoXh0DJbMFUWoGPVFYIcbzOQv-IrYgrhrY8BVWYRLwFtpD9nnTEFtXLR6T16sHLSS5-sHckhPPpnMhu3OvMqBvwpj8ZFVRjTsBf9um1xnB0LYk/s400/secret1.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5678527849173378258" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5nrNGbLq15UBL2OvuhrkIYn3q4IMzHDhjlv7JHDlfHqPXreiWxi9CdZ7IiN3CXBO8gr1_ueAiwP4TggWiidBqZBaocM4Xocea7UNIUdgui7gN7-wS1LWNozAlzZIqfvfjzGgYATEqCEc/s1600/secret2.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5nrNGbLq15UBL2OvuhrkIYn3q4IMzHDhjlv7JHDlfHqPXreiWxi9CdZ7IiN3CXBO8gr1_ueAiwP4TggWiidBqZBaocM4Xocea7UNIUdgui7gN7-wS1LWNozAlzZIqfvfjzGgYATEqCEc/s400/secret2.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5678528952649028754" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQOwP0uN1zJ8EQzPaXi0IW_SMndPWqD6VfBTSdLrieaiMhySuC7HV8u2bUzKPmjAw4SvgXow8wWMIgsoN22ZJJI2yYkroLMYj5uEN0CVJHDdgbgOliNor119wXku-uAJCVv0dromKOt9I/s1600/secret3.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQOwP0uN1zJ8EQzPaXi0IW_SMndPWqD6VfBTSdLrieaiMhySuC7HV8u2bUzKPmjAw4SvgXow8wWMIgsoN22ZJJI2yYkroLMYj5uEN0CVJHDdgbgOliNor119wXku-uAJCVv0dromKOt9I/s400/secret3.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5678529977059497730" /></a><br /><br />On government maintaining secrets the intelligent view is that they either probably should or probably shouldn’t. Nowhere is intelligent opinion an unequivocal yes. That is however the stupid opinion on intelligence budgets, military technology and domestic terrorism. On military operations the stupid view is to definitely not keep them secret. So in general it is probably wise for the state to avoid making secrecy the default policy. The default should rather be openness unless there is a very good reason e.g. where the element of surprise is crucial – like military operations. The Smart Vote is unsure whether the state overdoes secrecy but it is clearly dumb to think it’s unlikely. <br /><br />It is the Smart Vote to allow the publication of leaked government plans e.g. for the economy.<br /><br />Since it’s wise to think that when government makes mistakes the official concerned won’t be corrected there should be some means for the public to know about it and act on it themselves.<br /><br />In any case it’s intelligent for citizens to keep a close watch on government (and stupid not to) and to engage in civil disobedience if necessary. It’s also intelligent to allow a lot of leeway for citizens to protest against their government and stupid to disallow it – except for physical damage. Being allowed to publish anti-government protests is part of that. <br /><br />Finally although the Smart Vote is for some method of ensuring media responsibility it is not in favor of the state disallowing publication – even when the price is the violation of the privacy of politicians.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">In sum, the wise allow everyone to argue their case – no matter who it offends or disturbs. There is an intelligent case to be made for some state secrets but secrecy should not be the default, it should be the exception. States may well be overdoing secrecy and it is wise to enable citizens to watch the state and protest (and even resist) if necessary. It’s wiser for the press to be free to publish leaked state plans and the doings of politicians, even if this is sometimes unfair. It would be downright stupid for a state to make everything a secret or a crime to expose its activities or misbehaving functionaries.</span><br /><br />In terms of serving the country they are meant to govern the ANC have taken a stupid step. The only reason I can see to justify it is that they are up to something that can’t be done unless the public is kept in the dark. This must mean that they want to do things that won’t be in the interest of the public. If so then they are no longer serving the country but using the country to serve themselves. It will come to bit them eventually but how long will the country have to suffer before they wake up to the Smart Vote?Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-49759633689751801652011-11-22T07:44:00.000-08:002011-11-22T08:16:41.560-08:00Discipline and PunishmentI’ve been reading Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature documenting the worldwide decline in all forms of predatory or disciplinary violence and I thought it would be a good time to look at the Smart Vote on a few forms of disciplinary harshness. In particular I will be looking at support for capital punishment for murder, courts passing harsher sentences and the use of spanking to discipline children. All of these issues have vociferous advocates on both sides and make for highly emotional exchanges. Nevertheless a large majority of opinion supports all of them in the USA - although, in line with Pinker’s book, support has been dropping. Support for capital punishment for murder has declined from 82% to 73%; for harsher sentences from 92% to 71%, and for spanking of children from 83% to 68%. The proportion of the population who support all three has dropped from 65% to 47% and the proportion opposing all three has risen from 7% to 20% - still less than half of those supporting all three.<br /><br />Let’s start with capital punishment for the crime of murder. Arguments for capital punishment are that it is a fitting price to pay for the crime and that the harshness of the penalty makes it an effective deterrent. One econometric study reached the conclusion that each execution saves the lives of 8 potential murder victims. That is quite efficient, even if there is a high error rate in convictions, but the validity of the conclusion depends a lot on the validity of some of the model’s assumptions. Quite a lot of the deterrent value depends on the perceived probability of being caught and punished and the extent to which this probability is perceived to be constant across all groups i.e. not capricious.<br /><br />Arguments against capital punishment are that it is barbaric, irreversible if in error, that it brutalizes the population and probably serves as an example that makes violence more acceptable and so could increase murder rates. Reviews of capital cases reveal fairly high rates of serious legal error – around 65% - with many reviews reaching the conclusion that a much lighter sentence was warranted and 5% actually reaching the conclusion that the person was innocent. The introduction of DNA analysis increased the latter percentage substantially. In other words more than 1 in 20 (possibly 1 in 10) people on death row did not commit the crime they were accused of. <br /><br />Most of the world has abolished capital punishment and although support for its reintroduction has fallen in the last decade it is still either a majority position or close to it. In the USA capital punishment is clearly a majority preference but what is the preference of the more intelligent public? Well to be frank a large majority of intelligent people also support capital punishment for murder. The proportion with IQs above 120 who support capital punishment dropped from 74% to 62%. The Smart Vote however isn’t about what the majority of intelligent people support. It’s about the direction in which opinion changes as intelligence increases. If the problem is tough it is possible for most bright people to get the answer wrong but more of them should get it right than the dull. The Smart Vote is therefore the alternative with the highest ratio of smart to stupid support. It turns out that the Smart Vote has been consistently opposed to the death sentence for murder since 1974 and is probably becoming increasingly so. See the graph below. The ratio of smart to dull opposing capital punishment rises from 1.25 (it’s multiplied by 100 to remove decimals) to over 2 and never gets close to 1.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUBKIStJiKIBCB1E4CXhRKvr5YSbxwoUUzdIFHSDodz1zxYukTvHOR_F4Od9i8pRol6_QsrP07Bibl-Pp-D-_jBkTsiyuW1zHa2KZL11yZAVWIXO_JO44EoY6kI5TL2iJpFL64YLGF9NM/s1600/CapPun.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUBKIStJiKIBCB1E4CXhRKvr5YSbxwoUUzdIFHSDodz1zxYukTvHOR_F4Od9i8pRol6_QsrP07Bibl-Pp-D-_jBkTsiyuW1zHa2KZL11yZAVWIXO_JO44EoY6kI5TL2iJpFL64YLGF9NM/s400/CapPun.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677847878277705298" /></a> <br /><br />Of course it is possible that the reason smart are more likely to oppose the death sentence than stupid people has no direct connection to being smarter per se. It could be that they are less likely to be victims and feel less threatened or it could be that they get more education and are indoctrinated by liberal professors, etc. So to control for such possibilities I performed a logistic regression where many confounding factors were entered into the model with IQ. The results are in the table below. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdCLplvB5muGfQhKKTSB9Z2kfpx-BLYJUR1q1MAfpsO9W4NMK2Umf8bM72jy-A_3EzBCD50b7zH9V5Xaw_10akhQnAyoGH6HITvF38-VhXbP6RuRPTAgLEptZAcmnoNMvUbDyrFGHgxAU/s1600/CapPun+regression.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdCLplvB5muGfQhKKTSB9Z2kfpx-BLYJUR1q1MAfpsO9W4NMK2Umf8bM72jy-A_3EzBCD50b7zH9V5Xaw_10akhQnAyoGH6HITvF38-VhXbP6RuRPTAgLEptZAcmnoNMvUbDyrFGHgxAU/s400/CapPun+regression.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677848944223127538" /></a> <br /><br />As expected, conservatives are more likely than liberals to support capital punishment – so too are men rather than women. Whites are much more likely than blacks, and the rich more likely than the poor, to support it. Age has no relationship. Neither does time period have a linear relationship – because support increased first and then decreased. As hypothesized above, exposure to more education does reduce support for the death sentence but IQ nevertheless remains independently significantly and strongly associated with opposition to capital punishment after controlling for all those factors. This raises the likelihood that intelligent opposition to capital punishment is not simple bias but is based on the relative merits of the case against it.<br /><br />Next we move onto the issue of increasing or reducing the harshness of sentencing in general. An overwhelming majority of people want courts to impose harsher sentences on criminals than they already do - never dropping below 71% and having been as high as 92%. Only 7-10% of people ever expressed a wish for sentences to be less harsh. What about the more intelligent public? For those with IQs above 120 (brightest 10%) support for harsher sentences ranged from a low of 58% and a high of 90% and support for lighter sentences ranged from 0-15%. Again even in very bright circles you are much more likely to hear calls for heavier sentences than lighter sentences. Also again however the Smart Vote is different. See the graph below showing the Smart Vote over time for Heavier, Lighter or Unchanged sentencing.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPB1e4E-PAt88PJF28pMqLQj0-93EtW6Eug6JXCPMwb72vcYyraCMlT8v1TChV-WE3B7a_aaz3SmEAcE1yZ__SrX4v38cqTfW3_AHsdvOY5ojFRvik93ssbikhOJHCTioHPXF08fMhe8M/s1600/Sentencing+of+Criminals.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPB1e4E-PAt88PJF28pMqLQj0-93EtW6Eug6JXCPMwb72vcYyraCMlT8v1TChV-WE3B7a_aaz3SmEAcE1yZ__SrX4v38cqTfW3_AHsdvOY5ojFRvik93ssbikhOJHCTioHPXF08fMhe8M/s400/Sentencing+of+Criminals.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677850847737802082" /></a> <br /><br />It turns out that the Smart Vote is for courts to keep the harshness of sentencing at current levels rather to either increase or reduce it. There is a modest shift of the Smart Vote away from lighter sentencing during the late 80s and early 90s followed by a shift toward lighter sentencing and away from heavier sentencing from then on. This shift coincides with the initial climb in crime rates to the peak in the early 90s and then the unexpected drop in murder (and overall crime) rates from then onward. In other words the Smart Vote on policy is sensitive to conditions. Never in favor of heavier sentencing, the Smart Vote nevertheless thought it a mistake to lighten sentences when crime rates were very high and increasing, but shifted noticeably toward lightening sentences when crime rates dropped.<br /><br />What about the issue of bias? The usual regression results shown below indicate that whites, women, the richer, older or the more conservative are more in favor of harsher sentencing than blacks, men, the poorer, younger or more liberal. Exposure to more education makes people less inclined to support harsher punishment. The association of IQ with opposition to harsher punishment is still evident after all these controls.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmtusLADJrt4QbJ7EpwQC2RWrVouSYT38QkMFf6nZ1eskRA9z2kRR9XR6rqlK5dXWkurj72qG0ydjNDfClztI3eUHunQmzckPw7ph_NGwuKaYmeO_Dj9XW4Bvj2TMoopTe8zwLSlK9IUE/s1600/Sentencing+of+Criminals+-+regression.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmtusLADJrt4QbJ7EpwQC2RWrVouSYT38QkMFf6nZ1eskRA9z2kRR9XR6rqlK5dXWkurj72qG0ydjNDfClztI3eUHunQmzckPw7ph_NGwuKaYmeO_Dj9XW4Bvj2TMoopTe8zwLSlK9IUE/s400/Sentencing+of+Criminals+-+regression.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677851960102637106" /></a><br /><br />Greater intelligence points away from harsher punishment of criminals even when crime rates are high and rising and moves toward lighter punishment when crime rates drop. Like the Smart Vote on capital punishment this flies in the face of prevailing opinion implying that prevailing opinion is stupid and probably wrong.<br /><br />What about spanking children in order to discipline them? Virtually all adults will have been spanked at some point by their parents (if not their teachers) when they were children and will have heard the words of wisdom “Spare the rod and spoil the child”. Most think spanking is the only way children can be disciplined since they seem to lack self control in the absence of strong incentives. Even those who don’t think spanking is the only way to discipline children often concede that it is a very efficient way. It should come as no surprise therefore that a large majority of people are in favor of spanking children to discipline them. Between half and two thirds of the top 10% brightest are also in favor of spanking children. <br /><br />The Smart Vote is however opposed to spanking to discipline children. Look at the graph below. The ratio of smart to stupid opposition is appreciably higher than 1 (100 to get rid of decimals) for the last 23 years. In fact the graph understates the opposition. The categories Disagree and Strongly Disagree are combined in the graph. The Smart Vote is actually for Strongly Disagree with spanking to discipline children. Alternatively the Stupid Vote is for Strongly Agree. The ratio is declining over time simply because the overall population is moving toward opposition to spanking.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzBAQBeeZ8Bdwj-82YCKSfFbmAhkgSgNdboCG8iONWyMCyhl9JjKXt_ZDYCHvxssLsvPrt8DhxWMFGnY9-5BcxPw1tlZWLVwCZ6b2Pq1Tf79MEzHN0BXmJtJCnjsmfuOk4o8oX1E02CUc/s1600/Spanking.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzBAQBeeZ8Bdwj-82YCKSfFbmAhkgSgNdboCG8iONWyMCyhl9JjKXt_ZDYCHvxssLsvPrt8DhxWMFGnY9-5BcxPw1tlZWLVwCZ6b2Pq1Tf79MEzHN0BXmJtJCnjsmfuOk4o8oX1E02CUc/s400/Spanking.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677853158790756258" /></a><br /><br />Could this just be bias? The usual regression to control for confounding factors says no. The results table below shows that blacks, men and conservatives are stronger believers in spanking children. It also shows the decline in support over the years. Exposure to education strongly reduces support for spanking. Considering that almost three quarters of psychologists oppose spanking it’s not surprising that this view has filtered through higher education. Finally the association between IQ and opposition to spanking is still strong in spite of the control exercise. In short the smart thing is not to spank kids in order to discipline them. Animal trainers have shown that you don’t even need to strike animals to make them obedient or do tricks so why should it be any worse with children?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1beYxXfY58Shyphenhyphen53TF_zwt9VDW1iFC6PnB-oFdQd1gb6oAchzRLFiuGnYRROiIIrkcOnTW4qtPs9iIs9ktu6-kBGUh5b_PbHDXQH_9unSzjFus5MDL4qUGUlQORgGYpvnULtzyG-jjng0/s1600/Spanking+regression.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1beYxXfY58Shyphenhyphen53TF_zwt9VDW1iFC6PnB-oFdQd1gb6oAchzRLFiuGnYRROiIIrkcOnTW4qtPs9iIs9ktu6-kBGUh5b_PbHDXQH_9unSzjFus5MDL4qUGUlQORgGYpvnULtzyG-jjng0/s400/Spanking+regression.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677854500410027778" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Conclusion</span><br /><br />In all three cases the Smart Vote is against harsh punishment and in all three cases it flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Pinker’s book and the Smart Vote have shown that the world is slowly becoming wiser on this issue. Nonetheless most people still stupidly cling to unnecessary harsh treatment as a means of managing the behavior of others. The chances are good that the world would be a better place, and probably their lives would be better too, if they didn’t.Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-20534057988239228822011-11-16T06:06:00.000-08:002011-11-16T06:21:43.721-08:00What is Intelligent Opinion on Military Spending?World defense spending amounts to $1.63 trillion, or 2.6% of world GDP. Spread over the same time period as WW2 this is equivalent to 95% of the absolute cost of WW2 (using the GDP deflator to standardize value). In terms of share of GDP global military spending is about 1/6 of the level of military spending for WW2. <br /><br />Every country has an army (except Costa Rica) and some countries devote an extraordinary large proportion of their resources to maintaining one. WW2 mobilized 4% of the world’s population and participants devoted 32% of their GDP to the war. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute North Korea spends about 25% of its resources on its armed forces and has 5 % of its population on active duty. The US alone accounts for 42.8% of global defense spending and with China account for 50.1% of all military spending. Other countries spend quite little. About 20% of the world’s nations spend 1% or less of their GDP on defense and about 9% spend 3% or more of their GDP on defense. So a significant fraction of the world values defense at least 3 times as much as another significant fraction. Which of the two approaches is the wiser – hawks or doves?<br /><br />One way to approach this is to look at the correlation between the mean IQ of each country’s citizens and defense spending as a percentage of GDP. It turns out to be zero. Another way is to look at opinion within countries. Ideally one would like to see how opinion varies with IQ within low defense spending countries and high spending countries. If there is a trend for the brighter citizens in both groups toward high defense spending intelligent option would be for being well prepared militarily. If the trend in both groups is for the smart to support less defense spending then pacifism may be the intelligent policy. If there are different patterns in each group then there is either an optimum degree of defense spending or it may be smart for the well armed to continue their arms race and for the rest to drop their arms altogether. Unfortunately I only have data for opinions of defense spending by IQ in one country – the USA. I can however use this data to answer part of the question.<br /><br />The USA is one of the high defense spending countries – at 4.7% currently it spends roughly 4 times the global median on defense as a percentage of GDP. <br /><br />Lets have a look at the Smart Vote says. Recall that the Smart Vote is based on the ratio of the proportion of people with IQs greater than 120 and the proportion of people with IQs less than 80 who support a particular choice. The ratio is multiplied by 100 to get rid of the decimals. The Smart Vote is the choice with the highest ratio at any point. All the opinion and IQ data comes from the General Social Survey. <br /><br />Firstly the Smart Vote is decidedly for being interested in military policy.<br /><br />Secondly in 1984 the Smart Vote expected an escalation of the arms race to be moderately likely, a reduction in nuclear arms to be moderately unlikely and the elimination of atomic weapons to be very unlikely before 1994.<br /> <br />Thirdly in 1984 the Smart Vote expected an all out nuclear war to be highly unlikely, a conventional war to be moderately likely and repeated guerilla wars to be highly likely before 1994. <br /><br />Fourthly the Smart Vote didn’t expect the US to be involved in a conventional war between 1976 and 1992. <br /><br />Fifthly in 2000 the Smart Vote considers terrorist threats from US citizens to be the same or larger than 10 years ago. All these expectations proved accurate.<br /><br />Nonetheless in 1984 the Smart Vote considered military service in war or peacetime to be moderately important but not at all an obligation and before 1973 was for taking part in anti-war protests. <br /><br />In spite of being against the use of conscription, and pro the exemption of conscientious objectors, the Smart Vote concludes that an all volunteer military hasn’t worked out well - somewhere between “Worse” to “Only Fairly Well”. The Smart Vote on Confidence in the Military over time confirms this. One can see in the graph below that the Smart Vote has been for “Hardly Any” confidence in the military up until the early 90s and since then somewhere between “Only Some” and “Hardly Any” confidence. The Stupid Vote (the lowest ratio of smart to dull opinion) has consistently been for “Great Deal” of confidence in the military. On the other hand the Smart and Stupid Votes have been converging a little over the last generation. In a related question the Smart Vote was for not being proud of America’s military record.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGugW7FEX8XkzSKMoRk_3PDMJnJ0njz5fMXCZs03MxwLv4BVYURlVc5eObDNEpjTuLrsMNjLGY4pAD_d2pU2jFhSHQ5r9dqxKB8gizsxe6hKilCJ-ihiUY02lfM89bHGd0Fso6MmVOKDM/s1600/Confidence+in+Military+SV.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGugW7FEX8XkzSKMoRk_3PDMJnJ0njz5fMXCZs03MxwLv4BVYURlVc5eObDNEpjTuLrsMNjLGY4pAD_d2pU2jFhSHQ5r9dqxKB8gizsxe6hKilCJ-ihiUY02lfM89bHGd0Fso6MmVOKDM/s400/Confidence+in+Military+SV.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675596716456511634" /></a><br /><br />What about the question we started with – military spending? The graph below shows the Smart Vote on more, unchanged or less defense spending over the years and compares this to actual defense spending trends. The defense spending figures come from US budget history. I converted defense spending to an index by dividing the percentage of GDP spent of defense by 5% and multiplying by 100 to get rid of the decimals.<br /><br />You can see that the Smart Vote has been consistently for less defense spending and that until the mid 1990s the Stupid Vote has been for increased defense spending. How much less spending? A question on how much less or more military spending people prefer was asked in the 1990 and 1996 and revealed that the Smart Vote is for much less military spending rather than just moderately less. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1CelNDcfqchX97nxVYpEtaRygODiCDITDyF1txsFvuhswk6x39-_VLhUBTaGZPsP6kB1LC8E7ByCQdZINNwqH19tJLnpCQVbTbJIat-jPI5q3dB8ZN2KLV0l-4FPof7TsFO9aHzPCsO4/s1600/Military+Spending+SV.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 234px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1CelNDcfqchX97nxVYpEtaRygODiCDITDyF1txsFvuhswk6x39-_VLhUBTaGZPsP6kB1LC8E7ByCQdZINNwqH19tJLnpCQVbTbJIat-jPI5q3dB8ZN2KLV0l-4FPof7TsFO9aHzPCsO4/s400/Military+Spending+SV.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675595826955617474" /></a> <br /><br />The Smart Vote ratios might reflect interests that just happen to coincide with IQ, in which case the above wouldn’t be intelligent opinion so much as a bias. I checked that possibility with a multiple regression. More versus Less Military spending was the dependent variable and IQ, political ideology, age, sex, race, date, income and education the independent variables. The table below shows the strongly significant independent relationships and their direction.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR6pWr4EfU0D6E1eCbr-IRumE8YQDZH-xuyU9pPJqsD44BzmOQ7qKTWlSKXwdFMCmTWYOWr9jSHhWc2FRmXKaLiJkDT_XdL1zr1pO-sjjzHisArjNAnAAX7l-9uC-P7nXP31CNoSheaig/s1600/Military+Spending+Multiple+Regression.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR6pWr4EfU0D6E1eCbr-IRumE8YQDZH-xuyU9pPJqsD44BzmOQ7qKTWlSKXwdFMCmTWYOWr9jSHhWc2FRmXKaLiJkDT_XdL1zr1pO-sjjzHisArjNAnAAX7l-9uC-P7nXP31CNoSheaig/s400/Military+Spending+Multiple+Regression.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675598117838790674" /></a><br /><br />As expected ideology has a very strong effect on preferred military spending. Conservatives want to spend more and liberals less. Also preferring to spend more on the military, again as expected, are older people, whites and the wealthy. An unexpected finding was that women do too. There is a trend toward favoring ever less military spending over the years. Time, race and gender effects are very weak. <br /><br />The important thing for the Smart Vote is that the relationship between higher IQ and favoring less military spending is still plain even after controlling for all these interest variables (that do in fact influence opinion). So the Smart Vote on this issue is less likely to be an artifact of bias and more likely to be a function of real insight and wisdom. Note that higher education leans toward less military spending independently of IQ and income. I interpret that to mean that not only does higher individual intelligence predispose one to want to reduce investment in the military but so does exposure to the intelligence and learning of others. <br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Intelligent opinion within the US has been accurate in its expectations of global military developments but nevertheless had little confidence or pride in the military, and believes that America should reduce its investment in military capacity substantially.</span><br /><br />Given these consistently dove like preferences one could reasonably ask whether the Smart Vote is for outright abolition of the military, like Costa Rica. One way to guess at this is to regress the variations in Smart and Dumb Votes onto the variations of actual military spending over time. I did this after smoothing the saw tooth pattern in the Smart and Dumb Vote graphs above. <br /><br />The correlations were -0.695 for the Dumb Vote ratio and 0.724 for the Smart Vote ratio. <br /><br />The regression equations were <br />-0.848*Spending Index +143.85 = Dumb Vote ratio, and<br />0.824*Spending Index + 99.4 = Smart Vote ratio.<br /><br />The Dumb Vote ratio is expected to exceed the Smart Vote ratio i.e. spending more will become as intelligent an option as spending less, when the spending index drops below 26.6. This is equivalent to spending 1.33% of GDP on defense. So the answer is no, zero defense spending isn’t the intelligent option for the US – there is an optimum at 1.33%. This amount of spending will still exceed the defense spending of China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan put together so the US will hardly be seriously threatened even if it did reduce its spending to less than 1/3 of what it is now i.e. from 4.7% to 1.33% of GDP - $500 billion less.<br /><br />An important question is why the Smart Vote is for less military spending in the US. The attitude of the US to international organizations has some relevance. A preference for less military spending tends to go along with a preference for the US staying in the UN and playing an active role in international affairs; a belief that the UN has too little power and that international organizations do not take too much power from the American government; and that the US should not follow its own interests if this were to lead to conflicts with other countries. Preferring less military spending also goes with believing that the UN should intervene if human rights are seriously violated. The Smart Vote is decidedly for all those views. That points toward the desirability of the US shifting away from isolationism, or American exceptionalism, which require bigger military defenses, and toward greater diplomatic and cooperative ventures, which would require a level of arms more in line with international practice. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Intelligent opinion in America thinks the US should try to be less offensive and more cooperative in international relations. </span>Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-8630611286605350712011-10-07T12:36:00.002-07:002011-10-07T12:57:59.910-07:00The Smart Vote ConceptIn the previous post I briefly introduced the concept of The Smart Vote. In this post I spell it out in detail because I will be using it frequently in future posts.<br />There are always arguments about political policy, or about social, economic and religious issues, with people on all sides thinking their own position is the one that makes obvious sense; but can one objectively establish if one position make more sense than the others, and if so can we identify it? I think differences in intelligence can help point the way.<br /><br />The essence of the Smart Vote concept is as follows.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><span style="font-style:italic;">If there is no difference of opinion by intelligence then reason is not relevant in deciding between them and none of the opinions being considered is more correct than any of the others. However if opinions do differ systematically with intelligence then relatively more correct or better alternatives probably do exist, and that they are those relatively more favoured by the more intelligent. Statistical differences in the independent opinions of people of different intellectual ability point to the most reasonable responses to controversies</span><span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span>.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Intelligence as correctness</span><br /> <br />An essential attribute of any concept of intelligence is that the smart should be better than the dull at finding objectively correct answers to problems, where such answers exist. In fact this attribute is almost always used when attempting to measure differences in intelligence. Tests usually present problems that have objectively correct answers and then require the person to find them if they can. Those who are more adept at this are deemed relatively smarter than those who fail. This inference is only valid when all those taking the test are roughly equally familiar with the kinds of problems used, but in general that condition is largely satisfied.<br /><br />One well established finding is that the ability to find correct answers to one kind of problem type e.g. arithmetic, says a lot about the ability to find correct answers in other problem types e.g. reading comprehension. Smartness with one problem type tends to go with smartness in all other types – no exception has ever been identified. Being smart is, at the very least, about the ability to find correct answers to all problem types. Even if that wasn’t the case individual intelligence tests (IQ test) present the person with a wide array of problems, so it is only possible to achieve a high IQ score if one is reliably adept at finding correct answers to a wide range of problem types. Getting all the arithmetic and none of the other correct answers will not get you a high IQ score. Likewise it is only possible to get a low IQ score by consistently failing to find most of the correct answers on all the problem types. IQ therefore is a measure of one’s general propensity to find correct answers.<br /><br />This is all very well when dealing with unambiguous problems that do have clear objectively correct answers, but in most of life the answers are highly uncertain. Is intelligence of any use there? Yes indeed. Somewhere in between objective and uncertain problems there is a kind of item made up of mutilated pictures of well known objects. A mutilated picture is almost like an inkblot test, where what you see is determined by your own psychological makeup. With inkblots you impose your biases onto the picture and sort of see what you want, or need, to see. In theory what you see says nothing about the picture and everything about you. Mutilated pictures however have proved to be superb intelligence test items. People who score high on objective tests are better at guessing the actual original object from random partial bits of its image i.e. the smart are more likely than the dull to impose or project the correct meaning onto the bits and pieces left over.<br /><br />Similarly, there are an infinite number of correct responses to any number series. Some of course involve less complicated principles than others and it is usually the simplest principle that the test designers have in mind when constructing a number series. Those who are good at objective problems tend to select the correct answers that the test designer had in mind rather than any of the infinitely many others. So again people smarter on problems with a single objective answer are better at finding the best answer when there are many correct answers.<br /><br />Then there is achievement in life. All things considered, on average (for people who start at the same level) those who end up better off – wealthier, healthier and more respected - will tend to have picked the better alternative whenever they faced a choice. Many of those choices would have been uncertain. The choices may have involved more than one reasonable option or have been controversial. On average, those who are good at finding objective answers are better at these messy choices and do better in life. For example the average of the upper, middle, working and lower classes in the US are at the 69th, 60th, 43rd and 27th percentiles of intelligence respectively. Professionals like doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, CEOs and even US presidents are on average at the 93rd percentile. Top thinkers such as elite scientists or supreme/appeal court judges are at the 99.9th percentile.<br /> <br />Men who make choices that see them serving time in jail typically score at the 27th percentile. A large part of that is because dull men are more likely to commit crimes serious enough to warrant jail time. However brighter men are also more likely to make choices less likely to see them get further into trouble at every possible step between committing a crime and going to jail. They are less likely to be identified but if identified less likely to be arrested; if arrested less likely to be prosecuted; if prosecuted less likely to be convicted and if convicted less likely to be jailed. Brighter criminals at large are less likely to be caught and if caught it tends to take longer. If jailed brighter criminals are more likely to escape or be a model inmate and get time off.<br /><br />Women who give birth out of wedlock average at the 35th percentile of intelligence.<br /> <br />Humour is to a large extent subjective, and whether someone will laugh at one’s jokes or wit is highly uncertain. Nonetheless some people get it right far more often than others and those that do get it right tend to be disproportionately smart. IQ testing of the top 50 or so stand up comedians in Britain found that they averaged at the 97th percentile and none were below the 90th percentile of intelligence.<br /><br />So, intelligence is relevant and important when it comes to finding good answers to problems, even when the situation is uncertain and the answers fuzzy. If there is a correct answer to a problem then the opinion of the smart person is more likely to be correct than that of a dull person.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Using intelligence to point out the correct answer</span><br /><br />Suppose you can’t use the content of the problem to identify the correct solution. This usually means you personally can’t answer it. You can ask for help. Suppose no one is around to ask but you do have data on the answers of the smartest and dullest 20%. Consider the following actual 5 item science test from the General Social Survey. Each question had 4 different possible answers - A, B, C or D. The numbers are the percentage of each row that chose that answer.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXo9n2wrMK5_idCH7Yrbp8XBKSDgeavMY8TCXFyF-qdz1NkK8jaLAq2-Jnk3nZeDrEArdg9GcQhe5vExDMhGMDWc1nSFAKiCgKfhESWQ7oOR2Hd21Jj2FKIH2slecNizfafK9rggvLBB0/s1600/SV+table.bmp"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 276px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXo9n2wrMK5_idCH7Yrbp8XBKSDgeavMY8TCXFyF-qdz1NkK8jaLAq2-Jnk3nZeDrEArdg9GcQhe5vExDMhGMDWc1nSFAKiCgKfhESWQ7oOR2Hd21Jj2FKIH2slecNizfafK9rggvLBB0/s400/SV+table.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5660841583482144258" /></a><br /><br />The correct answers were 1 D, 2 A, 3 D, 4 A and 5 D.<br /> <br />The test was tough. It was unusual for any item to be picked by more than half of either group and the mean score of the smart and dull groups was 42% and 15%, respectively. Pure guessing is 25%.<br /> <br />Note that it wouldn’t be much help to go on the opinion of individual smart people. On this test even they were wrong more often than they were right. On the other hand the average of the independent judgements of a diverse group of people is often very accurate (Wisdom of Crowds) and betting markets are astonishingly good predictors. Not all crowds are equally accurate however. Quite frankly the ‘wisdom’ of a crowd of dull people can be very unreliable. For example if we went along with the most popular choices of the dull group on each of the test items we would have netted no correct answers at all. On the other hand if we went along with the most popular choices of the smart group we would have netted 4 correct answers out of 5 – much more than the average total score of that group. So the difference between the average ‘wisdom’ of groups of dull and smart people is even starker than the differences between individual dull and smart people. I’ve shown this with a concrete example but it is true mathematically.<br /><br />Members of each group share a particular level of intelligence (or propensity to find correct answers) and whatever factors they don’t share will tend to cancel out in the average opinion. The difference in the percentage of each group that picked an answer will therefore reflect a distilled difference in ‘propensity to be right’. The Smart Vote makes use of this difference in distilled propensity to find correct answers.<br /> <br />In the Smart Vote it is not the most popular answer of the smart group that matters but the largest difference of opinion between the smart and dull groups. The percentage of smart and dull groups choosing each answer is compared and the largest ratio of the smart to dull percentages is the Smart Vote. For example for Item 1 the ratios were <br /><br />A 2.4/17.7 = 0.14<br />B 13/42.3 = 0.31<br />C 21.8/28.5 = 0.76<br />D 62.8/14.5 = 4.33<br /><br />The largest ratio was for alternative D so the Smart Vote for Item 1 would be D – which is the correct answer. The Smart Votes for the other four Items were 2 A, 3 D, 4 A and 5 D – all correct - so the method proved 100% accurate even though the average total score of the smart individuals was only 42%. The probability of that happening by chance is less than 1 in 1000.<br /><br />I have repeated the above experiment on many different tests with objective answers, always with 100% accuracy. To some extent it’s to be expected that the correct answer would be picked more often by the smart because the item would be a bad measure of intelligence if it wasn’t. On the other hand there is no reason why one of the several wrong answers shouldn’t show a larger ratio in favour of the bright than the correct answer. So there is no necessary reason why the method should be so accurate, but it is.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Going beyond questions with objective answers</span><br /><br />Guessing the correct answers to IQ or science test items is not the point of the method. The aim of the method is to shed light on controversies. The answers to test questions are in a sense controversial in that even the very bright clearly don’t initially agree, but they do agree following some explanation. Unfortunately agreement on religious, social and economic controversies is harder to come by. <br />One’s grasp of the meaning of a controversy and understanding of what is at stake should increase with increase with intelligence, both because of the greater capacity to reason through the complexities and the larger stock of information that intelligent people tend to collect. If differences in intelligence make a difference to the understanding of controversial issues they should also make a difference to opinions formed. At the very least careful intelligent thought should be relevant.<br /><br />To the extent that ‘correctness’ is relevant to a particular question those with a higher propensity to find correct answers should reach different conclusions to those less able. In other words, if ‘correctness’ is meaningful for an issue then on average the smart and the dull will tend to have different opinions. Logically, no association between IQ and opinion proves that cognitive factors aren’t relevant to the controversy. However the presence of an IQ-opinion association does not prove that intelligence is relevant – it only suggests that it is quite likely. In my view the likelihood is very high, especially in view of how well the method performs on objective questions.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">An objection to the Smart Vote</span><br /><br />People tend to vote for what is best for them personally and smart people may simply have interests in common that are different to the interests shared by dull people. The defining features differentiating the two groups may not be IQ alone but some interest too, and the average opinion of each group will distil the interest differences as much as they do intellectual differences. For example, IQ related differences in musical taste may simply reflect the fact that IQ relates to social class, and that it is class prejudice that explains the differences musical taste rather than any application of thinking to the relative merits of musical forms per se; or a difference of opinion on welfare measures may simply reflect that dull people are more likely to be recipients, and smart people contributors, to welfare.<br /> <br />On the face of it this is a compelling objection. My first response is that this isn’t always a factor. Political research shows that people frequently don’t vote their narrow selfish interests e.g. the elderly are less likely to vote for social security than the young and women are less likely to support abortion on demand than men. However there are enough cases where narrow interests obviously do play a role for it to be taken seriously. Fortunately this possibility can be dealt with by controlling for interest differences. For example we could control for class when looking at musical taste, income when looking at welfare, age when looking at social security policy, race when looking at affirmative action, etc.<br /><br />I should point out that though it is possible that selfish interests may produce spurious associations between IQ and opinions they could just as easily hide real associations. For that reason too possible interests should be controlled.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Conclusion</span><br /><br />When IQ is correlated to differences of opinion there is reason to believe that some opinions are in some degree better than others and that the most reasonable opinion is the one with the largest ratio of smart to dull favouring it. This is the Smart Vote. A related concept is the Stupid Vote which is simply the opinion with the lowest ratio of smart to dull favouring it. The Smart Vote is not necessarily the opinion most favoured by the smart nor is the Stupid Vote necessarily the opinion most favoured by the dull – it’s the ratio that matters, not the level of support.Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-7574414815803920962011-08-16T06:15:00.000-07:002011-08-16T06:47:18.405-07:00Intelligent Music Tastes
<br />Although people do talk about taste as though it can obviously be ordered in terms of good to bad, most would be hard pressed to come up with a good reason justifying those judgments. Indeed, upon reflection they would probably concede that taste is simply a given and that judgments on the relative merits of different tastes boil down to prejudice. After all, one cannot really say that there is something wrong with liking, or not liking, peanut butter. Some say that tastes are just the way we were wired at birth, but that’s not entirely true. We do inherit different amounts of the various kinds of taste buds so the same food may taste different to each of us right from the start. Nevertheless our food preferences – like our religion and many other things – are usually those we were raised with. Preferences are also conditioned by subcultures as well as individual or random associations.
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<br />So if tastes are largely determined by genes and culture does that mean they are beyond comparative judgment? Politically correct opinion these days is that it is simply prejudice to say that one culture is better than another. That’s a bit short sighted. When you look at some aspects of culture it becomes obvious fairly quickly that some variations are better than others. For example the Arabian number system that we all use today is clearly an improvement on the Roman number system; writing was a big improvement over having people remember everything; the adoption of systematic error correction - in the scientific method and in legal procedures - has improved our lives immensely; where cultures differ in the degree of senseless cruelty they accept, the more humane cultures are better in that respect, etc, etc.
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<br />In principle therefore we can make unprejudiced judgments on phenomena that are at least partially culturally determined. That judgment might legitimately take the form of saying that a taste is to some extent more or less intelligent than the alternatives. Or can it? The cultural aspect the person prefers may well be better than the alternatives but he may simply prefer it because he was raised with it and thinks “my culture is best”. That’s hardly being intelligent. What we need is some evidence that intelligence leans toward certain preferences within a pool of alternatives, within and across cultures and sub-groups.
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<br />We know that men like action movies more than women and that women tend to like romance movies more than men, but what we want to know is do intelligent men and women like action and romance movies more or less than the average men and women. Suppose 75% of men and 45% of women like action movies and 30% men and 80% of women like romance movies. If we find that 50% of very intelligent men and 85% of dull men like action movies (and the percentages are 35% and 50% of smart and dull women respectively) then we might conclude that action movies appeal to stupidity. Of course it doesn’t follow that romance movies would therefore appeal to intelligence. We might find a similar shift away from enjoying romance movies too. It might turn out that smart people disproportionately like ‘art movies’.
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<br />I was looking at various items in the General Social Survey and came across a number of questions on musical preferences and noticed that almost all of them correlated in some way with the GSS’s mini-IQ scale (a 10 item vocabulary test that correlates 0.7 with a full IQ scale). Many people I shared this with expressed a great deal of skepticism about the notion that musical preferences could be better or worse – let alone smart or stupid. Some suggested the correlations I noticed must be an artifact of say socio-economic status being partly a function of intelligence and that the music tastes simply reflect the SES differences. On the other hand SES may be related to music taste because it reflects intellectual differences. One of the virtues of the GSS is that it allows one to test such hypotheses.
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<br />Class and education, race, sex and generation each represent an obvious subculture with respect to music preferences. Who hasn’t heard someone say that classical music is pretentious, that show tunes are for women and gays, that blacks like rap and jazz and whites country, or an old person say the music of today’s youth is just noise? If music tastes are to some degree really due to intelligence then I need to show that intelligence is still related to music preference even after accounting for these sub-cultural influences. Multiple regressions are a statistical technique that allows one to look at the influence of each sub-culture, and of intelligence, independently of each other. So I ran a multiple regression on the degree to which each type of music was liked or disliked, using the vocabulary scale, social class, race (black and white only), sex, age and amount of education as independent variables.
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<br />In the table below I show whether the relationship was significant (unlikely to be due to chance) and the direction of the relationship.
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPdp4NgwcaEBkdl4uBS7aUYKLAOxpMIzOANud11smD_He_A-TKGvA_hytLYkTH7leOH76rgmuBpUI76BY2ZBPgcatsg0TPfByEmNJhWS-bjChWR-d2RQgVp3TbmkCXxcVJeF28mDhLQr4/s1600/Music+Tastes.PNG"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 356px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPdp4NgwcaEBkdl4uBS7aUYKLAOxpMIzOANud11smD_He_A-TKGvA_hytLYkTH7leOH76rgmuBpUI76BY2ZBPgcatsg0TPfByEmNJhWS-bjChWR-d2RQgVp3TbmkCXxcVJeF28mDhLQr4/s400/Music+Tastes.PNG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641449657837550802" /></a>
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<br />- A * indicates significance at the 10% level, all others are at 5% level.
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<br />Some well known results pop out - we see that being black increases the chances that you will like Blues, Gospel, Jazz, Latin, Opera, Rap and Reggae, and reduce the chances of liking Bluegrass, Country and Folk. (OK so Opera was a surprise to me.) Older people are less likely to like newer music, like any kind of Rock, Jazz, New Age, Rap or Reggae, and more likely to like older music genres, than the youth. Women like Musicals more, and Heavy Metal less, than men. Classical music does live up to its pretentious reputation but strangely Rap is an upper class taste too.
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<br />Also note that the racial, class, gender and generational differences in taste cut across both smart and dull tastes i.e. are not due to intellectual differences between any of these groups. However educational differences in taste do track IQ differences in taste – even though the two factors are independently evaluated in the analysis. One would expect that the role of education would reflect intellectual factors but here it reflects the intelligence of those who designed the curriculum, rather than that of the student.
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<br />The interesting result is that IQ is frequently significantly related to how much people like or dislike music. Even after the cultural influences are accounted for 13 of the 18 music genres still show a relationship to intelligence. Furthermore the independent effect of intelligence is usually relatively strong – about equal to all the cultural influences combined. Clearly differences in music tastes are partially due to differences in intelligence, and the connection isn’t explicable in terms of arbitrary connections between IQ and culture.
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<br />But what is it about the music that appeals to intelligence or stupidity? One way we can shed light on this is to look at pairs of musical tastes that typically coincide – in the sense that if you like one kind of music you are very likely to like the other. If one of the pair correlates with IQ and the other doesn’t, then we can use this to isolate the intellectually relevant appeal of the music. A liking for Rap tends to coincide with liking Reggae, Jazz and Blues, and the 4 share features that appeal to some people and which others dislike. In the Table you see that the latter 3 are positively related to IQ while enjoyment of Rap is negatively related. What this implies is that it is specifically not those aspects which Rap shares with Reggae, Jazz and the Blues that is relevant. It is what is unique about Reggae, Jazz and the Blues on one hand, and Rap on the other, that taps into the intellectual side of taste. We would need to zero in on what makes people like Reggae, Jazz and the Blues that wouldn’t help them like Rap, and visa versa.
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<br />Similarly I found that what separates Folk music from Country & Western or Gospel music, and what separates Oldies Rock from Contemporary Rock and Heavy Metal, also isolates the intellectual side of musical tastes. There is something in Folk music that Country music doesn’t have (or something unintelligent in Country that Folk doesn’t have). There was something in Early Rock music that the Rock music of today, and Heavy Metal, is just missing. What did Jazz have that Rap has lost, or what features has Rap introduced (which appeal particularly to the dull) that Reggae and Jazz never had? The answers aren’t immediately apparent and I’m afraid the GSS data doesn’t have any more to add to the subject.
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<br />I would be willing to bet that with the right data I would find that intelligence is relevant to taste differences in the visual arts too i.e. paintings, photos, interior decoration, clothing and hair fashions, architecture, car design, jewelry, etc.
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<br />A concept I’d like to introduce here is something I call The Smart Vote. This is based on the notion that IQ is the ability to be correct given a fairly standard experience with the subject matter. High IQ people have shown that they are reliably correct and low IQ people that they are reliably incorrect, across a wide range of subject matter and problem types. So where high IQ people agree on a different answer to that agreed upon by low IQ people, the chances are extremely good that the high IQ preferred answer is correct. The Smart Vote is not what the majority of smart people prefer but rather the direction in which their preferences differ from those of the dull. Where a systematic difference of opinion between high and low IQ groups exists, it usually points to the most correct alternative.
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<br />I have shown that The Smart Vote exists for music tastes and that it isn’t accounted for by cultural influences, so it would seem that musical tastes can probably be correct or incorrect. Good and bad taste is not merely prejudice.
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<br />Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-47650599799919979932011-07-28T02:57:00.000-07:002011-07-28T13:37:26.288-07:00Life Expectancy - the Blue to Red ZonesThere is a lot of interest in increasing life expectancy. Who after all doesn’t wish to live longer? Since life expectancy differs markedly across countries researchers have naturally tried to tease out the reasons. Some obvious findings are that high levels of infectious diseases lower life expectancy, and wealth and good medical care increase it. <br /><br />One of the ideas being bandied about is that dietary differences are important. The reasoning is that once you control infectious diseases life span depends on the lack of degenerative diseases like heart attacks or cancer, and there is a fair amount of evidence that unhealthy diets are a major cause of degenerative diseases. The appealing thing about the focus on diet is that it is something we can control. <br /><br />Unfortunately there is disagreement (even among experts) about what the ideal diet would be. Some look at the association between saturated fat consumption and degenerative diseases and emphasize a plant based diet. Others insist that large quantities of carbohydrates, not fats, are the central cause of degenerative disease. Some swear by good fats e.g. olive oil, nuts and seeds and fish, and red wine. Some blame dairy products for a lot of health problems while other researchers say that milk consumption actually lowers belly fat and that Sardinians live long lives on a lot of goat or sheep milk. There seems to be no end to the arguments. One way to sort this out is to look at which populations live long healthy lives and note what they eat. The problem with this approach is that there are always confounding factors that muddy the picture. So I applied my mind to ways of isolating the effect of diet. <br /><br />The first thing that occurred to me was that infant mortality reflects disease load, hygiene and quality and availability of medical care. So life expectancy - controlling for infant mortality - should isolate the relevant lifestyle and dietary factors. The second thing that occurred to me was that although the effect of wealth on disease control, health care and hygiene is captured by infant mortality it also plays a role beyond medical factors e.g. safety. So it would be worthwhile to control for GDP per capita too. The third thing that occurred to me is that mean IQ is strongly correlated to infant mortality, life expectancy and GDP per capita. IQ would be a major confounding factor so I controlled for mean IQ too. IQ and GDP per capita might be called ‘means to health’ factors. IQ alone accounts for 54% of the variance in life expectancy and GDP per capita adds another 3%. <br /><br />I initially ran a regression on life expectancy with infant mortality, IQ and GDP per capita as predictors, and looked at the residuals. What struck me was that all the countries with high AIDS rates were clustered at the bottom. So I added AIDS prevalence (and then later smoking) rates, as additional predictors. <br /><br />Interestingly I found that the ‘means to health’ factors do not add much to predicting life expectancy, once the effect of infant mortality is controlled for. This doesn’t mean that the ‘means to health’ factors only work by reducing infant mortality. It means that the ‘means to health’ factors work on what infant mortality and life expectancy have in common. I think it lends credence to my initial assumption – that infant mortality is a good proxy for disease load, hygiene and the availability and quality of medical care.<br /><br />The regression was extremely accurate – accounting for 92.4% of the variance in life expectancy in 185 countries. Infant mortality and AIDS alone accounted for 90.2% of the variance. Clearly life expectancy is mainly about avoiding diseases and getting good medical care. Improving disease control and medical care, to the extent that every country would have an infant mortality equal to the current minimum and a zero AIDS rate, would move average country life expectancy from 70 to 78 and reduce the standard deviation from 10 to 3.8. There would still be a good 5 years difference in their life expectancies of the top and bottom 20% of countries. These differences would mostly be accounted for by diet and community – in other words, lifestyle differences.<br /><br />So lets look at which countries have the healthiest lifestyles (outside of disease control, hygiene and wealth and safety). The map shows the results according to the following color codes. The figures are years above or below expected.<br /><br />Red - <=-4 years Orange -4 to -2 years Yellow -2 to 0 years<br />Green 0 to +2 years Light blue +2 to +4 years Dark blue => +4 years<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw_FnixiaQU9Gu6mxnM0c48z9ItlklsAkK7VPgky3QjBsJDrZKEH4C0lg86V9AXQ5lRMJszZBdfIn8I7ZhPKKV6rBNTYnzg635RviN5lfb_20qNWBGZSEWS8Km8DYrH0fpXy1kUtTKplE/s1600/Blue+to+Red+Zones.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 251px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw_FnixiaQU9Gu6mxnM0c48z9ItlklsAkK7VPgky3QjBsJDrZKEH4C0lg86V9AXQ5lRMJszZBdfIn8I7ZhPKKV6rBNTYnzg635RviN5lfb_20qNWBGZSEWS8Km8DYrH0fpXy1kUtTKplE/s400/Blue+to+Red+Zones.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634343223151488642" /></a> <br /><br />You can see that certain regional trends are evident. Firstly there is a tendency for bad lifestyle countries to be in the same regions. Most of Asia; South, Central and West African; and the Arabian Peninsula, would have below average life expectancies if all countries had the same IQ, disease and AIDS rates, wealth, medical care and smoking habits. East and Northern Europe would also be below average. You can’t see it on the map but all the Pacific Islands would tend to be bad too. I call the worst of these, Red Zones. They are of course red on the map.<br /><br />On the other hand South Western (or Mediterranean) Europe would have above average life expectancy residuals. North Africa, the Middle East and the South West Asia and Caucasus region are good. So are East Africa, and Japan, Thailand and Cambodia. The whole of the Americas are good - especially the Central and South parts. Not seen on the map is that the Caribbean Islands are also above average to good.<br /><br />Some of this isn’t a surprise. The so called Blue Zones (Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; Loma Linda, California; Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica, and Icaria, Greece) all fall within the latter group of countries. Blue Zones are places where high percentages of the adult population live to very advanced ages – at least 90 and often 100 - in good health and in a functional state. The really good areas are therefore blue on the map, with dark blue being outstanding. <br /><br />There is a literature on these Blue Zones which is well worth studying. However the map suggests that places other than the already identified Blue Zones should be looked at too. Spain, Portugal and North Africa stand out and have some dietary and lifestyle affinities with Sardinia, Icaria and the Mediterranean region in general. So too does the Middle East (outside the Arabian Peninsula) and South West Asia/Caucasus region. East Africa is another region (with Middle Eastern influences) worth studying. Georgia is particularly interesting for several reasons. It is an especially good zone (dark blue) and was once it was rumored to be the location of a Blue Zone. The Caucasus area in general is good but transitions to very bad as soon as one gets to the non Caucasus parts of Russia.<br /><br />Then there are a host of Central and South American countries other than Costa Rica that come up as blue on the map, so the dietary and lifestyle traditions of this whole region bears looking at. An interesting finding is that adult Hispanics in the US live longer than the much wealthier US white adults. Presumably they maintain some of their diet and lifestyle traditions after emigrating. <br /><br />The USA is usually the poster child of bad lifestyles and diets. The USA is in fact bad relative to the best but it turns out that so many countries are even worse that the USA turns out to be above average. <br /><br />On the other side of the picture are those sad countries who diets and lifestyles one would do well to avoid – the Red and Orange (and maybe even yellow) Zones. What is wrong with the diets and lifestyles of Southern, Western and Central Africa? Why are Russia and the former Soviet Union so bad? Why is Northern and Eastern Europe below average? Why are India and China below average?<br /><br />The Blue Zones have certain things in common. They all favor plant based foods - particularly legumes (from Fava, soy and pretty much any beans to chickpeas and lentils), whole grain cereals (wheat, corn and maybe rice), high nutrient fibrous vegetables, starchy yellow vegetables (sweet potato and pumpkin) and nuts. Fruit seems to be something consumed in moderation. Yogurt is also common in these regions. Of course their consumption of foods not on the list is very low. They all have high levels of moderate activity and some sunshine as part of their daily lives. Their lifestyles are ‘chilled’ rather than time urgent and they have very high levels of social engagement within extensive and supportive social networks. Red wine and olive oil (oily fish) is a common factor around Christian Mediterranean areas. Smoking is something they all avoid.<br /><br />Georgian cuisine is built on wheat and corn, beans, olive oil, walnuts, lean poultry, some red meat (mostly lamb but also beef and pork), freshwater fish, vegetables (mainly eggplant, a variety of spinach and mushrooms) and a strong yogurt and some cheese. The alcohol is wine or a grape based spirit. In short it is very much a Middle East/Mediterranean diet i.e. plenty of low glycemic index carbohydrates, healthy fats, yogurt and wine and few bad fats, refined carbohydrates or root vegetables. Living in the mountains makes for plenty of exercise whether you like it or not.<br /><br />The unfortunate thing about these diets and lifestyles is that are generally those of the poor, and most of those very people would prefer not to eat and live like that. As soon as they become a little wealthier they start eating a lot more meat, fat, refined carbohydrates and calories overall.<br /><br />That’s all very interesting but if the Red Zones follow similar diets and lifestyles the importance of those commonalities falls flat. Fortunately there are differences. The Russian diet is a case in point and is pretty bad. It is high in fatty meat, oil (not olive or fish), root vegetables (potato and beets), eggs (typically fried), salt, vodka and refined wheat and is low on vegetables, fruit and legumes. It emphasizes high calories – something regarded as self evidently good and healthy in Russia. This is in direct contradiction to experiments showing that lower calories (provided nutrient levels are high) result in longer life spans.<br /><br />The staple diet of much of Southern, West and Central Africa are heavily based on starch – either root vegetables or grain (mostly refined) – and fatty meat (in stews or grilled). Although meat is favored many of them don’t get much (through poverty) and suffer protein deficiencies even though they eat enough calories to get fat. East Africa and the Horn use more legumes and milk and less meat in their diet. The Arabian Peninsula differs from the rest of the Middle East in that they eat relatively more meat (mostly chicken, sheep and goat). Northern European diets are heavy of fatty meat, cheese, potatoes and bread. The South Sea Islanders eat a lot of meat (and not as much fish as you would expect) and also starchy root vegetables like cassava. These Islands have some of the highest proportions of people overweight in the world. The Chinese and Indian diets have too little variety – rice is eaten for almost every meal – and too little protein. They eat so little protein in fact that the amount provided by hapless insects in the unhygienic vegetarian fare of poor Indians is enough to make them appreciably healthier than vegetarian Indians in countries where the insect load in food is lower.<br /><br />The common denominators are high starch (root vegetables) and refined grain (and sugar) levels – and sometimes just too much rice - and a lot of meat (especially fatty meat). Too little protein plays a role in some places.<br /><br />Advice <br /><br />If you want to live longer then you would do well to try and adapt the Blue Zone principles to a modern and wealthier lifestyle but you don’t really want to live like the poor if you can help it. Try to take the traditional Middle Eastern/North African/ Mediterranean or Central/South American or Thai/Japanese (Okinawa) cuisine and give it a more gourmet twist. Develop a collection of 20 or so recipes from those cuisines. They should be simple to make and appeal to you i.e. be soul food rather than elaborate. Typically people only eat 10 different recipes over their whole lives so you don’t need to be endlessly creative. One good way is to substitute the ingredients of your habitual meals with ingredients emphasized in the Blue Zones and map areas. <br /><br />The main ingredients are legumes of all kinds, whole grains, fibrous and leafy vegetables, nuts, yellow starchy vegetables (pumpkin/butternut or yellow/orange sweet potato), peppers, spices, olives (olive oil), yogurt (goat or sheep’s milk) and moderate amounts of low fat meats, fruit and red wine. No vitamin pills are involved but you probably wouldn't do yourself any harm taking a reasonable dose wide spectrum vitamin and mineral supplement regularly.<br /><br />On the other hand any refined grain or carbohydrate is a no-no. Curiously root vegetables (especially potato) don’t seem to be good either. A recent study showed potato consumption accounted for 2/3 of bodyweight gains in the USA, and countries that have it as a staple tend to be Red and Orange Zones. Refined carbohydrates (bread and sugar) accounted for much of the rest of the USA bodyweight gains. Vegetable oils (other than olive oil) that don’t need to be refrigerated are also very bad. Very low protein is bad.<br /><br />Try to exercise. Expensive gym memberships or formal workout programs aren’t necessary and aren’t part of the lifestyles of Blue Zones. Walking works and is a low stress convenient activity that can be combined with other purposes from just getting somewhere to thinking or walking the dog. There are lots of fun activities one can try too e.g. roller blades, physical games, even sex. In particular make sure you don’t spend much time sitting – especially when being passive, as in watching TV. Research shows sitting really does subtract the years off your life. A little flexibility and strength work is important too.<br /><br />Develop your network of supportive relationships – friends, family and community. One can learn how to find people who interest you, to make more friends and how to cultivate them once they are formed. Increase the level of low level socializing i.e. not necessarily clubbing or going to expensive restaurants. Try to end bad relationships of all kinds – by either repairing rifts or dropping them altogether – because bad relationships are worse than no relationship. Help people regularly (because research shows that helping activities do increase happiness and welfare) but don’t let it become a duty that binds and weighs heavily on you. <br /><br />While it helps to have a purposeful life (where your existence matters to other people) be careful not to let your purposeful life turn into a high pressure one. Try to trim the pressure and urgency from your life and adopt a more “chilled” approach to your purposive and necessary activities. Try to eliminate what isn’t necessary or important. Deliberate relaxation is very beneficial and socializing is better means than TV for many reasons. Yoga is something that can help to relax and some forms are also excellent sources of flexibility and strength work.Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-16557447523672772682011-07-20T16:13:00.000-07:002011-07-20T16:19:25.993-07:00The Price of ReligionEver wondered what religion is worth? Is it worth more than sex for example?<br /><br />An interesting statistic on Google is the ratio of hits on sex versus God. It is 1.457. In the US the porn industry grosses about $14.36 billion per annum, which is a bit more than 1/6th of the money going to religion in the US (as you will see below). On the other hand the porn industry worldwide is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and Earthlink combined so sex seems worth quite a bit. People seem to need it. <br /> <br />Needs however are contingent. At base you need just enough food and water to survive and breeding (and even shelter) is a luxury. But if you regard breeding or sex as a necessity you will require much more of it. The interesting thing is that for sexual purposes it becomes important to have more than the other guy and no matter how rich everyone gets that will remain an important factor. A need then is something that is contingent on conditions and needs evolve as conditions change. Then there are needs that some people have that others don't. Responding to things depends partially on conditioning history and that is fairly individual. Even genes governing needs are not universal e.g. where you stand on the need for order versus flexibility in your environment, is highly heritable. So what is a real need for me may be no more than a wasteful whim to you.<br /> <br />Money spent on anything always involves an opportunity costs. For those who spend money on religion, sex or cigarettes it’s definitely worth it. For some people religion is a terrible waste of money whereas the amount spent on sex is insufficient. For an old man who has no testosterone left too much is spent on sex. Even if you do think your need or want is worth the cost it always involves a loss of the ability to satisfy other needs/wants. Naturally believers prefer to focus on the benefits of religion but atheists would be unable to appreciate the value of religion and would chose to focus more on the lost opportunities. We make decisions about what opportunities to actualize or let go so and if what I want to actualize you want to let go then we can help each other by trading. Once trading happens the market picks up on the relative volumes of supply and demand and assigns an optimum price. Money then becomes a universal measuring stick of the value of anything that can be traded. The oldest profession tells us sex can be traded for money. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Religion grosses $84.22 billion or 0.615% of GDP per year.</span><br /><br />What about religion? In 2005 in the USA $42.11 billion (in 2010 dollars) was contributed toward religion (directly to churches). Churches use double their direct contributions - the rest coming from investments, rent, businesses, etc - so the true amount grossed by religion is about $84.22 billion. That's 0.615% of GDP. (₤1.78 billion in donations and ₤3.34 billion overall- or 0.3% of GDP - in the UK).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Religion provides $6.51 billion to charity per year.</span><br /> <br />For that money one could (at $102105 per new job) create 824868 new jobs and start roughly 75600 new small businesses per year. However since the church employs 2.6 million people one could say that religion creates a net 1.775 million jobs. It also provides on the order of $6.51 billion in charity. So as an investment religion seems to be worth it.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Religion accounts for 3.543 billion man-hours per year and an opportunity cost of $205.436 billion per year. The overall value of religion (adding money and time) is $289.656 per year</span><br /><br />From the point of view of time things look a bit different. All churches together have 45 million confirmed registered and 100.84 million more unregistered members. The average number of actual church attendances per year is 16.2 (42% claim to go every week but checks find that only 26% do.) So at 1.5hrs per week spent in church - roughly 3.542 billion man-hours per year were taken up by religious activities. In that time 2.04 million Americans could have been busy in full time productive employment producing $58 in value per man-hour. That adds up to an opportunity cost of $205.436 billion in productive activity. If instead of going to church they spent the same time at their jobs they could have paid for the entire church enterprise - employees, buildings, charity – with a mere 20.5% tax on that extra activity. Alternatively they could have worked for an extra 2 days per year and donated the entire amount to the church.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The US could quadruple their science plus triple their reading with what they devote to religion.</span><br /><br />So what could the US have bought with $289.656 billion? The obvious alternative to reliance on religion is reliance on rational enquiry. The US spends $23.24 billion on non-religious books per year and its entire annual scientific research budget is about $54.8 billion so they could quadruple the science while triple the reading <br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">God is worth a Toyota Corolla to the typical believer but God said at least a 5 Series BMW would be more appropriate. </span> <br /><br />The fact that certain sections of society are accepting the opportunity cost means that religion has some positive value to them (like smoking has for smokers) and I think my estimate of its net present value in the current market is accurate. Initially I thought my estimate is merely a minimum (the least they would be willing to pay) but now I also think it is a maximum. They are supposed to pay 10% of their income (God’s asking price according to the bible) but no group even approaches that (the mean is around 2.5-2.7%) and are constantly being begged and manipulated for funds. <br /> <br />I divided the number of church attendances per year (16.2) by the number of weeks per year (52) and multiplied that by the number of all members (145838334) to get an estimate of the number of full time donors. I divided the result into the $42.11 billion donated to get a figure of $926.8 contributed per regular church member per annum. At a life expectancy of 78 years this means the expected lifetime contribution as an adult between 18 and 78 is God is worth $55608 to someone religious enough to attend church regularly. (I get similar values – in dollars - for the UK and South African churches). But since 1/4 of the people make 3/4 of the donations for the 3/4 least generous or wealthy of the religious their religion is currently worth $18536 - or roughly a new Toyota Corolla. For the 1/4 most zealous (and wealthy) religious the value of their religion would be $166824. That's somewhere between a Porsche 911 and a Ferrari F430. The 10% tithing requirement suggest that the poorest 3/4 are supposed to value religion at least as much as a 5 series BMW per person or a whole house for a family of 3. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The church of God is perhaps worth as much as $17.38 trillion to the current cohort of all believers over their lifetime.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The absolute value of religion is still increasing but the relative value is declining.</span><br /> <br />Is the value of religion falling or rising? Well for the US the total and per capita (of believers only) contribution is increasing in real absolute terms, and total church membership is up, so demand relative to supply must be increasing. The car equivalent is more than triple today what it was in 1968. On the other hand that has more to do with the falling relative value of cars than an increase in the value placed on religion. The religious are tending to give a smaller proportion of their income than they used to - its dropped from 3.1% in 1968 to 2.5% in 1998 (and up to 2.7% in 2005 in wake of 9-11 inspired revivals), and a steadily smaller proportion of the population are religious enough to practice and pay for it. Apparently Catholics allocate about only 1/3-1/2 as much of their income to religion as Protestants. What's happening is that believers are willing to exchange more products for their religion than they used to but it’s nevertheless a smaller sacrifice. That arguably implies that religion is worth less today than it was a generation ago. Nonetheless at $289.656 billion a year over 60 years of adult life the value of religion to the current cohort of believers is around $17.38 trillion. That’s serious money.<br /> <br />In the UK (and elsewhere in Europe outside of ex-communist countries) even the absolute contributions and church attendances have fallen dramatically. In ex-Communist states religion is on the rise but is still lower than the rest of Europe. This rise will probably reverse sometime. <br /> <br /> In the Muslim world people are becoming more fanatical (and no doubt increasing financial contributions) but one needs to be careful here because religion is a vehicle for political expression in Muslim states (rather than solely a devotion to God) and there is a decline of interest among the youth throughout the Muslim world - even in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Even here the value of religion is declining. It would be interesting to put a cash value to the various religions for the faithful and compare them all. <br /><br />So there you have it – the typical believer gives up a Toyota Corolla, and a family of 3 gives up a house, to practice their faith. Is that more or less than the ancient Hebrew sacrificed in livestock at the altar over his lifetime? Unfortunately I don’t really know but it can’t be far off. Collectively the US faithful give half as much to charity as the US devotes to porn. That should give you some idea of the values of religion today.Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-46320521070825025072011-07-10T06:51:00.000-07:002011-07-29T02:49:29.441-07:00Cost of CommunismCoincidentally I have been stimulated to think about communism over the last few days. Firstly I was reading something about the origins of the term Molotov cocktail which detailed some of the horrors committed by Molotov e.g. the bombing of Finland following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact where he claimed they were dropping food parcels on the starving Fins, the murder of the Polish officers, various Russians etc. Then a few days later someone remarked that one wouldn’t dare hang a portrait of Hitler on your office wall but having a bust of Lenin on your desk seems to pass without comment. This is especially strange if you recall that Nazism was a form of socialism – the word Nazi means ‘national socialism’<br /> <br />I knew that both Stalin and Mao were responsible for many more deaths than Hitler i.e. 15-20 million and 20-65 million versus 6 million. This doesn’t count the deaths caused by Lenin and communists after Stalin and Mao. I wondered what that was as a percentage of their populations. It turns out the Nazis exterminated 7.44% of their population and Stalin 8.9% and Mao 7% (best estimate). The Khmer Rouge managed to cause the deaths of 12.5% of their population. To put that into perspective Russia lost 15% (and the UK 13.3%) of its mobilized soldiers during WW I, so living under communism is somewhere between 50-80% as dangerous as being on one of the most deadly battlefields in history.<br /> <br />So much for the actual outcomes of Communism versus Nazism, but what about differences in justification? Mass murder was routine. Stalin was known to mutter “Who will remember or care about these people in a few years?” as he signed execution orders for lists containing thousands. Bertrand Russell remarked that Lenin had laughed when he confronted him on the ethics of large scale state killings. He regarded terror as an essential aspect of maintaining Communism in the face of its unpopularity and not as an aberration of Marxism at all. Apart from mass executions starvation was the main tool, and they went to great lengths to justify it. Consider this quote from Timothy Snyder’s book Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin.<br /> <br /> As Stalin interpreted the disaster of collectivization in the last weeks of 1932, he achieved a new height of ideological daring. The famine in Ukraine, whose existence he had admitted earlier, when it was far less severe, was now a "fairy tale," a slanderous rumor spread by enemies. Stalin had developed an interesting new theory: that resistance to socialism increases as its successes mount, because its foes resist with greater desperation as they contemplate their final defeat...<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />Stalin never personally witnessed the starvations that he so interpreted, but comrades in Soviet Ukraine did... Forced to interpret distended bellies as political opposition, they produced the utterly tortured conclusion that the saboteurs hated socialism so much that they intentionally let their families die... Even the starving themselves were sometimes presented as enemy propagandists with a conscious plan to undermine socialism. Young Ukrainian communists in the cities were taught that the starving were enemies of the people "who risked their lives to spoil our optimism."<br /> <br />Similar things happened in China. Ethically, how far away from Hitler’s justification of The Final Solution is that?<br /> <br />Communists were every bit as murderous as the Nazis and their justifications were just as revolting. Let’s look at other aspects of welfare. How about freedom? Both the Nazis and communist regimes condemned large numbers of people to slavery – only as a means of production they were now not privately owned. I suppose that made it OK then. <br /> <br />There was a complete lack of freedom of thought or conscience in both the Nazi and communist states. Compare the disowning of Jewish science by the Nazis with the suppression of bourgeois science (especially genetics) by the Soviets and the killing of educated people (or even just those wearing glasses) because they were bourgeois by the Chinese and Cambodian communists. The Nazis burnt books and the communists would punish those who owned western books. Religion, which is intimately related to morality, was suppressed or controlled by both Nazis and communists.<br /> <br />How about eking out a living? If we define communism as collective (or state) ownership of the means of production - so as to distinguish it from various varieties of socialism or welfare state where the means of production are still private - maybe communism is as productive as capitalism. Um no! Everywhere in the world where communism was tried the economies have been sluggish at best or simply contracted. Many have experienced periodic famines where other countries didn’t – even in Africa and Asia. One could blame that on accidents of climate or culture or IQ differences. However two interesting natural experiments control for just about everything that could be confounding variables – IQ differences, cultural differences, climate, conscientiousness etc. These were East and West Germany and North and South Korea. I looked up the real GDP per capita of these countries throughout their different paths. <br /> <br />East and West Germany started with a GDP per capita of $14987 (2009 dollars) in 1949 and ended up with $34116 and $19685 in 1990 for West and East Germany respectively. East Germany only managed to increase its productive capacity by 31% in 41 years while West Germany added 128% - 4.07 times as much. Over the full 41 year communist period East Germany produced 41.2% of the income per capita that West Germany did. The difference amounted to $370210.6 per person. In Germany that is the equivalent of 2.11 new houses per person.<br /> <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjCDgM1mY-6l9cLNXPX15t59Xp8S8nAsIC1uHGb3_GUYSXXG1ceaGLzbC6z07Fj5TF-hm4-FVUgMRJLDFKKhDzTFl6GKGR0yLVL01MDXqCQkDK0xONAcAuYDHa5vwISTxjCSoQlIuapuQ/s1600/East+vrs+West+Germany.gif"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 201px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjCDgM1mY-6l9cLNXPX15t59Xp8S8nAsIC1uHGb3_GUYSXXG1ceaGLzbC6z07Fj5TF-hm4-FVUgMRJLDFKKhDzTFl6GKGR0yLVL01MDXqCQkDK0xONAcAuYDHa5vwISTxjCSoQlIuapuQ/s400/East+vrs+West+Germany.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627722578106034050" /></a><br /> <br />North and South Korea adopted more hardcore communist and capitalist systems than East and West Germany respectively, so the difference is even more dramatic. In 1972 the two Korea’s had the same GDP per capita of $5818 (in 2009 dollars), but a mere 7 years later North Korea had dropped to $2645 - a contraction rate of 10.6% per year. North Korea’s economy has continued to contract ever since -at a rate of 1.28% per year - to only $1800 today. Communism has destroyed 69% of North Koreas productive capacity so far. They are less than 1/3 as well of as they would have been with no changes at all. Meanwhile capitalism increased South Korea’s productive capacity more than 5 fold over the same period. As a result North Korea is only 6% as productive as South Korea today. It has produced 18% as much as South Korea over 37 years. That amounts to a difference of $436656.2 per person – enough for every family of 5 to buy a 3 room house in Seoul’s super high price housing market.<br /> <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAdh7e5i4tXKKkMj5kMKk0IsJBg1i6XaPZgK771sujamvd7brg2EGkto9H3zeAYu20nJI_n9Q6I0F_cMgh2Pvzdx7yv1zpABHh0665SMVnGcee9UsQo3PkzuMpYk6Q0rYRGNmXHXPTI5A/s1600/North+vrs+South+Korea.gif"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 210px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAdh7e5i4tXKKkMj5kMKk0IsJBg1i6XaPZgK771sujamvd7brg2EGkto9H3zeAYu20nJI_n9Q6I0F_cMgh2Pvzdx7yv1zpABHh0665SMVnGcee9UsQo3PkzuMpYk6Q0rYRGNmXHXPTI5A/s400/North+vrs+South+Korea.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627722372855097362" /></a><br /> <br />While the rest of the world industrialized on the back of increased agricultural productivity which freed farming labor for industry the communist world often tried to industrialize while their collective farms reduced in productivity. They also did silly things like tear up existing railways. Often they adopted a sort of cargo cult mentality where for example they noticed that developed nations had steel so they embarked on large scale steel production, often melting down perfectly usable implements to do so, whether or not it was needed. Some economists have argued that it is impossible to allocate resources efficiently by central planning rather than unregulated prices. No central planner could possibly take into account all local conditions or opportunities and the diversity of values and needs, no matter how smart or how many super computers it has. Uncontrolled prices on the other hand balance all these things automatically and very quickly. The result was that a great deal of communist production was of stuff that nobody really wanted and there was a huge amount of waste. It’s unsurprising that communism turns out to be so relatively unproductive.<br /> <br />Communists were as murderous, as anti-freedom and as bad for material welfare as the Nazis ever were. Why then are communism and communists not as vilified as the Nazis and Hitler? Oddly enough those who think income and wealth ought to be redistributed by government are no more pro communist than those who are opposed to redistribution. Neither are lower classes more so than upper classes. If we were rational we would react with the same degree of disapproval or outrage at a Lenin bust or Maoist tattoo as we would to a swastika or Hitler portrait, and to a communist apologist as we would to a holocaust denier – there is plenty of obvious evidence to back us up.Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-32537992095891923222011-06-30T05:04:00.000-07:002011-06-30T05:06:13.524-07:00Goodness me!!We all know someone who seems to be an especially helpful person and someone who seems to be particularly selfish and unhelpful. In other words we recognize that people vary in traits and influences that result in stable differences in how helpful they are. There are likely to be many influences and traits so by the Central Limit Theorem altruism should be normally distributed. Even if it isn’t we can construct a scale that is. <br /> <br />I found 11 altruism questions in the General Social Survey (GSS) that asked how often respondents had done the following in the last year<br />- let someone ahead of them in a queue<br />- give someone directions<br />- give money to charity<br />- give money to a homeless person<br />- help a neighbor when they are away e.g. feed pets<br />- volunteer to spend some time helping a charity<br />- give up a seat for someone on a bus or train<br />- helped carry things for someone e.g. groceries<br />- loaned a personal item to someone<br />- returned money when given too much change<br />- donated blood.<br /> <br />I found that if people did any one of these they also tended to do the others, showing that these aren’t simply random acts of kindness but instances of a general factor of altruism. I formed a scale from these items. If the person didn’t do something they were assigned a score of 0 for that item, a score of 1if they did it only once and a score of 2 if they did it at least twice. Then I added up the scores across all 11 items yielding an altruism scale from 0 to 22. The reliability of the scale is >0.67 which means that over 2/3rds of the variation in the sum is due to variation in factors that each item has in common with others. The average score was right in the middle and there was little bunching of scores at the low or high end so very few people lie outside its measuring range. All in all the scale measures what it was meant to measure reasonably accurately, and does so for all but the most extreme people.<br /> <br />It occurred to me to see what kind of people were more or less altruistic. I found some surprises. For a start it turns out that some things we would expect to matter don’t. For example religion doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you believe in God or not, whether you are a Protestant, Catholic or Jew or how often you pray. It doesn’t matter if you are a religious fundamentalist or liberal, either now or at the age of 16. It’s disappointing not to see a connection given that altruism is probably the central moral requirement of Jesus’ teaching and that the early Christians distinguished themselves by their generosity and helpfulness. It does however matter if you are an active participant in a church group or are a minister, priest or nun. So it is specifically religiosity and theology that doesn’t matter.<br /> <br />Although those who take the trouble to vote are more altruistic than those who don’t political orientation doesn’t matter either. There is no difference between liberals and conservatives or Republicans and Democrats. Neither does it matter if the person has ever cheated on their spouse or seriously violated traffic laws. Clearly being good, in the sense of being helpful, is not necessarily related to fidelity or being law abiding. Finally altruism is not a gender thing - there was no difference between men and women.<br /> <br />There are however large differences by education, class, income and age, and none of these influences account for any other. The more educated and the higher the income and social class the more altruistic the behavior. As intelligence is positively related to all of those intelligence probably plays a role in altruism. Indeed William James (in his The Varieties of Religious Experience) makes the point that when the saintly impulse occurs with a feeble intellect the result is either a loss of all practical interests because contemplating God takes all their mental resources, or it results in cruel fanaticism because the limited mind settles on superficial ideas of what it means to honor God. To get beyond this and tap the saintly impulse to produce exceptional altruism requires surplus mental resources and intellectual depth. The youth turn out to be more altruistic than their elders. The most altruistic group is young high income people with graduate degrees within the middle to upper classes who are active in a church group. It isn’t as though the effect is just through being able to afford more charitable giving either - it extends to behaviors that aren’t about money, like giving up a seat or donating blood. The least altruistic group is the opposite.<br /> <br />Then I took an interest in the opinions of the altruistic. I found that they were more likely than the selfish to be in favor of abortion, to be for the legalization of marijuana, to be opposed to capital punishment for murder and to not consider extramarital or homosexual sex to be always wrong. These are socially liberal opinions. On the other hand the altruistic are also more inclined to think that government should be doing less and not more. The political philosophy that encompasses this combination of social liberalism with economic conservatism is libertarianism which funnily enough is popularly regarded as the least altruistic political ideology. <br /> <br />Curiously men who have paid for sex, and women who have had sex for money, are more altruistic than those who haven’t. One would have thought that women who don’t charge for sex would be more altruistic by definition. Once again we see that people can be sexually sinful and yet have saintly tendencies.<br /> <br />Although this scale covers most people I wanted to look at more extreme examples of altruistic behavior. Firstly I looked at saints and those who had been beatified. The proportion of Catholics worldwide who achieved either of these distinctions is 1 in 7.4 million and 1 in 2.8 million respectively. Then I looked at the probability of winning a Nobel Peace prize (I used the highest probability across countries). There is at most a 1 in 800 thousand chance. Finally I looked at UK Conscientious Objectors during WW I. My reasoning is that this kind of pacifism in the face of a lengthy prison term or even death by firing squad is an especially courageous example of compassion. 1 in 384 men conscientiously objected, and 1 in 1023 men were jailed for it.<br /> <br />In the graph below I have placed scale scores, and particular items in the scale, where they would be on a normal curve. Less than 2 is equivalent to mental retardation on an IQ scale so I suggest that anyone scoring that low would be an altruistic moron. Considering that they would have to be so unhelpful that even giving directions to someone is too much trouble I think the label fits. The bottom 10% score 5 or less. This is less than one of the less demanding helpful behaviors every 2 months. The average person manages just below one of each of the altruistic behaviors per month. The top 10% manages close to 1.5 altruistic acts per month. Engaging in all the altruistic acts more than once in a year i.e. 2 per month, puts a person at the same degree of rarity as a Nobel Laureate in science would be on an IQ scale. In other words it takes only one act of altruistic kindness every two weeks to be an altruistic genius. This includes one more demanding altruistic activity every 2-3 months.<br /> <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid2qdFMKLijU-UZpNksy6nW5qUoldmat_8hk2IShSNv8De6tfHoMhJ8D9LFif4LyDVCr5bZol9XIbbad7yb5ts1QDC4PUDIPevhj9yyQdv23iqBQaGeOO0m30AlM-C7gw7WV0Q2Z8EdBU/s1600/Altruism.gif"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 179px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid2qdFMKLijU-UZpNksy6nW5qUoldmat_8hk2IShSNv8De6tfHoMhJ8D9LFif4LyDVCr5bZol9XIbbad7yb5ts1QDC4PUDIPevhj9yyQdv23iqBQaGeOO0m30AlM-C7gw7WV0Q2Z8EdBU/s400/Altruism.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5623982743455815922" /></a><br /> <br />How does that compare to the more saintly types? Well it seems that being saintly is far more demanding than being a genius. I placed the Conscientious Objectors, Nobel Peace Prize winners, the beatified and Saints on the same graph. As you can see an Objector is roughly on par with an altruistic genius, being an Objector in the face of jail is more demanding, and that the rest are virtually off the scale. Let me try to give you some sense of the relative degree of altruism involved. Giving blood is a bigger deal than giving money to charity and being a Conscientious Objector is a bigger deal than donating blood. If each of these is a step up the altruistic mountain then from Conscientious Objection to Nobel Peace Prize would be a step of the same size i.e. there is similar increase in the demands between a Nobel Peace Prize and Conscientious Objection as there is between Conscientious Objection and blood donation. Put in another way – take the increase between donation to charity and blood donation and multiply that by two more. Similarly the Saint is as far above the regular blood donor as the regular blood donor is above the altruistic moron.<br /> <br />Mother Theresa’s formula for goodness was daily meditation and acts of altruism. My formula to become a Saint (whether or not you are in fact ever beatified or canonized) tells you how many altruistic acts you need. You need to maintain an average of at least 2.6 acts of altruism per month (aim for at least one per week to be safe) and many of those should be demanding i.e. involve a fair amount of inconvenience or self sacrifice. It will help a lot if you become an active member of some group (like a church) that busies itself in altruism and charity work. It would also help if you did some loving kindness meditation regularly or contemplated the lives of Jesus, altruistic saints or Peace Prize winners. Oh and it would be best not to try to be a Saint if you are feeble minded as you are likely to do more harm than good.Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1667787618768322507.post-30299169490335312292011-06-21T16:04:00.000-07:002011-06-21T16:08:06.999-07:00The Price of SexYou’ve heard it said that every man has his price, and no doubt you’ve inferred that so does every woman. It’s easy enough to do research on what the going rate on sex for pay is but that only tells you the prices of those who are currently selling or buying sex. It tells you nothing of the price at which it would be worthwhile for someone outside the market to enter it, and that is after all what we want to know when we talk about everyone having their price. What follows is my attempt to spell out the price distributions of all adult men and women respectively – not just professionals.<br /> <br />The propensity to pay for sex, or have sex for money, must be determined by a large number of relatively independent factors e.g. interest in sex, attractiveness, need for money, availability of alternatives, price, moral qualms, fear of disease, opportunity, the illegality, forgone marriage opportunities, low workload, etc. If that is the case then according to the Central Limit Theorem the disposition will be normally distributed i.e. will fit the famous bell curve. So I can express this behavioral disposition as a trait that is normally distributed.<br /> <br />If there are several groups – like men and women in this case – and the distribution of one group is used as a standard, then the others can be specified in the terms of that standard. The beauty of this approach is that it models supply and demand together i.e. it looks at prices in a situation where women require a certain price knowing what men are willing to pay and men are willing to pay knowing what women require. It doesn’t just ask people what they would charge or pay in isolation. <br /> <br />All we need is stats on the proportion of each group exceeding two or more objective thresholds on prostitution or solicitation. In this case I used the General Social Survey variables - Paidsex and Evpaidsx. These ask if a respondent has paid for (or has been paid for) sex within the last year, and ever since the age of 18, respectively. The first is a higher threshold than the second because it is a subset of it. I also used stats in Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s chapter on prostitution in their book SuperFreakanomics and some prices mentioned in the Governor Eliot Spitzer scandal.<br /> <br />It turns out that 3.4% of men and 0.5% of women exchanged money and sex in the last year, and 1.3% of women and 14.4% of men had done so since turning 18. So from this GSS data I calculated the following normal distributions<br /> <br />Female disposition to have sex for money 0±1<br />Male disposition to pay for sex -1.739±0.4585<br /> <br />where the female distribution is set as the standard and lower numbers mean a higher propensity. [I give the technical details in the appendix below.]<br /> <br />In other words the average man is more likely to pay for sex than the average woman is to have sex for money, and men are more alike than women when it comes to swapping sex and money. So far there are no surprises. <br /> <br />After mapping these distributions onto prices I put it altogether on the graph you see below. The average woman’s price is therefore $3972.62 but the average man is only willing to pay about one tenth of that - $396.96. Only one in 13423 men is willing to pay the average woman’s price. On the other hand as many as one in 24.3 women are willing to have sex at a price the average man is willing to pay. <br /> <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXWHb67ZdKq8PH1hcJNV-0spIM-8TmhdXzRXwrNPHiM1KqaQjS9_azAZ7ec3bsHAB1IETFB5N5LUmuxAmtbUZni1RHzq820SnidTMMlxIvWRhped3yr-3-Vit_6blg8iToSBfG8ShtZ8Y/s1600/Price+of+Sex.gif"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 278px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXWHb67ZdKq8PH1hcJNV-0spIM-8TmhdXzRXwrNPHiM1KqaQjS9_azAZ7ec3bsHAB1IETFB5N5LUmuxAmtbUZni1RHzq820SnidTMMlxIvWRhped3yr-3-Vit_6blg8iToSBfG8ShtZ8Y/s400/Price+of+Sex.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620813520280230306" /></a><br /> <br />You can also see that the asking price at the far right of the graph is $0.72 million. One in 30000 women would require that price. One in a million women would require at least $2 million. This is the roughly the estimated value of life in the US, so one could say that there are women out there that would rather die than have sex for money. On the other hand it’s equally fair to say there are women out there who would pay men for sexual favors. Still most women do price themselves out of the market.<br /> <br />Then there are men. Virtually all men would pay for sex if he had no alternative and his price was accepted. In fact most are willing to pay more than the going rate for street walkers and maybe a third would be willing to pay a high class hooker’s rate of $500.<br /> <br />Where do you think you are on the distribution? If you aren’t in the US then remember to correct for purchasing power parity when translating the prices in the graph.<br /> <br /> <br />Appendix<br /> <br />In order to use this information to estimate the distribution of propensity pay for sex, or have sex for money, all we need to do is convert these percentages into normal distribution standard scores – the so called z-scores. All these scores are is the number of standard deviations away from the average one has to be to get that percentage. For women those percentages convert to z-scores of 2.5758 and 2.2262 respectively. In other words a woman who has had sex for money within the last year is at a z-score of 2.5758 on the “propensity to have sex for money” distribution. For men the z-scores are 1.825 and 1.0625 respectively. Now the rest is simple arithmetic.<br /> <br />I took the woman’s distribution as the standard one and set the average at 0 and the standard deviation at 1. You will notice that the difference between the two threshold<br />z-scores for women (number of standard deviations from the average) is<br />2.5758-2.2262=0.3496. The difference between the z-scores for the men was 0.7625. Since these differences apply to the same thresholds one can see that the male standard deviation must be smaller than that of the women because more standard deviations fit between the thresholds. The male standard deviation must be 0.3496/0.7625 = 0.4585 or 45.85% the size of the female standard deviation. Now if the female standard deviation was set at 1 then the male standard deviation is 0.4585. <br /> <br />Given that “last year” threshold for men was 1.825 standard deviations away from the average it must be 1.825*0.4585=0.8368 away from the average on the female standard and since this must correspond to the 2.5758 z-score for women on the same standard distribution the male average must be 2.5758-0.8368=1.739 standard deviations away from the female average.<br /> <br />So now we have the female distribution set at 0±1 the male distribution on the same scale is 1.739±0.4585. It should really be expressed as the reverse of this because we want price to go from low to high as we go from left to right so I’ll rephrase the above as<br /> <br />Female disposition to have sex for money 0±1<br />Male disposition to pay for sex -1.739±0.4585<br /> <br />To convert these to money values I needed two more anchors – two prices for sex that I can link to particular z-scores. From SuperFreakanomics I found that 1 in 3300 women in Chicago are streetwalkers charging $42 on average. This proportion of women corresponds to a z-score of -3.4289. That was one anchor.<br /> <br />Another anchor is afforded by the Governor Eliot Spitzer scandal. He paid as much as $5000 a time for a hooker. The same agency charges up to $6000 a time. I’m taking this as the top of the market because it was the top price of the most expensive agency. Assuming the girl in question has a dozen or so clients this implies that one in 255000 men are willing to pay this price. This is a z-score of 4.4706 on the male distribution, or 0.3108 on the female distribution. <br /> <br />Finally it’s quite usual for values to map linearly onto the log of prices rather than prices themselves so I mapped the z-scores onto $ prices via logs.Garth Zietsmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01680048751752721742noreply@blogger.com1