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Who? Democrats or Republicans perceived as "Smarter"?

Who? Democrats or Republicans perceived as "Smarter"?

  • Republicans are viewed as Smarter

    Votes: 3 15.0%

  • Democrats are viewed as Smarter

    Votes: 17 85.0%
  • Total voters
    20
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Sorry, y'all, but Pew settled this question years ago.

Partisan Differences in Knowledge

Republicans generally outperformed Democrats on the current quiz. On 13 out of the 19 questions, Republicans score significantly higher than Democrats and there are no questions on which Democrats did better than Republicans. In past knowledge quizzes, partisan differences have been more muted, though Republicans often have scored somewhat higher than Democrats.

Questions on current politics and on geography show particularly wide differences. For example, Republicans are 19 points more likely than Democrats to know that the Republican Party has a majority in just the House of Representatives, and 14 points more likely to know that John Boehner is the speaker of the House. On international questions, Republicans are much more likely to be able to identify Israel on a map (67% vs. 51%), and more likely to know that Greece is the European country experiencing debt problems (71% vs. 54%). Additionally, more Republicans than Democrats could locate Brazil on a map (84% vs. 73%).

What the Public Knows – In Words and Pictures | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
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And, if that's not enough to convince you, here is a more biased analysis of the question...that is nonetheless quite accurate in its findings.

http://commentarama.blogspot.com/2012/03/conservatives-are-smarter-than-liberals.html
 
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joG said:
PS: One finds that the perception is mostly not congruent with reality. Even wealthy students don't make Yale, Harvard or both, if they are total dunces.
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Yes, they do. Provided that their families can donate enough for the school to build a new science wing or stadium.
 
Of the countless of reasons that lead a person to adopt a political ideology, his intelligence probably ranks last.
 
cpwill said:
:shrug: As I recall, the last time we went over this, I showed you how it was the modern day puritan left that was more likely to try to purge Heresy from our public discourse, and you did not respond.
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You are right in at least one area. Conservatives are very protective of their "right" to be bigots and the left refuses to let them. Somtimes people need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future. Bigotry will not survive the 21st century in the USA at least and it is the lefts "fault".
 
I think to the extent that Dems are perceived as being 'smarter', they enjoy an ease of subscription that owes to the unfounded biases afforded by the public's misinterpretation of progression. The difference between them is attitude and perspective, not intelligence. An untested ideal will always shine that bit more brightly than a timeworn priciple. Given that, Dems are in a position to profit from a naivete and inexperience that amounts to untutored exuberance, where Reps must suffer the generational ignominy of being mischaracterised as inflexible. That both sides fail to comprehend their interdependence only compounds their frustration. Were it the case that one side were 'smarter', the other must perish.
 
There are smart academic liberals and smart conservative businessman. There's also dumb people on both sides. No way to measure which side is smarter so I'll call it a chalk.
 
NoC_T said:
Were it the case that one side were 'smarter', the other must perish.
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But one side is perishing in influence.

Republicans influence is "perishing" across the board in terms of economics, voting tendencies and ideology. Take the religious issue. Secularism is essentially in a unchallenged period of influence in terms of legitimacy in the West. Nobody seriously takes religious people serious. Even in Republican circles religious conservatives are seen as "dangerous" and are sectioned off for "Super Red Meat" functions only.
 
cpwill said:
:shrug: the old saw is that if you disagree with a liberal, he will think you are immoral, while if you disagree with a conservative, he will think you are stupid.

Meanwhile, self-congratulation seems to be the basis for much of the lefts' tribalism.


It seems both sides perceive the other as less intelligent than themselves, but the right makes more allowance for liberals to be "Smart, But Wrong" than the left does in return.
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Haha, not on this forum.
 
cpwill said:
Nah. It's hardly self-affirming to recognize that intelligent, well-thought out people disagree with you for good reasons. That is an argument that imposes a certain humility. It's self-affirming to argue that people who disagree with you are stupid, evil or both.
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You're over simplifying it. It's about IQ tests, critical thinking, empathy and many other things before one ever gets to the debate. It's also in general terms because any rule of thumb has its exceptions.
 
Ryan5 said:
But one side is perishing in influence.

Republicans influence is "perishing" across the board in terms of economics, voting tendencies and ideology. Take the religious issue. Secularism is essentially in a unchallenged period of influence in terms of legitimacy in the West. Nobody seriously takes religious people serious. Even in Republican circles religious conservatives are seen as "dangerous" and are sectioned off for "Super Red Meat" functions only.
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Neither side can exist wthout the validity they derive via the permanence of the other. You're suggesting night without day. If one side appears to hold sway, then it's only because the pendulum has yet to swing the other way (as it must). As to religion, while I won't necessarily assume you're an Atheist, it may be that you fail to see how religion is only a medium, and that spirituality exceeds the restrictions imposed by temporal expression.
 
iguanaman said:
You are right in at least one area. Conservatives are very protective of their "right" to be bigots and the left refuses to let them. Somtimes people need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future. Bigotry will not survive the 21st century in the USA at least and it is the lefts "fault".
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bigotry, in many forms, will survive as long as humans do.... even the bigotry of so-called liberals...
 
I think of intelligence as having two components, intellect and common sense. Einstein was brilliant intellectually and had some deficiencies in the common sense arena. Both republicans and democrats can be equally intellectual, I believe that conservatives have a higher common sense quotient. Republicans and democrats often don't have enough common sense to pour piss out of a boot with the instructions on the heal.
 
NoC_T said:
Neither side can exist wthout the validity they derive via the permanence of the other. You're suggesting night without day. If one side appears to hold sway, then it's only because the pendulum has yet to swing the other way (as it must). As to religion, while I won't necessarily assume you're an Atheist, it may be that you fail to see how religion is only a medium, and that spirituality exceeds the restrictions imposed by temporal expression.
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Religion isn't a medium. It's an adopted mental deficiency. When a person suffers a manic episode from illegal drugs and is brought into a hospital and the doctors have to pump their stomach and throw them in a padded room because they're screaming about Jesus, that's what religion is boiled down. It's the worst of our species mental creations released into a "club" that is passed off as rational. It isn't. It's lunacy defined. It's one of the most dangerous aspects of our species and if greater intelligence ever reaches us I assume it'll be one of the first things they free our minds all at once of because it so so reminiscent of a disease.
 
Ryan5 said:
Religion isn't a medium. It's an adopted mental deficiency. When a person suffers a manic episode from illegal drugs and is brought into a hospital and the doctors have to pump their stomach and throw them in a padded room because they're screaming about Jesus, that's what religion is boiled down. It's the worst of our species mental creations released into a "club" that is passed off as rational. It isn't. It's lunacy defined. It's one of the most dangerous aspects of our species and if greater intelligence ever reaches us I assume it'll be one of the first things they free our minds all at once of because it so so reminiscent of a disease.
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With all due respect, I've heard all this a thousand times before. Good luck proving that 84% of the world's population is mentally ill.
 
NoC_T said:
With all due respect, I've heard all this a thousand times before. Good luck proving that 84% of the world's population is mentally ill.
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They're not mentally ill, they're duped, much the way a rational Western is when they overdose on illegal drugs and start to see "Jesus" around every corner. That person isn't rational. They're crazy and everyone can tell they're crazy. The difference is your average person has simply been duped into thinking they have to adopt a lie.
 
Ryan5 said:
They're not mentally ill, they're duped, much the way a rational Western is when they overdose on illegal drugs and start to see "Jesus" around every corner. That person isn't rational. They're crazy and everyone can tell they're crazy. The difference is your average person has simply been duped into thinking they have to adopt a lie.
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Agree to disagree. I won't do the whole 'Is God real?' routine again. It's not even boring anymore.
 
iguanaman said:
You are right in at least one area. Conservatives are very protective of their "right" to be bigots and the left refuses to let them. Somtimes people need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future. Bigotry will not survive the 21st century in the USA at least and it is the lefts "fault".
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Everyone, please thank Iguana for agreeing to provide a perfect, in-thread example of what I'm talking about. Thank you, IG-Man :).
 
Ryan5 said:
Who? Democrats or Republicans perceived as "Smarter"?

I don't know about perception but the truth is Democrats are considerably smarter. It doesn't take a rocket science to look at the education systems and the intelligence of the states that are Regressive power houses and compare them to the states that are Democratic , to answer that question. I believe that regressive gear their party rhetoric to that lower IQ( we will say intelligent) and that is the reason they are against education in this country. They need dumb voters to stay in power.
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I think both parties are useless.

But if someone put a gun to my head, I would guess the average IQ of a Dem is higher then the average IQ of a Rep...with lots of exceptions.

However, I think Dems are - on average - more arrogant/condescending then Reps...again, with lots of exceptions.
 
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DifferentDrummr said:
Yes, they do. Provided that their families can donate enough for the school to build a new science wing or stadium.
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Now you are talking more than wealth. There are very few whose mothers build a wing at Harvard for an MBA. It does happen, but the drudge of political career will uusually be less their cup of tea. Most of our recent Presidents have not of such breeding. ;)
 
catch22 said:
There are smart academic liberals and smart conservative businessman. There's also dumb people on both sides. No way to measure which side is smarter so I'll call it a chalk.
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There's been plenty of research and testing on this.
 
joG said:
Now you are talking more than wealth. There are very few whose mothers build a wing at Harvard for an MBA. It does happen, but the drudge of political career will uusually be less their cup of tea. Most of our recent Presidents have not of such breeding. ;)
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You're kidding, right? The Bush family has been considered upper class for at least 4 to 5 generations.
 
Frankly, it probably depends on what kinds of Republicans and Democrats you're talking here about more than anything else.

Take the study that was referenced on the first page, for example. The majority of the population is white, and where white demographics are concerned, Left Wing ideological leans tend to dominate the Middle Class twenty-something urban college educated crowd, because Left Wing ideological views dominate Middle Class youth culture in general.

"Conservative" young whites tend to be rural more often than not, lower class, and less well educated.

Sooo... Yes. Obviously, it makes sense to assume that "Liberal" young whites would probably score a bit higher than "Conservative" young whites where IQ is concerned, simply because higher IQs tend to follow from higher social class, and greater education.

That does not mean, however, that a college educated "Young Republican" type will score any lower than their Liberal counterparts. It simply means that the sample is skewed, because they are something of a minority.

I would also add that this situation is in many regards reversed when it comes minority demographics. Often, the least wealthy and least educated among their numbers are staunchly Liberal (at least politically), where the the Middle Classes actually trend more Conservative by way of comparison.
 
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