Crosser Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 I don't think the general public are ready for more than two. As it stands, this is the current breadth of political debate: Left wing = big government socialist. Right wing = big government conservative. Shouldn't that read.... "As it stands, this is the current breadth of political debate: Left wing = big government Communist. Right wing = big government Nazi" ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeMaquis Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 One would assume that Dr Ellis isn't of low intelligence, so how would they account for his apparent racism and homophobia. Why do you assume that someone in an important job can't be of low intelligence? Look at some of the numpties that have been in government. They tend to be educated but not capable of rational thought. George W Bush, for example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InigoMontoya Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 Leeds-students-protest-against-homophobic-lecturer One would assume that Dr Ellis isn't of low intelligence, so how would they account for his apparent racism and homophobia. Homophobic GP banned for a year and again unlikely to be of low intelligence. non sequitur Homophobic and/or racist. Ergo of low intelligence. QED. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muddycoffee Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 One would assume that Dr Ellis isn't of low intelligence, You are assuming that Intelligence comes naturally with education. If you think this is true all the time then you have led a sheltered life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikem8634 Posted November 4, 2012 Author Share Posted November 4, 2012 Here's Charlie Brooker's take on the Mail reporting the study - .... In what has to be a deliberate act of "trolling", last Friday it carried a story headlined "Rightwingers are less intelligent than left wingers, says study". In terms of enraging your core readership, this is the equivalent of Nuts magazine suddenly claiming only gay men masturbate to Hollyoaks babes. The Mail's report went on to detail the results of a study carried out by a group of Canadian academics, which appears to show some correlation between low childhood intelligence and rightwing politics. It also claimed that stupid people hold rightwing views in order to feel "safe". Other items they hold in order to feel safe include clubs, rocks and dustbin lids. But those are easy to let go of. Political beliefs get stuck to your hands. And the only way to remove them is to hold your brain under the hot tap and scrub vigorously for several decades. As you might expect, many Mail Online readers didn't take kindly to a report that strived to paint them as simplistic, terrified dimwits. Many leapt from the tyres they were swinging in to furrow their brows and howl in anger. Others, tragically, began tapping rudimentary responses into the comments box. Which is where the tragi-fun really began. "Stupidest study of them all," raged a reader called Beth. "So were the testers conservative for being so thick or were they left and using a non study to make themselves look better?" Hmmm. There's no easy answer to that. Because it doesn't make sense. "I seem to remember 'academics' once upon a time stating that the world was flat and the Sun orbitted the Earth," scoffed Ted, who has presumably been keeping his personal brand of scepticism alive since the middle ages. "Sounds like a BBC study, type of thing they would waste the Licence fee on, load of Cods wallop," claimed Terry from Leicester, thereby managing to ignore the findings while simultaneously attacking public service broadcasting for something it hadn't done. For his next trick, Terry will learn to whistle and **** at the same time. Not all the respondents were stupid. Some were merely deluded. Someone calling themselves "Hillside" from Sydney claimed: "I have an IQ over 200, have six degrees and diplomas and am 'right-wing', as are others I know at this higher level of intelligence." His IQ score is particularly impressive considering the maximum possible score on Mensa's preferred IQ test is 161. Whatever the numbers: intellectual dick-measuring isn't to everyone's tastes anyway. Simply by highlighting his own intelligence "Hillside" alienated several of his commentbox brethren. "If there is one person I can not stand and that is a snob who thinks they are intelligent because if they were intelligent and educated they wouldn't be snobs," argued Liz from London. Once you've clambered over the broken grammar, deliberately placed at the start of the sentence like a rudimentary barricade of piled-up chairs, there's a tragic conundrum at work here. She claims intellectual snootiness is ugly, which it is, but unfortunately she says it in such a stupid way it's impossible for anyone smarter than a steak-and-ale pie not to look down on her. Thus, for Liz, the crushing cycle of snobbery continues. On and on the comments went, turning a rather stark write-up of a daft-sounding study into a sublime piece of live online performance art. A chimps' tea party of the damned. The Mail has long been a master at trolling lefties; now it's mischievously turned on its own readers, and the results could only be funnier if the website came with free plastic lawn furniture for them to lob at the screen. You couldn't make it up. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/05/daily-mail-calls-rightwingers-stupid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxmaximus Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 Why do you assume that someone in an important job can't be of low intelligence? Look at some of the numpties that have been in government. They tend to be educated but not capable of rational thought. George W Bush, for example. I worked on the principle that a Dr has the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills so is therefor by definition intelligent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeMaquis Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 I worked on the principle that a Dr has the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills so is therefor by definition intelligent. Some doctorates are honorary and are awarded for nothing at all. According to Wikipedia "In 1996 Southampton College at Long Island University (now a campus of SUNY Stony Brook) awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Amphibious Letters to Muppet Kermit the Frog. Although some students objected to awarding a degree to a muppet, Kermit delivered an enjoyable commencement address and the small college received considerable press coverage." This knowledge may come in useful the next time someone calls you a muppet. The academic mentioned above may have received a doctorate of more substance than Kermit's but that doesn't mean all doctorates are given to intelligent people. For example, Dr Frank Skuse was in charge of forensics in the investigations into the Birmingham Six and Judith Ward. His evidence helped convict innocent people and helped the real perpetrators of the Birmingham pub bombings get off completely. The Civil Service retired him aged 51 on the grounds of limited effectiveness which sounds like a euphemism for muppet. It certainly isn't a synonym for intelligence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxmaximus Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 Some doctorates are honorary and are awarded for nothing at all. According to Wikipedia "In 1996 Southampton College at Long Island University (now a campus of SUNY Stony Brook) awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Amphibious Letters to Muppet Kermit the Frog. Although some students objected to awarding a degree to a muppet, Kermit delivered an enjoyable commencement address and the small college received considerable press coverage." This knowledge may come in useful the next time someone calls you a muppet. The academic mentioned above may have received a doctorate of more substance than Kermit's but that doesn't mean all doctorates are given to intelligent people. For example, Dr Frank Skuse was in charge of forensics in the investigations into the Birmingham Six and Judith Ward. His evidence helped convict innocent people and helped the real perpetrators of the Birmingham pub bombings get off completely. The Civil Service retired him aged 51 on the grounds of limited effectiveness which sounds like a euphemism for muppet. It certainly isn't a synonym for intelligence. Is that relevant, do you know that the two Dr’s I quoted didn’t use intelligence to get their doctorates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeMaquis Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 Is that relevant, do you know that the two Dr’s I quoted didn’t use intelligence to get their doctorates. It's relevant in that Dr Ellis sounds a bit of a muppet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jessica23 Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 Having a high IQ isn't a prerequisite for getting a doctorate. It helps, but it's not essential. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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