Liberals and Atheists Smarter? Not So Fast

A recent study in Social Psychology Quarterly is causing a bit of a stir lately, and I’m not surprised: it says that smarter people are more likely to be liberals and atheists…well, that’s almost what it says:

“More intelligent people are statistically significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history.  Specifically, liberalism and atheism, and for men (but not women), preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.”

So the study isn’t saying that there’s something special about liberalism and atheism that links them to smartness; rather, smart people go in for those beliefs because they are at the vanguard of intellectual thought.  They are social and political novelties.

I’m sure you can imagine the reactions on both sides to news like this.  Liberals are saying “Well, duh!” while conservatives are raising an outcry that this is yet another piece of liberal propaganda.  That’s all rather predictable, but which side is right?

I, for one, will lean with the conservatives on this one.  Not that I think the study is propaganda.  But I think there are a couple big problems with a study like this.  For one thing, intelligence is notoriously difficult to define, so this study’s understanding of intelligence will necessarily be highly specific and subjective.

Worse, though, is the conclusion that conservatives are intellectually and biologically inferior.  Quite frankly, this is a dangerous assertion.  When you take this kind of thinking to the extreme, you end up with things like the Holocaust and “scientific” justifications of racial inferiority.  I’m not saying that this study is Nazi-esque, but it doesn’t essentially differ from other kinds of biologically deterministic thinking.  Asserting the biological inferiority of any social group starts us down a dangerous path.  Let’s not put too much credence in this study and move on.

—Aaron Bekemeyer