Bright Minds, Dark Attitudes: Progressive Bigots vs Social Conservatives

Let's start off with an astute observation from Kevin Williamson:

If you want to see how dedicated a progressive is to dispassionate science, spend two minutes talking about the heritability of intelligence. You’ll be up to your neck in witchcraft and superstition and evasion in no time at all. (If you want to test a progressive’s faith in rigorous scholarship more broadly, ask him about gains from trade and comparative advantage, realities that are as solid as anything social science has to offer.)

Lately, however, appreciation for the science of intelligence has enjoyed a brisk revival in progressive circles. Dr. Gordon Hodson of Brock University is telling them something they want to hear:

...lower cognitive ability predicts greater prejudice, an effect mediated through the endorsement of right-wing ideologies ... we found that lower general intelligence (g) in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood, and this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology. A secondary analysis of a U.S. data set confirmed a predictive effect of poor abstract-reasoning skills on antihomosexual prejudice.

Naturally, faced with such a delicious affirmation of one of their most cherished stereotypes, progressives have been credulous. To protect and buttress their hateful attitudes, progressives have ignored the problems in Hodson's study while overgeneralizing its dubious results.

In so doing, the left has somehow missed the irony.

But Hodson's research is riddled with flaws. Dr. William M. Briggs, Adjunct Professor of Statistical Science at Cornell University, takes note:

[The study] is a textbook example of confused data, unrecognized bias, and ignorance of statistics...

What makes the study ludicrous, even ignoring the biases, manipulations, and qualifications just outlined, by the authors’ own admission the direct effect size for [intelligence] on “racism” is only -0.01 for men and 0.02 for women. Utterly trivial; close enough to no effect to be no effect...

Dr. Briggs points to a host of other problems.

In fact, several important points have been conspicuously ignored during left-wing jubilation over Hodson’s research:

1. Some ideas that are strongly associated with the progressive point of view are firmly rooted in ignorance. For example:

If you changed the question to attitudes toward global free trade there would be a correlation between lower I.Q. and the ‘more liberal’ (at last in American politics) position.

Why do I feel it’s safe to bet that Hodson and his fans will not hasten to investigate these links?

As Jonathan Haidt has articulated most recently, most academic political scientists and psychologists have strongly social liberal views, and so they consciously or unconsciously tend to caricature and misrepresent the views of half their study population…

2. "As LiveScience's Stephanie Pappas mentions, the questionnaire didn't test for secretly racist thoughts, and thus the more intelligent subjects may still have been prejudiced, but just better at lying about it." (social desirability bias, à la the Bradley effect).

Hodson et al. are utterly disappointing in their lazy attempt to address this concern.

3. The study looked at IQ at ages 10-11, and social attitudes 20 years later. "[T]rying to measure a person's 'cognitive ability' at such a tender age is fraught with difficulty. According to a recent paper in Nature, IQ fluctuates dramatically during adolescence, with some people's scores improving and others' deteriorating, and only becomes relatively static once the brain has stopped growing." A direct link between childhood IQ and adult attitudes would be expected to be tenuous, at best.

4. Conservative prejudice (real or imagined) does not justify prejudice against conservatives. This is especially true if we are to believe that conservative prejudice is truly due to intrinsic cognitive deficiencies.

One of the most pernicious ideas to emerge from this discussion is the notion that conservative ideology is a poison that turns feeble-minded folk into monsters.

If we get the the point where we’ve legitimized the idea that stupid people should be sheilded from our opponents’ political ideas, we’ll be well on our way to a panoply of problems that are at least as dangerous as Hodson’s “dark attitudes.”

Voting For A Racist?

To The Senators Who Will Vote To Confirm Sotomayor:

When you vote to confirm Sotomayor, you will have failed in your responsibility to stand up for impartial justice and the separation of powers.  

Sotomayor doesn't know whether biology, culture or experience is the most important source of her prejudice, but she anticipates that her bias will confer judging skills that will make her superior to white males.

From a speech, Sotomayor in her own words (and with ample context):

• "Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences... our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."

• "Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. ...I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage."

• "Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. ...I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First...there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
  

[Translation: Judges are prejudiced, my prejudice will stem from my female gender and my Hispanic heritage ...my prejudice will be an asset.]

From NRO:

"So accustomed have we become to identity politics that it barely causes a ripple when a highly touted Supreme Court candidate, who sits on the federal Appeals Court in New York, has seriously suggested that Latina women like her make better judges than white males.

 

"Any prominent white male would be instantly and properly banished from polite society as a racist and a sexist for making an analogous claim of ethnic and gender superiority or inferiority."

That Sotomayor touts her prejudice would be reason enough to vote against her confirmation, but Sonia has also hinted at a preference for legislating from the bench.  While Sonia Sotomayor was participating in a panel discussion at Duke University Law School, she said the following:

“…Court of Appeals is where policy is made, and I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don’t MAKE law.  I know…uhm…ok…  I know, I know.  I’m not promoting it and I’m not advocating it.  I’m…you know…uhm…ok…uhm…”

Reaction to the statement from Verum Serum:

"Talk about a 'wink, wink, nudge, nudge' moment. Everyone there KNEW what she meant.  That’s why they were all laughing."

So Sotomayor is quite comfortable with the idea of legislating from the bench and admits to being prejudiced.  How can you take this candidate seriously?

In nominating Sotomayor, Obama is delivering on a promise he never should have made:

"I will seek someone who understands that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory... I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with peoples hopes and struggles as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes."

From The American Spectator:

"Obama's call for Supreme Court justices who demonstrate the proper 'empathy' isn't merely wrong; it's unlawful, indeed anarchic, and it utterly trashes the entire American tradition of equal procedural treatment under the law.  The proper conservative response to any nominee forwarded by Obama under such criteria is to demand, and force, extended and illuminating public debate in the Senate."

FYI, The Judicial Oath, for all Federal Judges and Justices:

"I, __________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as (name of position) under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”

More

MUST READ: Sotomayor’s Troubling Record

Imagine the reaction if someone had unearthed in 2005 a speech in which then-Judge Samuel Alito had asserted, for example: “I would hope that a white male with the richness of his traditional American values would reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn’t lived that life” — and had proceeded to speak of “inherent physiological or cultural differences.”

Sonia Sotomayor’s Selective Empathy

Do we want a new justice who comes close to stereotyping white males as (on average) inferior beings?

When Are a Judge's 'Sympathies and Prejudices' Appropriate?

Sotomayor: "[W]e who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience or heritage but attempt . . . continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies, and prejudices are appropriate."  Perhaps Judge Sotomayor could explain when it is appropriate for a judge to approach a case with sympathies and predjudices?

Sotomayor's Record Could Be A Battlefield

Sotomayor has a record of being rebuffed by the high court. Of the six decisions she was a part of that came before the high court, five were reversed. In the sixth, the court disagreed with Sotomayor's reasoning. 

Judicial Fiat

Unfortunately, liberalism has for some time now incorporated a tacit judicial philosophy in which the goal is to impose policies as left-wing as a judge can get away with. Sotomayor seems to march to that beat. More to the point, perhaps, she has shown no signs of marching to any other one.

Sotomayor Slapped Down Reverse Discrimination Case in One-Paragraph Opinion

Sotomayor dismissed the case in a one-paragraph statement that, in the opinion of one dissenting judge, ignored the evidence and did not even address the constitutional issues raised by the case.

Obama's Votes in the Senate

Obama voted against the confirmations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, and he even joined in the effort to filibuster the Alito nomination.  In explaining his vote against Roberts, Obama opined that deciding the "truly difficult" cases requires resort to "one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy." In short, "the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart." No clearer prescription for lawless judicial activism is possible.

Krauthammer on Sotomayor

And finally...  Did Obama Target GOP Donors In Chrysler Closings?Big Dem Donor Group Allowed to Keep Their 6 Chrysler Dealerships Open.  Their Local Competitors Eliminated!  Keep an eye on this website.