Religiosity and assimilation: Razib, over that Gene Expression II, shows that Muslims are better integrated in America than England or France because there is a better fit here in terms of religiosity. Muslims tend to be religious, and so do other Americans.

I wanted to see if there was a general pattern of religiosity and assimilation. The General Social Survey asked 202 immigrants how often they attend religious services, and how proud they are of America's history. It's high time I used the proper statistic, so I calculated gamma, which turned out to be .16. So there is a positive association, albeit a small one. On average, religious immigrants have a better attitude about America.

I think I just found an area where Mexican immmigrants look good, or at least seem like a good match with American culture. They are more religious than immigrants in general, more religious than American-born people of Mexican ancestry, and they attend church more often than native-born Americans in general. They are as likely as other immigrants to be proud of America's history, and Mex-Ams born in this country are more likely than the typical American to be proud of the country's past. (Results are not shown 'cuz I got no damn time!)

Mr. Darwin, my hero: Razib Khan's interview of Greg Cochran rocks, but what REALLY impressed me is that Cochran says that he has 5 children. Now, a guy who shows real intellectual virtuosity earns my admiration. And I say "right on" when I see a guy successfully raise a large family--I know how tough it is. But when I see THE SAME guy do both--damn, the respect goes up multiplicatively. That's a real man.

It's probably the case that Darwin is my favorite scientist because he was: 1) a genius and a gentleman, and 2) a devoted father of ten kids. We need a moral continuum for men with Travis Henry on one end and Mr. Darwin on the other.

Do fertile women produce gay sons? Let's do a test of the "Beautiful Wives/Gay Sons" theory. According to Dienekes, sexual orientation is a combination of masculinity/femininity genetic factors inherited from parents. Gay men thus have more feminine parents, and for their mothers this means greater attractiveness and fertility. If this is true, homosexuals should come from larger than average families. Here are the mean number of siblings by gender and sexual orientation (GSS data).


Mean number of siblings

Men
Straight 3.47 (N = 8,106)
Bisexual 4.93 (N = 54)
Gay 3.61 (N = 261)

Women
Straight 3.71 (N = 9,314)
Bisexual 3.93 (N = 61)
Lesbian 3.43 (N = 187)

Gay and especially bisexual men come from larger families. While bisexual women also come from larger families, lesbians come from smaller families. More masculine mothers?

Normally with this kind of survey question, there is concern that traditional folks are underreporting their homosexuality, but here we see that more people from large and presumably more conservative families are admitting homosexual behavior (except for the lesbians).

One puzzle is that all the means seem too high. But keep in mind that this question has been asked since 1972 of people of all ages, so many folks come from families formed several decades ago. Plus, respondents are asked to include stepsiblings and adopted children. I checked and the means are skewed by the top few percent reporting huge family sizes, but even if they are removed, the pattern of the results stays the same.

Hereditarianism and racialism

More than 1,000 white GSS-ers were asked if they felt that having better genes is important for how your life turns out. Look at the graph: those who believe there should be a law prohibiting marriage between blacks and whites are much more likely to think that genes are important.

I wonder if more whites will adopt hardcore racial attitudes as science makes it increasingly obvious that genes matter. Of course, this type of analysis cannot tell us what is causing what. It could easily be: law against marriage <-- racialism --> genes matter. There is no logical necessity that hereditarianism lead to racialism, but I think one could make the case for a historical connection. Many academics believe the two go hand-in-hand and fear the research for this reason.

Homosexuals more likely to break the law? The Longitudinal Study of Violence Against Women asked college students about sexual orientation. A criminality scale was constructed for males, but girls were only asked if they had gotten into a physical fight.


Criminality scale

Straight men 1.67 (N = 519)
Gay men and bisexual men 1.84 (N = 39)


Percent in a physical fight in past year

Straight women 7.2 (N = 1,172)
Lesbians and bisexual women 14.4 (N = 28)

The high lesbian rate isn't surprising--I'm reminded of the hooligan dykes in A Confederacy of Dunces--but the higher mean for homosexuals is strange. Crime requires aggressiveness and nerve. We have seen in prior analyses a pattern of dysfunction among homosexuals, bisexuals, and lesbians: their higher rates of early sexual contact, family violence, and drug use. Any explanations?

More birth seasonality data: As a follow-up to my post on GSS data and the connection of month of birth to a homosexual orientation, I looked at the The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. They have a larger sample of homosexuals--N = 226 (i.e, ever attracted to a male).


Percent born between August and November (bad months)

Straight boys 34.0
Gay and bisexual boys 34.9


Percent born between January and April (good months)

Straight boys 32.0
Gay and bisexual boys 32.7


No differences here, and a lack of empirical support for "gay germ theory." Keep in mind Agnostic's argument in the last set of comments that birth seasonality is simply not a good test of the theory.

Here's a comment from Mark over at iSteve's I liked (you know I enjoy hyperbole):

Whites are the first cause; the first movers; God, in effect. Blacks were in an idyllic Eden before the white man came and viciously tore them from it, and in the sweat of their faces shall they eat bread.

In the Eden before the white man came, time did not exist. Evil did not exist. Misery did not exist. Whites then came and tore them from Eden, and the world is a fallen place. And it's all because of whites. And whites, unless we do exactly what blacks say, will frustrate every attempt to restore blacks to their Eden.

Gay germ theory and month of birth

You can find a great analysis over at Congenial Times reporting GSS evidence for Cochran's "gay germ theory." According to the theory, homosexuality is caused by infections affecting brain development. The GSS data shows that a disproportionately high number of gay men are born in June. According to the analyst, if an embryo were conceived in September, he would be exposed during the crucial first trimester to the peak flu season, and would then be born in June.

The problem with this is that, according to the CDC, the peak month for flu for the past 26 years has been February (see the graph above). The peak conception month should be December since Mom and embryo are exposed to three bad months. Looking over a longer period, November through February would be the worst 4 months. The best four months for conception would probably be April through July since you are exposed to no months with a particular flu problem. Focusing on the month of birth instead of conception, the worst period should be August through November and the best, January through April.

I'm looking at 4-month periods because the GSS has a small number of homosexual respondents, and cell sizes increase as we merge them. We can also boost sample size by combining homosexuals and bisexuals (as Congenial Times did, N = 167).

Percent born between August and November (bad months)

Straight men 33.9
Gay and bisexual men 34.2


Percent born between January and April (good months)

Straight men 32.9
Gay and bisexual men 28.8


Gay and bisexual men are a bit less likely to be conceived during the low-risk months, but do not differ from straights during the flu season peak. The evidence here for the theory is weak.

Race, crime, and getting high: The Longitudinal Study of Violence Against Women asked 455 male college students about criminal activities and drug use. Illegal acts ranged from minor items like lying about one's age to more serious crimes like attacking students or carrying weapons. I was interested by the racial pattern:


Mean crime index

Whites 1.73
Blacks 2.09
SD .67

According to conventional wisdom, the only reason why blacks have higher rates of crime is because many are from the lower class. (Many people where I work assume that criminal justice system bias produces the disparity. The self-report data presented here show these guys are full of it.) The social status of black and white students at the same college is similar, but black criminality is half a standard deviation higher.

To be more specific, look at the graph to see the huge difference on the question of hitting other students in the last year.


Mean alcohol and marijuana use index

Whites 4.43
Blacks 3.33
SD 2.37

By contrast, you can see that white college students drink and smoke pot more than their black counterparts. The difference is a little less than one-half of a standard deviation. The stereotype of the drunk frat boy is confirmed.

Gay men skinny, lesbians fat? Doesn't that seem to be the case? Au contraire, says the GSS. I've calculated means and added bisexuals to homosexuals because sample sizes are so low. (Interviewers rated the respondent's weight, scoring them as 1 for below average, 2 for average, 3, for above average, 4 for considerably above average).


Mean weight index

Straight men 2.18 (N = 812)
Gay men 2.26 (N = 38)
Straight women 2.24 (N = 949)
Lesbians 2.12 (N = 16)

Gay men are fatter, and lesbians are skinnier. Assuming this is correct, where would the stereotype come from?

Should people always obey the law?

GSS respondents (N = 2,475) were asked, "In general, would you say that people should obey the law without exception, or are there exceptional occasions on which people should follow their consciences even if it means breaking the law?"

The graph shows that Mexican Americans are more likely than any other large ethnic group to say one should always obey the law. I'm not sure that this is the best attitude, but Mex-Ams clearly stand out. Blacks and American Indians (on the right end of the chart) are also above average; it looks like higher IQ groups have less absolutist attitudes.

I checked by cross-tabulating this question with IQ (WORDSUM). Wow, smart people respect the following of one's conscience.

I guess my first attempt to find a pro-Mex-Am stat didn't quite work out.

Democrats and reading the other side

Back when I was a liberal, I was willing to read conservatives. You can see what it did to me. These days, I'm less interested in taking the other side seriously. All the action seems to be over here.

But let's see if there is a difference in willingness to read the other side. GSS respondents were asked if they read political websites they didn't agree with. Their answers are listed above by their 2000 vote for president (N = 302). You can see that Gore and Nader voters are a little bit less likely to say no.

Don't gape. It's my (belated) New Year's resolution to try to find stats that support the other side. It's only fair. You won't see me do it much for liberals because, really, I don't give a damn. But my decision to (try to) find favorable numbers for Latinos and assimilation is serious. I haven't found any yet (haven't looked much) but I will.

Cultural literacy and being a naked ape: I've got to second Paul Gottfried's point. His experience with college students has convinced him that they don't know a damn thing about Darwin. But people are wrong to argue that they're ignorant because they have spent all their time learning about Jesus. Truth is, they don't know a damn thing about Him either. Cultural literacy seems to be well-rounded. And so is cultural ignorance. (Examples: Neither Gottfried or Razib, another writer at Taki's, are Christian, but they know more about Christianity than 99% of Christians).

The most important proposal Ron ever made: Human Evolution should be a required general education course in every college in the land. I've attended or worked at six different institutions in my life. None of them required this course or something like it. You answer, what about Introduction to Biology. I respond that: 1) many students don't take that course (they take some other lower-division course in science); and 2) focusing on other organisms allows students to pretend it's not about them.

Let me take it a step further and in a direction one might not expect from a conservative: Require Human Evolution in high school. Socrates said an unexamined life is not worth living. You have little self-knowledge if you don't know that you're a naked ape. Repeat it in front of the mirror ten times a day. I am a naked ape! And a damn proud one!

Which denomination has the most homosexuals? No, I'm not asking about clergy, so don't answer Catholic. It's those liberal Episcopalians. According to the General Social Survey, the breakdown looks like this (N = 17,969):


Percent of men who are gay

Episcopalian 8.1
Jewish 4.5
No religion 4.4
American Lutheran 3.0
Catholic 2.9
Southern Baptist 2.7
United Methodist 2.4
Christian 1.2


Percent of women who are lesbian

Episcopalian 4.2
No religion 4.1
American Lutheran 3.0
United Methodist 1.8
Catholic 1.5
Jewish 1.0
Southern Baptist 1.1
Christian 1.0


I'm guessing that: 1) more liberal churches don't lose as many of their homosexuals; 2) they gain converts; and 3) homosexuals in conservative denominations are less willing to admit their orientation.

Age and accepting evolution

In honor of Darwin's birthday, Gallup conducted a poll and found all sorts of discouraging things, like how only 39% of Americans accept the theory of evolution. I'd rather focus on the positive part that younger people are more likely to believe it than older people. There is an 18 point gap between the youngest and oldest groups.

I can see this in my own family. Despite my best efforts, both parents are skeptical, but all the kids accept it. On the other hand, I get a lot of resistance in the classroom from students. Many students don't deny it's true, but they make yucky faces if you use it to explain human behavior.

IQ and traffic tickets

Based on the answers of 2,009 respondents (GSS data) the graph shows that the chance of ever getting a traffic ticket goes up with IQ (WORDSUM). This sample includes all races, but the pattern for whites alone is the same.

What's going on here? I suppose that folks with really low IQs are less likely drive, but the pattern holds for the right side of the bell curve. Do smarter people have longer commutes? Do they get bored more easily and fail to pay attention? Myself, I have to listen to audio books when I'm on the road, but I'll admit it's distracting.

(I checked and found that age does not explain the pattern.)

Getting news from the Internet: The last post on reading newspapers did not consider the possibility that minority groups might get more of their news from the Internet. I doubt it (that's why I didn't look) but I've been wrong before. The Texas Survey of Adults asked how often do people get their news from the Internet.


Percent who get news from the Internet daily

Non-Hispanic whites 31.0
Non-Hispanics blacks 18.5
Hispanics 20.7

I checked the correlation between frequency of Internet and paper reading. It's 0.09, which tells us that the two are basically unrelated. One does not predict the other or substitute for the other. The story here is that NAMs--Hispanics as much as blacks--are poorly informed.

Daily reading: The Survey of Texas Adults asked 1,504 people if they read the newspaper every day. (This is a good sample since there are a large number of Hispanics--25%.)


Percent who read the newspaper daily

Non-Hispanic whites 40.5
Non-Hispanic blacks 30.0
Hispanics 23.6

People generally think of Hispanics as falling somewhere between whites and blacks on social indicators, but it's not uncommon for me to run across statistics which put Latinos at the bottom.

A couple points about abortion and achievement: One argument made in the comment section of the last point is that smart, pregnant girls give up bright futures if they don't get an abortion. It is certainly true than teen motherhood makes it harder to have a successful career. Not impossible, but harder.

One currently popular belief is that if children are going to grow up to become well-adjusted adults, both mom and dad must devote every waking moment to their development. The best research tells us that this is simply not true. If kids were randomly assigned another pair of parents, they would turn out pretty much the same. Research also tells us that day care is not bad for children. So, to all you young women contemplating an abortion, it might be harder, but you don't have to kill your child to get ahead. You might have to give up spending as much time with the little guy, but trust me, if you're the ambitious type you'll enjoy your children more if you're not with them all day. Drop the idea that Junior needs you that much.

Another reader comment was that an intelligent, pregnant teen can always have kids later. While this is true, one demography truism is the longer you wait, the fewer the children you have. I looked at GSS data and found that a delay of ten years translates into one fewer kid for women with the highest IQ (WORDSUM) scores.

I'm not concerned about an overall lack of kids: I'm worried that we're having too many unintelligent kids and not enough smart ones. At the same time, it makes sense for a society to put its female talent to use. While there is tension there, challenging the notion that kids need mom 24/7 can help us achieve both goals.

Abortion is dysgenic: The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health asked girls who had gotten pregnant what the outcome was. Here are the percentages who aborted by grades in their most recent class:


Percent aborting (N = 87)

A or B in Math 40.5
C or worse in Math 37.8

A or B in Science 41.7
C or worse in Science 23.1

The chance of getting an abortion was not much different between good and bad math students, but the gap is large in science. The smarties are killing off their smarty kids.

Skin color and IQ

I've copied the correlation table and the results from a 2008 study in Personality and Individual Differences (Templer, Donald. 45, 440-444). From the author's conclusion:

The finding that skin color shows substantial correlations with life expectancy, birth rate, and infant mortality confirms the importance of this variable, as originally identified by Templer and Arikawa (2006). It merits further research given the suggestion made by Jensen (2006) that pleiotropy(genes having more than one effect) may underlie both IQ and skin color. Skin color and IQ have been found to be correlated in several studies of people of mixed-race ancestry Jensen, 1998; Rushton, 2008; Rushton & Jensen,2005).

The nature of a latent common factor such as the r–K dimension requires inference and interpretation. Life history theory provides a central organizing theoretical principle for generating specific predictions as to which traits should be correlated and it suggests physiological processes such as brain functioning that provide a substrate (Jensen, 1998; Rushton, 2004). This latter approach was adopted by Figueredo et al. (2006) who proposed an integration that traced the development of a life history from genes to brain to the various associated components of the reproductive strategy. They explored the psychometrics and behavioral genetics of the K factor, and specific areas of the human brain, including the frontal lobes, amygdala, and hippocampus. They then applied life history theory to predict patterns of development within the brain that are either paedomorphic (i.e., development begins later, proceeds at a slower rate, and has an earlier cessation) or peramorphic (i.e., development begins early, proceeds at a faster rate, and has a later cessation). The theory of r–K reproductive strategies may eventually provide an evolutionary understanding of many seemingly disparate results in personality research.

Assimilation is not working now

English/Welsh ancestry (N = 5,022)

Mexican ancestry (N = 1,165)

Let's use Americans of English or Welsh ancestry as a handy standard of assimilation (GSS data). The top chart shows how dropping out of high school went from almost a quarter to lower than 10%. (Only people 25 and over are included). Those completing a 4-year degree or more has almost reached 40%.

According to the bottom graph, those of Mexican ancestry were improving into the 90s, but the trend has reversed in this decade. Now, 40% are high school dropouts and only 10% get a bachelors or more.

Assimilation is not working now. Immigration from Mexico must come to a dead halt and should not be started up again until residents of Mexican background at least resemble typical Americans. If that never happens, so be it.

Schadenfreude: I was struck with the feeling of schadenfreude once again as I read Peter Brimelow's piece about the New York Times smear. He cited Ed Rubenstein's finding that John McCain would have won the election if America's racial balance as of 1976 had not changed. Oh, the delicious contemplation of McCain slowly slitting his own throat over the past three decades.

Bill O'Reilly is at times a bit annoying, but he is on fire since the Times suggested that folks like him and the writers at VDARE are white supremacists. They've gotten his Irish up, and unlike so many men these days, he's not going to lick boots and shut up about illegal immigration.

He is exactly right that the NYT writes this kind of trash in order to make it easier for the Left to turn America into a one-party country. Reilly is a good example for all the women with penises. When someone calls you a racist, don't apologize and volunteer for sensitivity training. Fight back.

This is a prime opportunity for immigration restrictionists. Times are getting tough. Jobs are disappearing at half a million a month. The limited numbers of jobs we have should go to Americans. We need to open up more spots by sending the illegals packing. We can't afford to have all those wages sent to relatives in Mexico. The generosity must end. Americans first. The Open Borders Crowd doesn't give a damn about ordinary Americans, but we do.

Democrats love to tax the crap out of you, and skip on paying their share

From Half Sigma's blog:

Timothy Geithner, and now Nancy Killefer and Tom Daschle. All tax cheats. It’s funny how these Democrats are happy to spend other taxpayers’ money on social programs, but not so eager to actually pay taxes themselves.

Amen. I wish religious people said amen repeatedly so I could do it now. Let me add Al Franken--who has also been accused of failing to pay taxes. (Let's not forget Bill Richardson's shenanigans too).

The General Social Survey asked 733 Americans if they thought cheating on taxes is wrong, and also asked who they voted for in 1996. The graph shows that 16.3% of Clinton voters think tax evasion is not wrong or a little bit wrong, compared to 9.1% of Dole supporters.

Stop hatin', start participatin': Not all homosexuals are white! My dad knows I analyze data and asked me if it was true that there are very few homosexual non-whites. He's picked up the stereotype that all gays are Caucasian. (If I were asked, I'd say English). I told him that the prevalence of homosexuals is at least as high among blacks and Hispanics. According to the General Social Survey, it's 3.0% of white men, 5.4% of Hispanics, and 3.8% of blacks. I suggested that non-white homosexuals are more invisible since their ethnic groups are small, and there is less acceptance of the orientation among these groups.

According to The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, 7.0% of white adolescent boys say that they have been romantically attracted to another boy. The corresponding number for blacks is 8.2% and 9.0% for Hispanics (N = 3,101). Interesting how the ranking is the same for the two surveys.

Sex education, birth control, and sex: What's the relationship between sex education and behavior? The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health asked 6,411 teens in 1994 if: 1) they had learned about pregnancy in school, 2) they've had sex, and 3) they used birth control the first time.


Percent who have had sex

Taught about pregnancy in school 41.0
Not taught 33.7


Percent who used protection the first time

Taught about pregnancy in school 67.4
Not taught 57.9


Percent who have had sex and did it unprotected the first time

Taught about pregnancy in school 13.4
Not taught 14.2


Looking at the top numbers, those taught about pregnancy in school were more likely to have sex. They were also more likely to use protection the first time. The two patterns basically offset each other: the bottom numbers show us that the percent of kids who have had sex and did it with no birth control is roughly the same for the two groups.

The joys of diversity: I ran across a couple of late-breaking Texas stories. In the first, 80 Mexicans were arrested in Martin County for cockfighting. The birds were rigged with knives to make them more deadly. In the other, there have been two riots in two months in a federal detention facility in Pecos that holds illegals. They're rioting because the food and health care are not good enough.

The nativists are rational: In honor of the New York Times fact-free smear of the guys over at VDARE, let's try a novel approach to immigration: statistics.

Our saintly editors mock Marcus Epstein for writing that moderate diversity is good if it brings desirable traditions to the country. So I guess they prefer undesirable traditions? It seems that way. Our cultural elites appear to celebrate the massive movement of illiterates into the country. The more, the better. If I wanted peasants as a political constituency to control and exploit, and if I wanted house servants too dumb to argue with me, I might call immigration restrictionists bad names, too.

The 2001-2003 American Community Survey asked almost 2.4 million people about their birthplace and their educational level. Respondents reported dozens of countries, so let's keep things simple and limit it to the ten most educated groups and the ten least. (Don't ask me who some of these whites are).


Top Ten

Kuwait--nonwhite 13.8
Tanzania--white 13.6
Southwest Asians 13.5
Taiwan--nonwhite 13.4
Malaysia--white 13.4
Cameroon 13.4
Kenya--white 13.4
India--white 13.3
Zimbabwe--nonwhite 13.3
South Africa--white 13.2


Botton Ten

Guatemala--nonwhite 8.03
Laos--white 8.02
El Salvador--white 8.01
Cambodia--white 8.00
Cambodia--nonwhite 7.91
El Salvador--nonwhite 7.79
Azores 7.73
Laos--nonwhite 7.57
Mexico--white 7.49
Mexico--nonwhite 7.14


I'm shocked, shocked that Mexico is on the very bottom of a VERY long list. "7" means the respondents went no further than tenth grade. "13" is for those who completed an associates degree. The New York Times loses sleep over America's educational ills, but welcomes a limitless supply of illiterate, high school dropouts from the south, and libels concerned citizens like Epstein.

Religion and charity

Gallup conducted telephone and face-to-face interviews between 2006 and 2008 with at least 2,000 adults in most countries and found that in all major regions of the world more religious people: 1) help strangers, 2) volunteer, and 3) donate to charity.

When I get a chance I'll take a closer look, but check out this analysis of NLSY data.

Patterns of sexual harassment: The General Social Survey asked 3,488 Americans if they have been sexually harassed on the job in the past 12 months. Here are the numbers:


Percent sexual harassed in past 12 months

Surveyed in 2000 4.8
In 2006 3.2

Female 5.8
Male 2.1

Straight woman 6.7
Straight man 2.2
Gay man 2.1
Lesbian 2.3

Single 6.6
Married 2.0
Separated 5.6
Divorced 5.5
Widowed 2.7

White 4.3
Black 4.5
Other 1.0

Age 20-24 7.2
25-29 6.8
30-34 6.2
35-39 3.3
40-44 3.7
45-49 3.1
50-54 2.4
55-59 2.3
60 plus 1.2

Italian 7.6
Irish 6.2
Scottish 6.4
French 5.6
Amerindian 5.0
English/Welsh 3.7
German 2.7
Polish 2.6
Norwegian 2.0
Mexican 1.6

Protestant 3.8
Catholic 3.9
Jewish 0.0
No religion 4.5

Less than high school 6.3
High school 3.5
Some college 4.6
College grad 4.8
Grad school 2.8

Working full-time 4.0
Part-time 3.4
Temp. not working 8.5

Low prestige job 5.7
Middle 3.4
High 4.0

Voted in 2000 for Bush 2.6
Gore 5.0
Nader 10.7

Has cheated on spouse 5.8
Has not 2.5

It always wrong to cheat 3.3
Almost always wrong 2.6
Sometimes wrong 5.3
Not wrong at all 5.7

Goes to bar almost daily 12.5
Several times a week 6.6
Never 2.7

Very happy 3.0
Pretty happy 3.5
Not to happy 5.7


There is a lot here. Let me only make a comment or two--you're input is appreciated. The number seems to be down a bit since 2000. I'd like to think the hysteria is subsiding, but the truth is probably that men have become even more neutered in the workplace. Myself, I never even compliment a woman on how she looks.

Homosexuals are not being harassed at high numbers, although I'm sure that elites assume they are.

For a profile of a harassed person, I'm getting the picture of a young, single, low status woman with a wilder type of lifestyle and a liberal orientation. She attracts attention, some of it unwanted, she probably works in a place with fewer castrated men (lower status men or higher status men in less sensitive fields) and her politics lead her to define ambiguous interactions as harassment.

Interracial fertility: Over at 2blowhards, Gregory Cochran said in Monday's interview that:

Well, one usual claim is that individuals from every human population are fully interfertile, completely able to interbreed... Of course, like so many sweeping statements, no one has carefully tested this for all possible combinations.

It is true that research has not answered this question, but a recent study tell us that some combinations seem as fertile as same-race couplings. I can't access the full text, but here's some of the abstract:

This study uses 2000 - 2005 American Community Survey data on married (n =272,336) and cohabiting (n = 48,769) couples to compare the fertility of endogamous and exogamous couples. Interracial and interethnic partnering do not affect fertility for cohabiting, Black-White, Mexican-White, and Puerto Rican-White intermarried couples, but it does reduce fertility in Chinese-White and Asian Indian-White intermarriages (Fu, Vincent Kang. Journal of Marriage and Family, Volume 70, Number 3, August 2008 , pp. 783-795(13)).

You've got to watch this ad. It knocked me off my chair.

Widespread ethnic consciousness: The Houston Area Survey asked Hispanics (and Asians) if they think of themselves primarily as Hispanics (or Asians) or Americans. Here are their answers:


Hispanics--percentages (N = 823)

Primarily ethnic 50.5
Equally ethnic and American 31.2
Primarily American 18.2


Asians--percentages (N = 68)

Primarily ethnic 39.7
Equally ethnic and American 44.1
Primarily American 16.2

Fewer than 20% in each group see themselves as I see myself--an American. One-half of Hispanics don't even give their American identity equal weight. I'll cut them some slack because some of these folks are immigrants. On the other hand, this is Houston, a place not known as a multicultural vanguard.

Along with blacks, these two groups are getting large enough and powerful enough that they are on the verge of forcing me, a person who doesn't want to, to feel like he must mirror them and become a white man. It's simply defensive racial consciousness. An individualist patriot surrounded by herds of racialists gets stomped.

If this happens to guys like me, the elites who are behind this multiculturalism and the non-whites who happily embrace it will have no one to blame but themselves. They will have killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

And no, folks like me won't become barbarians; we'll simply organize and dominate in an explicit way, in contrast to the unintentional, spontaneous leadership we see today. And we won't feel the slightest twinge of guilt as we do it.

Homosexuals use more drugs: The Longitudinal Study of Violence Against Women asks college students about sexual orientation and drug use. Here are the percentages:


Percent using marijuana

Men (N = 762)
Straight 28.1
Bi 53.2
Gay 40.0

Women (N = 1,446)
Straight 19.6
Bi 54.5
Lesbian 25.0


Percent using other illicit drugs

Men (N = 742)
Straight 10.5
Bi 35.7
Gay 31.6

Women (N = 1,446)
Straight 7.2
Bi 21.8
Lesbian 25.0

It is clear that for both categories of drugs, use is much higher for gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals. I assume this is due to gravitating toward non-conformist social circles, but welcome other explanations.

Immigration drives some to suicide: Here's a cross-national study abstract that reports a .13% increase in suicide for each 1% increase in immigration (supposedly due to lower social integration and culture shock).

More on family size and IQ: From my recent posts on family size and IQ, you might make the mistake of concluding that you need to keep your family small in order to optimize your children's intelligence. Most of my readers are highly educated people: Let's look at IQ scores of the children of parents who attended graduate school by number of siblings. Dad first:


Mean vocab scores for children of fathers who attended grad school (N = 987)

Only child 7.91
One sibling 7.46
Two siblings 7.47
Three siblings 7.34
Four siblings 7.24
Five siblings 7.41
Six siblings 6.83
Seven siblings 7.07


Mean vocab scores for children of mothers who attended grad school (N = 493)

Only child 7.34
One sibling 7.07
Two siblings 7.46
Three siblings 7.43
Four siblings 7.11
Five siblings 6.87

The second list is shorter because not many moms with seven or more kids went to graduate school. The only-children of graduate school fathers seem smarter, but not those with highly educated moms. When families get really large, there seems to be a bit of a drop-off in IQ, but the overall picture is one of high intelligence across all family sizes.

If you want a smart child, the best thing to do--other than choosing a smart partner--is to have a bunch of kids in order to increase your odds. If you want a high average, well you've got the partner part to focus on.

Malkovich--A right-winger?

I can't deny a certain pleasure when I find out that some Hollywood celebrity leans right, especially if he's talented. I shouldn't, but I even smile if he's a neocon. From Wikipedia:

Politically, Malkovich has described himself as a libertarian, and he is an ardent supporter of the death penalty. When the serial killer John Wayne Gacy was executed in 1994, Malkovich organized a champagne party for himself and his friends. Actor William Hootkins, who worked with Malkovich in BBC Television's Rocket to the Moon, stated, 'In fact, he's so right-wing you have to wonder if he's kidding.'

In a 2002 appearance at the Cambridge Union Society, when asked whom he would most like to "fight to the death," Malkovich replied that he would "rather just shoot" journalist Robert Fisk and British MP George Galloway. Fisk reacted with outrage. When interviewed by The Observer, Malkovich elaborated on his comments: "I hate somebody who is supposed to be a Middle Eastern expert who thinks Jesus was born in Jerusalem. I hate what I consider his vile anti-semitism. This being said, I apologize to both Fisk and Galloway; they seem like good men but if they make such a heinous mistake again, I will not hesitate to murder them brutally by way of the gallows." Malkovich later added: "I'm a Christopher Hitchens fan myself, but no one has thinner skins than journalists, in my experience, and I come from a family of them... They can dish it out but they can't take it. But the reason I don't like the topic, why I don't really say anything about a whiner like Fisk, is it gives them more oxygen."

I wonder if there is a correlation between playing a prick (e.g., Malkovich, Fred Thompson) or a tough guy (e.g., Schwarzenegger, Willis) and having conservative tendencies.

The photo is from the front page of USA Today

Family size, birth order, and IQ: Following Blode's line of thought from the last post, I calculated the vocab means for each category of birth order and family size:


Mean vocabulary test score

Only child 7.11

First of two kids 6.71
First of three kids 6.63
First of four kids 6.09
First of five kids 5.28
All firsts 6.29

Second of two kids 6.82
Second of three kids 6.94
Second of four kids 5.68
Second of five kids 5.87
All seconds 6.47

Third of three kids 6.36
Third of four kids 6.41
Third of five kids 5.14
All thirds 5.91

Fourth of four kids 6.53
Fourth of five kids 5.80
All fourths 6.10

Let me know if you see something else, but the main story here seems to be that smaller family size is correlated with higher IQ. I imagine that much of that is due to smarter parents, but it might also have something to do with resources and time being split among fewer children. There seems to be no intellectual benefit from growing up in a household with lots of people to interact with.

Birth Order and IQ: Some researchers have found that the oldest child tends to be the smartest, but what does the General Social Survey say? It asked 838 people about how many siblings were born before them, and also gave them a ten-question vocabulary test which is highly correlated with IQ.


Mean vocabulary score

Only child 7.11
First 6.27
Second 6.47
Third 5.91
Fourth 6.10
Fifth 5.94
Sixth 5.51

The first kid is not the smartest; the second is although the difference is not statistically significant. The first two siblings are, however, significantly smarter than subsequent children.

On average, an only child is almost a half of a standard deviation smarter than a first child. Is this due to smart parents being more likely to have one kid? Let's look at mom and dad's educational level:


Mean father's years of schooling

Only child 10.16
First 11.28
Second 11.22
Third 10.93
Fourth 10.87
Fifth 10.41
Sixth 8.33


Mean mother's years of schooling

Only child 11.53
First 11.32
Second 10.98
Third 10.30
Fourth 9.83
Fifth 9.19
Sixth 8.73

Moms seem a bit smarter but dads look dumber. Sample size for the fathers with one child is only 25, but that's not terrible for a mean. Does all the attention that an only child gets (or even the first couple of kids) pay off?

Incest is how common? We know that there are good reasons not to be sexually attracted to relatives. But just how many people have sex with family?

The Longitudinal Study of Violence Against Women asked college-age men and women about sexual experiences before age 14. I counted up the number of respondents who said they had some kind of sexual contact with relatives. I divided the counts into those who did it because they wanted to and those who did it against their will.


Percent having sexual contact with a relative before age 14 (N = 2,356)

Women
Consensual 7.3
Consensual plus forced 9.5

Men
Consensual 2.1
Consensual plus forced 2.4

Notice how it's consensual most of the time. Why the gender difference? Part of it seems to be the greater number of older as opposed to same-age family partners for girls, but I'm not sure about the rest of it. Perhaps males who are attracted to family are more likely to have multiple partners. Women might be more willing to talk about these experiences, but I doubt it.

Keep in mind that while the survey doesn't specify, I'm sure that some of these cases, perhaps most, are "kissing cousins."

The numbers, I'm sure, would be higher if the survey had asked about experiences after age 13. I remember my buddy in college telling me how he had just done unspeakable things with his first cousin. This, of course, is a broad definition of incest.

A high IQ for a Prez ain't THAT important

We're getting a new Prez tomorrow: let's look at the issue of IQ again. I looked at a research article by Dean Simonton ("Presidential IQ, Openness, Intellectual Brilliance, and Leadership," Political Psychology, 27, 4, 2006). He seems to do a pretty careful job. He uses multiple ratings by multiple experts with multiple methods to estimate the IQs and the leadership performance of 42 Presidents.

So, what is the correlation between IQ and greatness? It ranges between .31 and .35, depending on the measure of IQ. If we average the correlations, R-squared is .11, which means that IQ tells 11% of the story. (This is fairly close to Charles Murray's estimate of 16%).

On the one hand, cognitive ability is not a trivial matter. As Steve Sailer wrote, IQ is probably more important than any of the other factors you can identify. On the other hand, 11% is not impressive up against everything else--the other 89%. Plus, the 11% would probably be lower in a multivariate analysis.

You might respond that this doesn't make sense because it is simply impossible that someone with, say, a 95 IQ could perform well at such a demanding job. But that is not what the results imply. They are saying that within the range of IQs that we've seen among presidents, differences in IQ are not that critical. From the lowest estimate of 107.8 (Harding) to the highest of 175.0 (J.Q. Adams), the range is high enough for other factors to become important. (By the way, the high estimate for Harding is 139.9).

Quoting Sailer again, quoting Greg Cochran, "What really matters in a leader is not being smart, but being right. Who was smarter? Warren G. Harding or V.I. Lenin? I'm sure Lenin could have beaten Harding in chess, but I definitely would rather have lived under Harding than Lenin. Harding was kind of a dumb bunny, but his prejudices and instincts were much more reasonable than Lenin's, who was wrong about everything."

In my judgment, Obama is smart as hell. So what. He's wrong.

While we're at it, the study puts G.W. Bush's IQ somewhere between 111 and 138.5, with a mean of 125. This is close to the 125-130 range given by Sailer.

Also--see any numbers that seem way off in the table? Why is Coolidge about the same as W. and Harding?

We all need to help: As the mainstream media, civil rights leaders, and Barack Obama are all telling us today on MLK's birthday, we need to commit ourselves to service.  I agree.  So I just made a donation to Ward Connerly's American Civil Rights Institute, an organization dedicated to abolishing affirmative action and to erasing race from American public life and law. 

Audrey Tautou!

I get the feeling that many readers in the Steveosphere are Netflix subscribers. If you are, Priceless with the lovely Audrey Tautou can be watched instantly. The French make great romantic movies, and this one is very funny as well. If Audrey was not named after Ms. Hepburn, she should have been. And this is the first movie of hers where she radiates sexiness instead of innocence.

More hatefacts: Steve Sailer reports that the racial ranking of STDs is similar to crime with blacks at the top and Asians at the bottom. I couldn't resist finding some completely unacceptable fact (now being called hatefacts) from the same report: 60%, I said 60%, of black women ages 40-49 have genital herpes (compared to 25% of white women of the same age--which is troubling enough).

Now we just have to figure out how the Man gave it to them.

I know, I know. Someone is asking why Ron makes a point of publicizing this stuff. Simple--because everyone is hiding it. If these facts were well-known and nobody cared, neither would I.

Andrew Wyeth, R.I.P.

I have great respect for any talented artist who gave the finger to "art" of the past century. (Plus, I've always thought of myself as a crippled little girl who can't get back home.)  

Attack an insider, kill an outsider? I've read that animals as a rule exhibit non-lethal violence toward members of the in-group and lethal violence toward outsiders, and I wondered if it might apply to human races.

I found rates of within- and cross-race aggravated assaults and homicides for 2006 and looked to see if assaults turn into murders more frequently if the attacks are cross-race. Here are the ratios of aggravated assaults to homicides for different combinations:


Ratio of aggravated assaults to homicides

White-on-white 172.0
Black-on-black 55.1
White-on-black 148.5
Black-on-white 108.7

Just to make sure you're interpreting those numbers right, using the first one, read it as, "For whites attacking whites, you'll have 172 aggravated assaults for every murder." So the lower the number, the more likely someone ends up dead.

So, you can see that black-on-black violence is the deadliest; white-on-white the least so. The second deadliest is black on white, so the chance of death is highest when the perpetrator is black.

Whites are somewhat more likely to kill a black victim than a white one, so this is consistent with the hypothesis, but a black attacker is much more likely to finish off the victim if he is also black--a non-supportive finding.

I should mention the important fact that a great deal of serious violence is mutual combat. The story here seems to be that black participants in violence--whether they end up the victim or the aggressor--are more intensely violent than whites. Have two whites go at it, and you get few deaths. Insert a black as the victim or especially the offender, you get more deaths. Insert two blacks, and the chance of murder jumps even higher.

Does this seem right, or are there other ideas?

Sometimes, "They're all the same and are different from us" is pretty much correct: We're told in sociology class that there is tremendous diversity within any minority group, and it is a serious error to believe otherwise. And when you calculate the mean, the average minority is going to turn out to be the same as the average majority individual. In fact, you don't need to collect data and calculate the mean: fervent faith is all that is needed.

Jews are an example of this. There are even well-known expressions like, "Two Jews, three opinions," and, "Jews are just like everyone else, only more so."

Well, it is better to take an empirical approach to the matter, because it turns out that on some questions, Jews aren't that diverse, nor are they like the average.

Here are the results (GSS data):

Percent in favor of abortion for any reason
Jews 77.8
Extreme liberals 62.0

Percent who agree that a person should get a police permit to own a gun
Jews 93.2
Extreme liberals 81.2

Percent who agree that the U.S. should take an active part in the world
Jews 85.9
All Americans 67.2

Percent who really like Israel
Jews 90.4
All Americans 34.0

Percent who agree that immigrants improve America by bringing new ideas and culture
Jews 90.6
All Americans 57.0

Trends in church attendance

This chart shows the 1972-2006 trend in church attendance (GSS, N = 50,496). 2006 saw the highest share of people in 35 years who never attend--22.7%. You can see that the decline is in the flesh-colored area (?, I'm a man--I don't know colors, plus "flesh-colored" is racist) which is the percent who attend weekly. It has fallen from 28.8% in 1972 to 18.7% in 2006.

If the same trend continues, in another 35 years over 30% of Americans will be unchurched.

Skinny guys have few children: The last post on sex and weight got me wondering about fertility.  Here are the mean number of children that people 40 and over have had:  

Mean number of children

Men, N = 611

Below average weight 1.08

Average 2.11

Above average 2.23

Considerabily above above 1.83 

Women, N = 717

Below average weight 2.14

Average 2.36

Above average 2.14

Considerabily above above 2.12

The item that jumps out at you is skinny men: they have half the children that others have. What's up with that? 

Damn, dem fat chicks is gettin' some:  I looked at GSS data to see which single people have the most sex partners in a year: skinny or fat ones.  Here's the mean (it's an index, so it's not quite the same as the mean number of partners):

Mean sex partners score

Males, N = 936

Below average weight 1.44

Average 1.80

Above average 1.44

Considerably above average 1.11

Females, N = 1,099

Below average weight 1.38

Average 1.24

Above average 1.09

Considerably above average 1.50

Average guys do the best, while the really fat ones come in last.  Seems about right.  

But the chicks.  When I say big sluts, I mean big as much as I mean sluts.      

Eastwood rocks: I've got to give a thumbs up to Clint Eastwood's Grand Torino. What a pleasure it was to hear every vile ethnic slur you can think of on the big screen. Everyone is interpreting it as a anti-racism film, but it seemed to me to be saying that it's not really a big deal if you run across old men who speak like that. Most rough talk is just that, talk. It's okay to not get too worked up about it; in fact, it can be funny as hell. The movie said, lighten up ya tight asses.

Government workers are not liberal

N = 11, 827

N = 2,835

N = 15, 072

I assumed that government workers lean left. The GSS disagrees with me. The top chart shows that the political orientation between government and private employees differs little. Well, maybe public employees are not liberal but vote for Democrats nevertheless. You can see that in the middle graph that, once again, the difference is slight.

As a side note, look at how the percent of workers employed by the government has not grown much in the past two decades. I thought it had.

That is SO barrio!  Agnostic has an insightful analysis up at Gene Expression on teen births. Let me add to it the perspective of a dirty racist blogger. 

I read the National Vital Statistics Report he linked to and found the birth rates for girls ages 15-17 for tbe most recent year available (2006):

Births to 15-17 year old girls per 1,000  

Mexican Americans 53.9

Blacks 36.6

Whites 19.4

Amerindians 30.7

Asians 8.8

Now, I'd rather see teen births than abortions, but still.  Slummy behavior is sometimes referred to as "ghetto."  Maybe it's time to say, "That is SO barrio!"

It's now the norm for liberals to be extremists on abortion

Liberals

Conservatives

These graphs show trends in favoring abortion for any reason since 1977 (GSS data). Liberals and extreme liberals were combined in the the top chart, and it shows that this radical position has increasingly become a part of a liberal orientation. Back in the 70s liberals were split on the issue. It's the norm now to be an extremist.

The bottom graph combines conservatives and extreme conservatives. For them, licentious abortion has always been a minority view. There has been a decrease, but it's not as noticeable.

Zimbabwe is more accepting of atheists than America:  There's been a lot of talk about Obama's religious faith.  Some have speculated that he is actually a non-believer.  How many Americans are strongly against an atheist President, and how does that compare with the rest of the world? 

The World Values Survey asked respondents in many countries if they agreed that an atheist is unfit for high public office.  Here are the percentages who strongly agree:

Percent who strongly agree 

Pakistan 82.4

Morocco 72.4

Egypt 70.1 

Jordan 66.6

Iraq 66.1

Indonesia 59.2

Nigeria 56.8

Tanzania 53.4

Algeria 51.7

Puerto Rico 36.5

Venezuela 35.5

Bangladesh 30.2

Turkey 28.4

Philippines 26.8

Uganda 25.2

Romania 23.0

South Africa 22.9

Macedonia 17.7 

USA 17.6

Greece 17.5
Albania 16.1

Zimbabwe 14.9

Mexico 14.9

India 14.5

Chile 14.0

Argentina 13.7

Moldova 11.7

Ukraine 11.7

Malta 10.7

Kyrgyzstan 10.5

Serbia 8.7

Slovakia 8.7

Croatia 8.5

Bulgaria 8.1

Lithuania 7.2

Poland 6.7

Belarus 6.7

Canada 6.6

Russia 6.4

Hungary 5.5

Latvia 5.3

Luxembourg 5.1 

Bosnia 5.1

Austria 4.6

Vietnam 4.5

Italy 4.4

Ireland 4.0

France 3.9

Finland 3.5

Estonia 3.5

Great Britain 3.3

Belgium 3.3

N. Ireland 3.2

Iceland 2.6

Portugal 2.6

South Korea 2.6

Germany 2.4

Slovenia 2.4

Czech Rep 2.4

Japan 2.2

Spain 2.2

Sweden 1.7

Denmark 1.3

Netherlands 0.6

No big surprises here.  The United States is above average, and sits with with non-Muslim, less developed countries.  That's not exactly right since America is not as tolerant as former Soviet countries.  It is very different from First World Europe.  

I don't get this.  I'm in the pews every week, but whether the Prez is a believer is simply not the question.  The question is whether his politics match mine.  Any person with my political views who would vote for Nancy Pelosi because she is a fellow Catholic over Newt Gingrich because he doesn't seem to be religious enough is a retard.  If a candidate is pro-life, what do I care if he doesn't believe in the Bible?  

Perhaps I should give people more credit and assume that they believe that an atheist is very likely to be a liberal, but doing even a little bit of homework will get beyond the stereotype. Unfortunately, too many religious people believe that atheists must be bad people--that is pure stupidity.  

Dawkins gets his bus ad exactly wrong:  The New York Times informs us that Richard Dawkins, A. C. Grayling, and the British Humanist Association have supported a campaign that has raised more than $200,000 to advertise the following on 800 buses across Britain: "There’s probably no God,” the advertisement says. “Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

They may nor may not be right about the first part, but it looks like they're wrong on the second part.  The World Values Survey asked 2,042 Brits about their religious attendance and their satisfaction with life. Both questions were on scales from 1 to 10, 10 being the most churchgoing and the most satisfied.  Let's look at percentages for the top three and the bottom three:

Percent giving a particular answer

Most satisfied with life--10

Those attending more than weekly 18.9

Those who never or rarely attend 11.3

Satisfied with life--9

Those attending more than weekly 30.1

Those who never or rarely attend 14.8

Satisfied with life--8

Those attending more than weekly 31.2

Those who never or rarely attend 24.3

Most unsatisfied with life--1

Those attending more than weekly 0.0

Those who never or rarely attend 1.3

Unsatisfied with life--2

Those attending more than weekly 0.0

Those who never or rarely attend 1.5

Unsatisfied with life--3

Those attending more than weekly 0.0

Those who never or rarely attend 4.1

The advertisement should read, "Stop worrying and stop enjoying your life."

Sibs and offspring:  Reading R.A. Fisher's ideas about the heritability of fertility as summarized by David B. over at Gene Expression, it made me wonder to what extent your own completed family size is associated with that of your parents.  I was surprised to find that, according to GSS data, it's only .13. People depart from their parents more than I thought.  

To look at it in a more detailed way, here is the distribution of completed family size for people who grew up with two siblings:

Percent in each category

No children 17.2

One 12.2

Two 29.9

Three 19.9

Four 10.4

Five  4.7

Six 2.5

Seven 1.4

Eight or more 1.8

The modal category is two children, so the tendency here is more to follow the current norm of two kids rather than to imitate one's parents.  People are really all over the place here. 

I also wondered if the correlation has changed at all over the past six decades, but I saw no evidence for it.  It doesn't seem to vary across gender either.  

  

Perceived weight by ethnic group:  General Social Survey interviewers recorded perceptions of their respondent's weight, ranging from "below average" (=1) to "considerably above average" (=4).  In contrast to scales, measuring weight in this way allows us to see how people are perceived by others.  I calculated the means for all ethnic groups with at least 30 respondents in the sample:

Mean weight score

 

Mexican 2.37

Blacks 2.33

Italian 2.32

French 2.32

American Indian 2.29

English/Welsh 2.22

USA 2.21

Irish 2.23

German 2.19

Polish 2.14

Scottish 2.10

Jewish 2.02

Chinese 1.83

SD 0.63

As we saw in a post on scale-measured weight, Mexican Americans are the heaviest group. The objective and subjective match up.  Blacks, the other large NAM, are next; American Indians are fifth.  Next heaviest are those of southern European descent.  Northern and eastern Europeans are next, followed by Jews.  Chinese Americans--no surprise--are the skinniest.  The pattern follows social class ranking. The difference between Mex-Ams and Chinese folks is almost one standard deviation.   

What ever happened to John Henry?  When you think of a really hardworking NAM, who comes to mind?  I've been conditioned to imagine a Mexican guy who earns minimum wage but works two or three jobs in order to put food on the table. 

The Gambling Impact and Behavior Study asked 1,440 men ages 30-64 about their work status. Here are the percent who reported working a full-time job and a second job. 

Percent with second job--males

Non-Hispanic whites 4.7

Non-Hispanic blacks 10.2

Non-Hispanic others 3.9

Hispanics 4.6

The stereotype should be of the hardworking black man.  Along with Hispanics, whites and others--mostly Asians--have low numbers, but this is due to the fact that members of these groups are more likely to have a really good job that obviates the need for two. 

And for women:

Percent with second job--females

Non-Hispanic whites 3.8

Non-Hispanic blacks 4.9

Non-Hispanic others 1.8

Hispanics 2.4

Same thing. 

Now, don't get me wrong. Blacks have higher unemployment numbers, but the focus in this post is on the high end:

Percent unemployed or not in the labor force--males aged 30-64

Non-Hispanic whites 15.6

Non-Hispanic blacks 21.9

Non-Hispanic others 18.0

Hispanics 11.3

Which region is the most corrupt? The Blagojevich scandal has reminded us how corrupt Chicago politics is, but is it a problem endemic to the region?

The General Social Survey asked 1,513 people, "In the last five years, how often have you or a member of your immediate family come across a public official who hinted they wanted, or asked for, a bribe or favour in return for a service?" Answers ranged from "never" (1) to "very often" (5). Here are the means by region:


Corruption mean score

West South Central 1.31
East South Central 1.29
New England 1.26
Mountain 1.23
Middle Atlantic 1.21

USA 1.19

South Atlantic 1.16
Pacific 1.16
East North Central 1.16
West North Central 1.10

SD 0.59

First, 87% of respondents answered "never" (number not shown) which backs up the idea that the U.S. is a low-corruption country.

You can see that the Midwest, especially the western half, has the lowest levels of corruption. States from Texas and Oklahoma to Kentucky and Alabama have the biggest problem, and yes, New Orleans immediately came to mind. The difference between the best and worst regions is a third of a standard deviation.

These numbers match up with this USA Today corruption conviction map to some extent, but the conviction data show the Dakotas to be corrupt.

The state-by-state map, of course, gives a more detailed picture, but I trust survey data more since convictions depend on many factors and thus are a more indirect measure of corrupt behavior.

There's the stereotype of the "old boys network" in the South, but I've heard that a lot of those little Mexican towns in Texas are notoriously corrupt.