Does hand size predict penis length?

Question of the day: Is penis length correlated with hand size?  The truth is that I don't know, but I would guess it is.  If I'm not mistaken, some of the same genes that control limb growth also influence genitalia growth. The 2D:4D finger ratio is not really relevant because it measures the relative size of fingers, and is of questionable validity. 

Lee Ellis published a fascinating paper which lists traits that are positively associated with penis length: masculine mannerisms, masculine body build, physical strength, strength of sex drive, low-deep voice, upper body strength, lower body strength, and amount of body hair. The argument is that all these traits are influenced by testosterone. The main weakness of the study is that the data are self-reported. Rating your own penis is like asking students to grade themselves. 

I can't recall the paper, but I do remember reading about a positive correlation between height and penis length as well. Again, the idea was testosterone.

"Make her ugly, dammit!"

The family of Nina Simone (left) is having a fit that Zoe Zaldana (right) was cast to play the singer in a biopic.

Simone's dark complexion and traditionally African features were central to her identity and concept of black beauty, so casting someone with Saldana's more European appearance is galling, said Miriam J. Petty, an assistant professor in the radio-television-film department at Northwestern University.

"It's disrespectful and demonstrates the depth of the ignorance of the person making the film of the very subject of the film," she said.

The Simone estate tweeted Wednesday: "Hopefully people begin to understand this is painful. Gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, nauseating, soul-crushing."

Why would you want to choose Nina Simone as a representative of having a classical African look?  These Afrocentrists seem to be saying that "black is ugly." The moviemakers are trying to help. They want to avoid the embarrassment of making a movie that no one watches because of an homely lead.

Trump's Likeability

One overlooked factor in Trump's success, I think, is likeability. The authors of Freakanomics stressed the key importance of this trait in a candidate. According to the research they cited, likeability is more important than money, if you can believe it. Donald's cockiness, vulgarity, etc., might be off-putting to some, but I would argue that really competitive candidates have a quality that voters sense and like. It's intuitive. Bill Clinton obviously has it. Obama's is different: it's Black Cool. It's comes in different flavors. Even George W. Bush has something. People like gregariousness, confidence, naturalness--they like people people. Trump is clearly an alpha dog, and he likes people--at least his friends. Whatever the precise trait it, it is part of his success, and it will help him in the general. Ted Cruz sure as hell doesn't have it. 

Republican turnout way up

Nice graph showing how turnout is way up for Republicans (red) and down for Democrats (blue). Thank you, Mr. Trump.

UPDATE:  According to NBC News, 8.3 million Republicans voted yesterday compared to 5 million on Super Tuesday in 2012. That's a 66% increase. Much of the enormous enthusiasm has been generated by Donald Trump, so logically the Republican Establishment has decided to destroy him. All those new voters are the wrong type: they are white and nativist. Republican elites are only interested in winning over imaginary brown people. You know, the folks who actually count. Big Republicans are beautiful losers, as Sam Francis described them years ago.

Narcissistic and other-blaming

 

I just watched Chris Rock's Oscars monologue. Disgusting. The guy can be funny, but we get a 15 minute lecture.

It occurs to me that if the black race were a person, it would have the personality of a common criminal.  Research shows that crooks tend to be narcissistic and always blame their problems on others. They are victims, and yet they're so special, every other consideration must take a back seat.

Over-rated black performances

With the exception of Denzel's performance in Training Day (which I loved--he's one of my favorite living actors), I agree with black movie critic Armond White that the following Oscar-winning performances were over-rated: 

1990: Whoopi Goldberg’s update of the maid stereotype into buffoonish in “Ghost” (unlike her still-moving lead performance in “The Color Purple”).

1996: Cuba Gooding, Jr.’s “Show me the money!” football player in “Jerry Maguire” became the poster boy for self-destructive materialism.

2002: Denzel Washington in “Training Day” portrayed the most monstrous cop in movie history (“King Kong ain’t got #*^@ on me!”)

2002: Halle Berry in “Monster’s Ball” as a thieving, widowed mother, updated the black wench in sexual submission to a white racist.

2006: Forest Whitaker portrayed the murderous, psychotic, flatulent dictator Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland.”

2006: Jennifer Hudson in “Dreamgirls” gave an untrained, caterwauling performance as an overweight, R&B diva who was also a stalker.

2009: Mo’Nique in “Precious” played a nightmarish, barbarous, incestuous mother to a hopelessly obese daughter and disabled granddaughter.

Indifferent to data

This visual shows the quantitative/qualitative divide in sociology.  The obvious difference is the term "data."  Qualitative folks downplay data--the single most important element in science, in my view.  They like flashy theories and flashy politics. I loathe Freudianism and Marxism, for example, because these schools are indifferent to data.

Sex differences in the ideal body

From Time, here are the sex differences in the ideal man and woman. Women like the less extreme versions.

Serial killers are disproportionately black

Why haven't we heard more about the trial of black serial killer Lonnie Franklin who murdered several black prostitutes?  Americans love serial killer stories.  The media seems to want us to believe that blacks are small-time crooks who are sympathetic victims of the ghetto, while white criminals kill on a massive scale, motivated by pure evil.

Wrong. According to the serial killer expert Eric Hickey, 20% of American serial killers are black even though African Americans are only 13% of the population. Even worse, Hickey says they are half of recent cases.

A clear difference between blacks and whites is that blacks have shorter CAG repeats on the androgen receptor gene which makes people more sensitive to testosterone. Androgen levels and sensitivity might help explain the fact that more than 90% of serial killers are male and that they are disproportionately black.

"Bring them to heel"

I've known Hillary Clinton for 25 years, and I've liked her for a total of 30 seconds. Even liars accidentally say the truth once in a while.

Trump is the Master Persuader

Have you read the Dilbert guy's stuff? Get the summary here.

Two-thirds of young Americans admire socialism/communism

I don't see the graphic which shows the results of a survey of 1,000 Americans ages 18 to 26 conducted by Snapchat and Frank Luntz, but I about fell off my chair: When asked which economic system was most compassionate, SIXTY-SEVEN percent said socialism or communism (58% and 9%, respectively) while only 33 percent said capitalism. The evil media and educational system are brainwashing our idiot kids.

Non-whites saving us from the socialism of young white idiots!

In an earlier post, Jayman wrote that non-whites shouldn't be characterized as liberal but as more likely than whites to vote for Democrats. This graph shows self-descriptions for non-whites. As Jayman suggests, a plurality--more than 40%--describe themselves as moderates, and that number has grown a bit over the past 2 decades. Twenty-one percent currently say liberal or very liberal.

Maybe the large number of non-white moderates helps explain the strong support for Hillary. Non-whites seem to be saving us from the socialism of young white idiots!

Recidivists with rhythm

I never watch black movies because they're no good.  It's not me saying that. Critics hate black movies. How many times have I seen them, as a group, pan Tyler Perry movies on Rottentomatoes.com?  I think it's close to 100%. Even though their politics are the opposite of mine, movie critics are smart, and I often like what they like, so I just watched Straight Outta Compton. Quentin Tarantino is right that biopics are an inferior genre. At least there was lots of violence, and that always helps.

But what struck me was the following question: I'm no historian, but in the history of world, have we ever seen the top musicians of a genre made up of a class of common criminals? I guess gypsies might be a good example. Perhaps criminals and musicians share common traits like debauchery.

The movie doesn't shy away from the fact that these people are simply recidivists with rhythm. I mean, Charles Manson learned how to play guitar in prison, and even recorded some songs with the help of Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. Singing to his followers was a big thing in the Manson cult, but do we make reverential movies about him?

More important than any other value: anti-racism

This survey of English teachers shows that To Kill a Mockingbird is far and away the most popular book assigned to 9th and 10th grade students. The most important lesson that teachers want to teach our children--more important than the horrors of totalitarianism (1984) for example--is that white Americans, as a rule, have been unfair to blacks.  

Trump on genes

Trump believes in a "business gene."

Check out this link. If I recall, Audacious posted that Trump said he was very smart like his uncle who was a MIT professor, and that he believed in the power of genes. I also heard Trump at some rally using the term "racehorse" to refer to the inheritance of superior qualities. Here he gives a speech today in SC and tells the audience that many of the young people present will probably become successful businessmen because they have the gene for it.

Millenials are more liberal because they are less white

I've read studies that suggest that Millenials are significantly more liberal than previous generations of young people. It makes me wonder, is that due to more non-whites, or are young whites more liberal?

The above graphs shows trends for males 18-29. The clearest change is an increase in moderates. You can also see a small drop in the number of those who are conservative or slightly conservative.

This graph is of young females. There are no large changes for them. It looks like most of the liberalism in this generation of young people is due to the growing number of non-whites. 

Bernie's mistake

Although there has been some move by blacks and Hispanics toward Bernie Sanders, it has not been as dramatic as I expected. I've been wondering why so many of these people would pick Hillary over a socialist--someone who sounds so generous. Perhaps the problem is that Bernie might be best known for proposing free college. White liberals LOVE the idea, but if I'm an ordinary black guy, what do I care about college? Bernie would do much better if he proposed sending each black person a check because of the burden of being black.

By the way, as a professor, I hate the idea of free college even though it would improve my job security. I already have way too many students who shouldn't be in college, and this would make the problem much worse.

Hillary-ous

This spoof is Hillary-ous.

Those black boys don't look like my son

New from Heather Mac Donald:

Police officers—of all races—are also disproportionately endangered by black assailants. Over the past decade, according to FBI data, 40% of cop killers have been black. Officers are killed by blacks at a rate 2.5 times higher than the rate at which blacks are killed by police.

Some may find evidence of police bias in the fact that blacks make up 26% of the police-shooting victims, compared with their 13% representation in the national population. But as residents of poor black neighborhoods know too well, violent crimes are disproportionately committed by blacks. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, blacks were charged with 62% of all robberies, 57% of murders and 45% of assaults in the 75 largest U.S. counties in 2009, though they made up roughly 15% of the population there.

She goes on to argue how Black Lives Matter, and everyone else, should focus concern on the high rate of blacks, many of them children, being killed by other blacks. But I look to the President as a moral example. Those black boys don't look like my son, so why should I get worked up about that problem?

Whites only three-fifths of a person

Evidently, a white individual in Iowa and New Hampshire is only three-fifths of a person.

Islam is the future

Troubling graph from a Pew report I just ran across projecting tremendous growth for the Muslim world over the next 3 or 4 decades, while the non-affiliated shrink as a share of the global population. Christians are expected to hold steady.

Gallup: Democrats across the country now like Bernie more than Hillary

This Gallup graph provides more evidence that Democrats and Leaners country-wide now, for the first time and just when it counts, like Bernie more than Hillary.

UPDATE: The latest estimate puts Bernie up 4 points to 57% and Hillary down 2 points to 47% in only a couple days.

Ann Coulter on Trump becoming President

In case you missed it. Is there any better high-profile spokesman for the way we look at things than Ann Coulter?

Bernie is gaining with non-whites, too

I wondered if nation-wide support for Sanders is growing among non-whites as it has been among whites. Reuter's tells me there are not enough non-whites to calculate estimates, but I was able to figure it out with the white sample and the total sample.

Since January 5th, support among whites has risen from 31 to 44%.  For non-whites, it has moved from 18.5% to 34%. So non-whites are moving, too, just from a lower initial level.

Watching the debates, I find Bernie more convincing and likeable. But that's not saying much because the more I see Hillary, the less I like her. Decades of learning at the feet of Bill Clinton doesn't change a genetically influenced personality. I wouldn't be shocked if Bernie won the nomination. Sounds crazy, but Hillary is that bad, and Democrats like Bernie. They are eating up promises of free stuff and the chance to stick a big banker with a pitchfork. 

Small move to the left among liberals

Seeing so many democratic socialists in the Iowa Caucus disturbed me.  I wanted to see if this is part of a larger trend of liberals moving left. The green areas show that the percent of liberals who say they are extremely liberal has stayed at around 14% for more than a decade. Where we see change is the move away from slightly liberal to liberal. In 2002, 41% said they were liberal. In 2014, this had increased five points to 46%.

This is consistent with other data I've seen that the country (just like the national leadership) is more polarized--fewer people in the middle.

We'll have to watch whether Bernie can convince liberals in the South (i.e, blacks and Hispanics) and beyond to vote for him. If he does, this country is more open to European-style socialism than I thought.

The intelligentsia is SO screwed up

Two numbers say it all about how screwed up the intelligentsia is. I typed in two names at Google Scholar: C Darwin and M Foucault. Here are the total number of citations:

Total Google Scholar Citations

Charles Darwin  118,346
Michel Foucault  602,427

Need I say more?

I'll be first in line

From Rottentomatoes.com, people can't pay enough for a film that revels in the killing of whites:

In a record setting deal ($17.5 million), Fox Searchlight has acquired the rights to the controversially-titled* slave rebellion biopic The Birth of a Nation. (*The Birth of a Nation was also the title of the 1915 D.W. Griffith film about the founding of the Ku Klux Klan). Nate Parker produced, directed, wrote, and stars in The Birth of a Nation as Nat Turner, the slave who led a rebellion in Virginia in 1831. Even though Fox Searchlight set a record with their $17.5 million winning bid, they actually were not the highest bidders, as both Netflix and producer Byron Allen reportedly submitted larger bids of $20 million each. 

From the Gaurdian's review:

When the revolt does come – a rebellion that saw five dozen slave owners and their families killed – Parker doesn’t leave anything to the imagination. Heads are crushed, stoved in and chopped off. Bodies are burned, teeth are broken. It’s a cathartic blood-letting that recalls the huff and puff of Braveheart, but instead of Mel Gibson splattering the English, it’s Parker hacking at the slave owners.

White voting by ethnic group

According to this video by Stefan Molyneux, white people tend to prefer smaller government. I would agree that whites might be unusual in wanting to protect the individual against the state, but Europeans and all those white Bernie Sanders voters are certainly comfortable with confiscating lots of your money.  Whites seem to be more live-and-let-live, but many of them want to soak the rich just like everyone does.

Whites are so diverse, let's get a little more precise and see which American white groups are majority Republican currently. Based on GSS data:

Percent voting for Romney in 2012

Dutch  76.2
English/Welsh  56.5
Scottish  54.5
French  52.2
German  52.0

Polish 42.4
Irish  42.2
Swedish 42.1
Italians  36.2
Jewish  32.4

Protestants and groups that have lived longer in the United States are more likely to vote Republican. Folks like me (English in my case) might feel a stronger connection to the country's traditions than more recent groups.

I suspect we would be more collectivist like Europe if we were a racially more homogenous country. If the recipients of government assistance look like they could be a cousin, we might be more in favor of it. But if we drum up an image of someone unconnected to ourselves when we think of welfare, we think, why help them? We sense that we are sharing with a competitor.

The Muslim vote

What idiots ever thought that immigrants would rush to vote for Republicans because they hold traditional values? I'm not sure if they have been idiots or conmen.

Just look at how Muslims have voted in the last few elections. No one should be more socially conservative than Muslims:

Percent voting for the Democratic presidential candidate

2008  Obama 83
2004  Kerry 100
2000  Gore 71
1996  Clinton 100
1992  Clinton 100

Sample sizes are very small, but the picture is very clear.  Even before 9/11, Muslims overwhelmingly voted for the Democrat. When it comes to voting, they don't give a crap about traditional values.

How immigrants have voted since 1972

Continuing on the theme of how the foreign-born vote, I used the General Social Survey (GSS) to go back as far as we can on presidential elections. Here are estimates of what percent of them voted for the Republican presidential candidate. I divided it by sex since the GSS over-samples women:


Percent voting for candidate--Men

2012 Romney 26.7
2008 McCain  31.2
2004 Bush  38.3
2000 Bush  41.2
1996 Dole  26.2
1992 Bush  37.4
1988 Bush  70.6
1984 Reagan  56.6
1980 Reagan  43.2
1976 Ford  35.8
1972 Nixon  60.0


Percent Voting for Candidate--Women

2012 Romney  28.9
2008 McCain  23.1
2004 Bush  50.4
2000 Bush  43.6
1996 Dole  19.2
1992 Bush  35.8
1988 Bush  71.1
1984 Reagan  60.6
1980 Reagan  43.2
1976 Ford  42.7
1972 Nixon  57.5

The numbers for the last two cycles are pathetic. You might argue that Republicans did well in the past with immigrants, at least during certain elections, but you'll notice that even though it's a roller coaster, there is an overall tendency towards smaller numbers over the past 40 years. Based on previous analysis, I'll wager that the decline, at least some of it, is due to the browning of immigrant voters. Third Worlders and their descendants love Big Government. The vast majority of immigrants eligible to vote in the 70s and 80s were white, I bet, but much less so now. I'll look at that in the next post.

If you claim that immigrants would vote for Republicans if the candidates were pro-immigrant, then the only bad year should arguably be 2012 with Romney saying illegal immigrants should self-deport. Yet no matter what Republicans do, the immigrant vote has generally stayed well under 50% for more than two decades.

The Stupid Party

So many elite conservatives are lamenting the current embrace of anti-foreigner populism over intellectual conservatism.  A recent example is Matt Lewis' Too Dumb to Fail. His message seems to be that we need to sell smart conservatism to the masses who are inclined to be stupid.

But look at the above map. Five important states--Texas, Florida, Virginia, Arizona, and Nevada--have large foreign-born populations, and I showed previously that our current foreign-born are typically non-white, and some are non-Christian. And those folks and their descendants do not vote Republican. And they never will vote majority Republican.

Who is stupid, exactly?

I just watched this video for the first time and was reminded of the unique and weird genius of white folks:

Race and fatal gun accidents

One way to measure recklessness is by accidental gun accidents. Research shows that these accidents typically involve young males who are playing around with a firearm, often while drinking.

Using CDC Wonder, I calculated rates for fatal gun accidents (FGAs) by race. I also separated Hispanics versus non-Hispanics. Since some groups have higher percentages of older people who are less likely to have an accident, I focus on those in the 15 to 24 age group.

Fatal Gun Accidents Rates

American Indian  0.8
Blacks  0.7
Whites 0.4
Hispanics  0.3
Asian  0.1

The risk for an accident will be greater for groups with higher levels of gun ownership. According to the General Social Surveys (years 2010, 2012, 2014) home gun ownership looks like this: Amerindians, 42%; blacks, 17%; whites, 40%; Hispanics, 19%; Asians, 16%.  If we adjust for exposure by dividing accident rate by the proportion of the group with guns, we get this:


Fatal Gun Accident Index

Blacks  4.2
American Indians  1.9
Hispanics  1.6
Whites  1.0
Asians  0.6

So recklessness among groups is highest for blacks and lowest for Asians.  In fact, the index for blacks is 7 times that of Asians.  I think I hear Phil Rushton's voice from the other side: "See, I told you so."

The high rate among Amerindians is also consistent with Cochran and Harpending's contention that these people have not been selected for tameness like other groups by many centuries of state control.

Why idolize a socialist?

Why do conservatives idolize MLK just as much as the left does?  Conservatives consider "Capitalism is good" to be a "duh" statement, but MLK was clearly a free-enterprise-hating socialist.

Quotes:

 “The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.”

“Again we have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that Capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard word and sacrifice. The fact is that Capitalism was build on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor – both black and white, both here and abroad.”

 “The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power.”

And:

“I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic… [Capitalism] started out with a noble and high motive… but like most human systems it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness.”

“And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.’ When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society…”

“Capitalism forgets that life is social. And the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism, but in a higher synthesis.”

“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.”

“We must recognize that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power… this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together… you can’t really get rid of one without getting rid of the others… the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order.”

“You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism.”

“[W]e are saying that something is wrong … with capitalism…. There must be better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism. Call it what you may, call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God’s children.There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.”

“If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God’s children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell.”

Many not offended by Trump's comments about Muslims

Reuters asked respondents if, "Donald Trump's recent comments about Muslims offend me." While 70% of Democrats said yes, only 27% percent of Republicans agreed.  Less than half (43%) of independents, perhaps the most important group for deciding the next election, said they were offended.

While elites, including moderate Republicans, flipped out over the idea of temporarily banning Muslims, about half of Americans were not upset about it. Trump has shown more clearly than anyone before that elites and ordinary Americans are very far apart on America First issues.

I wondered if Trump hurt himself with independents, but fewer than half seem to care. If we limit independents to those with at most some college, feeling offended drops to 37%.  So Trump jacks up many voters who feel like American leadership cares more about hostile strangers than its own people, while not turning off too many people that he needs to win.  He seems to be light years ahead of Republican strategists and pundits. And he makes it look easy.  

(Hat tip to Audacious for the link!)

Poor nutrition and antisocial behavior

We emphasize genes on this blog, but far be it from me to dismiss the environment as sociologists dismiss genetic influence.  This study shows that even after we control for genes and shared environment, poor nutrition predicts antisocial behavior among children.  So feed your kiddies good stuff.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047235215300155

Global support for sharia

Here's a Pew graph.  We see that with the exception of Southern-Eastern Europe and Central Asia, support for sharia is normative in regions throughout the world.  Even in a place like Indonesia, 72% are in favor it. 

Race and belief in evolution

When people cite stats that seem to show that Americans are dumb, I suspect that many people get a mental image of a redneck.  I discussed in an earlier post that some people think Republicans are dumb even though the data contradicts this. In all probability, white liberals are comparing themselves with white hicks and conveniently forgetting that a big chunk of their party is made up of low IQ blacks and Latinos.  I'm willing to bet that with controversial attitudes that suggest intelligence or the lack of it, non-Asian minorities often have the worst numbers. Let's try belief in evolution as a first try.

General Social Survey respondents were asked in 2012, "According to the theory of evolution, human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals. Is that true or false?" Here are the answers for white, blacks and people of Mexican ancestry:

Percent answering false (N = 390)

Black  33.3
Mexican  27.3
White  18.4

Blacks are almost twice as likely as whites to believe we did not develop from earlier species. People of Mexican descent reject science here at 1 1/2 times the rate of whites.

By the way, these percentages are lower than the--what--40 percent number cited as the percent of Americans who reject evolution.

Jews ain't all that

In terms of religious affiliation, Jews are the smartest, right?  Not so fast.  I'll use the vocabulary quiz from the General Social Survey again as a proxy for IQ. I calculated the mean score for whites--IQ is affected a great deal by the racial composition of the group--but will only list selected religions. (The GSS continues to piss me off for not asking if one is Mormon--my favorite group.)


Mean Vocabulary Score

Buddhist 7.82
Jewish 7.60
Episcopalian 7.38
Hindu 7.17
United Presbyterian 6.98
None 6.70
United Methodist 6.31
American Lutheran 6.34
Catholic 6.21
Christian 5.88
Southern Baptist 5.65
Orthodox Christian 5.47
Muslim 4.73

The Buddhists kick butt.  Jews come in second.  America's former ruling faith--Episcopalian--is third. Ouch, poor Islam is at the bottom of the pack.

Sociology is scientifically bankrupt

One of the themes I'd like to stress is that sociology is untrustworthy among the social sciences. Not only do sociologists dismiss biological sources of behavior, many of them do not even believe in the scientific method and see research as simply a way to advance their politics. Robert Trivers is right: the more social the discipline, the more corrupt.

Let's take a glaring example. A standard race study goes something like this: "We will use opposition to affirmative action as our measure of racism among whites. This variable is correlated in our data with voting Republican, so we therefore conclude that racism is widespread among Republicans."  Or they use the same reasoning with being in favor of the death penalty: "If whites favor it, it is because they hate blacks." Research like this appears in the prestigious journals all the time.

Let's do a simple validity check to see if there is something to what they are doing. They are claiming that underneath conservative political attitudes lies hatred for blacks.  You can't simply ask whites if they hate blacks because nobody ever admits to it. So you use a proxy which just happens to be an attitude held by your political enemies. If these attitudes are proxies, then they should correlate highly with a more direct measure of  racism.

I would argue the best question available on surveys that taps not liking blacks goes like this: "In general, how warm or cool do you feel towards African Americans?" If political attitudes are good substitute measures, they should correlate strongly with answers to this question. Keep in mind that the correlation should be .8 or higher to be a good proxy. 

I did correlations with General Social Survey data--a sample of 694 whites. What is the size of the affirmative action/coolness association? A whopping .10. And for coolness and the death penalty? An enormous .13. Trivial correlations, both of them. Almost unrelated. These conservative political attitudes are worthless as proxies of racism. 

So here's your situation, conservatives: Your taxpayer dollars support these charlatans who abuse science to vilify and undermine you. And you pay an obscene amount of money to have your kids learn at the feet of these propagandists. 

As a sociologist, I take no pleasure in agreeing with Razib's recent Tweet about sociology: "End it, don't mend it." 

Are Republicans dumb and uneducated?

Man, it's weird dusting this thing off.  I still don't have time for a blog, but the Presidential election cycle always gets me jazzed up and wanting to see what the data have to tell us about interesting questions, often political questions.

With the Trump phenomenon, the old "Republicans are stupid people" is back with a vengeance, but the politically correct twist I've heard more of lately is that they are "uneducated."  So is that true?

The General Social Survey asked people who they voted for in 2012.  Here's is the mean vocabulary score--a decent proxy for IQ--for the two groups:

Mean Vocabulary Score

Voted for Romney (n = 421): 6.45

Voted for Obama (n = 615): 6.23


Romney voters were slightly smarter than Obama voters. Now, let's look at mean education:


Mean Years of Education

Voted for Romney (n = 421) 14.45

Voted for Obama (n = 615) 14.23

Again, Romney voters are slightly more educated. It's pretty clear that Trump fans are more working-class than others planning to vote Republican, but liberals constantly make the mistake of thinking that "no more Muslims" is a sign that someone is dumb, when in fact it is a sign that a person happens to not be part of the crowd that is convinced that liberal ideas are a signal of intelligence and enlightenment, and therefore must be adopted. Liberals think these people are sheep, but as Noam Chomsky once said, no group is more sheepish than liberals.

An increase in skepticism among young people?

I've been distributing a questionnaire to students which, among other things, asks them their religion. Quite a few have answered "atheist" which makes me wonder if skepticism is on the increase among young people. It would not surprise me, given the success of New Atheists like Richard Dawkins.

The General Social Survey has been asking about belief in God most survey years since 1988. Here are the percentages for men and women ages 18-29 for the 90s and the past decade:

Percent skeptical--1990s

Men (n = 470)
Atheist 4.9
Agnostic 7.7

Women (n = 571)
Atheist 2.5
Agnostic 3.9


Past decade

Men (n = 644)
Atheist 5.3
Agnostic 10.2

Women (n = 824)
Atheist 1.6
Agnostic 5.3

All categories appear to have increased except for female atheists.

Desire for revenge, not anger, helps explain why men are more physically aggressive

New from the Journal of Research in Personality:

Past research indicates that men are more physically aggressive than women, but very little research has examined mediators of this gender difference. Indeed, the only established finding to date is that one plausible mediator – namely trait anger – shows no reliable gender difference whatsoever. Drawing on sexual selection theory and social-learning theories, we predicted that revenge may mediate this gender difference even though anger does not. Three studies using both personality questionnaires (Studies 1 and 2) and objective laboratory measures of aggression (Study 3) provided support for this contention. The results provide some of the first evidence for a reliable mediator of gender difference in physical aggression.

And here their version of sexual selection theory is spelled out:

Sexual selection theory is the most prominent evolutionary explanation of gender differences in physical aggression. According to this theory, men are typically under greater evolutionary pressures to behave aggressively than women. Because women are sometimes unavailable for reproduction due to pregnancy, women are argued to be a more valuable reproductive resource for which men must compete. Men can do so by aggressively excluding other men from mating opportunities or by seeking to attract women. Evolutionary theorists have traditionally argued that men mainly seek to attract women by establishing a more dominant position in the social hierarchy.

According to Daly and Wilson, these factors have converged and made men more prone to aggressive retaliation in the face of minor provocations. In order to deter male rivals from aggression and to achieve a dominant status, men need to establish a reputation for “toughness” (i.e., that they are not vulnerable to mistreatment by others). Thus, even minor insults demand swift and forceful retaliation.

Consistent with this, crime statistics and laboratory experiments have both shown that men are more likely to respond to trivial provocations with extreme retaliation. A large proportion of murders can be attributed to men responding to minor provocations, but similar incidences are exceedingly rare among women and. Moreover, laboratory experiments show that priming status goals leads men (but not women) to be more physically aggressive in the face of minor provocations.

Sexual people overperceive flirtatiousness in others

New from Personality and Individual Differences:

As reproductive rates have the potential to be higher in men than women, it is more costly (from an evolutionary perspective) for men to miss a mating opportunity than women. This asymmetry in costs has been proposed to result in men being more sensitive to cues to sexual opportunity than women, and thus men are more likely than women to misperceive sexual interest from opposite sex others. To investigate this sexual misperception bias, smiling male and female faces were presented to participants who were asked to judge whether the face appeared friendly or flirtatious. Participants also completed a sociosexual orientation questionnaire in order to assess their current attitudes towards sexual relationships. In general, we found that males perceive female faces as flirtatious significantly more often than females. However, our results also suggested that people with high scores on the sociosexuality inventory (who rated themselves as more likely to engage in short-term, casual relationships), regardless of sex, had a tendency
to perceive the faces of potential mates as more flirtatious, and that this variable explained more variance than sex alone. Our findings demonstrate that sociosexuality may mediate biases in perceiving the sexual intent of others.

The South and sexual perversity

Here's an interesting topic. I've been reminded recently how the cultural elite thinks that Southerners are sexual perverts. Just a couple days ago I watched an episode of Louis C.K. where a redneck pulled a gun on Louis to get him to have sex with his sister. Just last week I watched Midnight Cowboy again which suggested that the Southern protagonist was sexually abused by his grandmother. That reminded me of the "purdy mouth" scene in Deliverance. More recently, Texan Killer Joe, played by Matthew McConaughey, obsesses on a young girl. And so on and so on.

I looked for data on the question. I had a difficult time finding anything, but the GSS has asked participants if their religious leader has ever made sexual advances, and this is certainly sexually deviant (sample = 1,758). The percent for Americans in the non-South is 2.3 percent, while it's 2.6 percent in the South; they are not significantly different. Plus, the rate in the South might actually be lower if you take into account the fact that the non-South is less religious and thus has a smaller share of its people that are at risk of clergy abuse.

UPDATE: I equalized the situation by only looking at people who attend at least nearly every week. The non-South percentage rises to 4.2%, while the South's rises to 3.7% (N = 531). Still no significant difference.

UPDATE UPDATE: These low numbers contradict the picture presented in Grapes of Wrath of ministers having sex with members every time they get to feelin' the Spirit. 

Science Left Behind

I see that Razib Khan and Audacious Epigone are listed in the index of this book. You should buy it and see what it says.

Sexual people are more likely to be victims and perpetrators of sexual harassment

A new study from Evolution and Human Behavior reports that highly sexual people are more likely to be victims and perpetrators of sexual harassment:

Sexual harassment and coercion have mainly been considered from a sex difference perspective. While traditional social science theories have explained harassment as male dominance of females, the evolutionary perspective has suggested that sex differences in the desire for sex are a better explanation. This study attempts to address individual differences associated with harassment from an evolutionary perspective. Considering previous research that has found links between sociosexual orientation inventory (SOI) and harassment, we consider whether this association can be replicated in a large, representative sample of high school students (N=1199) from a highly egalitarian culture. Expanding the previous studies which mainly focused on male perpetrators and female victims, we also examine females and males as both perpetrators and as victims. We believe that unrestricted sociosexuality motivates people to test whether others are interested in short-term sexual relations in ways that sometimes might be defined as harassment. Furthermore, unrestricted individuals signal their sociosexual orientation, and while they do not desire all individuals that react to these signals with sexual advances, they attract much more sexual advances than individuals with restricted sociosexual orientations, especially from other unrestricted members of the opposite sex. This more or less unconscious signaling thus makes them exploitable, i.e., harassable. We find that SOI is a predictor for sexual harassment and coercion among high school students. The paper concludes that, as expected, unrestricted sociosexuality predicts being both a perpetrator and a victim of both same-sex and opposite-sex harassment.

National differences in female partner violence

In this WHO study of ever-partnered women in 10 countries, Ethiopia has the highest percent ever being physically or sexually assault by a partner--71 percent. Japan has the lowest with 15 percent. The authors chalk it up to differences in economic development. I'm not so sure.

Working memory training does not improve IQ

In two new studies (here and here) it was reported that working memory training does not improve cognitive ability. From the second article:

Numerous recent studies seem to provide evidence for the general intellectual benefits of working memory training. In reviews of the training literature, Shipstead, Redick, and Engle (2010, 2012) argued that the field should treat recent results with a critical eye. Many published working memory training studies suffer from design limitations (no-contact control groups, single measures of cognitive constructs), mixed results (transfer of training gains to some tasks but not others, inconsistent transfer to the same tasks across studies), and lack of theoretical grounding (identifying the mechanisms responsible for observed transfer). The current study compared young adults who received 20 sessions of practice on an adaptive dual n-back program (working memory training group) or an adaptive visual search program (active placebo-control group) with a no-contact control group that received no practice. In addition, all subjects completed pretest, midtest, and posttest sessions comprising multiple measures of fluid intelligence, multitasking, working memory capacity, crystallized intelligence, and perceptual speed. Despite improvements on both the dual n-back and visual search tasks with practice, and despite a high level of statistical power, there was no positive transfer to any of the cognitive ability tests.

Early birds have the best temperament profile

Here is the abstract from an interesting new study in Personality and Indiviual Differences:

The aim of the present study was to test whether morningness–eveningness is related to the six dimensions of temperament postulated in the Regulative Theory of Temperament: briskness (BR), perseveration (PE), sensory sensitivity (SS), emotional reactivity (ER), endurance (EN), and activity (AC). A sample of 581 undergraduates (age: 21.92 ± 2.54; 381 female) completed the Morningness–Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ) and the Formal Characteristics of Behaviour – Temperament Inventory. Data was analysed using linear and quadratic hierarchical regressions. The MEQ scores exhibited linear associations with BR and EN and quadratic relationships with PE, ER and AC. Morningness was related to high levels of EN, BR and AC and low levels of PE and ER, while eveningness was associated with low levels of EN, ER, BR and PE and high levels of AC. Subjects in the middle of the morningness–eveningness dimension exhibited high levels of PE and ER, low levels of AC, and average levels of EN and BR. Morningness was related to the most advantageous temperament profile, and temperament is discussed as a possible mediator between morningness–eveningness and mood and affective disorders.

And here are the first two paragraphs:

The morningness–eveningness dimension is a variable belonging to individual differences, describing individual preferences for functioning at various times of the day. Individuals differing in morningness–eveningness display differing circadian phasing of many physiological and psychological circadian rhythms. Individuals with different morningness–eveningness levels also vary in many more individual characteristics than simply their circadian phase position.


Particularly consistent relationships have been shown for morningness–eveningness and affective functioning. Eveningness was associated with a disadvantageous diurnal mood profile, consisting of low energy and pleasance and high tension (Jankowski & Ciarkowska, 2008), which was similar to the profile of individuals with depressive symptoms (Wirz-Justice, 2008). Therefore, it is not surprising that eveningness has been associated with depression (Chelminski, Ferraro, Petros, & Plaud, 1999) and other affective disorders ( [Ahn et al., 2008] and [Murray et al., 2003]). Consequently, greater eveningness was associated with lower life satisfaction (Jankowski, 2012). The above observations seem to have crucial importance in studying morningness–eveningness, as they imply that individual circadian preference may influence key measures of human wellbeing and happiness.

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Falling teen pregnancy and abortion

This is a great article at Slate that provides evidence that later onset of sex and increased use of IUDs in particular have reduced teenage pregnancy and abortion significantly. The author explains that people, especially young people, do not use condoms or take the pill reliably. And it sounds like modern IUDs are superior to the old ones. (Thanks to Jason Malloy).

Law and morality

One concern I have with legalizing behaviors that I view as immoral is that I suspect there is a reciprocal relationship between law and morality. Changing values lead to new laws, and new laws cause a change in values.

Using GSS data, I looked at the strength of the relationship between: 1) illegal drug use and favoring marijuana legalization, and 2) one's view on homosexual sex and favoring gay marriage. Eta-squared for the first relationship is .057 which indicates moderate strength. The gamma statistic for the second relationship is .79 which is very strong. Supporting a law, of course, does not logically require that one is in favor of the behavior in question, but sociologically the two seem to move in tandem.

Religious vs. spiritual

There is a certain type of person who doesn't like to describe himself as "religious" but is fine with "spiritual." (For that matter, there are self-described religious people who don't consider themselves to be particularly spiritual.) You might get the impression that the two are alternatives, but the MIDUS study shows considerable overlap. The correlation between the variables of how religious you are and how spiritual you are is .54 for 988 respondents -- a strong relationship. I also looked to see if perhaps the correlation was lower for young people. For those ages 18-39, the correlation is .51, not much different.

Religiosity and crime

I ran across this meta-analysis of 60 studies that found that religiosity reduces criminal involvement. Byron Johnson in his book More God, Less Crime goes much further and reviews over 300 studies. He finds that all but a handful of studies show the same irreligiosity-crime link. Quite a few of his studies were published in psychology journals, so at least some of them should have controlled for individual differences. (I can't say for sure--who has time to review 300 studies?) This is probably less of an issue since most of these studies are of adolescents who are often made to attend religious services whether they want to attend or not. This should reduce self-selection.

Age and happiness

The idea that youth brings happiness is a common belief. After all people usually enjoy the greatest health, attractiveness and freedom while they are young. The graphs below show that older men and women are not less happy. In fact, male happiness peaks in the late 60s and early 70s and then drops. For women, the pattern seems more or less flat. There's a little increase in the 20s and a decline after 70.

Men, n = 22,129



 
Women, n = 28,065

Conservatives and single parenthood

The issue of out-of-wedlock births and conservatism came up in the comments of the last post. Here are the percentages of never-marrried men and women who have kids (GSS, years 2000-2010):


Percent never-married with kids--males

Extremely liberal 22.2
Liberal 12.2
Slightly liberal 18.9
Moderate 22.0
Slightly conservative 15.2
Conservative 21.9
Extremely conservative 37.5


Percent never-married with kids--females

Extremely liberal 34.3
Liberal 29.3
Slightly liberal 35.5
Moderate 45.6
Slightly conservative 37.4
Conservative 46.2
Extremely conservative 63.9


For single men, the numbers bounce around, but extreme conservatives are much more likely to have children. The conservative-fertility link is clearer for single women; over 60 percent of extreme conservatives have offspring. Part of the explanation for this is that conservatives are pro-natalist across the board: for all marital statuses, except perhaps for those who are separated, conservatives have larger families (data not shown).  

Conservatives and perversity

In the comment section of the post on cross-national correlation between IQ and divorce, reader An Unmarried Man claims that conservatives live secretly perverted lives. (I'm not sure if he is applauding or criticizing us.)  You hear this often enough, but evidence is rarely, if ever, cited. The General Social Survey asks two questions (that I know of) about behavior that at least some people would call perverted--consumption of online pornography and homosexual sex.

Percent using pornographic site in last month--males

Extremely liberal 31.2
Liberal 30.2
Slightly liberal 41.7
Moderate 24.6
Slightly conservative 22.2
Conservative 17.8
Extremely conservative 18.2

Percent using pornographic site in last month--females

Extremely liberal 17.6
Liberal 8.1
Slightly liberal 3.3
Moderate 4.2
Slightly conservative 3.4
Conservative 3.8
Extremely conservative 0.0


Percent who have had same sex partners in past year--males

Extremely liberal 12.0
Liberal 7.9
Slightly liberal 4.5
Moderate 3.3
Slightly conservative 2.2
Conservative 1.5
Extremely conservative 1.4

Percent who have had same sex partners in past year--females

Extremely liberal 12.1
Liberal 5.1
Slightly liberal 2.8
Moderate 1.8
Slightly conservative 2.2
Conservative 1.5
Extremely conservative 2.0


In the study The Social Organization of Sexuality, the group that most frequently practices anal sex is Hispanics--70 percent of whom are Democrats.

Liberals and family

A reader claimed in the comments of the last post that liberals live very traditional lifestyles. This is simply not true.

From the General Social Survey (years 2000-2010):


Percent Married

Extremely liberal 29.5
Liberal 36.5
Slightly liberal 43.0
Moderate 46.2
Slightly conservative 50.6
Conservative 58.1
Extremely conservative 57.1

And even though there are fewer liberals who have ever been married and who therefore can get divorced, their rate of divorce is higher:

Percent Divorced

Extremely liberal 17.6
Liberal 17.1
Slightly liberal 15.5
Moderate 14.8
Slightly conservative 14.2
Conservative 12.2
Extremely conservative 12.8


Liberals are also more likely to be unfaithful:


Percent ever cheated on spouse

Extremely liberal 26.1
Liberal 23.6
Slightly liberal 19.7
Moderate 18.2
Slightly conservative 17.9
Conservative 14.0
Extremely conservative 14.0


Percent who cohabited before marriage (1994--most recent year)

Extremely liberal 53.3
Liberal 43.3
Slightly liberal 35.4
Moderate 29.1
Slightly conservative 23.5
Conservative 23.1
Extremely conservative 5.9


Percent of married who have no children

Extremely liberal 23.1
Liberal 19.3
Slightly liberal 17.9
Moderate 13.2
Slightly conservative 12.4
Conservative 10.8
Extremely conservative 7.0

The cross-national correlation between IQ and divorce

For 72 countries, I calculate a correlation of .44 between the mean IQ of a country and the rate of divorce. The greater wealth of intelligent countries reduces the economic necessity of marriage, but the correlation between per capita GDP and divorce is only .28.

I suspect that less intelligent countries are more likely to see marriage as a change in life status, not a contract. The acid of modern rationality reduces institutions like marriage to voluntary agreements that can be dissolved if unsatisfying. The focus on family used to be intergenerational; now it's business between adults.

Cross-national correlates of corruption

Which kinds of countries are the most corrupt? Here are a few cross-national correlations:

Correlations

IQ -.56
Percent black .28
Percent Muslim .30
Weekly religious attendance .37

So corrupt countries are less intelligent, more black, more Muslim, and more religious. Nordic and English-origin countries--smart, wealthy, post-Protestant/secular--are the least corrupt of all countries. Wealthy Asian nations are also good. (By the way, according to the data, the United States has gotten more corrupt over the past decade.)

I saw the The Dark Knight Rises yesterday. Was Christopher Nolan saying that TV news is torture?

Straight vs. lesbian families

Here is a nice table from the study in Social Science Research I mentioned before showing different outcomes for people raised in lesbian vs. straight homes:

More on birth control and abortion cross-nationally

Here are additional correlates of contraceptive use and abortion cross-nationally:

More Muslims, less birth control (r = -.39)
More Muslims, less abortion (r = -.15)
More blacks, less birth control (r = -.51)
More blacks, less abortion (r = -.26)
Higher mean IQ, more birth control (r = .65)
Higher mean IQ, more abortion (r = .20)

Contraceptive use, abortion, and fertility cross-nationally

The cross-national correlation between contraceptive use and fertility is very large; it's -.66 for 172 countries (UN and CIA data). Not surprisingly, low fertility nations have high use rates. Rates in Europe are typically 60-plus percent for women of childbearing age who are in a relationship. The region with the lowest level is Western Africa where the numbers are roughly 10-20%.

Birth control is much more predictive of small families than abortion is. For 59 countries, the abortion-fertility correlation is only -.14. You might suspect that contraceptive use is inversely related to abortion and thus weakens the observed abortion-fertility correlation, but the fact is that high birth control countries also tend to be high abortion countries: the correlation is .12 for 59 countries. Reliance on birth control doesn't reduce abortion rates. Evidently, societies vary in their concern over fertility, and those with a high level of concern tend to focus on birth control as the first line of defense and abortion as a complementary backup.

Blacks and atheism

Razib Khan retweeted an invitation to join a live chat on how blacks don't do atheism. That made me wonder exactly what percent of American blacks don't believe in the existence of God. According to the GSS sample of 2,017 blacks, the 95% confidence interval is from 1.4 to 2.7%. For 11,866 whites, the interval is 2.4 to 3.0%. Since the two intervals overlap, there is no statistically significant racial difference.

UPDATE: Reader DR shows my error in the comments. Whites ARE significantly more likely than blacks to not believe in existence of God.

The sex ratio and abortion rate cross-nationally

For a sample of 59 countries, the correlation between sex ratio (WHO data) and the abortion rate (Guttmacher data) is -.26. In other words, countries with more men tend to have a lower abortion rate. The feminist interpretation of this would be that men are anti-abortion (i.e., they like to control women). The problem with this is that, at least in the United States, surveys indicate that men support abortion in numbers similar to women; they are just don't care about the issue as much.

Women usually turn to abortion when having a baby is inconvenient, and not having a stable relationship with a man is a major factor. It is not surprising, then, that societies that have a shortage of men (or suitable men) have high rates of abortion. The case of blacks in America is consistent with this view. Because of factors like male imprisonment, unemployment, and a lack of desire to commit, black women face a situation where there are always men ready for sex, but few who are available, willing, and suitable for a long-term relationship. The result is lots of abortions.

IQ and fertility cross-nationally

I like finding big correlations, but not this time. The cross-national correlation between mean IQ and the total fertility rate for 178 countries is -.72. That's huge. The world gets dumber with each passing day.

Church attendance and fertility cross-nationally

I was able to get total fertility rate (TFR) estimates from the CIA World Factbook. I subtracted 2.1 from each score--the rate necessary to keep a country's population stable. Positive scores reflect the extent to which a society is growing. Negative scores show the degree to which a society is dying.

I correlated this measure with the percent of the population that attends church weekly (World Values Survey). For 91 countries, it is .68--a very strong relationship. Societies with low numbers of people going to church are very likely to be dying.

By the way, I noticed that few countries are really close to 2.1. Societies tend to be either growing or dying.