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?