M:TG thread

It was suggested by a reader interested in M:TG that a sidebar link be added so an ongoing discussion of the game's environment can exist without forcing those who have no interest to periodically scroll past Magic posts I put up. I've done that. I'm putting my thoughts on Worldwake up at the mome...

Big 5 personality traits and IQ, voting behavior at the state level

The Big 5 personality traits are intriguing, but aggregate measures are often unsatisfactory. I've previously posted on the counterintuitive inverse relationship between credit scores and conscientiousness at the state level as an illustration of this. Continuing that approach, the correlations with voting and estimated IQ for each of the five factors, as measured by Jason Rentfrow et al, follow*:Voting for McCain and...r-valuep-valueExtraversion.10.50Agreeableness.28.05Conscientiousness.41.00Neuroticism(.17).23Openness(.46).00Estimated...

More on passing, running, and winning in the NFL

++Addition++Steve offers more on 2009, deeming it the year only passing mattered. He wonders whether or not the NFL's popularity will decrease if a successful passing offense and a winning record continue to become increasingly synonymous with one another.It's my impression that football votaries like smashmouth, low-scoring field position games a lot more than casual fans do. I'd guess more than a few of those casual fans would judge a typical 48-31...

Negro? No longer. Black? Bye bye? African-American? Affirmed!

After Harry Reid's remarks about Barack Obama's favorable political utility were revealed, my brother told me that he'd heard a local conservative talk radio host predictably sputtering over the majority leader's comments, which served to illustrate leftist racism and hypocrisy. What Reid said of Obama:[Reid] was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country...

2009 NFL regular season wins and stats correlations

With the post-season underway, I thought I'd have a little fun running correlations between stats and wins for the 2009 NFL regular season. There are plenty of professionals at NBC, FOX, CBS, and ESPN (just to name the major broadcasters) who slice and dice this stuff for a living, and I'm not interested in trying to give them a run for their money by controlling for other...

Smarties fear nuclear power less than dummies do

In the comments of the previous post, a reader asserts a common perception (or misperception, apparently) concerning green luddites:I'm glad to learn that the (self-described) "smarties" are now in favor of all that nuclear stuff they used to decry. I wonder if Hallmark makes a "I was stupid 'cause I was smart--I'm sorry!" card.With the popularity among "smarties" of Red & Green anti-vivisection, anti-science, and anti-technology the "Scientists...

Clever sillies indeed, at least when it comes to HBD

++Addition++Steve Sailer makes note, calling out the inclusion of the question on astronomy out (and rightly so, as in reviewing the items chosen, it appears the least obviously commonsensical of the entire field) and waxing on the relationship between vocabulary and intelligence more generally.---Bruce G. Charlton, academic and editor in chief of the journal Medical Hypotheses, has previously described the perceived tendency for people of high intelligence...

Like most international terrorists, Mutallab and Hassan were well off

Umar Mutallab and Nidal Hassan, the underwear bomber and Ft. Hood shooter, respectively, are two more recent, highly visible affirmations of former CIA officer Marc Sageman's finding that rather than coming from the dregs of society, international terrorists tend to be more educated and affluent than is most of the population in the countries they come from:Most people think that terrorism comes from poverty, broken families, ignorance, immaturity,...

Andre Chapple has black hair and brown eyes

In the local pages of the Kansas City Star a couple weeks ago, this description of a murder suspect caught my eye:Authorities issued a $500,000 warrant for [Andre S.] Chapple, 32. He is about 5 feet, 11 inches tall and 230 pounds with black hair and brown eyes.The murder took place in KCK and it was, uh, murder, so chances are Andre is black. It's conceivable, though, that he is 'Latino' or even white.A homicidal man is on the loose and the authorities...

TUJ parses fertility data and makes remarkable discovery

Writing for OneSTDV's blog, The Undiscovered Jew takes a look at fertility rates by age range and finds that from the age of 30 onward, IQ and white fertility correlate positively at the state level. That is, the smarter the state, the more fecund its 30+ population. The conclusion TUJ arrives at from this is that efforts to extend the span of viable female reproductive capacity using artificial reproductive technologies are the answer to below-replacement...