Were the Victorians cleverer than us? The decline in general intelligence estimated from a meta-analysis of the slowing of simple reaction time 

Michael Woodley, Jan te Nijenhuis & Raegan Murphy I
ntelligence, forthcoming 

Abstract: The Victorian era was marked by an explosion of innovation and genius, per capita rates of which appear to have declined subsequently. The presence of dysgenic fertility for IQ amongst Western nations, starting in the 19th century, suggests that these trends might be related to declining IQ. This is because high-IQ people are more productive and more creative. We tested the hypothesis that the Victorians were cleverer than modern populations, using high-quality instruments, namely measures of simple visual reaction time in a meta-analytic study. Simple reaction time measures correlate substantially with measures of general intelligence (g) and are considered elementary measures of cognition. In this study we used the data on the secular slowing of simple reaction time described in a meta-analysis of 14 age-matched studies from Western countries conducted between 1884 and 2004 to estimate the decline in g that may have resulted from the presence of dysgenic fertility. Using psychometric meta-analysis we computed the true correlation between simple reaction time and g, yielding a decline of − 1.23 IQ points per decade or fourteen IQ points since Victorian times. These findings strongly indicate that with respect to g the Victorians were substantially cleverer than modern Western populations. 

Nod to Kevin Lewis

1.  What a silly slippery slope argument!  That whole, "if we regulate cigarettes, then we'll be regulating chain restaurants, and eventually even family-owned restaurants."  That could never happen.  Whoops.  New flash:  some Mexican food meals have quite a few calories.  (UPDATE:  As WH points out, Dr. Roberts is saying that people want more choices.  And what she means by "want" is that SHE, Dr.. Roberts, wants it.  And what she means by "choice" is to to be forced to do something by the government.  You have a choice NOW, Dr. Roberts.  Stay home and have a salad, go to a different restaurant, etc.)

2.  Nauseatingly sweet prom story.  Just the way I like it.  I'm a sucker for chickflix, on any scale.
Some background. All together....AWWWWWWWW.....

3.  Germany is concerned that the U.S. might actually mean what it said.  After all, Pres. O said chemical weapons would be a "red line."   I think we can reassure our German friends.  This goofball of a President just talks and talks.  He never actually does anything.  And in this case that may be just as well.

4.  One of the reasons that poor people and minorities think the Republicans don't care about them is that most Republicans just straight up do NOT care about them.  That may be okay, from some perspectives, if your program really is "we'll leave you alone."  But it isn't.  The Republicans pledge to cut benefits and ALSO harass, arrest, and abuse Latinos, blacks, and the poor.  The Repubs need to choose:  either do the "we care" thing and actually care, or else stop pretending.  An argument for the "we care" side, which makes sense to me.

5.  I'm not unemployed! I'm....retired!  Yeah, that's the ticket. Retired!

6.  Finger-lickin' good!  After you wash your hands, which got all dirty going through the tunnel.

7.  No evidence--none--that helmets reduce injuries.  Just faith-based medicine and a pathetic desire to order people around.

8.  No evidence--none--that reducing salt intake helps normal people achieve better health outcomes.  Just faith-based.. (see above).  (MORE AFTER THE JUMP...)



9.  Couple months old, but interesting.  Where Higher Ed Went Wrong.

10.  Can disability be an asset?  Tour guides at the Tragic Kingdom.

11.  Why was the internet created?  So you can watch some guy un-eat cotton candy.

12.  The reliable Gene Callahan finds a good one.  I laughed.

13.  Mother tries to find adoptive family, because she is "in a bad place."  Oh, and she's pregnant.

14. My good friend, and now giant loser (he's becoming chair of Chemistry at Cornell) Dr. David Collum.  A podcast/rant that is quite entertaining.

15.  To fake, or not fake, the kick.  Does it work?  And if everyone decides that it does (or doesn't) work, wouldn't that change the probabilities?

16.  I am willing to believe that the higer-ups in Treasury were unaware of the IRS Tea Party witch hunt.  But shouldn't the actual people responsible be fired, rather than promoted?

17.  This can't be true.  Can it?

18.  LeBron points out an interesting web site, but is careful to avoid endorsing it.  And well he might not.  As WH notes in an email: Cross subsidy is the order of the day. Without extracting cross subsidy information, regarding the subject of "health insurance price", all price is a mal-price-signal. 

19.  Sen. Feinstein's husband wins the contract for constructing the high-speed rail that Sen. Feinstein is so interested in forcing taxpayers to pay for.  Coincidence?  Only if you think that the Democratic party is a bunch of corrupt crony capitalists.  (i.e., no, not coincidence).  What I like is that it is actually railroads.  No way Dagny T. could get the contract in that rigged bidding system.  

A spelling test with a high predictive power for career choice for men.

Rearrange the letters P-N-E-S-I to spell out the part of the human body that is most useful when erect.

1.  Those who think these kinds of "tests" are silly are destined for gainful employment and useful lives.
2.  Those who think all answers are equally valid and it depends on the reaction of the reader should become literature profs.
3.  Those of you who think the answer is "PINES" will be outside going on hikes and working in your gardens.
4..  Those who think the answer is "SPINE" should be doctors.
5.  Those who think the answer is "SNIPE" must have been Boy Scouts at some point.
6.  The rest of you are headed to some kind of political career.

The Biological Bases for Aggressiveness and Nonaggressiveness in Presidents 

 Rose McDermott
Foreign Policy Analysis, forthcoming

Abstract: Leaders remain subject to the same biological determinants and pressures that affect other humans. Yet, they also differ in their ability to regulate and marshal their emotions just as they diverge in their other skills, talents, limitations, and abilities. In particular, some are better at channeling their emotions to help shape foreign policy more efficiently than others. One of the most potent and powerful emotions with which leaders have to contend, particularly under conditions of provocation, is anger. Anger can influence judgment and decision making in systematic and predictable ways. Individual heritable differences can influence the conditions under which anger leads to aggressive action. Such differences can influence not only the environments into which leaders select, but also the ways they process and interpret information; these determinations can decisively influence the outcome of significant public policies, including decisions on conflict and war. As a result, emotion regulation can play a strategic role in leadership. Examples from several recent presidencies illustrate how such individual differences play out on the world stage.

Nod to Kevin Lewis

Mouthpiece meets Codpiece.  John Edwards ready to ruin more lives. 

Edwards said last year he hoped to someday open an advocacy law firm to serve indigent clients and that he hoped to find a way to contribute to society. 

Wade Smith, a Raleigh defense lawyer who served as Edwards' mentor early in his legal career, said he saw Edwards recently and he looked great. "He looks so much better, more relaxed," Smith said. 

Smith said Edwards hadn't told him he had reactivated his law license, but Smith was not surprised. "He's got so much ability and talent," said Smith, who represented Edwards in the criminal case. "Lawyers who saw him in front of a jury will tell you they never saw anything like him, his ability to connect. That talent is still in there and I think he will find a space to use it."

What happens if you wring a wet wash cloth in space?  Not what I expected.



Nod to WH

The problem is not really the IRS.  The problem is enormous power and discretion in the hands of ANYONE.  There is no bigger inequality than that between ruler and ruled.

What is "political," exactly? It is NOT true that African-American parents don't care about their children's education. So the "political" problem must be that politicians do not validate that desire? Am I missing something?
 
The Political Foundations of the Black–White Education Achievement Gap 

Michael Hartney & Patrick Flavin
American Politics Research, forthcoming

 Abstract: More than 50 years after Brown v. Board, African American students continue to trail their White peers on a variety of important educational indicators. In this article, we investigate the political foundations of the racial “achievement gap” in American education. Using variation in high school graduation rates across the states, we first assess whether state policymakers are attentive to the educational needs of struggling African American students. We find evidence that state policymaking attention to teacher quality — an issue education research shows is essential to improving schooling outcomes for racial minority students — is highly responsive to low graduation rates among White students, but bears no relationship to low graduation rates among African American students. We then probe a possible mechanism behind this unequal responsiveness by examining the factors that motivate White public opinion about education reform and find racial influences there as well. Taken together, we uncover evidence that the persisting achievement gap between White and African American students has distinctively political foundations.

Nod to Kevin Lewis.

Pretty clever, and pretty fair-minded.



Nod to Angry Alex

Man dies after having sex with hornet's nest.

8 words of perfection.  There's really nothing more to say.

With much gratitude and love for Tommy the Tenured Brit, who notes that, after reading this, his own little fetishes seem quite normal.

Hayek had this right, and people forget how often the point is illustrated by those we call "conservatives":


There is some justification at least in the taunt that many of the pretending defenders of “free enterprise” are in fact defenders of privileges and advocates of government activity in their favor rather than opponents of all privileges. In principle the industrial protectionism and government-supported cartels and agricultural policies of the conservative groups are not different from the proposals for a more far-reaching direction of economic life sponsored by the socialists. - F.A. Hayek, page 107 , Individualism and Economic Order 

A beautiful example, just beautiful:  good ol' North Carolina may outlaw car companies that try to sell cars directly to customers.  The whole "support your local (car) dealer" thing is interesting.  But this takes it to a whole new level.  Russ and I talked about some of these issues a while back.

Nod to Marc B, who is going to lose his lefty label if he's not careful.
UPDATE:  Marc B., demonstrating he has gone round the bend, sends this photo:

Dr. Evil exists.  In the heart of every Democrat and Republican ever elected anywhere to any legislature.  It just makes so much sense, doesn't it?  Charging all those low prices for high quality stuff?  It's MEAN, that's what it is.  And it must be stopped, before it costs us more jobs.

I had never heard of these substances.  Now I want some.

What's the WORST thing that can happen with a pressure cooker?

Dioxygen diflouride: foof!

The sand next time.

See what I did with that title.  To have babies, women go into "labor."  You're welcome.


Opting Out among Women with Elite Education 

Joni Hersch 
Vanderbilt University Working Paper, March 2013 

 Abstract: Whether highly educated women are exiting the labor force to care for their children has generated a great deal of media attention, even though academic studies find little evidence of opting out. This paper shows that female graduates of elite institutions have lower labor market involvement than their counterparts from less selective institutions. Although elite graduates are more likely to earn advanced degrees, marry at later ages, and have higher expected earnings, there is little difference in labor market activity by college selectivity among women without children and women who are not married. But the presence of children is associated with far lower labor market activity among married elite graduates. Most women eventually marry and have children, and the net effect is that labor market activity is on average lower among elite graduates than among those from less selective institutions. The largest gap in labor market activity between graduates of elite institutions and less selective institutions is among MBAs, with married mothers who are graduates of elite institutions 30 percentage points less likely to be employed full-time than graduates of less selective institutions.

Why Do So Few Women Work in New York (and So Many in Minneapolis)? Labor Supply of Married Women across U.S. Cities 

 Dan Black, Natalia Kolesnikova & Lowell Taylor 
Journal of Urban Economics, forthcoming 

Abstract: This paper documents a little-noticed feature of U.S. labor markets — very large variation in the labor supply of married women across cities. We focus on cross-city differences in commuting times as a potential explanation for this variation. We start with a model in which commuting times introduce non-convexities into the budget set. Empirical evidence is consistent with the model’s predictions: Labor force participation rates of married women are negatively correlated with the metropolitan area commuting time. Also, metropolitan areas with larger increases in average commuting time in 1980-2000 had slower growth in the labor force participation of married women. 

Nod to Kevin Lewis

Headline that pretty much says it all:

Naked women cause traffic jam in Charlotte.

I bet so.  Nod to the LMM.

1.  Food trucks in Manhattan...

2.  Imports work for America!  (I'm a little skeptical of these "job creation" studies, even if I agree with the direction they take).

3.  Buzz Aldrin:  Mars in 20.

4.  This obit reminds me of Alexandra Cooper's mother (who is very much not dead).  But these descriptions are along the same lines...

5.  "Reject" people who disagree with you?  Really?  Not persuade them, or talk to them?  Reject, without even considering their arguments?

LOTS more after the jump...



6.  Part of the "polarization" problem may simply be different information sets.  And, yes, I understand that while the NYTimes is biased it is less biased than a whole lot of "news" sources on the right.

7.  Teaching college students to write better.  

8.  Steven Pearlstein should quit.  Or admit he's an grumpy, unprincipled old git.

9.  England discovers it has wurst-envy.  Because Germany's wurst is much bigger, and stronger.  Downside:  a bunch of Brit losers-on-the-dole would actually have to find jobs.

10. The media is the Praetorian Guard?  Maybe, but Anne Coulter is hardly my model of "what to do" in foreign policy.

11.  On the other hand, even a blind squirrel (with a giant Adam's apple) may find a nut now and then.  This Signe Wilkinson editorial cartoon is truly remarkable.  Pres. Obama has refused to close Gitmo, has refused to release the prisoners who are cleared for release at Gitmo, and has stepped up attacks on civilians across the middle east.  He was complicit in massacres in Libya, and is dithering about Syria in a way that makes massacres more likely. Drug enforcement and seizures have gone up, not down.  Deportations have gone up sharply. Obama II is Bush IV.  And who does Signe Wilkinson blame for all this?  "Neocon Professors."  Seriously?  There was an election in 2008, and another in 2012.  George W. Bush was not running, but his policies won, because Barack H. Obama is a sell-out and a coward.  That ought to be Obama sitting there, the leader who is refusing to lead, not "neo-con professors."  There are no neo-con professors in the current administration, unless BHO put them there. So, I guess perhaps the media really is Obama's "Praetorian Guard."


12.  "[T]he most striking impact of school police officers so far, critics say, has been a surge in arrests or misdemeanor charges for essentially nonviolent behavior — including scuffles, truancy and cursing at teachers — that sends children into the criminal courts."

13.  Cities have long been cosmopolitan, and rural areas illiberal.  But the essential conservatism of rural areas is now being overtaken by the essential collectivism of cities.  Cities are the new bastions of illiberality.   There, is some hope.  Because the voluntary connections below the surface in cities, though invisible, are quite robust.

14.  Poverty and Progress, by Deepak Lal.  Interesting.

15.  Shameless.  The newest front for the "fair trade" fraud is retail clothing.

16.  Hipster heaven, and a great idea.  Drink excellent whiskey while restoring an old ax, and do it with a bunch of other people who have never actually USED an ax, either.  When you finish, congratulate yourself on what a down-to-earth hipster you are.   (Okay, Anonyman is clearly THIS kind of hipster.  He does this every weekend.  Without the ax, or the other hipsters, though).

17.  Arrest him, officer.  He looks....dark-skinned and he spoke in Spanish.  Very scary.

18.  Like stealing money from a baby.  This is pretty awful.

19.  The scourge of gay nepotism. It doesn't help to stick your fingers in your ears and sing "LA-LA-LA!"

20.  No HO-HOs?  YES, HO-HOs!?

21.  WhoNeedsATruck?

22.  All we need for prosperity is more taxes.  Or something like that.  I'm all for enforcing the laws.  But it is a mistake to think that it is possible to collect these taxes, at current rates.  The equilibrium politically is a combination of published rates and practical enforcement.  You can't increase enforcement without reducing rates, or inducing capital flight.

23.  This may be more complicated than it seems.  But not sure that Seattle has much to "showfer" this...

24.  Erik Moberg:  Evolution and Properties of States.  He has a new version of the book, apparently.

25.  Oh, man.  Now I'm going to have to change the instructions for what I want on my tombstone.

26.  Can they put "mellow" on the label, or just the chemical content?

27.  Turns out NC Repubs are out to "destroy history."  I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds bad.

In the play/movie "Chicago," there are the female murder-felons competing for attention.

Here is a version of that, only even more tasteless.   Jodi, Casey, Amanda:  Who'd You Rather?

You won't find stuff like this on BrendanNyhan.com, folks!

Thanks to Angry Alex, who always asks the important questions.