Are the Republican candidates really this scarily dumb?

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Yeah, it's fake, but Poe's law applies as much to right-wingers/teabaggers as it does to fundies.

It has to be fake - the writing on those signs is far too neat.

...None of them actually answered "no"...

Merely failed to answer "yes", right?


To be honest, it doesn't really matter which way Americans vote these days.

Vote Republican, and the Republicans do whatever they want.
Vote Democrat, and the Democrats do whatever the Republicans want.

[Schneibster]

]Long consideration has convinced me that the statement that the average IQ is 100 implies that more-or-less half of us have a lower IQ than 100. In other words, they're not very good at thinking.

Actually, the scores cluster around that number. The average person has an IQ of 100.

I'm gonna guess it's a normal distribution; that is, more-or-less a bell curve.

And that means about half are smarter than that, and about half are dumber.

The dumb half are more-or-less the "faith" ones, who can be convinced with things like "truthiness" and propaganda. In other words, they can be lied to successfully, and won't be able to detect it, and therefore they are the tools of the liars. The liars are the Republican Teagagger Party politicians.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

]Long consideration has convinced me that the statement that the average IQ is 100 implies that more-or-less half of us have a lower IQ than 100. In other words, they're not very good at thinking.

Actually, the scores cluster around that number. The average person has an IQ of 100.

I'm gonna guess it's a normal distribution; that is, more-or-less a bell curve.

And that means about half are smarter than that, and about half are dumber.

The dumb half are more-or-less the "faith" ones, who can be convinced with things like "truthiness" and propaganda. In other words, they can be lied to successfully, and won't be able to detect it, and therefore they are the tools of the liars. The liars are the Republican Teagagger Party politicians.

Nope, it's a cluster system. We don't fit nicely on a bell curve.

[Schneibster]

To be honest, it doesn't really matter which way Americans vote these days.

Vote Republican, and the Republicans do whatever they want.
Vote Democrat, and the Democrats do whatever the Republicans want.

To be honest, that's a propaganda trick called "they're just as bad," and it's also a logical fallacy.

No, they're not just as bad, not when one is trying to make jobs and they other is trying to destroy them in order to lynch a black man who had the temerity to get elected and to punish the country for voting for him.

[Schneibster]

]Long consideration has convinced me that the statement that the average IQ is 100 implies that more-or-less half of us have a lower IQ than 100. In other words, they're not very good at thinking.

Actually, the scores cluster around that number. The average person has an IQ of 100.

I'm gonna guess it's a normal distribution; that is, more-or-less a bell curve.

And that means about half are smarter than that, and about half are dumber.

The dumb half are more-or-less the "faith" ones, who can be convinced with things like "truthiness" and propaganda. In other words, they can be lied to successfully, and won't be able to detect it, and therefore they are the tools of the liars. The liars are the Republican Teagagger Party politicians.

Nope, it's a cluster system. We don't fit nicely on a bell curve.

I'd be surprised if we didn't out to maybe a standard deviation or so. The low side would be truncated, I think; the extreme highs would be matched by, say, lower animals, not humans, or anyway not functional ones. But I'd be surprised not to find a normal distribution between, say, 90 and 110. And I'd be surprised to find more than 20% outside 90-110, too. In fact, more like 5% or 10%.

I've known some folks who had 90 IQs.

'Nuff said.

[MattShizzle]

Neither the Democratic or Rethug politicians are very good but they aren't the same. Think of voting Democrat as if asked whether you want to get a cucumber shoved up your ass or a running chainsaw coated in salt, vinegar and hot sauce shoved up your ass as voting the cucumber. Think of voting republican as voting the chainsaw. Think of not voting as refusing to answer and of voting Communist/Socialist as saying you don't want anything shoved up your ass and if you say that the psycho asking rolls a die and if it's 1-4 you get the chainsaw, 5 or 6 you get the cucumber. Think of voting Libertarian as the chainsaw but not coated in salt, vinegar or hot sauce but everyone in your family gets starved to death unless they are millionaires. If they're millionaires you don't get anything shoved up your ass and you get an extra million dollars.

[Rum]

I was listening to the radio earlier and unfortunately missed the source for this, but they reported a debate amongst six of the republican candidates for the next US elections.

One of the questions put to the group was (rather alarmingly I thought) 'do you believe in science?' Only one of them responded that they actually did!..the rest one assumes subscribed to biblical explanations for the world around us.

Sheesh...

None of them actually answered "no".

Of course, if you think it's dumb to believe in god, you're going to be disappointed with all our candidates, Republican or Democrat.

Let's assume 'abstain' if you like, which is even scarier, if they thought that would keep them out of trouble with their potential voters.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Surprise! Most people don't believe in god.

[Ronja]

]Long consideration has convinced me that the statement that the average IQ is 100 implies that more-or-less half of us have a lower IQ than 100. In other words, they're not very good at thinking.

Actually, the scores cluster around that number. The average person has an IQ of 100.

I'm gonna guess it's a normal distribution; that is, more-or-less a bell curve.

And that means about half are smarter than that, and about half are dumber.

The dumb half are more-or-less the "faith" ones, who can be convinced with things like "truthiness" and propaganda.

More or less, but not necessarily. I was shocked at first to find out that one of my engineer friends had a measured IQ of 85 (I suspect something undiagnosed on the autism spectrum played a role in how well he took tests, including IQ tests). He described his studies as a constant struggle, and was very frank about being envious of people who were born with "better brains" than him. Yet he did graduate with his M.Sc. in a way shorter time than I will, and has had a solid career since. Does not have one wooish bone in his body, though - but let the wife have the kids baptized, seeing as arguing would have been pointless (which I completely agree with, knowing the lady: she's pure gold, but very set in certain ideas and values). In other words: a quite smart "dumb" guy.

I will freely admit that this is all anecdotal - I only wish that more people knew and really understood that relatively high or low IQ in itself is no guarantee of anything. Indicator / possibility - yes, but no guarantee.

[Schneibster]

A recent piece of research shows that IQ changes much more during adolescence than was thought.

I suspect we mean rather different things by "engineer." It doesn't mean today what it did twenty years ago. Today they have people who call themselves "documentation engineers."

[Horwood Beer-Master]

To be honest, it doesn't really matter which way Americans vote these days.

Vote Republican, and the Republicans do whatever they want.
Vote Democrat, and the Democrats do whatever the Republicans want.

To be honest, that's a propaganda trick called "they're just as bad," and it's also a logical fallacy.

No, they're not just as bad, not when one is trying to make jobs and they other is trying to destroy them in order to lynch a black man who had the temerity to get elected and to punish the country for voting for him.

Surely if the Democrats hadn't spent the first half of Obama's term bending over backwards to kiss Republican arse, they could have pushed through their economic reforms when they had the chance. The Republicans couln't have done anything about it because they didn't control the House of Representatives back then.

It's because of this appeasement that we have the situation you describe now.

[Schneibster]

To be honest, it doesn't really matter which way Americans vote these days.

Vote Republican, and the Republicans do whatever they want.
Vote Democrat, and the Democrats do whatever the Republicans want.

To be honest, that's a propaganda trick called "they're just as bad," and it's also a logical fallacy.

No, they're not just as bad, not when one is trying to make jobs and they other is trying to destroy them in order to lynch a black man who had the temerity to get elected and to punish the country for voting for him.

Surely if the Democrats hadn't spent the first half of Obama's term bending over backwards to kiss Republican arse,

Can we do this without all the propaganda, please?

[Horwood Beer-Master]

To be honest, it doesn't really matter which way Americans vote these days.

Vote Republican, and the Republicans do whatever they want.
Vote Democrat, and the Democrats do whatever the Republicans want.

To be honest, that's a propaganda trick called "they're just as bad," and it's also a logical fallacy.

No, they're not just as bad, not when one is trying to make jobs and they other is trying to destroy them in order to lynch a black man who had the temerity to get elected and to punish the country for voting for him.

Surely if the Democrats hadn't spent the first half of Obama's term bending over backwards to kiss Republican arse,

Can we do this without all the propaganda, please?

What propaganda?

[Feck]

Have we reached the point where candidates will have to pretend to be dumb- ass fundie knuckle- draggers to secure votes by Republicans ?

How long before The american people in their Quest for Freedumb and the Amercan Way will demand a Republican President who can't read and doesn't wear shoes ?

[Coito ergo sum]

I was listening to the radio earlier and unfortunately missed the source for this, but they reported a debate amongst six of the republican candidates for the next US elections.

One of the questions put to the group was (rather alarmingly I thought) 'do you believe in science?' Only one of them responded that they actually did!..the rest one assumes subscribed to biblical explanations for the world around us.

Sheesh...

Do you have the quote or a video clip? I remember something vaguely about a question like that from the first GOP debate this year, but I am not positive it was "do you believe in science?" exactly.

Anyway - I think that question is retarded to begin with. Nobody should "believe in" science. It's a poorly worded, loaded question. Do you "believe in" science as in "have faith in" in it like people have faith in religions? No. Of course not.