User:Patronanejo/sandbox

A Better Class of Voter
In recent U.S. Presidential elections, several websites have presented a since-debunked chart purporting to correlate IQ with political affiliation. Most such hoaxes (or victims thereof) are traceable to this Robert Calvert posting with shakily extrapolated data (which many others--including the Economist have sloppily misattributed to Richard Lynn's and Tatu Vanhannen's IQ and the Wealth of Nations).

The 2012 Presidential contest provides an opportunity to determine whether any such correlation is demonstrable between authoritative state intelligence data and final electoral results (broken down by state). The table above combines IQ- and other state data (from the Michael A. McDaniel study Estimating state IQ: Measurement challenges and preliminary correlates (published in the journal Intelligence Volume 34) with state electoral data taken from Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections).

The above table is sortable, demonstrating real correlation between several attributes:
 * Of the twenty-eight most-intelligent states, Mitt Romney won only ten--most with such insignificant populations that of the 250 electoral votes available in those twenty-eight states, Romney won only 54 electoral votes.
 * Of the twenty-nine most-productive states, Mitt Romney won only eight, gaining 91 out of an available 373 electoral votes.
 * Of the twenty-nine healthiest states, Mitt Romney won only nine, gaining 44 out of an available 327 electoral votes.
 * Of the twenty-one most-populous--alternatively, urbane--states, Mitt Romney won only seven, settling for 112 electoral votes of the 379 available.
 * In the twenty-one most-violent states, Mitt Romney was much more popular, winning over half--eleven states--for 134 of the 318 electoral votes.

These results are not simply artifacts of a landslide in which Obama might be expected to have taken the majority of states no matter how they are grouped--Romney voters dominate the undesirable end of the scale:
 * Of the seventeen least-intelligent states, Obama won only five.
 * Of the twenty-four least-productive states, Obama won only six.
 * Of the twenty least-healthy states, Obama won only five. Romney won all of the bottom eight scorers; of the bottom eleven, Obama won only Florida (by a margin of 0.87%).
 * Romney won a majority of the most-violent states (eleven out of twenty-one), while Obama won a majority of the least-violent states (thirteen out of twenty-four).

Categorically, it seems, Conservatives are unhealthy, provincial, and uneducated; the states they control are poor and violent. Urbane, left-leaning voters are healthier, wealthier, and more intelligent.

Epistemic Closure
"I was flabbergasted. Until that moment I had not realized how closed the right-wing mind had become. Even assuming that my friends’ view of the Times philosophy was correct, which it most certainly was not, why would they not want to know what their enemy was thinking? This was my first exposure to what has been called “epistemic closure'''” among conservatives—living in their own bubble where nonsensical ideas circulate with no contradiction."

P.J. O'Rourke
"....It's not so much that what they say is wrong, though Ann Coulter does seem to be completely crazy."

Set index articles
I'm a bit concerned by your addition of infoboxes to set index article pages - generally, they do not have infoboxes, as they are not intended to be articles. --Rschen7754 08:26, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * No idea why this comment got my attention but I am fascinated out of all proportion. I have absolutely no idea what it means to set index article pages--or how it might be accomplished through the addition of infoboxes.


 * I'm sure I have no right to ask, but I'm trying to imagine how this might possibly comprise objectionable behaviour--anyone got time to link to an example?


 * [[File:Rainbow_trout_transparent.png/40px-Rainbow_trout_transparent.png]] Patronanejo (talk) 16:00, 16 October 2013 (UTC)