Bush-Voter-IQ Hoax Rears Its Head Again?

I thought we had all seen the last of that 'states that voted for Bush have lower IQs' hoax. The American Assembler ended up with some egg on its face for publishing that chart in a form that made it seem as if it were fact. But now I've received a number of emails telling me that the same chart makes an appearance in this week's edition of The Economist. Apparently they even list IQ and the Wealth of Nations as the source for the data, even though that book is definitely not the source (I emailed the author of that book to confirm that the data doesn't appear in his book). I haven't had a chance to see this week's edition yet, but if this is true, all I can say is, 'What was The Economist thinking?'

Update (May 20): And now the St. Petersburg Times has written an editorial based on The Economist's erroneous data, proving that the tradition of fact-checking is as strong as ever in the media. (Thanks to Steve for catching this)

Politics

Posted on Sun May 16, 2004


Comments

My new web page http://sq.4mg.com/IQschools.htm shows that the supposed State IQ hoax may be somewhat accurate. It compares the hoax data for each state to 4th grade reading and math scores in 2003. Connecticut moves slightly from #1
to #3, Mississippi from #50 to #49. But many states in the center of the US which went for Bush in 2000 appear to have much higher IQ's than in the hoax data. This website, largely on IQ, gets around 2000 hits a day.
Posted by Van Sloan  on  Mon May 17, 2004  at  02:43 PM
Sadly, the Saint Petersburg Times, perhaps America's finest newspaper, bought this one and ran an editorial on it.
Posted by steve  on  Thu May 20, 2004  at  03:13 PM
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.