Roundtable discussion with Dominic Balestra, Loren Graham, Edward Nelson, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, and Max Tegmark.

So, who are the smartest scientists?


COLLEEN FLAHERTY |
Inside Higher Ed |
February 14, 2014 12:00PM

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In an interview, Dutton said social scientists aren’t stupid, or necessarily extreme in their politics or overly religious. But, statistically speaking, they have lower IQs than their colleagues in biological and physical sciences and are likelier to be extremely conservative or liberal or religious, or both.

Dutton said that there are many similarities between political extremism and religious fundamentalism; in other research, he uses the term “replacement religions” to describe the phenomenon.

“[Physical] scientists are overwhelmingly atheist,” Dutton said. “This is predicted by their high IQ, which allows you to rise above emotion and see through the fallacious, emotional arguments.” Arguments about God are all emotional arguments, he added.

The paper is a meta-analysis of existing data showing several things: that natural scientists have higher IQs than social scientists; that low intelligence “predicts” political extremism and religiosity; and that physical scientists at elite institutions are less likely to believe in God or be politically extreme than their counterparts in the social sciences.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/so-who-are-the-smartest-scientists/story-e6frgcjx-1226826041147

Republican Donald Trump could become the first atheist president of the United States, according to neuroscience author Sam Harris.

“The one thing that is surprising and actually hopeful in Trump’s candidacy is the fact that he has dissected out the religious, social conservative component of the Republican Party,” Harris said on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

“Evangelicals, for the most part, were going for Trump over Cruz when it was pretty clear to them that Trump was just pretending to be religious.”

Harris, who is associated with the “New Atheism” movement, mocked Trump for referring to “Second Corinthians” as “Corinthians Two” during a speech at the evangelical Liberty University.

“It is clear to them that he is just miming the language or impersonating a person of faith, but they don’t care really, as long as he does it,” he explained. “And that — if you look for a silver lining to this – it shows they just want a space where their religious convictions are not under attack. They don’t really care that the person in charge share them. If you pretend to share them, that’s good enough.”

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“He might be our first atheist president.”

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http://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/sam-harris-donald-trump-would-be-our-first-atheist-president/

ByJosh MarshallPublishedOctober 16, 2016, 3:20 PM EDT


Here's one topic I've been thinking about and which we're going to be talking about next week. Where do state laws on voter suppression and open-carry intersect with federal laws on voter intimidation and voting rights?

You saw this incident last week where two Trumpers stood outside a Democratic campaign office in Virginia for twelve hours holding firearms. This was obviously menacing behavior. And this takes on a new dimension, both substantively and in terms of federal law, when it's tied to elections. But it was also completely legal under state firearms laws.

We know Donald Trump now repeatedly asks his supporters to go to minority precincts on election day to search for signs of voter fraud and attempts to steal the election. Today his chief surrogate Rudy Giuliani told Jake Tapper that Democrats are able to steal elections because they "control the inner cities." So there's no longer much attempt to be subtle about warning that black people are going to steal the election for Hillary Clinton.

Voting officials in a number of open-carry states say it wouldn't necessarily be against the law if Trumpers did some version of what happened in Virginia outside polling places. It wouldn't necessarily be protected either. It would be up to the local election official to decide if it amounted to intimidation or interference.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/open-carry-and-election-law

The gun lobby has launched a $22 million ad-blitz to defeat Clinton.

Oct 19, 2016



As more Republicans abandon their support for Donald Trump, the National Rifle Association has launched a more than $22 million ad blitz to help elect him and defeat Hillary Clinton. As reported by the Center for Public Integrity, the gun lobby is responsible for 16 percent of all pro-Trump television ads aired during this election cycle.

The NRA ads mostly target residents in the swing states of Ohio, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, and and are tailored to court women—a demographic that's expected to largely vote against Trump. According to CPI, the NRA has been behind about 1 of every 8 presidential TV ads aired in Ohio in October. (It's aired about 1 in 9 presidential ads in North Carolina and about 1 in 20 ads in Pennsylvania during the month.)</p>

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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/nra-television-ads-spending-hillary-clinton-donald-trump