Posted on 11/12/2012 8:43:41 AM PST by Clint N. Suhks
A posting on Gizmodo, a technology weblog that is part of the Gawker Media network, has drawn a lot of attention with a post that purports to show that educated people (and by implication smart people) were more likely to vote for Obama. Titled “The Effect of College Education On the Presidential Election“, it consists mainly of a graphic showing that the ten best educated states in the country (as measured by the percentage of residents over age 25 with bachelor degrees) all voted for Obama, while nine of the ten worst educated states voted for Romney.
Gizmodo editor Jose Diaz, who posted this material, comments sarcastically, “Perhaps there’s no correlation. Perhaps it is just a coincidence. Maybe we should ask the next Secretary of Wizardry and Mathemagics, Nate Silver. Whatever the answer is, I just know that I freaking love statistics.”
Unfortunately there’s no magic here, and Diaz is no Nate Silver. This is a classic instance of what statisticians call the ecological fallacy – inferring individual behavior on the basis of aggregated data about a group to which the individual belongs.
As an example of how this works, consider that seven of the ten states with the highest percentage of African Americans voted for Romney, compared to only three that voted for Obama (based on 2009 census data ). Yet no one would infer from this that Romney did unusually well with African American voters.
Similarly, in 2004 the 15 poorest states all voted for George W. Bush, while 9 of the 11 wealthiest states voted for John Kerry. Yet we shouldn’t infer that Democrats are the party of the wealthy; in fact, over 60% of voters nationwide with incomes over $200,000 voted for Bush.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
How many Obama voters have a degree in “You want fries with that?”
;-\
Acutally let me correct you and I have a point here. Ernst Rohm was the head of the SA in pre-war Germany, the Brownshirts. It was made up of much of the rabble of post WWI Germany. Petty criminals, out of work blue collar types, socialists, dropouts..basically Obama's ground troops. But if history teaches us a lesson and why I corrected yours. Himmler was head of the SS, an elite highly educated force which Hitler enlisted to liquidate the SA when the brownshirts became not so uselful. When Obama has no use for the rabble, well you do the history.
False syllogism. One of its premises assumes that a college degree makes one smarter.
Fine. Lets have a national combination general knowledge/IQ test day. Republican voters will outperform Democrat voters handily.
Not from what I observed during the election.
In my state we use an optical-scanning machine to read the ballots as they’re cast. Most of the time, the ballot goes through the machine and is automatically deposited into a locked compartment. Once in a while, someone will make marks on the ballot where there shouldn’t be, or marks more than one candidate for an office, in which case the machine spits the ballot back out, and we have to look and see what’s wrong so we can instruct the voter on how to correct it.
This election, there were an inordinate number of rejected ballots. I mean a ridiculous number, it seemed like every 3rd person was messing up their ballot, and the mistakes were more creative than I’d ever seen in previous elections. We had people circling the name and putting asterisks by it, we had people who, instead of connecting the ends of the arrows across, would connect them diagonally, making it look like a match-up test. Lots of people tried to mark more than one canditate per office, we even had 2 different voters who tried to vote for 6 different presidents on their ballot. And, I tried not to notice this, I really did, but every single messed-up ballot was done by an Obama voter.
Every. Single. One.
I’m sorry, but anyone who thinks Obama voters are smarter than everyone else has never had to work in a polling place.
I'm willing to bet my life's savings that the most ignorant voters are easily Obama voters. Just talk to my three lib sisters, and you'll come to that conclusion.
Smart enough to know that they can vote themselves more obamaphones and other benefits paid for by ROMNEY VOTERS.
Thank you for the correction. Something I should have known.
It’s like Reagan said, “Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.”
I do know many intelligent people who are pro-Obama. The old phrase “too smart by half” seems to fit them nicely.
And liberalism is logical to them.
I LOVE Thomas Sowell!
Education means bring forth from within. Much of the liberal arts degrees are ‘indoctrination’ studies.
Looks to me like the dumb masses are ripe for a piped piper. Growing up I used to ask my German mother, ‘How did Hitler become so powerful?’
If an Obama voter was smart enough to switch her vote to Romney, both groups would end up dumber on average.
trust me pal I;ve met many like that in the the last few weeks, I;ve gone up to them and asked them questions and I come away thinking WOW.
Darned if Tocqueville didn’t nail it with that one.
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