Ever have someone quote you a "fact" and claim up and down that it is 100% proven and true? But there's that little voice in your head says "That cannot be true, i don't believe it"?

Well here's where they are getting the info from. From sources such as this. Scientists or test organizers who read the data, and jump to conclusions because they are misinterpreting the data. Or just flat out adding in their own points of view.

If i were the boss of the people who conducted and performed this "experiment", i would start looking for new employees.

There are basic guidelines about performing non-biased studies; information that i was taught back in high school. This was a waste of many peoples' time and the company's money. Sounds to me like the people in charge of this experiment were purposefully trying to pull the wool over the public's eyes. If their intentions were actually in good faith, then their scientific methods are below acceptable.

Either way, that spells termination in my book.

I don't know...maybe i'm too conservative. ;-)

Dear Jimmy John,

Thanks for the great reply. I agree...the "established phd's" have sold out thier meaninless research for God knows what reason...I wish I could figure out the price or the purpose.

Sincerely,

Gobolarian

The last statement is probably true. I think if you look at the actual article, not the extreme interpretations our right wing friend pointed out, you will see that none of these assumptions came from the actual article. The article made the observations, the interpretations came from people with Journalism degrees, and you know how hard it is to get one of those.

I think you both missed the point of the article, and maybe of science in general. Science exists for answering questions. Someone posed this question. These scientists answered it. Journalists blew it out of proportion, as they always do, and now the science is under attack because you do not like the answer they found? A good article like one that is published in Nature is reviewed by the top experts in the field to reveal and expose underlying biases. In a journal of this level, even the tiniest suspicion of bias will cause this article to be rejected.

orsburn, dude, I don't know if you are liberal or conservative, but I completely agree with you. Anyway, I do not understand how people criticize science when they don't like the answers. Did the original study concluded that liberals were smarter? I do not think so. The author of this article did a good job by choosing a controvertial title; it got people to read it.

I don't necessarily mind the answer they found. You can tell me the data points to "conservatives are not as intelligent as liberals" until you're blue in the face. A simple IQ test performed in balanced, non-biased conditions will most likely proove that there's no correlation between political preferrence and brain-power. It's the processes and steps they took to arrive at those answers that's in question. There are many assumptions, non-sensical conclusions and lack of, what i would call, 'error-checking'.

Yes, the media and journalists are going to blow it out of proportion, as they always do....and will always do. In this age of the 10-second attention span, columnists have to put a proverbial 'bright neon sign' on all articles, or no one is going to read them, and you'll ultimately loose readers. It is our jobs to wade through the colorful metaphors and pretty wrapping, and get to the heart of the article....testers made objective errors within their experiments by not thinking through the data or the given experiments, which lead to their erroneous conclusion: "Conservatives are not as intelligent as Liberals". A pretty audacious claim in my opinion.....it made the cover of MSN.com.

Yes, science exists for answering questions, I agree with you. Someone posed the question, and they answered it. That's the scientist's job, right? I say no, they are ultimately responsible for more than that. And i think those who drafted up the tests, read the data, and pulblished the answers should be held accountable for their work. And if it were me, they would not have jobs in the morning. I know that's harsh, but think of the rebuilding this company is going to have to go though to recover from it. It's a PR nightmare. Just as good work is rewarded, bad work should be punished. It's one of the ways we grow and learn from mistakes.

On the other hand, maybe this is the best thing that's ever happened to the company that went public with these results. They always say there is no such thing as bad publicity. Maybe these baseless "facts" are what put this company on the map.

...That's another sad topic altogther.