Scientists discover that less intelligent people voted for Brexit
Scientists discover that less intelligent people voted for Brexit
New scientific research has found that less intelligent people were more likely to vote for Brexit. According to a new study, people who voted for the leave campaign are more likely to have had lower cognitive abilities.This may have made them more susceptible to disinformation, the authors of the s...
indy100.com Scientists discover that less intelligent people voted for Brexit Harry Fletcher ~2 minutes
New scientific research has found that less intelligent people were more likely to vote for Brexit.
According to a new study, people who voted for the leave campaign are more likely to have had lower cognitive abilities.
This may have made them more susceptible to disinformation, the authors of the study claim.
The new research comes from the University of Bath. As the study found, 73 per cent of the UK voters in the top 10 per cent of cognitive performance were remain voters.
Only 40 per cent of the people in the bottom 10 per cent of cognitive performance voted to remain in the EU.
The findings were published in the academic journal PLOS One are were based on analysis of 3,181 couples in the UK from an longitudinal study called Understanding Society.
iStock
The study was led by authors Chris Dawson and Paul Baker. The pair claim that the findings show “low cognitive ability makes people more susceptible to misinformation and disinformation”.
The pair list the rhetoric from leave campaign leaders claiming that the UK would be able to “take back control of our borders” as an example of disinformation, as well as the claim about the £350m Brexit windfall being used to fund the NHS.
Speaking to the Times, Dawson said: “It’s an uncomfortable thing to say, but I think it’s important to be said. We have increasing amounts of fake news and it’s getting more and more sophisticated.”
Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter
How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel
Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings
Measures of “cognitive ability” are strongly correlated with social and economic success. If youre from a more wealthy family you go to a better school and have better nutrition etc. Also test taking is itself a skill and test taking ability improves significantly with more education, more education being strongly related to economic and social status.
Study finds that measures related to economic and social success correlated with maintaining the status quo.
study finds that poopoo time is also frequently peepee time but peepee time might not necessarily be also poopoo time.
If there is a flaw in democracy, that's probably it. A stupid person's vote is worth the same as an intelligent person's.
Permanently Deleted
Hypothetically, if Lemmy analyzed your posts and comments for intelligence (without telling you your score, to avoid drama) and then weighted your up/downvotes accordingly, would that be cool with you?
Gotta be honest with you, I'd like to know for sure.
Think of how dumb the average person is and realise half of them are dumber than that.
Then consider how much bias you're putting into your perspective.
Anyone can be stupid. Even the smartest people in the world are stupid some of the time. Especially when the kind of culture we've built requires that people hyper-specialize in their field, so most people are rarely truly intelligent outside that field.
The problem is that we haven't made critical thinking a priority, and those who seek to exploit voters have made it their mission that we never do.
I expected some Carlin and I got some
I'm sure just a little more condescension and you'll win them over
I'd have more time for the people still on about this if they weren't so bloody patrician about it all the time
Brexit was stupid, but I think this sort of thing is unhelpful and masturbatory.
The same studies that say believing in Communism is the same as being a religious zealot
Julian Jaynes logged onto the chat
The study assertion is funny, but I don't really think it's worth much in terms of proving anything.
The number of participants being 6,000 seems promising, but I question the value of the questions they asked.
Recall 10 words read to you immediately and then again after the interview.
Name as many animals as possible in an elotted amount of time.
Subtract 7 from 100. Then again. Up to five times.
Solve the missing numbers in two number sequences.
Answer 5 math word problems.
Depending on what mental state you're in, whether you're recently off work, high, coming back from a run, etc. I think you're likely to have dramatically different test scores from these.
Furthermore, these seem much more relevant to the education quality of an individual - and they call it "cognitive performance" (how good you think at the time) in the study which is kind of correct, but the article is passing it off as the participants' intelligence (how good you think period), which is fucked up IMO.
I overall don't like it and don't find it that persuasive.
Name as many animals as possible in an elotted amount of time
the inteligent answer to this question is "no" anyway
Quite the surprise..
Liberal bullshit, half of labour voted leave, you know why? Because they correctly identified that the EU is an antidemocratic neoliberal farce designed to fuck over workers and siphon wealth from the poorer eastern member countries to their wealthier western neighbors, its purposefully complicated and has basically wrangled control of all member's economic policy. Most communist parties in Europe advocate for an end to the EU for very good reasons, its not just a reactionary position, the end of the EU is vital to the emancipation of the working class, period.
I agree the EU sucks but most labour voted remain, and the majority of pro-leave people were right-wing bigots. Brexit would be great under socialism, but that wasn't and isn't taking form in a neoliberal hellhole like Britain. Brexit was inherently neoliberal and made the UK even worse
fuck over workers and siphon wealth from the poorer eastern member countries to their wealthier western neighbors
The leave campaign was literally "us British have to siphon our tax money to eastern member countries" because the EU makes its wealthier states give money to its poorer states. That and anti-immigrant, xenophobic, racist rhetoric against both eastern Europeans and non-white immigrants brought in from the EU. Literally just fear mongering open borders for allowing "undesirables" in.
really depends on region. brexit was for most of the country just wanting to do something anything different. Large amount of frustration with Londoners being condescending to them while the parts of the country they live in suffer from underinvestment
a very strong part of leave was the idea that Britain will never be respected in Europe because we aren't on the continent and thus we're better not being part of any pan european movement. Also Poland wanted out of the EU too at the time
I'm not denying racism was a part of it but it wasn't all of it or even most. And it's not like the idea of European brotherhood isn't racially charged either
The leave campaign was literally "us British have to siphon our tax money to eastern member countries" because the EU makes its wealthier states give money to its poorer states. That and anti-immigrant, xenophobic, racist rhetoric against both eastern Europeans and non-white immigrants brought in from the EU. Literally just fear mongering open borders for allowing "undesirables" in.
youre right, I wrote my comment too quickly and didnt specify that I was talking about the EU as a whole, i didnt really consider the position Brexiters had vis a vis the EU, of which you wrote about quite well. good context, i need to write more precise comments, hah.
Yeah, nah, the leftist position on leaving the EU was a vastly minority line mostly walked by accelerationists who also recognised it would only allow capitalists to fortify their positions and further exploit the working class. Britain leaving the EU only weakened the British working class, not the rest of the EU.
hmm, idk in france the new communist parties (who thankfully wholly reject the moronic western trend of demonizing stalin and "stalinism" (whatever the fuck that means)) usually toe that line, through a marxist lens of course, I wrote that comment in jest tbh I shouldve clarified that while Brexit wasnt good, it did show that many people subconsciously realize the EU is designed to fuck them over.
our only hope is that mayos continue to be as stupid as they've reliably been for the last 400 years and fuck up their advantage even more
Mayos?
Aren't votes supposed to be anonymous?
Yea it makes sense that's the kind of people that the message "were gonna tell all our trading partners to fuck themselves and do whatever we want and that will improve our trading relations" worked on.
Well this is funny, but it doesn't link a study in the article.
And we're also expected to believe that anyone actually possesses some kind of method to meaningfully measure people's 'cognitive performance' that isn't immediately biased in some fashion.
Who cares. This reeks of classic 1800s high brow literacy test discrimination. Nobody should care about the level of education the population that voted.
It's very clear you are against (read: scared) of anything measuring intelligence. My guess is you're terrified and shitting your pants that you'll be measured and found wanting.
They were the majority and they had the right to vote for themselves. If they thought Europe was a sinking ship (even before the recent wars at its borders) and decided to jump away before drowning, that seems legit.
if they thought
You mean “if they were made to think”. They didn’t suddenly have this brilliant idea en masse that EU is a sinking ship. They were fed that horseshit over years by liars and grifters and scumbags.