<p>^^^one question: how much does a teacher make at your eastern prep boarding school?</p>
<p>prepster: Why am I not surprised?</p>
<p>Wesley: You and I are just two people with strong opinions. So what? Doesn't qualify us to teach at Harvard.</p>
<p>Of course not. I dont teach (yet) and if I did, I sincerely doubt that Harvard would have me.</p>
<p>I would derive much more satisfaction from teaching above average kids in a Jesuit School environment.</p>
<p>self-selection: it works, if ya work it. ;)</p>
<p>haha nice point john wesley, but it's just a little bit unnerving to have such a homogeneous faculty... the best education is one that shows both-- actually, ALL-- sides of an issue, and unfortunately many of my teachers forget to leave their biases at the door. i myself am not a democrat nor a republican.</p>
<p>algore, you obviously don't know that Professors are hired based on their research skills and interests, not on their teaching skills. In fact, the best Professors really don't end up teaching much at most colleges. I never said it is better for liberals to become Professors nor did I say you said that. If you read my post you'll realize that I distinguished "academic intelligence" from "intelligence". A high amount of academic intelligence is required to become a Professor (not saying the other types aren't required, but no idiot is going to become a Professor anyday), that is why I was focusing on it. In fact, I'd say academic intelligence is the single most important thing, besides having the desire, to become a Professor. And as your associate tomslawsky agreed, SAT and Academic intelligence are highly correlated. Even though you can argue that there are ADHD types who may not score well on tests (which may or may not be true) that is a null factor, if we assume that ADHD types are split evenly based on political bent. I unlike you, have used facts and reason to support my basis. I'm not saying that you have to agree with me, it is highly unlikely that we will both agree on whether or not smart people are more likely to be liberal, but I'm stating my position and pointing out fallacies in yours. You fail to give one reason why there wouldn't be such a bent, except, from what I gather, "I have wisdom, met alot of people, and I haven't observed anything like that". I however, showed that, it is almost impossible that the top 1% of juniors from Republican voting states are academicallyas strong as the top 1% of juniors from Democrat voting states. I didn't say that these kids were better or worse, just not as academically strong. You reply to that saying that the SATs don't prove much, if at all. But even though an SAT score may not prove a lot for one person, as the group gets larger and larger (hundreds of thousands of students), it only becomes natural to assume that a large group of one students with higher scores are academically better than a large group of students with lower scores. And again, academic ability and desire are by far the two most telling factors in becoming a Professor.</p>
<p>Oh brother.....</p>
<p>this is becoming a significant distraction and nuisance. I am sorry Cervantes, I simply wont get into the granular statistical detail you are fixated upon. Nor drop down to the level of ad hominems you have either.</p>
<p>You have missed my point entirely. Never mind.</p>
<p>I know what your point is. Seriously. Explain it, using facts, or at least generally accepted statements. I will prove why I believe, what I believe. I'll break it down in an easy to understand format, where it is very easy to challenge the premise of my belief. Seriously, I'm not being facetious here, I really want to understand why you truly believe what you do, and where I am wrong in my logic. If you can see something wrong, that I can acknowledge, I am more than willing to accept your belief and challenge my own. Notice, I did not insult (or even attempt to, but if it came across as sarcastic at times in the earlier post it certainly was) you. Here is the breakdown of my logic:</p>
<p>Statement</p>
<p>1.Conservative States have a lower cutoff for the top 1% in their states than do Liberal States on the PSATs</p>
<p>2.Thus, the top 1% of students in the Conservative States are not as academically intelligent as the top 1% of students in the Liberal States</p>
<p>3.Because of Statement 2, it can be mathematically deduced, that of the top 1% in the nation, a higher proportion, (normed for size of the states) would come from liberal states.</p>
<p>4.These juniors reflect the overall intelligence of the general populace.</p>
<p>5.Since a larger percentage of ACADEMICALLY INTELLIGENT people come from Liberal states, it would only make sense a larger percentage of ACADEMICALLY INTELLIGENT Professors come from Liberal states.</p>
<p>6.If a larger percentage of Professors come from liberal states, a larger percentage of Professors will be liberal, assuming that the desire of liberal people to become Professors is not less than those of conservative people.</p>
<p>Reason</p>
<p>1.Given, by the data provided, can't really be disputed.</p>
<p>2.PSAT/SATs are the best comparable forms of academic intelligence between groups. While I agree GPA is more important, we both know that the average GPAs between both groups will be the same as pretty much all high schools normalize their GPA to a certain number, 3.0 roughly. </p>
<p>3.If you believe Statement 2, Statement 3 is a mathematical certainty.</p>
<p>4.This is where I believe my argument is weakest, however, I think that these kids are a product of their parents (as in, on average, these kids are as intelligent as their parents) Furthermore, since PSAT cutoffs rarely change significantly, and if they do, they change for the whole country in pretty much equal tandem, it is safe to say this reflects at least the academic strength of teenagers. Also, since the variables that would apply to Conservative states would also apply to Liberal states, outside variables can be ignored. Lastly, these are the kids who in 10-15 years will be deciding to become Professors-not their parents.</p>
<p>5.Academic intelligence is very important to becoming a Professor. We both know it takes someone of high academic intelligence to become a Professor, although this is not the sole factor, it is a very large and in fact main one, despite desire.</p>
<ol>
<li>I am assuming that these people reflect their states political alignment.</li>
</ol>
<p>Um Cervantes, i think you should look at the fact, that the states with higher PSAT scores typically have a higher population density. This is important bc when there is a high population density then there is more competition to get in the schools, look at Cali, with all the great schools they have, yet ppl know they still need to work hard to get into those schools, why bc there are more ppl trying to get in. It seems like the conclusion your drawing is not based on analytics, but is miscontrued to fit a pre-concieved bias. An obvious display of what i am saying is Texas (argubly the smartest red state) why, bc there is a higher population density.</p>
<p>Moreover, the factors that go into a person deciding to become a professor, let alone where a person goes to college are myraid. Look at Berkeley, how many conservatives do you think go there. Good school, but it is based in an area where there are more liberals so more liberals will go there, also the fact that they are state supported shows the general trend of the state. Ppl around a said area are more likely to stay there.
As far as PhDs, conservative ppl want to make money, so there are less likely to forego all that salary to get a PhD, but also conservatives are more likely to be religious and desirous of marriage. Those combine, mean they would be less inclined to use a significant amount of time to getting a PhD.
As far as anecdotal evidence goes, i am smart and i know this and i also know that i will not be getting a PhD, why the time.</p>
<p>Lets throw out the where a person goes to college. Would you not agree with me, that academic intelligence is one of the biggest criterion for becoming a Professor? I think you would, and you would be right. The population density thing is something I haven't considered, and should have. However, since one's PSAT score does not determine whether or not they get into college, competition for college shouldn't per se have something to do with how hard they are going to try for the test. Furthermore, there are go-getter kids who are going to try hard on these tests, regardless of how competitive it is for admission to their local schools. Also, kids who decide to take the PSAT are again, more competitive than the average kid who wants to go local. Keep in mind, that these are the kids who are more likely to score well (and will probably dominate the top 1%) and you are assuming that these people are limited to their local schools, when again, a lot of the top scorers will be looking for something bigger when they start getting mailings from colleges with $$$. I will concede, however that higher population density will swing in the favor of higher test scores, but certainly not large enough to explain the disparity. I never said that there weren't other factors that go into choosing to become a Professor that favor liberals, but it is my contention is that these factors are important for the disparity but not the sole determinants. If you look at the numbers hawkette posted, especially in the humanities and social sciences, those numbers are so severe that they really can't be explained away by personal choices alone.</p>
<p>Here's the ranking of states by population density:
List</a> of U.S. states by population density - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>As it can be observed, the states with higher population density do, in fact, have a positive correlation, but not as strong as with political affiliation. But however...if we are to follow your line of logic, wouldn't it make sense (regardless of personal choice, lets assume they both have the same desire to become Professors and are not intimidated by anything) that there would be less Conservative Professors?</p>
<p>As far as PSAT competition, the PSAT gives ppl the opportunity for National Merit, ppl don't take the PSAT, unless they plan to go to college.
Actually i am not sure there is a correlation between intelligence and proffessorship, i mean look at Bill gates (I know an extreme outlier) but he didn't get a PhD, and look at all the other fields ppl go into medical school (which i would argue is alot harder than getting a PhD) is probably dominated with intelligent ppl, just like law school and business school. Using a PhD as a metric is really flawed bc there is a high number of PhDs in humanities (bc there are a larger number of humanity fields) but that excludes so many intelligent ppl who choose different paths, that it skews the statistics to show that liberals are smarter than conservatives, which is not true.</p>
<p>Yea, but getting a PhD doesn't mean that you become a Professor. In fact, the vast majority of PhD recipients do not become Professors. Becoming a Professor is generally harder than becoming a Medical Doctor. If you ask a Professor this, they'll tell you and it won't be because of bias. And I think you're twisting my words. I never said intelligent people don't exist outside outside the academia. In fact, the vast majority of intelligent people are not in the academia. My point was that, to be in the academia you need to be highly intelligent. Which really is true. Even though it doesn't prove alot, look up average IQ by occupation and you'll observe Professors almost always come out on top (behind researchers I think only). Also, if this thread were titled, "The Political Orientation of Medical Doctors", and we found out that the majority of Medical doctors were liberal-I'd make the exact same argument.</p>
<p>Interesting links:
Interesting</a> Intelligence related Questions & answers
Intelligence of Professors, interestingly equal to that of CEOs. (which, is the consensus out on whether they are liberal or conservative...people have been throwing it around that they are conservative in general but I'm not sure I believe it)</p>
<p>Professors</a> in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Professors aren't exactly poor.</p>
<p>Why</a> College Professors are Liberal...
A conservative take on the issue, not that liberals are smarter than conservatives, but that, liberals, think education is more important than conservatives. Ergo, conservatives are less intellectual than liberals though intellectual=/=intelligence-not saying I agree, but I'm not twisting his words.</p>
<p>The reason i mention other occupations, is bc the overall arguement that your making is that liberals are smarter than conservatives, and the metric by which you were proving this were a)PSAT scores and b)liberals in academia. I was pointing out the fact that looking only to PhD would be flawed bc it does not reflect the wider pool of ppl who opt to go other paths and not be a professor and therefore would skew statistics to show that liberals are smarter than conservatives based on a small pool that would be more likely to be liberal.</p>
<p>As to the conservative professor, it doesn't matter if i said that conservatives cared more about education and cited a source that said so who would be right? Neither bc that is just opinion that cannot be substatiate. Political orientation does not denote intellectigence as two equally intelligent ppl can have vastly different conclusions i.e. Locke and Hobbes, both intelligent but have very different views of the state of nature.</p>
<p>"The reason i mention other occupations, is bc the overall arguement that your making is that liberals are smarter than conservatives, and the metric by which you were proving this were a)PSAT scores and b)liberals in academia."</p>
<p>No, the point I'm proving is that, the reason there are more liberals in the academia is because of intelligence as evidenced by PSAT scores. Ultimately either conservatives or liberals who care more about education. It is highly unlikely that people with such different ideologies about almost everything suddenly view education equally. So, it wouldn't be an opinion-it'd either be true or false. An opinion is, "I think she looks good." Since beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, I'd say that's an opinion. But as to who values education more-that's a fact.</p>
<p>This is BEYOND pedantic. Its a neurosis. An obsession. Good grief.</p>
<p>Here is the breakdown by age group. </p>
<p>Liberal , Moderate , Conservative , Age</p>
<p>32.5% , 60.0% , 7.5% , 26-35
41.5% , 49.9% , 8.6% , 36-49
49.4% , 42.7% , 7.9% , 50-64
36.9% , 52.3% , 10.8% , 65+</p>
<p>Not sure what it means but one interpretation is that the numbers of conservatives increase in the later years as people get more conservative as they age. Also, older folks may feel slightly more secure in their positions or are less willing to submit to the more prominent liberal ideology.</p>
<p>As for younger folks, no surprise that there aren't many conservatives, but also some surprise that they aren't higher numbers of liberals. Younger folks tend to have less real-world experience and more idealistic views and they also know that the road to tenure is probably not improved by being identified as a strong conservative. I think that there may also be some desire to appear open-minded and so the numbers that self-identify as moderates is highest among the young.</p>
<p>It's a good old fashioned debate, that's all. =) Read some of the AA discussion threads, or people who post a bazillion chances threads-that's real neurosis for you.</p>
<p>Also, hawkette, I'm not questioning the validity of your information, but I'm just curious as to where you're getting it from.</p>