Decius comments on A Voting Puzzle, Some Political Science, and a Nerd Failure Mode - Less Wrong

88 Post author: ChrisHallquist 10 October 2013 02:10AM

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Comment author: Decius 10 October 2013 09:42:37PM 0 points [-]

"People can be conservative Christians compared to their peers in spite of being highly intelligent and rational"?

Or "There exist conservative Christians who are highly intelligent and rational compared to their peers"?

I'm going to step away from the definition discussion on whether 'Conservative Christian' is mutually exclusive with 'intelligent and rational'. I have a specific person in mind who is Christian, very intelligent, and mostly rational (all beyond any reasonable argument), but there exists a reasonable argument that this person is not conservative, or that 'conservative Christian' means something other than "possess the quality 'conservative' and the quality 'Christian'"

Comment author: wedrifid 10 October 2013 09:46:36PM 0 points [-]

Or "There exist conservative Christians who are highly intelligent and rational compared to their peers"?

This.

I have a specific person in mind who is Christian, very intelligent, and mostly rational (all beyond any reasonable argument)

I have several people in mind (immediate family members) who meet this criteria too. "Mostly" is the kind of qualifier I had in mind. (So any disagreement we may have about categorisations here must not be fundamental.)

Comment author: Decius 11 October 2013 02:46:18AM 1 point [-]

I wish I could make the fundamental categorization, but the world provides a counterexample from which the only escape is a weak cry of 'not conservative enough to count?'.

The weaker form of 'Conservative Christianity is a negative predictor of intelligence and rationality' is roughly equivalent to the same thing that we've been agreeing about.

Comment author: wedrifid 11 October 2013 06:20:11AM 1 point [-]

I wish I could make the fundamental categorization, but the world provides a counterexample from which the only escape is a weak cry of 'not conservative enough to count?'.

That doesn't seem to be a counterexample to anything here. It seems to be a somewhat sad failure of thinking by an individual. If it is a failure that occurs frequently then it would be worth exploring just which human biases are involved in the decline.

Comment author: Decius 11 October 2013 09:55:28AM 0 points [-]

Are you confusing an observation with a conclusion? I think the only reason I or you disagree with the conclusion is that we don't share the same observation; everything from there on is either logically sound or high-probability.

Comment author: wedrifid 11 October 2013 10:24:43AM -1 points [-]

Are you confusing an observation with a conclusion?

No, not from what I can see.

Comment author: Decius 11 October 2013 09:13:41PM 0 points [-]

What is the failure of thinking that you see, then? "Morality loves me" implies "theism is correct".