Common Sense and IQ

iSteve readers will not be surprised to learn that 12 of the 13 questions on which people with excellent vocabularies are more likely to be wrong than the average person involve our society’s race and gender taboos:

So, the overall lesson is that a good vocabulary correlates with more common sense answers on random questions that aren’t part of your society’s status striving taboos.

The implications for public policy of this kind of educated stupidity, however, are dire.

Yep to the latter.
Laurel

Sounds like Richard Weaver’s warning that people wouldn’t grasp as readily ideas and shades of meaning without the vocabulary to represent them.

I think it’s important too for someone to be spirited and seeking for the truth.

Amen to that latter…

Laurel