37 percent of people completely lost, Mark Morford

[madokie]

Six percent of Americans believe in unicorns. Thirty-six percent believe in UFOs. A whopping 24 percent believe dinosaurs and man hung out together. Eighteen percent still believe the sun revolves around the Earth. Nearly 30 percent believe cloud computing involves… actual clouds. A shockingly sad 18 percent, to this very day, believe the president is a Muslim. Aren’t they cute? And Floridian?

Do you believe in angels? Forty-five percent of Americans do. In fact, roughly 48 percent – Republicans and Democrats alike – believe in some form of creationism. A hilariously large percent of terrified right-wingers are convinced Obama is soon going to take away all their guns, so when the Newtown shooting happened and 20 young children were massacred due to America’s fetish for, obsession with and addiction to firearms, violence and fear, they bought more bullets. Because obviously.

In sum and all averaged out, it’s safe to say about 37 percent of Americans are just are not very bright. Or rather, quite shockingly dumb. Perhaps beyond reach. Perhaps beyond hope or redemption. Perhaps beyond caring about anything they have to say in the public sphere ever again. Sorry, Kansas.

Did you frown at that last paragraph? Was it a terribly elitist and unkind thing to say? Sort of. Probably. But I’m not sure it matters, because none of those people are reading this column right now, or any column for that matter, because reading anything even remotely complex or analytical is something only 42 percent of the population enjoy doing on a regular basis, which is why most TV shows, all reality shows, many major media blogs and all of Fox News is scripted for a 5th-grade education/attention span. OMG LOL kittens! 19 babies having a worse day than you. WTF is up with Justin Timberlake’s hair?!?

The rest: http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2013/03/12/37-percent-of-people-completely-lost/

[malaise]

1. MUST READ

Rec

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. this is not really much of a surprise somehow

and yes, about a third of the US population just isn't that clever...that's probably roughly the percentage who have IQ's of 90 and below; it's quite possible for intelligent and educated people to believe all sorts of stupid things, but it seems to be somewhat less likely...or at least, they seem more likely to change their minds when presented with contrary evidence.

[Xipe Totec]

5. Beat me to it. nt

[Fumesucker]

8. Eh, smart people are just better at defending wrong ideas

For instance David Brooks is obviously smart, he's also obviously wrong a great deal.

[RZM]

24. Nailed it

I've noticed for a long time that regular people make a hell of a lot more sense than self-styled intellectual elites. I really do think it's an open secret that a lot of our well-heeled elites are, in different ways from regular people, complete morons. They are also remarkably out of touch, which contributes to their propensity for drivel especially when talking about real issues that actually affect people.

'Stupid people' may believe in nonsense like angels and ghosts. But I tend to trust them on the big issues more than their 'superiors.'

[marions ghost]

32. Really smart people

are not in control in America. Don't kid yourself.

Intellectuals are not always "well-heeled" either. The well-heeled tend to come from the middle hump on the graph.

Academically "smart" people are denigrated in America, unless they are doing something like designing drones.

You are out of touch with the people you are so critical of.

[RZM]

37. I don't think I am

The elites are in control. I've seen this from the inside and out. I'd agree that government tends to attract people on the lower end of the elite cohort and sometimes people entirely outside of it. But the media and academia? Lots of smart people who are clueless when it comes to things that actually matter. These people don't write or pass legislation. But they do shape the narrative.

Smart people are not denigrated on editorial pages for being smart. In fact the opposite is true. Regular people are denigrated for not being more like the elites.

[marions ghost]

40. I wouldn't lump academia in with the media...

no reason to connect the two.

I agree that "smart people" can be clueless about the big picture because they are focused on some aspect of research or investigation in a narrow sense. I agree that we need more big picture thinkers in positions of power. People able to connect the dots, work for the good of the whole. Not people sold out to corporations and the war industry.

But your rhetoric promotes a false division, an erroneous meme that is calculated to divide us. You lump intellectuals in with "well-heeled elites." These are not the same groups. People doing statistical research for NIH, for example, do not make more than your average electrician. The academics are not driving the bus--not unless their goals are in line with the powers that be, with corporate interests.

Nobody wants regular people to be just like the elites--especially not the "elites" as you interpret the term. How about using the term "corporate elites" to make a distinction?

My uncle who was a well driller, was just as smart and wise as anybody. I don't want him to be like the corporate elites, I just want him (and all others like him & us) not to be exploited by the corporate elites.

My point --the really smart people are NOT in control of the government. I wish they were.

[RZM]

47. Some good points, but . . .

I think you have this exactly backwards:

'Nobody wants regular people to be just like the elites--especially not the "elites" as you interpret the term. How about using the term "corporate elites" to make a distinction?'

I don't think corporate bigwigs care much at all what regular people think, beyond what it takes to ensure proper consumption and votes for the politicians they have in their pockets. Regular people don't give out the tax breaks, cheap labor, or bills that erode worker rights. The corporate elites need the regular people to buy their products and vote for the politicians they want. Apart from that, they don't really care.

It's people like pundits, editorial page editors, screenwriters, and professors who are really in the business of telling people what they should be thinking. They are the very definition of 'opinion makers.' And these people are usually socially liberal. It's not the corporations or politicians who have moved public opinion on LGBT rights - it's the elites in media and Hollywood. I use that example because it's not always a bad thing. Good ideas get circulated along with the bad.

The problem is, we're stuck with the class of people who have the megaphone whether they are right or wrong. And that's why 'elite' status matters. Many aren't really regular people themselves and they just aren't quite capable of seeing things as normal (i.e. 'stupid') people do. It's a problem as old as society itself. There's always a disconnect between the elites and the masses, no matter how well-intentioned the elites might be. There's really not much that can be done about it either, though I do think that expanding social and information technology will cause things to change a little bit, as regular people can get their ideas out there more easily.

[marions ghost]

53. Not buying

Right, corporate elites don't care what regular people want or think. Yes they think regular people are stupid and gullible, and they exploit that. I agree 100%. OK.

HOWEVER

Pundits, editors, screenwriters, professors in corporate approved fields = are controlled by the corporations that support them, in America. They are more corporate mouthpieces than "opinion makers." (You notice how those who are not popular with corporates get sidelined or canned...do you think Thom Hartmann is seen as anything other than an outsider, no matter how right he is on the issues?) Corporate control affects the message--duh.

I'm saying --lets not get into this "class of people" thing here. Plenty of pundits & academics are "regular people' and advocate for regular people, & don't see them as stupid (why --because they are SMARTER than that--!) It is really insulting to promote this as a black & white dichotomy. I consider it divisive, arbitrary, right wing thinking. (ie. BS)

The division is between the obscenely rich corporate exploiters and the rest of us. Not "elites vs the masses."

Just make sure of what you are promoting.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

55. Yes, note that Frank Rich and Bob Herbert, the two most populist columnists at the NY Times

are gone. Krugman is now the token liberal, and righties like Ross Douthat (who is NOT very bright) are getting equal billing.

[marions ghost]

58. Right, populists are endangered

Krugman is allowed begrudgingly because he has so much cred and is so right in his predictions. The token liberal, important in the NY market anyway. He gets to be the foil, stir it up.

Will check out that Douthat guy--noting that.

[Silent3]

48. Much of the "elite" in control is not an intellectual elite

They are a power elite, perhaps a little smarter than average on average, but not particularly intelligent, except perhaps in the area of "social intelligence", knowing the tricks of influence and manipulation, knowing how to put a good spin on not-necessarily-so-smart ideas.

Some of them are idiots like Bush who gained power only because of family money and power for which they couldn't claim much personal credit.

We are hardly a country run by well-read, deep-thinking, broad-minded, evidence-driven people.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

59. Yup, they go to the "right" schools and know the "right" people

I spent my graduate school years at an Ivy League institution. Its newspaper was nothing special, just four pages of campus news, and yet an amazing number of staffers from it have turned up working for major newspapers, magazines, and TV programs. There's hardly a major publication out there that doesn't have somebody who worked for that university newspaper in the 1970s, and I'm sure there are later graduates writing for those publications, too, only I wouldn't recognize their names. I've seen bylines from names I recognize in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, the National Geographic, the PBS News Hour, NBC News, and CBS News.

By contrast, the University of Minnesota's paper, put out by students from its journalism school, was, at that time, a respectable newspaper. (It has gone downhill since then.) Twelve to twenty pages of campus and state news every day. Do those people turn up at major publications. Well, one of them has an on-and-off column for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The rest? Who knows?

[marions ghost]

65. I'd go so far as to say that

the Power Elite doesn't trust the intellectual elite. In general, not if they can't control them.

How else can you see the whole Global Warming Denier phenom in the face of consistent scientific evidence?

[Egalitarian Thug]

73. Or perhaps it is as Eleanor Roosevelt said,

"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."

[Fumesucker]

75. I've used that quote myself

Truly a great one.

[Egalitarian Thug]

77. So much of the good that Franklin is credited with came from this great woman.

Frankly, I think if we had elected her President instead this nation, and probably the world, would have been far better off.

[Mopar151]

11. I agree on the fundamentals of what you're saying here

But I think the issue is a little more complex, which makes it easier to understand...... I figure that there is more than one kind of intelligence. Say that there are 5 attributes that can be graphed as above, and that graph is presented as a 3D map. A lot of those maps will fall into categories typical of the single attribute - but some will be "all over the map", i.e. A healthy skepticisim combined with poor logic skills and a mediocre sense of history can add up to pretty f'n stupid, even if none of the individual attributes fall outside the 68% range.

[Spider Jerusalem]

38. well no

those don't map onto "types of intelligence"; scepticism isn't really a sign of intelligence and poor logic skills don't correlate well, or at all, with critical thinking capacity (which doesn't require a knowledge of history; knowledge or ignorance of a particular subject is quite distinct from intelligence, which is the capacity for rational thought and analysis and processing information and applied problem-solving).

[Xipe Totec]

3. Were you expecting all Americans to have above average intelligence?

Because, by definition, 50% of them are below average and 25% of them are classified as Dull Normal or worse.

So 37% is a perfectly normal outcome, in a Gaussian sort of way...

[sangsaran]

41. "by definition, 50% of them are below average"...

I wish people would stop perpetuating this meme.

If you have 10 people, and 8 of them have an IQ of 90 while the other 2 have an IQ of 140, the group's average IQ is 100... but 80% of them are below average.

Following the concept of normal distributions, approximately half of the global population is probably below average, but there is no mathematical concept which ensures it must be exactly, or even close to 50%.

[Xipe Totec]

50. Read the central limit theorem then get back to me. nt

[Silent3]

52. The central limit theorem...

...depends on conditions that don't always apply.

For various measures of human intelligence, those conditions are roughly applicable. As I mentioned in another post, when it comes to income and wealth, however, those conditions don't apply, and it can cause a bit of trouble to routinely confuse means and medians without thinking about it.

[Silent3]

51. When distribution is roughly like a bell curve...

...median and mean tend to be pretty close. Yes, it's a bit annoying that the two ideas are routinely confused, but the two are often close enough that the practical difference isn't great.

When it comes to income and wealth distribution, those distributions are so terribly lopsided in this country that there's a big difference between mean and median income and wealth.

[chervilant]

6. Functional illiteracy in the US

is over 40% (42-47% in the range of articles I read). We rank 27th out of 36 industrialized nations with regards to teaching our children math (without math, forget about gaining a significant understanding of any science).

When I was teaching college algebra, I was lucky if 10% of the class had a solid foundation of basic math skills. Fractions? Forget about it!

Functional illiteracy is a fundamental underpinning of conservative, anti-intellectual, 'traditional' thinking. For the 'under-educated' crowd, it's easy to believe in unicorns, and a whole host of other fairy tales.

[Lurker Deluxe]

46. fractions

Heh. Fractions. Fuck fractions.

I sucked at fractions, I sucked at math in school. I am a math wiz now. Math is my strong point, as a machinist it is critical do my daily activities.

I remember the first time someone said to me "a hundred thousandths", HUH??

1/8=.125 thousandths, haven't used a fraction since except when finding a bolt. Fractions are useless, and now that most of what I do is metric fractions are never used. There is no metric fraction, no 1/2 a centimeter.

Fractions. Bah ... we continue to use this antiquated measuring system.

[immoderate]

80. Decimal fractions have denominators -- they're understood (but maybe not by all.)

Your example, .125 is just a short way of writing 1/10 + 2/100 + 5/1000.

Every number has a denominator, even if it's 1 (understood.)

The metric system is almost universal. Ninety-five percent of the world's population uses it. But they all learn fractions. Sometimes fractions are disguised as other types of division, like ratios and proportions, or with prefixes, like centi- or nano.

I'm sure you use fractions every day, and don't think of it as that, because it's your life, and not a math class.

--imm

[Lydia Leftcoast]

57. I spent my K-12 years in three school systems:

kindergarten in a church school, 1-6 in a college town, and 7-12 in an outer suburb.

I remember little of kindergarten, especially since I was sick much of that year, but when we moved from the college town to the suburb in the middle of my sixth grade year, I was ahead of the new class in all subjects. The teachers did their best, but the suburb was focused on sports and social life, not on academics. When I was in high school, one English teacher was even fired because the parents (the parents!) complained that his classes were too hard. He actually expected the students to discuss the meanings of the texts and write coherent essays with proper spelling and grammar!

American culture is a huge part of the problem. Maybe "I don't hold much by book l'arnin'" was a valid statement in pioneer times, when your main concern was to build a log cabin and harvest some crops before winter set in, but it's dysfunctional in today's world.

Now the entire mass media establishment seems determined to make people even dumber.

[Logical]

7. Best article I have read! Reality TV does not help. People are dumb! n-t

[CanonRay]

9. Really excellent article, a must read

That bit in the third from last paragraph about the body of Jesus being found, what was that about? What is this a reference to...anybody know? Something he made up?

[grantcart]

10. You have a blessed day!

90% of the people who say that fit the 37%.


You know what would make an interesting poll, ask the people who believe in creationism who are facing life threatening disease whether they prefer a doctor that believes in creationism or a doctor that does not.

[HiPointDem]

12. boring, thoughtless and stupid.

[Dawgs]

17. So, which one of those things do you believe in; unicorns, Obama gun control, or more? n/t

[HiPointDem]

19. i don't believe in the results of polls about such things as described by pundits.

not unless they print the data, including the sample, the questions asked, the entity doing the questioning, etc.

there's an agenda behind the 'americans are stupid' meme.

maybe americans *are* stupid because they so easily buy into this crap.

[Dawgs]

30. Seriously? You need poll data to show you that over 35% of Americans believe in stupid shit.

And I mean stupid shit like unicorns, UFO's, Obama wants to take your guns, etc.

And, what's the agenda?

Because it should be that Americans (most of them Republicans) are morons, and we ALL need to be smarter and not believe in make believe, non-factual stuff.

[muriel_volestrangler]

44. He linked to the web page which gave the sources for the polls

He's writing an opinion piece, not an academic paper. That's the great thing about hyperlinks - you can use them to link people who are interested in the sources, without filling up your prose with endless poll titles and descriptions of them. Thank you, Tim Berners-Lee.

[HiPointDem]

70. the link to the source for the cloud computing point appears to be another article of the same

type.

it doesn't show the questions, just discusses the answers.

the only information on the poll is that it was done by wakefield research for citrix cloud by email invitation and phone survey of "1006 representative adults"

[WCLinolVir]

13. WOW. I don't think this article(?) is very bright.

Creationism is not the same thing as believing in angels. Or afterlife, or re-incarnation. Smearing some good folks in Kansas doesn't help. As for UFOs, maybe you should hang out in the southwest, and watch the skies at night. You see some pretty strange stuff that defies explanation.
Maybe people feel overwhelmed. Try looking at the world with your heart just a little. We constantly tell people they are overwhelmed, stupid, etc.., etc... It is no wonder that people believe it and seek refuge in the garbage that the mass media is only too happy to feed them.

[marions ghost]

33. Agree

I like your perspective.

[Myrina]

34. Thank you.

The article used a very broad brush, IMO.

I know lots of folks who are very intellectually bright, highly educated, and still believe in UFO's, or angels, but who will never ever watch American Idol, believe in Creationism or think that POTUS wants their gun(s).

"Stupidity" has variations, flavors and 'levels' based on one's world view.

[sangsaran]

45. Actually...

"Stupidity" has nothing to do with strange beliefs.

Everyone falls somewhere on the continuum of a (broad, but highly interrelated) group of personality traits known as "Openness to Experience". Those with low Openness to Experience are most likely to believe whatever they have been taught and use the first explanation they hear, or the one they hear most often, to fill any gaps in their knowledge. Those with high Openness to Experience are most likely to draw their own conclusions, question their information (both old and new), and accept that we sometimes just don't know.

Scientists, artists, cultists AND atheists, liberals, people who believe we're in the Matrix OR the universe was created by the Big Bang are generally on the opposite end of the spectrum from stereotypical rednecks, reality TV fans, Christians, conservatives, and people who believe YHWH created everything.

It really has very little to do with intelligence.

[Myrina]

54. I agree, but the original article seems to insinuate that it does.

n/t

[truth2power]

43. You're correct. Morford is conflating a lot of things that don't belong together...

UFO's for example. Just asking someone if they believe in UFO's is a meaningless question, IMO, and doesn't allow for any nuance at all.

Are things flying around that we can't identify? Of course. Just as you said, "...maybe you should hang out in the southwest, and watch the skies at night. You see some pretty strange stuff that defies explanation." U.S. gov't., probably. Maybe "Aurora" which they claim doesn't exist.

Or what if people are open to the idea of extra-terrestrials? That there couldn't be other intelligent civilizations in our galaxy (or in the universe) seems quite a stretch, even though getting here might be an insurmountable problem, given the vast distances involved.

Unless.... a Wormhole is a theoretical construct that is valid mathematically in Einstein's Theory of Relativity. From what I've read (and I'm not a scientist) the problem is keeping one open long enough to get through it, if that makes any sense. Could one ever exist? Well, you can't prove a negative.

In this regard, some of my relatives who died back in the 40's and 50's (not all that long ago), if they could be brought back to life would die all over again of shock, from witnessing the technology we use on a regular basis.

I think looking at the world with your heart is a good idea.

[WCLinolVir]

64. I have a an extremely skeptic friend who no longer assumes such things

as UFOs are impossible after staying with me in the mountains outside of Tucson. I also had a grandfather who was an electrical engineer and worked for Lockheed in the sixties and he said he saw components that were supposed to have been recovered from UFOs. They were beyond anything he had seen and he had worked on some of the components for NASA. He was sworn to secrecy.

[liberal_at_heart]

66. I think we could all stand to live and let live

we rail against laws being made based on religion which we should, but should we really be telling people what they are allowed to think? Everyone has the right to their own thoughts. My son use to think Greek mythology was real. I did nothing to discourage his opinions. He on his own later came to the conclusion that they are fun stories but logically could not have happened. As long as people are respectful of separation of church and state I have no problem with what people believe. In fact my husband who is an agnostic but loves learning about why people believe what they believe, has been visiting with Jehovah witnesses lately. He made the point that while refusing blood transfusions may seem strange to some of us at least they are not out there telling other people they are not allowed to get blood transfusions. I told him he had a good point.

[RedStateLib]

14. Not having read the actual article

I will keep my comments limited to the reactions here.

I am almost 60 years old. I am college educated. I am not ignorant and I am not "lost". What I am is experienced enough to know that you don't make any headway changing people's views by taking an elitist, condescending attitude. You only show that your opinions are as hardened as theirs and in a way that makes you just as ignorant as the people you ridicule.

I have no idea if there are UFOs, although any object in the sky we cannot positively identify is by definition unidentified. Maybe there really are angels I don't know, but I do know that disrespecting the beliefs of others is counterproductive and if it should turn out that UFOs or angels or any other weirdness actually exists you just made yourself look stupid and close minded. There is much in nature and science that has yet to be explained. There is much yet to be astonished at in the universe and human consciousness. No one on this board or any other has all the answers. To pretend you do is insulting to those of us who keep an open mind.

[HiPointDem]

20. +1 for this:

you don't make any headway changing people's views by taking an elitist, condescending attitude. You only show that your opinions are as hardened as theirs and in a way that makes you just as ignorant as the people you ridicule.

[Silent3]

22. There's nothing particularly "open minded"...

...about worrying that for every single remote possibility or evidence-lacking belief (angels, unicorns, UFOs (and I think you know we're talking about aliens, not just any unidentified blips in the sky)), maybe, just maybe, someday some of these things might surprise us and turn out to be true, therefore acting as if the jury is always out, and that it's somehow merely a matter of personal taste to go either way, and that you're taking some unacceptable risk of (gasp!) being proven wrong about something someday if you don't keep your mouth shut about your disbelief.

To disbelieve in, say, angels, is not the same as adamantly stomping your feet and insisting that angels can't possibly exist. It's simply saying there not enough evidence that they exist to consider angels likely enough to take seriously.

To believe in angels, however, is a sign of either poor understanding of the evidence or disregard for the idea of evidence. If somehow you turn out to be right anyway, it's luck, it's a broken clock being right twice per day, not a sign that the angel doubters were being particularly foolish.

[hatrack]

29. Should I "respect the beliefs" of someone who believes in leprechauns, or The Stork?

Should I "respect the beliefs" of someone who believes the Earth is 6,000 years old, or that the sun orbits the Earth, or who believes that they have been kidnapped and anally probed by little green men on a flying saucer?

Should I "respect the beliefs" of someone who believes that whites are genetically superior to blacks, or that rubbing squirrel shit into his kid's arm will protect them from measles, or who believes that God commands him to commit ritual infanticide?

If you maintain that beliefs merit "respect" simply because someone holds them, then you're living in a world where reality not just doesn't exist, but a world where it cannot exist. Good luck living in such a world.

[liberal_at_heart]

69. I respect someone with different beliefs who treats people with kindness a lot more than

people who think they are intellectually superior to others and treats others with condescension. Treating people with respect, dignity, and kindness is far more important than what someone thinks or believes. My father is wildly misguided. He is an evangelical Christian. He has crazy ideas. I very often disagree with him. We even get in some heated debates sometimes, but he is one of the kindest people I have ever known. One of the only people I know who will literally drop everything he is doing to help anybody at anytime.

[marions ghost]

35. Can you imagine that this

"Intellectuals vs. The Rest of Us" crap is a manufactured meme with little basis in reality?

[IdaBriggs]

15. Apparently I am an Idiot (for wasting my time on this article).

Yes, I believe in Unicorns and have even seen pictures. 6%

Both the air force and I believe in UFOs; I can only hope some of them are populated with extra-terrestrial visitors! 36%

Yes, I believe in angels. I've met them; they are usually doing "rescue work". 45%

But I think I *definitely* joined the 37% because I let an entertaining premise suck more than five minutes of my life away.

I get the point. It was ... eh.

Ooh! Look! A kitten yawning!!!

[glowing]

16. It's quite amazing still to find people with a functioning

well rounded brain that you can have a conversation with and say something and they have a clue. Learning is a life long process. It doesn't stop at the end of school. People can and should stimulate their brains and their lives with adventure, knowledge, culture, arts, trying different things, being open to new ideas and things. It's what helps us to bind our humanity. It's the bond between ourselves.

When we limit ourselves to a small space and small thinking, we are easily turned into devolved creatures, capable of extreme depredations. It's easier to kill an enemy, much harder to kill a "brother or sister" of your species. It's much easier to blame an enemy for life than to look up and around at the truer causes of misery and then to recognize its not normal and it's rather sick and cruel. Psychopaths seem to be running the world. The cruel and unusual way people live is unnatural to many. It takes a lot of manipulation to fight against natural human instinct... From the time we are children, we are molded into accepting the terms and conditions that society lives within. It's confining and unnatural with so many boundaries.

So, an average or lower IQ person is probably more suceptable to guise, lies, and manipulation.

[on point]

18. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but NOT to having it considered equally

When confronted with opinion based on rubbish rather than fact, feel free to dismiss it out of hand.

Sorry Kansas.

[enki23]

21. And... stupidity is no less stupid when you call it a "belief".

We already know you believe your beliefs. And that you think your thoughts. And that you have faith in your faith. The title you give to a particular thought doesn't change a goddamned thing about whether it makes you stupid or not. And if you think, and believe, and have faith in too many stupid things? That's what the measure of "stupid" is.

[samplegirl]

23. Excellent article

and truth is most people are stupid because they would rather watch a reality show than educate themselves on how their voting truly affects them.

[Quantess]

25. Elitist finger wagging, fake-superiority.

The author seems to need a little more fiber in his diet, as his tone is constipated.

[JVS]

26. Only 45% believe in angels but 73% are Christian?

Are these people not paying attention at Christmas and Easter?

[Paladin]

27. Another Direct Hit From Morford. Encore! (nt)

[n2doc]

28. Bush's base

They never gave up supporting him, no matter how obvious and terrible the results of his incompetence and corruption. And they will alway vote for the candidate that Rush, Fox et al tell them is the 'right' one. Brainwashed.

[SidDithers]

31. DUrec...

Morford must be one of those "scientific materialists" that the woos like to accuse rational people of being.

Sid

[gordianot]

36. At least 50% are below average the way numbers work.

Humans like other apes are hierarchal animals and are susceptible to displays of aggression and intimidation by Alpha males and females. Like the old song goes "Don't know much........." and they damn well don't want to know much the Alpha's will see to that. These days the cutoff is a much higher number say 99% if not higher. You just thought you got rid of feudalism!

[Puzzledtraveller]

39. Yes, they come in all stripes

Some people are just that uneducated, or easily believe anything they hear. I know some people like this. I have clients who fit the description in the OP remarkably. However I refrain from calling them dumb as there is a lot that I mistake or do not know.

[slackmaster]

42. Proud to give this Rec #37, but I don't completely agree with Mark

I'd say about half the population is as dumb as a sack of hammers.

[Comrade_McKenzie]

49. Science is my religion.

[Arugula Latte]

56. George Carlin: "Just how fucking stupid do you have to be to believe in angels?"

Always cracks me up when I recall him saying that at a performance.

[Avalux]

60. While the underlying premise of this article may be accurate,

insulting people in the stated demographics isn't going to solve anything. What does the word 'dumb' mean anyway? Dumb emotionally, dumb intellectually? There's so much wrong about this article that I had a hard time finishing it.

I do agree that what a lot of people pay attention too is unimportant drivel, and they don't have the critical thinking skills needed to comprehend complex/abstract issues. I don't see this as a reflection of any one person's innate intelligence, but of our society in general.

And common sense, which has nothing to do with intelligence but stems from paying attention to one's feelings, seems to be on hiatus. When a society is deeply rooted in fear, it's easy to manipulate people to act against their own common sense.

[Brigid]

61. Mark Morford must have just spent a few weeks in IN.

Plenty of people here fit his description quite well.

[SoCalDem]

62. Teach to the test..avoid "controversial" subjects..downplay critical thinking

Do this for years and years in school, and is anyone surprised?

MOST people have learned EVERYTHING they will ever "learn" (formal education, that is) by the time they are 18..

From that point on, (for MOST people) what they "learn" will be on their own, or at the behest (demand?) of an employer.

The old formula of using elementary school as the base, upon which the rest of learning will be built, has turned into teaching to the test more than creating a yearning for learning.

By the time kids are in middle school/high school, many are lost forever. Poorer kids pretty much know by then that they will not be able to go to college, so many just bide their time until they are old enough to quit or graduate.

The lucky/smart/clever/determined ones will find a way to continue their education, but most will not. Those who do not, will probably only "learn" things from that point on, that are never really tested/challenged/critiqued. They will pick up odd bits here and there...from movies, friends, family, FoxNews, CNN, MSNBC, ESPN, etc.

Even the ones who do make it to college are no longer free to wander through those years, trying out classes until something "clicks" for them. The racking up of huge debt pretty much means that they will pay dearly later, for not being absolutely sure about "what they want to be when they grow up".

Many waste semesters having to do remedial classes because high school did not prepare them, and for many the college they may be at could be one of the many that have relaxed their curriculum to accommodate the ones who are not ready, so they will end up wasting time taking high school level classes, and may run out of money before they ever get to challenging classes...and then many drop out.

People have always loved stories, myths, tall-tales, but we used to know they were fiction, and were not to be taken literally.

What we now call "reality" is anything but.

[indepat]

63. Could it be, in reality, that Mark is being generous, that Mark is understating the impact of the

virulent cancer that has metastasized throughout America by a flood of right-wing messaging that continuously plays in the television and other media?

[HiPointDem]

67. or maybe he's just a tattooed asshole with a big mouth.

[1-Old-Man]

68. They do not believe things they were not told, they have been fooled, and so they are fools

but I do not say they are incapable of believing things that are true just as easily as those things that are demonstrably untrue. I do have to say thought that it is a lot easier to inform someone of something that is true that they were unaware of before but dam near impossible to change a person's view of something they already believe to be true.

[HiPointDem]

71. The obviously brilliant and non-lost writer of the piece:

[ZombieHorde]

78. Is your post suggesting we should judge people based on appearance? nt

[Union Scribe]

84. Why not? It's no less inane than

judging people's intelligence by random things an author cherry picks.

[ZombieHorde]

85. OK, you got me there. nt

[HiPointDem]

86. oh no, clearly we should judge them on the results of surveys reported third-hand. much better,

i think.

'they're all so stoooooooopid'

[Union Scribe]

82. Please tell me that was taken 25 years ago.

[reformist2]

72. So bashing "the 47%" is bad, but bashing "the 37%" is funny? Sorry, but no.

This obsession with dividing everyone into us vs them has to stop.

[SalviaBlue]

74. Pointing out the FACT that 37% ignore FACTS

is bashing?

[ZombieHorde]

79. Which facts are being ignored?

What facts are there about angels? I don't believe in angels, but I also don't believe there are any facts about them.

[ZombieHorde]

76. "Thirty-six percent believe in UFOs."

Pet Peeve: equating UFOs with anything other than objects that have not been identified by the observer. I know the term usually means "alien space craft," and I wish we would call it that. I don't believe in alien space crafts here on Earth, but of course not every flying object has been identified by each observer. If I was asked if I believed in UFOs, I would be tempted to answer, "Yes, of course I do."

[Amonester]

81. Well, I do believe in UFOs because I saw some UFOs.

Two (together) in April 1974 (first time).

One in August 2005, and the last one in July 2011.

Not saying they were alien space crafts, but I doubt they weren't...

[Union Scribe]

83. One of our nation's great hobbies

is whining about how other people are less intelligent than we are. Happily, most grow out of that before graduating high school. Then, there's Morford. Very emo. Right now he's probably flipping his hair and calling someone a conformist.

[HiPointDem]

87. +1

[Festivito]

88. How do we treat our poor, is the real question.

Whether poor of mind or poor of power or poor of wealth.

Yes, half the population has an IQ under 100.
37 percent are as dumb as another 37 percent are smart to beyond brilliant.

So what?

Do the blessed (yes, that's the word) step on the poor for their pleasure?
Or, do the blessed reach out and help all enjoy the life we are all given?