States Ranked Smartest To Dumbest

[Snowguy716]

I think political trends in states follow a different trend than education. Minnesota's voting history has largely been this: Republican from 1858-1930, Democrat 1930-present. It was solidified as a Democratic stronghold in 1945. In fact, the politicians that Minnesota supported in the 50s and 60s is what drove the south away from the party. (Eugene McCarthy, Hubert Humphrey, and Walter Mondale)...

And it should also be pointed out that no educational level is strongly one way or the other. People with college degrees tend to go for Bush, but likely went for Clinton as well.

It should be known that people involved in business and have business related degrees likely vote republican while those with a history degree probably vote democrat every time.

Post graduates tend to vote democrat for one big reason: If I was standing there with a PhD in Biology.. I'd probably vote for anyone but Bush. Just an observation.

[Snowguy716]

Arkansawyer...

My state has also done some interesting things in the past in regards to elections. We had 2 senators and a governor from the "Farmer Labor" party in the 1930s. The party was largely socialist and represented unions and price controls for farm produce.

In 1945, Hubert Humphrey made a speech as mayoral candidate for Minneapolis declaring that the democratic party needed a common vision and needed to support equal rights for all races and women. He merged Minnesota's democratic party with the farmer labor party (to this day it is known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party).

When Humphrey ran for President in 1968, the south didn't warm up to him kindly. Minnesotans saw this as an "equal north"/"segregated south" move... and it was seen as the main reason that Nixon won. (A split democratic party.) Of course this can be debated.. but the south certainly was politically undefined in 1968 and through the 1970s.

We were the only state to vote for Mondale in 1984 (Of course we did.. he's from this state.) He was slaughtered by a strong Reagan presidency. Had the elections been in 1982.. Mondale likely would've won.

We gave a high number of votes to Ross Perot. We elected a former wrestler and actor as governor in 1998. Jesse Ventura was about as liberitarian as you get... we didn't know that ahead of time. We also elected Paul Wellstone 2 times to the senate. Paul was seen as the most liberal member of the senate at the time.

We tend to have an "F you" card that we like to pull at election time. In the early '90s we ousted the Republican party's chosen candidate for Governor and elected Arne Carlson, an "Independent Republican"... actually the official "Republican party" in Minnesota, but changed to IR in 1975 to distance Minnesota Republicans from the national party after the Watergate scandal (changed back in 1995). We also gave 20% of the vote to the indepedent candidate for governor in 2002.. leaving the winner (Republican Tim Pawlenty) with only 40% of the vote. His approval rating is fairly low since the last legislative session.

Oh well, I'm rambling.. but we like to stir up some trouble too.. despite our "stoic" Scandinavian and German roots.

[dpbaker]

Post graduates tend to vote democrat for one big reason: If I was standing there with a PhD in Biology.. I'd probably vote for anyone but Bush. Just an observation.

Interesting you should say that....I work in a Biology department, and I'd say the majority of our faculty by listening to them talk, voted for Kerry. A few of the older folks are conservative and likely went for Bush. Definitely a liberal and/or democratic party group for the most part. But what is it about a PhD in Biology that would make them do so in your opinion?

[jaxpalmer]

that list is suspect.

[Urban_Legend]

Florida is at #36? Wow. Not that 36 is anything special, but I was expecting us to be at 47 or something, lol.

It's quite interesting to look for patterns and trends in these results.

[Jerry2]

Look @ the top 10 and the bottom 10 and tell me there's no coorelation. This has to do w/ IQ averages for all people and not just public school students. Hmmm!

http://sq.4mg.com/IQpolitics.htm

[monsoon]

To be fair, Vermont has 635,000 people in the entire state (2005 estimate). This isn't even the population of most mid-sized cities in the USA.

How do you compare a group of 635,000 people in a mostly rural state to a state like Florida, Texas or California that has between 18,000,000 & 34,000,000 people? You could drop Vermont into one of these places and it wouldn't even make a good sized suburb.

[Charleston native]

To be fair, Vermont has 635,000 people in the entire state (2005 estimate). This isn't even the population of most mid-sized cities in the USA.

How do you compare a group of 635,000 people in a mostly rural state to a state like Florida, Texas or California that has between 18,000,000 & 34,000,000 people? You could drop Vermont into one of these places and it wouldn't even make a good sized suburb.

Holy cow, metro, I agree with you on this one! Who would have thought that? What you said is exactly true...the shear population difference of both states negates the significance of the statistic.

[monsoon]

Who would have thought that?

Haha, well I did. And I was educated in the Carolinas too.

[Charleston native]

Haha, well I did. And I was educated in the Carolinas too.

Progress...I like it.

[Ruso]

Greetings comrades,

First of all I have to agree with monsoon, with his statement that before, people had to know more about computers, and programmming than now. Nevertheless, I think it is important to clear that inspite that, the general knowledge of how to make a computer work has increased. To reestate, the number of people who can manage a computer (with windows or not) has increased dramatically. Maybe the number of engineers has decreased, but the cultural dominance of computer knowledge has, in my opinion, been drastically raised.

This is a delicate subject too, but I think that it is safe to suggest that illegal immigration plays a significant role here as well. 3 of the last 5 states listed share a border with Mexico, 2 of which have declared "states of emergency" due to illegal immigration. It is often argued here in California that there is a trend for illegals as well as legals, mostly from Mexico, to not worry so much about assimilating into U.S. culture and language. There seems to be a greater expectation that these children be educated in Spanish only or bilingual classrooms. These poor folks are simply being set up for a fall and I'd find it hard to believe that this wasn't having a significant effect on this state's educational status.

I'd like to see some stats of the U.S. compared to the rest of the world......

I agree, many people from Mexico are not necessarily interested in learning english, yet, their children, most of the time, do. It is a natural phenomenon, they learn a language faster.

Lol, as a guy living and educated in Ecuador, I think I might have something to say here. It is esential to differentiate between the " type" of mexicans, latinamericans, or whatever, you are referring to. When I lived in Kentucky, I was absolutely amazed and horrified by the ignorance, and stupidity(sorry, I find n other words), that could be found among my native english speaking partners.

Their grammar was awful, ther writing structures even worst. ( I am american, but I have been raised with Spanish as my first language, I learned english much later) many of our english tests consisted of finding certain words that started with the letter s in the book we just read....IN 9TH GRADE!!!!

There was a deffiency not only in critical thinking and language, also in general culture. Many of them seriously believed that the REnnaissance occured in the States, that Rome was THE CAPITAL OF LATIN AMERICA, they justified the war in Iraq because muslims(note=muslims as representatives of Irak) according to them, were communist cannibals. I made fun by telling them that in Ecuador we lived in purple tress, with elephants as our pets...and they bought it!!!!

Of course, I study in a private, international school in Ecuador. People in public schools here are, MOST OF THE TIME, as mentally passive as the ones I met in the USA.

Also, there is a difference between knowledge and critical thinking. Has that been taken into consideration for the stats given before? Fr example, here in Ecuador, and in many places in Europe, they care a lot about providing facts, giving many data to memorize. Even in our public schools, I bet some of the students here know much more FACTS than students in ameican public schools. However, in most places in the States, they care much more about Critical thinking, about providing the tools for people to think, instead of memorize. Personally, I believe much more in that system, for I have been educated like that in my school.

[Ruso]

Interesting you should say that....I work in a Biology department, and I'd say the majority of our faculty by listening to them talk, voted for Kerry. A few of the older folks are conservative and likely went for Bush. Definitely a liberal and/or democratic party group for the most part. But what is it about a PhD in Biology that would make them do so in your opinion?

Maybe they are more concerned about ecology....Just a guess....

[CtownMikey]

Why don't we compare our Country's IQ's with Japan or somewhere else?

[dpbaker]

I agree, many people from Mexico are not necessarily interested in learning english, yet, their children, most of the time, do. It is a natural phenomenon, they learn a language faster.

Lol, as a guy living and educated in Ecuador, I think I might have something to say here. It is esential to differentiate between the " type" of mexicans, latinamericans, or whatever, you are referring to. When I lived in Kentucky, I was absolutely amazed and horrified by the ignorance, and stupidity(sorry, I find n other words), that could be found among my native english speaking partners.

Their grammar was awful, ther writing structures even worst. ( I am american, but I have been raised with Spanish as my first language, I learned english much later) many of our english tests consisted of finding certain words that started with the letter s in the book we just read....IN 9TH GRADE!!!!

There was a deffiency not only in critical thinking and language, also in general culture. Many of them seriously believed that the REnnaissance occured in the States, that Rome was THE CAPITAL OF LATIN AMERICA, they justified the war in Iraq because muslims(note=muslims as representatives of Irak) according to them, were communist cannibals. I made fun by telling them that in Ecuador we lived in purple tress, with elephants as our pets...and they bought it!!!!

Of course, I study in a private, international school in Ecuador. People in public schools here are, MOST OF THE TIME, as mentally passive as the ones I met in the USA.

Also, there is a difference between knowledge and critical thinking. Has that been taken into consideration for the stats given before? Fr example, here in Ecuador, and in many places in Europe, they care a lot about providing facts, giving many data to memorize. Even in our public schools, I bet some of the students here know much more FACTS than students in ameican public schools. However, in most places in the States, they care much more about Critical thinking, about providing the tools for people to think, instead of memorize. Personally, I believe much more in that system, for I have been educated like that in my school.

The type of people that I was primarily referring to is immigrants from Latin America, not Latin Americans (and by that I mean Americans of Latin descent, citizens, etc.). I definitely hear you on the unbelievable things that many native-born Americans, English-as-a-first-language, say, believe, or simply do not know!! It's probably no better here on the West Coast! I see it first hand at he university where I work; students with horrible grammar and spelling. You know what's even worse than that? Many of the faculty allow them to get away with it!!! They literally think that spelling and grammar isn't terribly critical outside of perhaps the English dept.!! I'm not kidding. A good command of the English language is more valuable than any technique, skill, or knowledge they will get out of an education in the sciences.

You also talk about fact vs. critical thinking, and I tend to agree with you, but there are at least some "facts" that people should know, especially when it comes to things historical. It might not be terribly important that one does not know the first element on the period table, but when so many students here don't know why December 7th is significant or who the current U.S. vice president is, well, that's a sorry state of affairs!!!

Like I mentioned way up there somewhere, at least in California, there seems to be far more concern about being politically correct and not offending, bending over backwards to accomodate and make kids feel good about themselves than there is with teaching academic subjects.

[Ruso]

You also talk about fact vs. critical thinking, and I tend to agree with you, but there are at least some "facts" that people should know, especially when it comes to things historical. It might not be terribly important that one does not know the first element on the period table, but when so many students here don't know why December 7th is significant or who the current U.S. vice president is, well, that's a sorry state of affairs!!!

Like I mentioned way up there somewhere, at least in California, there seems to be far more concern about being politically correct and not offending, bending over backwards to accomodate and make kids feel good about themselves than there is with teaching academic subjects.

I agree with you. There are certain historical characters and events that should be known. As I said before, I was really amazed when they assured that the Renaissance and Da Vinci were american.(I am not joking, they really said that). Nvertheless, as you agreed, there has to be a balance between critical thinking and factual thinking(is that a concept?). What we need to pursue is to be able to have enough facts to do the critical thinking, otherwise, what do we think about?. And viceversa, we dont need to memorize as much as before dates and events, which can be easily be found in any source. As humans, we are supposed to process and use them, otherwise, the are worthless.

I also agree on what you said about language. Language is for me, together with math, the most important tool of the human inteligence. It is our only way to organize and "transalte" our thoughts(which are abstract) into concrete ideas. If that fails, then everything else will be hampered by that.

Why don't we compare our Country's IQ's with Japan or somewhere else?

The IQ is also currently a very controversial and questioned method of measurement. There are so many intelligences in our mind(this is proven), that it is very hard to measure it as a whole. If you refer to academic succes, grade-wise, it could be interesting to compare results.

[MR-2]

Actually, johnny, it is a fact that conservative Republicans are the most highly educated political group in the country.

Read the third paragraph in this study by the Pew Research Center.

However, this is a much more interesting read.

This is funny, because according to that Pew Survey, the same percentage of democrats and republicans have a college education, but more of those democrats have post-graduate education on top of that.

Furthermore, it says liberals are the most educated voting block, and the most well-paid (tied with enterprisers). Interesting.

Full study:

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=947

wealth:

http://people-press.org/reports/images/242-8.gif

college graduation rates:

http://people-press.org/reports/images/242-9.gif

[Snowguy716]

If I had a PhD in Biology and much of modern biology is based on a theory with lots of supporting evidence that the President would just assumed be tossed out in trade for "The world was created in 6 days. Men came from dust, and women from the man's rib" story.. I'd probably vote for the other guy. That's just my hunch.

On the subject of IQ... While the accuracy of the IQ may not always be right, it is worth noting. A person with an IQ of 165 is smarter than a person with an IQ of 75... there's no doubting that. Now, calling the people of South Carolina republican because they're stupid and have an IQ 10 lower than the highest state BASED ON ACT AND SAT scores shows one thing: People from the south are not stupid. Their education systems have failed them. But they're in a catch 22.. because you don't get a better education through tax cuts.

Oh well. My uncle and aunt live in Louisiana. They were both educated in Nebraska. Both have high paying jobs and do quite well. Their children (my cousins) are products of the Louisiana public school system. My cousin is working at Burger King, her husband at Wal-Mart.. they live in a trailer house with 4 kids. Wanna talk about a missed opportunity?

But, I will say this: My aunt and uncle are strong republicans (my aunt is a lawyer for ExxonMobil.. like my political archenemy. ... but she's family, I have to love her).