On head girls, genius boys, and the mRNAs

Why consensus can be so dangerous for science - and for the modern societies that depend on it

(Two for one special today since I haven’t written since last week.)

My virtual German buddy Eugyppius has a fascinating Stack today on a paper showing smart people were more likely to take the mRNA jabs.

The study drew on 750,000 Swedish men who were tested for their intelligence as part of their mandatory military service. The findings are clear: “The smarter participants had higher uptake and they got vaccinated more quickly.”

But the study has one fascinating hole. It shows smart people were more likely to take the jab - but not that the smartest people were. As Eugyppius notes, the top group represented

The equivalent of an above-average university student – the kinds of people who work as doctors and lawyers. We hardly needed a study to tell us that the most enthusiastic vaccinees are to be found precisely in this population.

Yep.

—

What the study really explains, Eugyppius argues, is why near-compulsory mRNA jabs became national policy in wealthy democracies. In those countries, this smart-not-smartest group dominates politics and most businesses (if not startups).

He draws on a 1985 paper called “Intelligence and personal influence in groups” to argue that the most intelligent people cannot argue down persuasively and so have limited influence.

Instead, people who are somewhat smarter than average, with an IQ of about 120 (I’d go slightly higher, to 125-130), dominate debate. They can understand - if not formulate - somewhat complicated ideas and still argue them in ways less intelligent people can follow. The smart-not-brilliant range also contains enough people to form powerful and reinforcing social networks. The very top definitionally does not.

As Eugyppius writes:

Ours is therefore an IQ 120 midwit society; it could not be any other way… since our midwit rulers are cognitively better endowed than probably 90% of the whole population, it’s easy for them to overlook the rare 10% of people who are smarter than they are. Accordingly, they throw all of their opponents into the same basket of intellectual deplorables…

The ideas which dominate our world are… those ideas which appeal to people whose intelligence is above average if less-than-phenomenal, and whose other personality traits optimise their institutional influence. They have the brains of upper middle-class professionals, and they’re also much more extroverted, conscientious and conformist than the broader population. [emphasis added]

I would add that though the paper was written in 1985, the increasing feminization of the media, academia, and medicine has likely accelerated this trend. I am surprised Eugyppius did not raise this issue, given his past comments about “head girls.” Maybe E is not in the mood to cause trouble today; I apparently am.

(Want to read the trouble I’m in the mood to cause? Subscribe to find out. You won’t regret it, though I might…!)