Intelligent people drink more alcohol, studies show

Chuck Stone

I'm very receptive to the idea but it's probably a load of bollocks.

Trying to connect two random and subjective variables like IQ and alcohol consumption is questionable science.

*cracks open can*

Shryke

kowloon wrote: »

Is this just another case of someone doing a survey and jumping to conclusions, making no effort to understand their findings?

Reminds me of the whole 'people who drink moderately are healthier and live longer' BS. As it turns out, many people who drink nothing at all abstain because they're in bad health, some of them even being recovering alcoholics. They skew the result by dying earlier. But it gets into the papers on a slow day and becomes accepted as fact.

Heavy drinkers who become moderate ones live longer and are healthier than heavy drinkers who then abstain. People who are definitive moderate drinkers come out well against all other groups. How well they come out may be over all skewed but that's just something more to look at, it doesn't mean you chuck everything.
Stats will vary, if you don't like looking at them then don't look. No one's claiming absolute truths, only what the evidence points toward.

nice1franko

"Of the demonstrably wise there are but two: those who commit suicide, & those who keep their reasoning faculties atrophied with drink."
- Mark Twain

B.A._Baracus

UCDVet wrote: »

There is a well known relationship between intelligence and religious faith. The more intelligent someone is the less likely they are to self-identify as religious.

A quick Google will turn up studies that show it.

I also know some religions explicitly say getting drunk is a bad thing, or even that alcohol consumption is bad. So I wondered if it could explain the differences in drinking and intelligence.

Well first off I think its mental to say athiests are more intelligent than people of faith. Thats like saying, for random example, Mexicans as a whole are less intelligent than the rest of the world. Its a very bold statement to make about millions of people. Oh and for "googling studies" - anyone can find a 'study' for anything. Its the internet man. Right now you can search up for studies on how homosexuality is genetic and other studies that state how its not :pac:


But lets look at this threads "study" - so the more you drink the more smarter you are. But another will say the more you drink the more brain cells get killed off. Yet another will say about how drinking more will cause health problems (i'm leaning towards this one more) .. but studies studies studies :pac: its all crap man. They can't all be right.

dttq

some random drunk wrote: »

more here: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-buzz/smarter-people-drink-alcohol-more-often-studies-195846264.html

Well I've always known we are a nation of geniuses, what do ye folks make of this?

Is there the slightest of possibilities that it just makes a lot of people think their smarter? I've lost count of the amount of fellas who deem themselves to be an authority and expert on everything from politics to philosophy after a few pints. I can easily imagine the same types partaking in surveys such as this, "yeah I drink a fair bit now mind you, and I'm a feckin expert on x, y and z".

The Snipe

Its cause smarter people have better jobs and can afford more alcohol then dumber people.

dttq

The Snipe wrote: »

Its cause smarter people have better jobs and can afford more alcohol then dumber people.

But what about a smart person in a poorly paid job and an idiot in a highly paid job (nothing out of the extraordinary when you look around), this survey would still seem to insinuate that the former drinks more than the latter based on a measure of intelligence, regardless of income levels.

Smidge

UCDVet wrote: »

Cats can be dangerous and in extreme cases they *do* eat babies; but only very cute ones.

Your baby should be fine

Meeoooowww :pac:

B.A._Baracus

The Snipe wrote: »

Its cause smarter people have better jobs and can afford more alcohol then dumber people.

1 euro a can in most off-licenses. Cheap wine and spirits in Lidl, Aldi and Tesco. Even a person on the social welfare can be an alcoholic these days.

Gummy Panda

I must be stupid then

darahiggins

TeddyTedson wrote: »

Sweeping generalisations as such never warrant much merit.
However I understand that deep thinkers would want to escape their own mind from time to time. We all have our vices. The pacman is a big drinker for example, but then so too is Twink...

It does of course destroy brain cells too

A common misconception, it actually doesnt destroy brain cells. If it did i'm pretty sure i would not have been able to find my way on to the interweb to see this thread

http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/nervous-system/10-brain-myths9.htm

limklad

We must have the smartest politicians in the world. The Dáil Bar is regularly packed, and they were able to spend 300K euro of our Taxes and pay no TAX on those drinks in 2009 in the Dáil Bar.

http://www.herald.ie/news/politicians-spend-over-300k-at-cheap-leinster-house-bar-2843054.html

By Kevin Doyle

Tuesday August 09 2011

THOUSANDS of pubs may have gone out of business in the past two years, but at the country's most famous hostelry it's still boomtime.
New figures show profits at the Dail bar are holding steady.
Pints, whiskeys and minerals worth €302,865 were sunk in 2009 -- the most recent figures available from the Houses of the Oireachtas.
While sales were down slightly on the previous year, profits were holding steady. The bar made a gross profit of €157,649 or 52pc.
This was supplemented with a strong performance by the Oireachtas restaurant which had more than €1m in sales for the second year in a row.
A price list for the restaurant shows that roast Irish beef with Yorkshire pudding costs just €7.65, while a T-bone steak, served with mushrooms, onions and chipped potatoes is €19.95. Honey roasted duck or roast saddle of lamb are €12.60.
In the bar a pint of Guinness is €4, lager €4.40, bottled cider €5 and long neck bottles €4.40.
Gin, rum or vodka is €3.80 for a measure.
A spokesman for the Houses of the Oireachtas said: "There are no direct subsidies for food or drink sold in the Houses of the Oireachtas restaurants or bar and any profits are returned to the central fund."
But not all of the profits did go directly back to help the cash strapped Exchequer.
Accounts obtained by the Herald show that staff enjoyed more than €46,000 worth of meals, courtesy of the taxpayer.
Another €4,803 was spent on flowers to decorate tables, up from a spend of €3,786 in 2008.
Other sundry expenses, including uniforms and newspapers came to €4,895. The restaurant opens on sitting days from 11am until 9.30pm and employs 35 staff.
The cheap booze and steaks are enjoyed by politicians who earn upwards of €90,000 a year, as well as visitors who take tours of Leinster House.
The bar operates with five staff members whose wages are funded by the taxpayer.
On days when the Dail is not sitting, it opens from 10.30am to 7pm. However, on Tuesday and Wednesday, when the majority of TDs are around Leinster House, closing time is 11.30pm.
A special exemption means that if the Dail or Seanad sits later than 11.30pm, a "one hour rule" applies, whereby the bar can remain open for up to an hour after the sitting ends.
The Herald also recently revealed how in the first six weeks of the new Dail TDs and senators ran up bar and restaurant bills of more than €60,000.
TDs who lost their seats at the last election also left behind a substantial bar tab which is being chased by the Oireachtas.

From reports, It is often full during the week then the Dail is in session.

bluecode

Well I have an IQ of 152, so that explains everything.

Midlife Crashes

UCDVet wrote: »

There is a well known relationship between intelligence and religious faith. The more intelligent someone is the less likely they are to self-identify as religious.

A quick Google will turn up studies that show it.

I also know some religions explicitly say getting drunk is a bad thing, or even that alcohol consumption is bad. So I wondered if it could explain the differences in drinking and intelligence.

IQ doesn't measure anything except well...IQ. Some of the most brilliant minds in human history have walked among the faithful in shared understanding.

The most famous test on intelligence and religion came from Richard Lynn, an enthusiast for scientific racism. "It's not just believers who are more stupid, in his world: it's black people and women, too." He believes that poverty, too, can be explained by stupidity, and stupidity in its turn by race.

Lynn is notoriously anti-theist and his test is flawed. When comparing places like the Czech Republic and Slovakia, two places with similar IQs, it shows two completely different belief levels, Czech Republic @ 60% and Slovakia @ 9%.All he did was prove that belief is cultural.

kowloon

Shryke wrote: »

Heavy drinkers who become moderate ones live longer and are healthier than heavy drinkers who then abstain. People who are definitive moderate drinkers come out well against all other groups. How well they come out may be over all skewed but that's just something more to look at, it doesn't mean you chuck everything.
Stats will vary, if you don't like looking at them then don't look. No one's claiming absolute truths, only what the evidence points toward.

I never said throw out everything, so relax. I also never said anything about not liking stats. If it was common practice to not look at the stats unless easy conclusions could be drawn from them without any educated analysis then the BS peddlers would be even more prevalent. Correlation and causation. That was what I was getting at.

Dumping out stats without any analysis plays into the hands of the kinds of people who like to write articles about how everything causes cancer.

Meh, could be true..

Anyways, I do agree that stupid people tend to be happier. My old housemate was dumb as a post and her happiness came down to x factor and food. She was braindead otherwise and I dont think she'd have had a single thought all day outside of what she was going to do next. She was happy though.
Not saying I'm intelligent but I had definitely had more going on upstairs than her.

JupiterKid

I must be a complete genius then so!

CruelCoin

Smarter people tend to earn more, can thus afford more booze.

3ndahalfof6

is that a brand name MORE

Pottler

Somthing leads me to believe that I need a drink. Hot whisky sounds nice. I need to drown out the sober but dull voices shouting "smarter people earn more so can afford more drink". There's a few slow brain cells down near my left ear that need zapping, for the sake of the herd.