State IQs:

A couple of people have pointed me to the supposed list of IQs by state, which purportedly shows that nearly all the blue states have higher than average IQs, and most of the red states have lower. As one might have gathered, that’s apparently a hoax, according to the Economist, which I believe was the first publication to have published this.

Thanks to this column by Steve Sailer for pointing me to the Economist retraction; the column also talks more broadly about likely estimates of Bush’s and Kerry’s IQs, and the mixed sentiments that people tend to have about such measures of intelligence. I can’t speak with confidence about the accuracy of these latter points, but the article seems quite interesting.