Comments on: People of class drink alcohol

By: Monday Links from the Bench Vol. XIX

Monday Links from the Bench Vol. XIX — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:20:58 +0000

[...] [...]

By: Smart People Drink More Alcohol « The famous blog Cocktail

Smart People Drink More Alcohol « The famous blog Cocktail — Mon, 10 May 2010 07:20:57 +0000

[...] Razib Khan of Discover Magazine, used data from the General Social Survey (a big sampling of Americans on various social questions that’s been conducted since 1972) to make all sorts of interesting graphs looking at the percentage of people who drink by year, race, sex, region, a belief in god, religion, political views, education level and how they scored on a vocabulary test. [...]

By: links for 2010-05-09 « The Adventures of Geekgirl

links for 2010-05-09 « The Adventures of Geekgirl — Mon, 10 May 2010 02:02:01 +0000

[...] People of class drink alcohol | Gene Expression | Discover Magazine (tags: class alcohol drinking statistics demographics geography education vocabulary correlation usa) [...]

By: Clever People Drink More Alcohol | Defamer Australia

Clever People Drink More Alcohol | Defamer Australia — Fri, 07 May 2010 20:52:54 +0000

By: Bookninja » Blog Archive » News roundup

Bookninja » Blog Archive » News roundup — Fri, 07 May 2010 12:08:32 +0000

[...] a pro for my love of the drank: it makes your vocabularly better… or a good vocabulary makes you drink… one of the [...]

By: Online Book Store and News - In the News: Alcohol Advantage, Respect Jodi Picoult

Fri, 07 May 2010 03:57:00 +0000

[...] The more you drink…the more words you know? [...]

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 06 May 2010 07:28:39 +0000

“if you’re circle of acquaintances tends not to”
So, what was your Wordsum score?

Kait makes a good point. If I were asked, I’d say yes I drink. In truth I consume about one glass of wine a month.

By: Kait

Kait — Wed, 05 May 2010 20:09:47 +0000

How is it that no one has brought up the obvious fallacy that these trends show who drinks “more”. The data is the percentage of people who answered “yes” when asked if they drink alcohol. This says nothing about whether these folks drink more or less. You could have one drink a year and still answer yes to that question.

This leaves very few reasonable conclusions. One, there is a strong correlation between people of religious conviction, especially protestants in the south east, and ABSTAINING. One could also say there is a strong correlation between those who don’t drink and those who identify themselves as “knowing” God exists. NOTE, this does not suggest a causal connection. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should probably not comment about statistics. Two, there is a strong correlation between a person’s verbal score and whether the person drinks. Again, this is NOT saying that those who score higher are more likely to drink MORE it’s saying that those that score higher are more likely to drink, i.e. less likely to ABSTAIN. See @John Emerson’s comments for some interesting theories, but these are theories. Also see @dave chamberlin’s comments for some reasons why those with bad childhoods may be more likely to abstain and find God.

Looking at the data, those who recognized more words were more likely to be MODERATE drinkers. Those who confessed to 20+drinks in a sitting were more likely to get the word wrong.

By: Smart people drink < /blog {words}

Smart people drink < /blog {words} — Wed, 05 May 2010 15:58:41 +0000

[...] People of class drink alcohol | Gene Expression | Discover Magazine: “Blogs / Gene Expression [...]

By: Academic Teetotaler

Academic Teetotaler — Wed, 05 May 2010 15:51:45 +0000

Don’t get too caught up with this study.

I’m a teetotaler from a Protestant family in the south-central US.

I scored in the 90th percentile for the GMAT (standardized graduate exam for business)
I have a 3.9 GPA in my accredited undergraduate program for accounting.
I have a 3.9 GPA in my accredited and ranked graduate MBA program.
I passed the CPA exam.
I read several dozen books a year from a variety of genres.
I received criticism for setting the bar higher than my drinking classmates can reach.

According to this study, I am an outlier. I think I know what makes the difference:

I spent the time reading and writing that most people spend partying or at bars.
I spent the money improving my health that most people spend buying alcohol.
I avoided social molding where most stress over fairweather friends.

I don’t know what the other teetotalers are doing… if they’re caught up with money or health issues that prevent them from drinking or just plain stupid, but I have found the lifestyle to be a strong competitive advantage in the academic world.

By: jesuguru

jesuguru — Wed, 05 May 2010 13:49:43 +0000

It makes little sense to question the honesty of religious people in an *anonymous* survey who say they don’t drink (presumably) because of perceived sinfulness, as most religious people in the West have equally strong religious qualms about lying. Such doubt seems to speak more to the apparent bias of the skeptic than to the likely deceitfulness of specific survey participants.

Also, re: intelligence correlation, I’d like to see a retake of wordsum for drinkers in later years juxtaposed with earlier years, considering increasing evidence that even moderate alcohol consumption shrinks the brain.

By: ginger

ginger — Wed, 05 May 2010 11:06:01 +0000

Anonnie Muss @82 – you probably couldn’t rely very well on studies based on observers who tested their subjects and then stalked them through the local bars and bottle shops to find out how much they *really* drink. Reported alcohol consumption is commonly accepted to provide underestimates, but what matters is whether the underestimate is consistent across groups. With religions, this is potentially a problem – people whose religion condemns drinking alcohol might be more likely to underreport than people whose religion welcomes same. Me, I can’t come up with a reason that people who score high on WORDSUM would underestimate their consumption less than people who score low. If the degree of inaccuracy is the same in both groups, then the difference will look about the same.

Alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking are commonly measured by self-report. Occasionally reported cigarette data are validated using salivary cotinine samples, but most of the time epidemiologists throw up their hands and acknowledge that underestimation goes with the territory. We’re not so much “inordinately trusting, naive and unworldly” as limited by the realities of observational data.

By: Mark Whybird

Mark Whybird — Wed, 05 May 2010 06:24:27 +0000

Clearly we need to stop educationg our children! The evidence shows it makse them drinkers!

http://blog.whybird.net/post/572868189/omg-dont-teach-your-kids-to-read-it-will-drive

By: Power: Usage and Misusage « The New Print

Power: Usage and Misusage « The New Print — Wed, 05 May 2010 03:08:43 +0000

[...] On the topic of proper usage and the vernacular, it looks like one’s lexicological skills are strongly correlative with one’s probability of partaking in potent po…. [...]

By: Anonnie Muss

Anonnie Muss — Wed, 05 May 2010 02:16:42 +0000

Maybe I’m missing something here, but is this data regarding who drinks self-reported or did someone actually follow around and closely observe thousands and thousands of people of various religions, living in various regions? If it’s the former I can’t imagine why anyone would consider it reliable. I am willing to believe that people who identify themselves as conservative or extremely conservative and/or religious or very religious would feel it is important to *say* that they don’t drink — but as to whether they actually do or don’t, I don’t see how their word could be regarded as being statistically meaningful. Particularly in the context of an anonymous survey, and particularly when those responding to it can be certain that no one is ever going to be able to verify their self-reported answer. It seems inordinately trusting, naive and unworldly to treat such data as meaningful.