A Reason Why Intellectuals Lean Left

According to a recent study:

A five-year study run by Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction proves what many in the scientific community have always suspected: having children significantly lowers the IQ of both male and female parents.

Researchers at the Kinsey Institute began their study in 1999 by giving 200 married couples who were planning on starting families within the next four years Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests. By 2003, all but 27 of these couples had conceived.

Another IQ test was given to each set of parents successful in conceiving and birthing a baby six months after their child was born. These results were compared to the previous intelligence tests.

In every single one of the 173 cases, both parents scored at least twelve points lower on the second IQ test, with the majority of parents losing twenty or more IQ points.

This looks like it might be an involved joke, but it has supporting evidence from James Lileks:

… My wife was late, so she missed supper. Gnat and I were outside playing baseball when she got home.

Relieved of duty, I called the dog to my side and headed off for the nightly walk, thinking: what a wonderful life. How lucky I am. And if she’d been ten more minutes late I would have put my head through a brick wall.

It’s just different, that’s all. Anyone who’s home all day with a kid knows what I mean. Whatever train of thought you have is derailed every 45 seconds. That’s just how it goes. I’m lucky; when my wife comes home she takes over completely, and Gnat is in Mom-heaven. If my wife came home and plopped on the sofa, watched soaps or headed off to play golf, I think I would expel streams of hot liquid brain matter out of my ears. …

Aha! This finally explains why intellectuals lean left. They have fewer children and parenthood is one the strongest reasons people become more conservative.

That might mean there are former Malthusians who retained enough brain cells to realize their earlier opinions were utter nonsense. It also explains why teachers are one of the furthest left groups around. They have extra exposure to children (which removes critical thinking) but don't have an actual stake in them (which removes an incentive to be conservative).

There is the alternative theory that the researcher's calendars are five months off.