I have a feeling I'm gonna need a catcher's mitt for all the monkey shit about to be flung by the WSO readers who don't enjoy the occasional toddy quite as much as I do. Don't shoot the messenger, guys, but it appears alcohol consumption - often and in vast quantities - is a mark of higher intelligence.
Two different long-term studies, one American and the other British, arrived at the same conclusion. Children were given IQ tests before age 16, ranked into groups ranging from "Very Bright" to "Very Dull", and then tracked over the next four decades to poll for various social factors. The one surprising trait that stood out was the fact that the very bright subjects drank more, and more often, than the dullards. As much as 80% more, depending on the study.
Even funnier than the results of the study are some of the reasons given to explain the phenomenon.
- Evolution - Since humans have only been fermenting alcohol on purpose for the last 10,000 or so years, drinking is a relatively new activity for our species. The most intelligent members of our species are typically the early adopters of new technology, therefore non-drinkers are necessarily less evolved.
- Pressure - Since highly intelligent people are more likely to find themselves in positions of authority and responsibility, the pressure from work can drive them to drink. This is especially prevalent in women in their 30's and women in male-dominated fields such as investment banking, according to psychologists. One other fun factoid from this particular study:
Those who admitted to drinking most days had the highest mental ability scores, while those who claimed never to have alcohol had the lowest.
- The Intelligent Drink So They Can Tolerate Everyone Else - This one gets my vote. I can't tell you how many times I've been forced to endure a moron for more than five minutes and couldn't wait to wash all their stupid out of my head with rum (or whatever liquor was handy). I'd be willing to bet that we've survived this long as a species just because booze has managed to keep genocidal maniacs from eliminating stupid forever.
See that? You don't just think you're smarter when you drink. Turns out you might actually be a genius.
By the way, the Flesch Reading Ease Score for this post rated it "difficult". My apologies to those of you who don't drink.
Ha! Thanks for this one. I've got an unusally high number of friends that don't drink or drink very little....and I will be emailing this to them now.
I think one of the major explainations is that the christian far-right are more likely to abstain or limit alcohol. So drinking more alcohol doesn't mean you're smarter- it just means you're not likely to be super-religious - which means you're smarter. :)
How about smarter people just being in better positions with more pay and being better able to afford it more often. This is one of those correlation vs causation things no?
The last sentence on your first link: Although increased alcohol consumption could be a reflection of exceptional brainpower, drinking more will certainly not make you any more intelligent than you already are.
...in case anyone was thinking otherwise.
many intelligent people are also very hard working/intense individuals. They push themselves in many areas of life....work hard and party hard. Dimwits walk at the bell and stop when their drunk....the best and the brightest burn the midnight oil and party till they pass out.
I gotta agree with this one. I cant wait to become a CEO and have my own liquor bar, have a drink with my colleagues while sharing our genius ideas with each other...
Haha you sound like Ross Johnson.
I think an interesting thing to study would be to see if within that same group the higher income levels drank more. Like someone above said, this may be a correlation causation thing.
Edmundo--this is Wall Street, I wouldn't trust a guy that didn't drink. Also, one reason which I think was seriously overlooked is that smart people are wealthier and therefore can afford more alcohol--either they buy it or the company does for some kind of event.
Anyway, have Scotch on the Rocks and Sex on the Beach. Cheers!
I don't know man. I don't think wealth will ever be a factor when picking up a can of Four Loko.
I'm not sure smart people are drinking Four Loko either...
I don't really think that wealth plays a huge roll in how often or much you drink. Alcohol can be had across all price ranges and we all know there are people who mow lawns or who fix trucks all day that grab a 12 pack on the way home from the store everyday and just get shit canned in their trailer...so the wealth argument doesn't apply in my mind.
Regards
No, no see here's the thing. Alcohol kills brain cells. So they all run away. So it only kills the slowest ones it can catch, see. So then, like, the herd of brain cells is faster. So you're brain is kind of more efficient, right?
/Yes, I stole that from Cheers, thanks for asking.
Yeah, it's like the "weakest link" theory, lol.
Regards
Do you guys really think that they wouldn't control for income / wealth in these studies?
For example, the British study:
The American study didn't make their data sets so easily accessible, so I can't tell you the exact methodology they used, but it's probably safe to say that they too controlled for income.
I'M SO FUCKING SMART WHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
I'm going to interpret this as very good news for me
i should send this to my mother.
Looks like the homeless dude with the bottle of jack, that always touches himself, was right. He is a genius. Funny stuff, looks like I need to drink more. That's how it works right, if I drink more I'll get smarter? Either way, sounds like fun to try. (Don't give me any crap about, not understanding correlation. If I believe drinking more is going to make me the smartest man in the world it's going to happen!)
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