Now I think it was because they were actively looking for understanding something new, and did not represent the general population.
Assuming that intelligence (and I don’t mean IQ or any other psychometric “proxy” for intelligence, but intelligence as an abstract trait) is normally distributed like most other traits, 50% of people are going to be dumber than average because in normal distributions the mean is the median. The “general population” is not smart by any definition.
And anyone trying to claim that intelligence as a concept is completely socially constructed and that there is no difference in intelligence between people, or tries to conflate IQ etc psychometric measures and intelligence, can shove it up their ass.
Assuming that intelligence (and I don’t mean IQ or any other psychometric “proxy” for intelligence, but intelligence as an abstract trait) is normally distributed like most other traits, 50% of people are going to be dumber than average because in normal distributions the mean is the median. The “general population” is not smart by any definition.
And anyone trying to claim that intelligence as a concept is completely socially constructed and that there is no difference in intelligence between people, or tries to conflate IQ etc psychometric measures and intelligence, can shove it up their ass.
I wasn’t even commenting on IQ, just the general population’s interest in even trying to understand new things.
A lot of otherwise smart people I know just can’t get past the indoctrination of bigotry from their youth that is reinforced by conservative media.