Inductivist

Palin power: I'm probably wrong, but it's fun anyway to throw out wacky ideas. I cannot figure out why, according to realclearpolitics.com's poll of polls, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are toss up states! These non-Republican states are split, even though the economy is in the crapper? If I recall correctly, they were clearly leaning for Obama before the conventions, so what has happened? Call me crazy, but I wonder if folks up there are responding to two things: 1) Palin is a gun nut, and 2) she has a Fargo accent.

Growing prissiness among American men? I looked at the General Social Survey to see if hunting is on the decline and if males hunters differ from other guys in IQ. Here are the numbers (total sample=11,659):


Percent of men who hunt
1977 34.1
1987 25.1
1996 27.8
2006 18.9


It sure is in decline. Is this a sign of a increasing prissiness among American men? Perhaps the couch is more comfortable and the Xbox safer and less work?


Mean IQ

Whites
Hunters 95.4
Non-hunters 100.8

Blacks
Hunters 86.6
Non-hunters 90.9

For both races, hunters are 4 or 5 points less intelligent. I don't imagine this was always the case: who hunted more than aristocrats? Is it a growing refinement of the right half of the bell curve? Once again, who was more refined than aristocrats? The American Male has morphed from Jim Bowie into David Bowie. (The singer got his name from the Alamo hero, by the way).

Swiss Americans are the most bloodthirsty? Gun control advocates sometimes portray hunters as violent-prone and maybe a bit deranged. One way to test this is to see if there is a association between hunting and criminal violence. Well, according to the General Social Survey, there isn't one. American men were asked if they hunt:


Percent of men who hunt

Swiss 50.0
Finns 48.6
Dutch 41.7
American Indians 39.1
Germans 37.8
Norwegians 36.8
French 35.7
Swedes 33.6
Austrians 32.7
Czechs 31.0
English/Welsh 30.1
Scots 30.0
Irish 29.0
French Canadians 27.9
Poles 22.3
Mexicans 22.1
Italians 20.3
Danes 19.3
Blacks 14.7
Spain 13.7
Puerto Ricans 5.2
Russians 5.0
Chinese 2.2

Other data I've presented show that blacks and Mexicans have the highest rates of criminal violence, but they have low rates of hunting. Some low-violence groups are not into hunting (e.g., Chinese) but it looks like the activity has a lot to do with tradition and perhaps living in less populated areas. Thinking of Europe, it's more of a northern thing and more of a western thing--just the opposite of the pattern of violent crime.