Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Clever vegetarians born not made

Kerry found this interesting headline in the New Zealand Herald today. The article basically says that smart people are more likely to become vegetarians. I got quite a kick out of this. Read the article yourself.

Carrie

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, Carrie, as an ardent and unashamed meat eater, I must respond.

So, let me get this straight. These vegetarians beat some school kids, some people famous for being sport stars' wives and some butchers in an IQ test.

Well, the British ruling class is famous for being inbred and footballers' wives are famous for being ditzy. So that leaves the butchers, and I'm going to be very careful here, as they tend to carry around large cleavers, but they perhaps might not present the greatest challenge, smart and knowledgeable as they are, in an IQ test, or they would be brain surgeons, right, not meat surgeons.

Just a thought….

DJ

Carrie Seltzer said...

The contest was just anecdotal evidence (and you're right, pretty shaky evidence at that). They also did a study with 8,000 people. Basically their point is that smarter people are more likely to become vegetarians. Being vegetarian does not make you any smarter in and of itself.

Really I think this whole thing is ridiculous. I got a good laugh out of the article and though I should share. I claim no dietary or intellectual superiority.

Unknown said...

Well, generally people who become vegetarian in mainly meat-eating societies tend to think more critically about their eating choices and I can see a correlation in that preference and intelligence level. :o)

In other news... how am I showing up on your city-tracker-thingy? Detroit doesn't show up at all, so am I from Cleveland or Glenview? Or Toledo (since I'm kind of near Toledo)?

Carrie Seltzer said...

Lindsey, you must be Toledo, because I have no other suspects (I actually don't have any relatives in or near that Ohio city... that I know of). It's not smart enough to figure out that you were previously from Glenview or Cleveland (as far as I know).

AdamB said...

Sure, "smart" people are more likely to be vegetarian, but are vegetarians more likely to be smart?

Probably. But it's a different question, and it would be interesting if the results came out opposite in that case, don't you think?

Also, what about the thing where the vegetarian diet doesn't provide a certain B-vitamin necessary for proper brain development?

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