Uncommon Sense

The world will get too hot.  Plant and animal species will start to die off.  The weather patterns will change with an increase in dangerous types of extreme weather becoming more common.  Sea levels will rise and polar ice caps will melt covering most of New York City and drowning Florida.  And… Humans will become dumber.

According to recent research, IQ in white civilizations decreases as the heat index increases.  The amount of white people in prison increase as heat increases.

Now I can’t even being to start of where to critique this research.  The first thing I would have to say would be the obvious thing anyone who has taken PO102 at BU or who has had a TA who taught PO102 at BU (for me, that latter): this so-called correlation between heat and IQ and heat and prisoners is most definitely causation, not correlation.

However, I didn’t link to this article because of how interesting and informative or even scientifically significant it was to the whole global warming debate, but rather because it provides an interesting juxtaposition to a theory that was discussed in my PO241 Public Policy class.  In this class, during our Environmental Policy section, Professor Rossell told us that global warming might not be that bad because, among other things, humans might actually get SMARTER. According to Rossell, there was a heat wave that spark the Renaissance (some more causation, not correlation), so therefore, global warming could actually be good.  Well let’s just say that this comment sparked off quite a discussion among us global warming hating liberal college students during our sections on Friday.

Funny how people can use two different types of research to come to two completely opposite conclusions.