THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => BAND => Topic started by: Melodic on 04 Mar 2009, 16:14
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According to this thing (http://beatcrave.com/2009-03-03/music-that-makes-you-dumb/), Sufjan Stevens is for smart people. Make of this what you will.
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There was a similar study done a while ago, except it pertained to intelligence. My prediction? All of the comments will be the same as in this topic: http://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,21036.0.html (http://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,21036.0.html). It's kind of ridiculous to think someone will be set in their tastes judged solely on factors outside of music tastes. I've met idiots who listened to nothing but classical and geniuses who listened to nothing but pop punk. But at least it's interesting to see what "professionals" think.
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I don't listen to music!
:-o
(I got a 1330)
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The dude had a Facebook crawler that looked at the reported music preferences of students at different universities and correlated it to the average SAT scores at the same university. It was done as a joke and/or discussion-starter.
From a Wall Street Journal blog (http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/02/27/books-and-music-that-make-you-dumb/) who interviewed the guy about it:
Griffith came up with the idea as a way to show how to take two separate sets of data that were pretty straightforward on their own — in this case, the average SAT score and the favorite books among students at various universities — and combine them to become more interesting. Griffith says, “Their unity is hilarity incarnate. This is to inspire people to think creatively about the data sets that are on the Internet.”
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Well I'm glad he doesn't take the experiment seriously. I was worried that it was attempting to draw some clear correlation which would have been pretty laughable considering the source of the information.
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I'm just going to assume that Silkworm is off the chart to the right.
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I'm just going to assume that Silkworm is off the chart to the left.
Fix'd.
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Thanks for posting!
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EDIT::
Oh, it's a joke?
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I scored an eighteen-something.
My favorite band is The Weakerthans.
I guess this is a good thing?
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Yeah, when I meet someone who listens to the Counting Crows I have a hard time talking to them because I'm intimidated by their clear genius.
(joke or not this chart just highlights how Eurocentric and classist the SAT is)
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So I guess I'm just way, way smarter than my music taste.
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The people who specify genres rather than bands or composers are strongly to the left; this may be significant, though not very interesting.
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Recently on dutch TV there was this piece that said that smart people are more likely to listen to classical music ... or heavy metal.
I've tried to find a link on line to prove this but unable to. Thus disproving the statement, I guess.
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Man, I guess I should have listened to more Beethoven in high school.
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Beo, thinking of this? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2680987/Heavy-metal-and-classical-music-fans-share-personality-traits.html
Quite a few websites covered it, but aside from Wired and some metal-centric websites, they were all UK media, so I have no idea about how they are viewed. I'm pretty sure the telegraph isn't the UK's national enquirer, though. Also found this in the search, just searched heavy metal classical music personality in google.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3352230/Heavy-metal-%27a-comfort-for-the-bright-child%27.html
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I got a perfect 1600 on the SAT when I took it and I was listening to System of a Down and Queens of the Stone age more than anything else at that time. Don't know what that means.
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Beo, thinking of this? [...]
You rock. Thanks!
Don't know how that explains AC/DC, though ... doesn't sound very bright to me ...
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The radio pumps music into the houses of people who don't go outside, some people are passionate about music, some people seek out new things, some people try to learn about other cultures and some people are quite content not to.
What's smrts got to do wth it?
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This chart will tell you exactly what music the kids who didn't get laid very much in high school listen to.
I do not consider this particularly valuable information.
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i got a 2200 or so, which is like a 1450ish in the old score used on the chart... which would mean i listen to beethoven. or possibly, according to some uk dudes i guess, metal? neither of those is particularly true. ah well.
i do not like the SAT. the SAT gave me and some of my friends panic attacks. if i ever come across the SAT in a dark alley...
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While it may have been partly tongue in cheek, Hat has the right of it when he says that this survey tells you more about people's goals and self-image than it does about the affect music has on intelligence. People are notorious for selecting music that fits who and what they want to be, after all. My classmates who didn't give a crap about their schoolwork were not suddenly made any dumber when Blink 182 came on the scene, they just flocked to a band that reflected their laid back and somewhat contrary attitude, that's all.
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I find it hilarious that Lil' Wayne is given the lowest SAT score...I cannot stand his music
I am also disappointed that most of my favorite bands aren't even on the expanded list no less
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While it may have been partly tongue in cheek, Hat has the right of it when he says that this survey tells you more about people's goals and self-image than it does about the affect music has on intelligence. People are notorious for selecting music that fits who and what they want to be, after all. My classmates who didn't give a crap about their schoolwork were not suddenly made any dumber when Blink 182 came on the scene, they just flocked to a band that reflected their laid back and somewhat contrary attitude, that's all.
But that doesn't explain why intelligent people would listen to Sufjan or Counting Crows.
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I find it hilarious that Lil' Wayne is given the lowest SAT score...I cannot stand his music
I'm pretty sure EVERYONE AT MY UNIVERSITY listens to lil wayne. Now I admit he's got a few cool songs and has done some interesting stuff, but please, there's a lot more in the hip-hop world than lil wayne.
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But that doesn't explain why intelligent people would listen to Sufjan or Counting Crows.
Come on how many of the people that topped your classes in high school were actually intelligent, and not just incredibly hard working. Hell, at my university, most of the people doing better than me are dumb fucks but because they actually give a shit and want to apply themselves and don't just spend all their time drinking and going to shows, they achieve better results.
Intelligence is an abstract concept with very little application to anything productive you will ever do in your life.
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But that doesn't explain why intelligent people would listen to Sufjan or Counting Crows.
Come on how many of the people that topped your classes in high school were actually intelligent, and not just incredibly hard working. Hell, at my university, most of the people doing better than me are dumb fucks but because they actually give a shit and want to apply themselves and don't just spend all their time drinking and going to shows, they achieve better results.
Intelligence is an abstract concept with very little application to anything productive you will ever do in your life.
This is hugely correct. Except for possibly the valedictorian, the top ten percent of my high-school senior class last year were either A) Dumbasses or B) Tool-bags or C) all of the above
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But that doesn't explain why intelligent people would listen to Sufjan or Counting Crows.
Come on how many of the people that topped your classes in high school were actually intelligent, and not just incredibly hard working. Hell, at my university, most of the people doing better than me are dumb fucks but because they actually give a shit and want to apply themselves and don't just spend all their time drinking and going to shows, they achieve better results.
Intelligence is an abstract concept with very little application to anything productive you will ever do in your life.
Dude, it was just a shot at Sufjan and Counting Crows.
Having said that, I was in the top 5% of my classes at school, and that wasn't from hard work. Not that you'd know it off my forum demeanour, of course. :mrgreen:
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I find it hilarious that Lil' Wayne is given the lowest SAT score...I cannot stand his music
You call it music.
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guys the SAT is super-flawed and privileges rich white people who have rich white person tastes so no wonder they don't like lil wayne and would rather listen to counting crows or beethoven it's cause they have no idea what the real world is like and that extends to culture
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word because how many people know what a regatta is?
that word was on my PSATs last year!
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Sailing contest.
But what the hell are PSATs? Or SATs for that matter?
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guys the SAT is super-flawed and privileges rich white people who have rich white person tastes so no wonder they don't like lil wayne and would rather listen to counting crows or beethoven it's cause they have no idea what the real world is like and that extends to culture
Real culture can only come from oppression, anyone who has lived a life of privilege is cultureless trash and cannot possibly have a valid opinion on anything.
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I wish I was poor so I could be genuine. Maybe I could even get tuberculosis
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I've had tuberculosis - it sucks. Maybe it sucked because I wasn't the poor kid I should have been.
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Ok lets pick apart Johnny's post until we hit the part that is ridiculous.
guys the SAT is super-flawed
Ok so far so good
and privileges rich white people
still making sense
who have rich white person tastes so no wonder they don't like lil wayne
BRICK WALL
because we all know white privileged kids hate rap music
and would rather listen to counting crows or beethoven
Johnny what kind of privileged white kids do you know that actually listen to this?
it's cause they have no idea what the real world is like and that extends to culture
Johnny you can be honest did you just rip this whole post out of Stuff White People Like?
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I think maybe he wasn't entirely serious?
Johnny you can be honest did you just rip this whole post out of Stuff White People Like?
Hey I'm obviously not ruling it out as a possibility.
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I listen to Lil' Wayne more than Sufjan Stevens these days!
I didn't write the SAT!
WEEEEEEEEE!
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The only people I know who listen to Lil' Wayne are white people.
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Dear God, studies like this are just an excuse to be an asshole.
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... do we need an excuse for that?
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CalTech grad student named Virgil Griffith has conducted an interesting (albeit somewhat unscientific) study relating music preferences with SAT scores.
Need to know more about this.
Oh, what sees fit to be journalistically worthy these days... /shudder.
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anyone who has lived a life of privilege is cultureless trash and cannot possibly have a valid opinion on anything.
Oh sod it; all that wasted effort.
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Ok lets pick apart Johnny's post until we hit the part that is ridiculous.
It should be obvious that it's a little bit facetious and broad but give me a fucking break dude take a look at a rich white person's iPod and brace yourself for collected works of OneRepublic.
Are you trying to argue that the SAT isn't racist or that a lot of rich white people are kiiiiiiiiiiind of out of touch with really interesting culture no matter what their laughable attempts to participate in that culture might be? Is that what's happening here? Or are you just arguing with Lil Wayne and trying to defend rich people who, as great arbiters of culture, bump Vampire Weekend on a regular enough basis?
E: I guess if you're rich and white this might stick in your craw but guess what, you're probably the exception.
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It's really noble that you've taken on the role of cultural defender of the downtrodden masses Johnny but if you honestly believe that poor people have a more authentic grip on culture than the middle and upper classes you have either not spent a lot of time around poor people or you have spent even less time around the upper and middle classes.
Did you watch a sitcom about the upper middle class on television or something and then make that post?
Also how did you get that I might even think that standardized tests like the SAT don't discriminate against poor people? I'm not disputing that at all. In fact, given that a huge portion of poor people do not last until the final year of high school to even sit the SAT/QCS/HSC/Whatever, the odds are that most of the people who are responsible for Lil Wayne's position on this chart are just really fucking lazy privileged people so I can't even figure out what you are trying to say apart from BLURGH BLURGH BLURGH RICH PEOPLE which is really hilarious actually.
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Culture is relative. Rich people have rich people culture and poor people have poor people culture. Everyone in the middle takes part in either both or neither, probably.
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Johnny I do not want you to think I am getting up in your grill or anything about this, but I am basically just trying to say that this class warfare bullshit is really unbecoming of a smart dude like you.
Culture is relative. Rich people have rich people culture and poor people have poor people culture. Everyone in the middle takes part in either both or neither, probably.
Middle class people lack the hardship and authenticity to create folk culture but do not have the free time and resources to create high culture so their culture is making their houses look nice and raising multi-lingual children who learn instruments and appreciate music so they can either regurgitate classical music or co-opt the folk music of the poor.
I know you guys can't see me but I am laughing so fucking hard right now
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Oh man, Hat brought up something in Meebo that stopped me in my tracks.
[23:03] DJ Weight Problem: the SAT doesn't just discriminate against poor people because of the way the test is written
[23:03] Johnny C: no shit
[23:03] DJ Weight Problem: it discrimintes against poor people because poor people are so much less likely to finish high school
[23:03] Johnny C: ahh i thought you were going to mention how it discriminates against people from other cultures too
[23:03] DJ Weight Problem: there's no actual way you can take the data from SAT scores and extrapolate any legitimate opinion about the poor demographic because they're not part of the test pool
[23:03] Johnny C: hahaha man
[23:03] DJ Weight Problem: in any signifigant way
[23:04] Johnny C: that is really funny
[23:04] Johnny C: like in a grim, depressing way
[23:04] DJ Weight Problem: I know
Incidentally I wasn't aiming for "poor people know all the good shit" which is kind of disgusting cultural (economic?) tourism, but instead "rich people, who are basically disconnected from normal society by virtue of their socioeconomic status, kind of don't know shit."
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"rich people, who are basically disconnected from normal society by virtue of their socioeconomic status, kind of don't know shit."
To be fair we invented white guilt for the specific purpose of dealing with this.
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take a look at a rich white person's iPod
Leaving aside the racism in using 'white' there, what is 'rich' anyway? Comfortable, Well-off, Stinking rich? Am I richer than the builder who earns more than me but blows the lot on expensive holidays every year? How many millions is the gateway to richness? Are you really talking about class? C'mon, it's an entirely pointless thing to say, really.
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There is no accounting for taste.
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Can we all agree that, regardless of socioeconomic position, most people have terrible taste in music?
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There is no accounting for taste.
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This might be the time to remind folks that the hardcore punk/indie movement essentially begun as the brainchild of bored upper-middle-class white kids from suburban D.C. and L.A.
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Yes there is! (http://silkworm.net/)
I assume Jens meant to link to the "Musical Correctness" section of the website. It's one of the tabs on the left.
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It is sad that Hannah Montana is the highest ranked artist on that list
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Well, yeah.
But still
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Guys I turned on the T.V this afternoon and MTV was on and it was My Super Sweet 16p or whatever it was called and this spoilt rich white kid's party involved a Lil' Wayne concert and guess what socioeconomic bracket and skin colour every single person in the crowd was.
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See the way it works is I make vitriolic arguments and Dovey backs them up with REAL WORLD OBSERVATIONS of white people
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Guys I turned on the T.V this afternoon and MTV was on and it was My Super Sweet 16p or whatever it was called and this spoilt rich white kid's party involved a Lil' Wayne concert and guess what socioeconomic bracket and skin colour every single person in the crowd was.
Wait.....
was it black?
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Purple.
(You see in my head that birthday party was for a Lil'wayne/minesotta Vikings fan. Hence the mandatory face paint and bad music.)
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Populated by mostly topless overweight past their prime ex-footballers?
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Guys I turned on the T.V this afternoon and MTV was on and it was My Super Sweet 16p or whatever it was called and this spoilt rich white kid's party involved a Lil' Wayne concert and guess what socioeconomic bracket and skin colour every single person in the crowd was.
Didn't Kool Keith make a comment about that recently? And possibly why we might never see another Dr. Octagon album?
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Populated by mostly topless overweight past their prime ex-footballers?
Sounds like a perfect sweet sixteen party for a lil'Wayne fan.
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See the way it works is I make vitriolic arguments and Dovey backs them up with REAL WORLD OBSERVATIONS of white people
i bet they followed it up with some jazz
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It's occurred to me that I've probably come off the mark, so I'm going to try to succinctly and clearly state my arguments.
The SAT is, by its very nature, racist and classist. Those within a specific socioeconomic strata - ranging from upper-middle class to upper-class - can afford coaching to pass the exam. While not all of these people are white, the median wealth distribution of the nation is largely concentrated among white people. The chart at the bottom of this section (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States#Race_and_gender_disparities), which is backed up by the evidence within the section, illustrates this point.* What this means is that white people are, by and large, in a better financial position to work with SAT coaches and tutors. They're able to afford private school education which allows students more intimate access to teachers and education. They and their children are able to afford completing high school.
The SAT is also deeply, inextricably Eurocentric. It evolved from the IQ test, and while that test's current form bears no superficial resemblance to its roots it nevertheless emphasizes both methods of learning that are culturally European and knowledge itself that has Western roots. And there's a reason for this.
The development of both the SAT and the IQ are charged with racism. The IQ test evolved in part from ideas on eugenics developed by Francis Galton and carried forward by Charles Davenport, two influential figures in the eugenics movement that would later push for the IQ test to be applied as the standard for immigrants trying to enter America. These ideas were picked up by SAT inventor Carl Brighton, who proclaimed that natural-born Americans were the most intellectually superior race and that negroes were, naturally, inferior.
These tests were invented by racists and charged with racism in order to keep those non-white races from achieving in American society. The very measurements of intelligence they purport to express are deeply flawed because they measure nothing except aptitude at the test, which has only deviated from its original design in terms of questions asked. There are plentiful studies, dating especially from the '90s, which examine the IQ's actual viability and find it wanting.
So, we've got a test that upper-middle- to upper-class white people are typically capable of passing, both due to their financial circumstances and the nature of the test itself. And we're still using it to measure aptitude. It's the metric for this chart.
Now, you've got a bunch of black artists on the lower end of that chart, and you've got a bunch of white artists – or at the very least artists that appeal to what I'll admit are stereotypically white tastes – on the upper end of the chart. What does this say about the test? What stereotypes does it reinforce? What purpose does it serve except as self-congratulatory pats on the back for fans of Tool and Radiohead and Sufjan Stevens and Counting Crows, statements followed by "Well, I'm no Beethoven fan, but at least I don't listen to Lil Wayne"? What does it say about those artists? What does it say about their audience?
This chart isn't classist? Isn't racist? It's class and race issues bundled up conveniently in one chart. It sums up the problems with SAT testing and IQ testing and admittance and the wage gap and everything.
*If you want to get into a discourse on contemporary Asian approaches to modern scholarship and why they seem to be an aberration in terms of median wealth, I'm unfortunately no expert and can't really do anything save extrapolate the modern Japanese approach. In the late 19th century, Japan's largely stagnant feudal system was suddenly confronted with an economically and militarily powerful colonial West. In response to a few shameful military defeats, the Japanese people began aggressive campaign of "Westernizing" the nation. Reforms were geared towards adopting, synthesizing and perfecting Western methods of thought and practice in fields ranging from government to military to - you guessed it - education. The regression to feudal fealty to the Emperor in the lead-up to the second World War followed by the eventual decimation of Japan at the end of the War served to exacerbate this, but the focus shifted towards establishing superiority in what the Japanese sensed would become the dominant geopolitical field in the latter half of the century - the global economy. To this day, economic policy is closely related with a push in schools to excel at academic studies as well as extracurricular activity and, when you take this approach in conjunction with the emphasis on position and social status tied to wealth that erupted violently into an economically devastated Japanese culture in the aftermath of WWII, students take this very closely to heart.
Again, I can't speak with any authority on this, and I am painting with a broad brush, but given both Asia's historical animosity towards Japan and Asian governments' behaviour regarding economic policy and the push to establish themselves by developing a strong economy I can only extrapolate that the citizens and educational institutions of other Asian nations would aim for similar goals.
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Now, you've got a bunch of black artists on the lower end of that chart, and you've got a bunch of white artists – or at the very least artists that appeal to what I'll admit are stereotypically white tastes – on the upper end of the chart. What does this say about the test? What stereotypes does it reinforce? What purpose does it serve except as self-congratulatory pats on the back for fans of Tool and Radiohead and Sufjan Stevens and Counting Crows, statements followed by "Well, I'm no Beethoven fan, but at least I don't listen to Lil Wayne"? What does it say about those artists? What does it say about their audience?
The chart says nothing; that’s kinda the point. The chart is---by the admission of its creator---a somewhat meaningless correlation (reported musical tastes vs. average SAT scores at universities) derived from a somewhat-meaningless measure (SAT scores). He's showing that it's really easy to come up with authoritative-looking data analyses that are meaningless when viewed critically, and thus, that people shouldn't read deeply into such analyses without understanding the data behind them.
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Spot on. And it's also necessary to admit that there is no one such thing as "intelligence", but rather, aptitudes in a wide range of different kinds of thought, and memory, and physical skills as well. And we don't really have a particularly good way of measuring any of them.