Science Proves Massholes are the Smartest People in America
DM – Living in Massachusetts or New Hampshire may mean you’re more intelligent than residents of California and Mississippi. That’s according to a recent study of reading levels and IQs, based on 500,000 Twitter messages posted by people across the U.S. The study used a computer algorithm to score tweets based on spelling, grammar and word choice, and found a significant difference in state-by-state intelligence. Californian real-estate group Movoto has now used this data to create a series of 3D interactive maps showing a breakdown of reading level and IQ by state, based on the Twitter feedback… [O]f the five states that ranked the lowest in grade-level reading ability during the analysis of tweets, four of them also ranked in the top six of worst-educated states in 2011. These included Vermont, Wyoming and New York.
Well this is good to hear. Exactly the kind of thing we need to cheer us up since we haven’t had a Duckboat parade around here in what? Like 7 months? That’s a championship drought the likes of which we’re not used to. So we needed to be the best at something. And being the US Intellectual Champions of 2014 is just what the doctor ordered.
To be clear: This is NOT a repeat of the blog I wrote last August where the rest of America admitted we’re smarter than them. This is another matter entirely. That was a nationwide opinion survey. This is hard science. Irrefutable, incontrovertible, settled science. Nothing says “We’re the smartest sons of bitches in the country” like computer algorithms that score Tweets. And as the author of many of those Tweets that probably won us the title, I can honestly say I’m proud to be a part of our victory. You can talk all you want about the geniuses that have lived here. The historical figures, world leaders, educators, medical professionals, football coaches. But I don’t think you can make the case any better that we’re just a superior species of human being than by combing through a half a million Tweets and grading our spelling, grammar and word choice. We’ve got the highest reading comprehension level in the nation, and Barstool Boston has the upper-level blog writing to match it. We’ve got the highest IQ of any state, and we’ve got the knowledgeable, informed, high-functioning readership to prove it. As our own Ben Affleck said of our own Matt Damon, our boys are wicked smaht. I mean, I didn’t need a study by Movoto to tell me what I’ve known all along. But anything that helps make the case, no matter how self-evident it is, is welcome. It’s like the old saying goes: There are lies, damned lies, statistics, and computer algorithms of Tweets. How you like them apples? @JerryThornton1
