IQ of Holocaust Deniers

[fireofice]

Emil Kirkegaard wrote an article on what he believes the IQ of holocaust deniers is here:

https://www.emilkirkegaard.com/p/what-i ... -holocaust

He ultimately puts it pretty low, somewhere in the 80s. He bases this mainly on conspiracy theorists having a low IQ and also countries with lower IQs like the Middle East more likely to have higher rates of holocaust denial.

The conspiracy argument doesn't sound like a great argument at first glance, since holocaust believers believe in a Nazi conspiracy to kill all the Jews in Europe. So holocaust believers are also conspiracy theorists. Although if I were to steelman this, I could interpret this as people who believe in "fringe conspiracies" as having lower IQs. Since the holocaust is a mainstream and respectable conspiracy, this may not apply to them.

On the country based argument, this seems like a decent argument to me. An article titled The World Is Full of Holocaust Deniers found that while much of the world hasn't even heard of the holocaust, the elevated rates of denial do come from places like the Middle East, Africa, ect.
https://archive.is/dUPk4

If you just want to go "hey look these people in these brown and poor countries don't believe the holocaust, therefore holocaust deniers are dumb" then fine. But this does not represent the average person studying the topic like those on this forum and produce literature on this topic. I would be much more interested in what the average IQ is of holocaust deniers and believers is in Western countries and those with European ancestry. My guess is that deniers would be higher than average, but that is only a guess. We don't actually have any data on it. I have seen other deniers make bad arguments indicative of low intelligence, but I've also seen that with holocaust believers. If I were to base it solely on who makes bad arguments the most, I would say it's the believers who make bad arguments more. Of course, it's possible I may be biased as a holocaust denier myself on what exactly counts as a bad argument, so take my observation on that for what you will.

Finally, I would like to point out that I don't think "who has the highest IQ" is the best way to get at the truth. A lot of time people who are dumb hear something that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to them and reject it on instinct whereas smarter people have more pressure to socially conform. From what I've read elsewhere, libertarians have the highest IQ of all political ideologies, but that's not how to settle which political ideology is correct.

[TlsMS93]

15% of Italians are deniers according to surveys they have done and the average IQ there is 102.

The IQ of the defendants in Nuremberg was above average and many denied that they knew of an extermination plan, so they were deniers too.

[Archie]

If we are talking globally and are defining "revisionist" that broadly then the average may well be low. But this would probably be counting a lot of people as "revisionists" who have never read a single revisionist book or article and cannot name even one actual revisionist. I don't usually concern myself much with the distinction between "denier" and "revisionist," but to me the word "revisionist" does imply some level of study.

[borjastick]

If we are talking globally and are defining "revisionist" that broadly then the average may well be low. But this would probably be counting a lot of people as "revisionists" who have never read a single revisionist book or article and cannot name even one actual revisionist. I don't usually concern myself much with the distinction between "denier" and "revisionist," but to me the word "revisionist" does imply some level of study.

The word 'denier' is used as put down to cast a shadow of doubt over the comments made by the 'denier' and to show that person as 'nazi sympathiser' and the like. Revisionist is a much better word for those who study and understand the subject. Those of us here and certainly all those Revisionists I have met over the years are well versed and well read in the subject. Let's be honest the holocaust is a very large subject with many different aspects to it and details to understand. Few do the hard miles of many months/years of reading and even the feet on the ground to visit camps and museums etc.

I have met a good number of Revisionists and not one of them is a dullard, idiot, Nazi, or is equipped with an IQ of, I would guess, much far short of 120+. But IQ is an odd way to assess someone's attitude or persuasion.

[Egg]

The argument is simply:

• Most Holocaust-deniers are Middle-Eastern.
• Most Middle-Easterners are dumb.
• Therefore, most Holocaust-deniers are dumb.

This is clearly a cynical attempt to drive engagement to the author's blog. Taking it seriously is feeding the troll.

[Nazgul]

The argument is simply:

• Most Holocaust-deniers are Middle-Eastern.
• Most Middle-Easterners are dumb.
• Therefore, most Holocaust-deniers are dumb.

This is clearly a cynical attempt to drive engagement to the author's blog. Taking it seriously is feeding the troll.

He is a white supremacist troll, who has no qualifications in psychometrics. He has said stuff like "migrants in europe have an IQ of 70 or 80" as though he has some authority . People with an intellectual disability have general IQs less than 70. I will not give the troll any time.

[Archie]

The argument is simply:

• Most Holocaust-deniers are Middle-Eastern.
• Most Middle-Easterners are dumb.
• Therefore, most Holocaust-deniers are dumb.

This is clearly a cynical attempt to drive engagement to the author's blog. Taking it seriously is feeding the troll.

And of course the intended troll implication is that the position is wrong because it is accepted by dumb people. This is a particularly extreme ad hominem. If you attacked Arthur Butz's intelligence and used this line of attack to dismiss his book, that would a more classic ad hominem. This isn't an ad hominem against Butz/Rudolf/Faurisson/Mattogno/etc. It's not even an ad hominem against their readers.

[csuperman97]

Emil Kirkegaard is probably just a coward like most academics.

During the Covid pandemic, I realized that people are easily swayed by political pressures. I became interested in revisionism then.

Whenever a person takes a dissenting view, it shows courage and the ability to think independently.

Revisionists have fortitude (one of the four cardinal virtues). They have courage. So it's a praiseworthy task, and having the ability to doubt suggests intelligence.

[Hektor]

Emil Kirkegaard wrote an article on what he believes the IQ of holocaust deniers is here:

https://www.emilkirkegaard.com/p/what-i ... -holocaust

He ultimately puts it pretty low, somewhere in the 80s. He bases this mainly on conspiracy theorists having a low IQ and also countries with lower IQs like the Middle East more likely to have higher rates of holocaust denial.

The conspiracy argument doesn't sound like a great argument at first glance, since holocaust believers believe in a Nazi conspiracy to kill all the Jews in Europe. So holocaust believers are also conspiracy theorists. Although if I were to steelman this, I could interpret this as people who believe in "fringe conspiracies" as having lower IQs. Since the holocaust is a mainstream and respectable conspiracy, this may not apply to them.
...

It's a rather lame attempt at discrediting. If he counts all folks that have never heard of the Holocaust it's of course possible. But with people that read up documents the IQ will be hardly low. Well and I get bad news for him, too. Even if the IQ is zero, it doesn't change a dime on the validity of a position...

[Egg]

He has said stuff like "migrants in europe have an IQ of 70 or 80" as though he has some authority . People with an intellectual disability have general IQs less than 70.

You misunderstand the meaning of intellectual disability. It is absolutely true that the average migrant to Europe has an IQ that would qualify them for intellectual disability. The author is not wrong on this point, and you are making an argument from incredulity. There are different types of intellectual disability, organic and familial. You are assuming the claim is about the (stereotypical) organic type. It is actually about the familial type, which can "pass" for someone who can score higher on an IQ test than they actually can.

And of course the intended troll implication is that the position is wrong because it is accepted by dumb people. This is a particularly extreme ad hominem.

Of course. My point is the author is refusing to treat the topic seriously purely for motives of self-interest.

Emil Kirkegaard is probably just a coward like most academics.

You are calling him a coward using an anonymous handle.

[Revision]

Here in this forum we have relatively informed and good discussions. It is not the same in X or TikTok for example. Baseless and pointless claims, like for example that "Anne Frank's diary is a hoax", are getting thousands of likes. We are a minority in the "holocaust denial" community.

[Nazgul]

You misunderstand the meaning of intellectual disability. It is absolutely true that the average migrant to Europe has an IQ that would qualify them for intellectual disability.

No gaslighting please. It seems you are using the results of invalid general IQ tests designed for a certain population and regard the results valid for a group they were not designed for. I do not misunderstand. The only reason why migrants score low on IQ tests is not due to intelligence; tests are designed for the local population, biased towards those of other ethnicities. If the language of the test is not in your native language there is a huge bias. A major criticism of intelligence testing is that it does not measure other essential types of intelligence, such as: emotional intelligence. social skills. moral development. Tests are culturally biased and have been used in the past to prove white superiority. If you were to take an IQ test in the homeland of another ethnicity with a different language (they do have psychologists) I am sure you would surely fail. Any of us not fluent in their language and culture would be deemed intellectually inferior. The psychometric tests for their culture and language were not produced for europeans in mind.

[Stubble]

You can tweak the iq test all you want. At this point, it doesn't even have words, a lot of backwater retards that can't figure out to wear a boot what's less pour piss out of it, don't suddenly start performing better.

Look, life is simpler for a lot of people, and they don't need problem solving skills. They are still well adjusted and happy, and they have 8 kids.

Blank slate garbage is as poisonous as multicult and alphabet soup garbage.

[HansHill]

I tend to agree with Mr Stubble here.

Mr Nazgul:

When you say:

It seems you are using the results of invalid general IQ tests designed for a certain population and regard the results valid for a group they were not designed for.

And you then go on to discuss language limitations. However, your position doesn't seem to account for countries where different racial groups co-exist speaking the same language where we can infer the test is "designed" (whatever that means) for both racial groups. You would have to account for, and explain why, an IQ test is "not designed for" (for example) an American Black, but "is designed for" an American White. Further you would have to explain what exactly "being designed for" Whites mean. Alot of these tests are spacial, mathematical etc. White-friendly shapes? White-friendly numbers? What does this even mean.

I'm fully expecting you to explain this as "cultural differences", ie that White Americans tend to value and hence establish a culture of learning, discussion, curiosity, exploration etc whereas Black Americans value those qualities less, hence tending to score lower.

But isn't that just saying the same thing then? ie animals that are poor hunters dont value hunting so they don't want or need to do it, whereas animals that are excellent hunters value hunting very highly and it is highly important to them.

[borjastick]

I think we should acknowledge the chasm between a muslim peasant who says what his imam tells him to say and thinks the way the supreme leader tells him to think and has probably never read anything decent in his life, or had an original thought in his life, and a well read and intelligent Revisionist here in the west.

A good example of group-think all wrapped up in jew hating nonsense from Iran etc was the book The Satanic Verses. Calls for death to Salman Rushdie by millions of Iranians who would never read the book and when not hating on him were screaming for the destruction of israel when they could probably not point a finger at israel on a map are a far cry from Revisionism as I see it.

Revisionism at its best, regularly shown in these pages, is a credit to the Revisionist community and is very scary to those believers who know they have been shown to be earth shatteringly dumb.