Virgil Griffith is a 25-year-old grad student at Caltech, and in his spare time he makes elaborate charts comparing people's SAT scores to their tastes in music and books. And you know what that means: Caltech grad students have way too much spare time.

 

That's the main thing I've learned from Music That Makes You Dumb, Griffith's latest viral info-bomb. According to this Wall Street Journal blog post, Griffith "used aggregated Facebook data about the favorite bands and books among students of various colleges and plotted them against the average SAT scores at those schools, creating a tongue-in-cheek statistical look at taste and intelligence." (He's also done the same for books.)

Griffiths' site is currently totally overloaded, but you can view the whole chart here.

 

For example, the school with the highest average SAT score happened to be Caltech, shockingly enough. And Caltech students' favorite band, as indicated by their Facebook pages, is Radiohead. But since Caltech has fewer students than plenty of larger schools, Radiohead doesn't get too huge of a bump on the big chart.

 

According to Griffith's chart, the smartest kids' favorite musician, by a ridiculously huge margin, is Beethoven (average SAT score: 1371). Other smart kid favorites: Sufjan Stevens, U2, Radiohead. The dumbest kids' favorite, meanwhile, is Lil Wayne (average score: 889). Other dumb kid favorites: Beyonce, T.I., Ludacris.

So: Judging by this chart, I am basically the dumbest person in the world. Hi.

 

Look. It's science. You can't argue with it. Or, OK: You could point out how these results indicate how hopelessly Eurocentric the SATs actually are, with the whole chart practically cleaved in half between black and white artists. Or you could argue that really smart people don't necessarily brag about their musical tastes on Facebook, or that when they do list musical tastes they usually just try to out-obscure each other by naming individual guitar solos or whatever. But no. Science.

 

For his part, Griffith doesn't claim that the chart is any sort of definitive IQ-map: As he told The Wall Street Journal, "Their unity is hilarity incarnate. This is to inspire people to think creatively about the data sets that are on the Internet ... Of course there is the whole correlation is not causation thing, but, I mean, duh." Spoken like a true Sufjan fan.

 

Griffith's research has turned up some truly puzzling results. For one thing, kids with high SAT scores tend to listen to some truly godawful whitebread bullshit: Counting Crows, Guster, Ben Folds, Norah Jones. For another, kids who list "rap" as their favorite music tend to score slightly higher than people who list "hip-hop." People who list genres instead of individual artists usually don't do too well. Zeppelin owns Queen and Bowie. John Legend effortlessly beasts Justin Timberlake. Nirvana beats Journey but not Pink Floyd. None of this makes any sense whatsoever.

 

Meanwhile, anyone who seriously thinks Yellowcard is better than Nas or Johnny Cash is invited to compare SAT scores with me.

 

 

 

 

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/149493-science-sez-lil-wayne-makes-you-stupid-sufjan-and-radiohead-make-you-smart

haha...very nice (especially radiohead)!

Haha yup.

Radiohead is the top artist for my university.

Hee. Cultural chicken and egg. People have a long history of picking music based on their social group, and top schools have a long history of accepting 'certain types of people', reinforcing those social groups and the cultural flotsam and jetsam that goes with them.

 

For instance if a kid whose friends all listen to hiphop decided he liked Vivaldi more than anything, he would either keep it to himself or (I can personally vouch for this one) be laughed out of having any friends. So the kid will probably listen to hiphop to fit in, and because what you listen to affects how your brain hears that thing, he will learn to genuinley like it.

 

Someone who's been hanging around with brainiacs in thier academic ivory tower will have been assured that Vivaldi is cool, and will be more likely to openly state that they like it. On the other hand, they may be laughed at for liking hiphop, so they'll keep that to themself.

 

The fastest way to turn into a social leper is to tell any given group that you like the wrong thing.

haha

I've always been sure about that, now science backs me up :P

(no offesne to rappers and rap listeners :P)

I feel smart now.

Coldplay is in the middle...

but if I listen to beethoven, radiohead, sufjan stevens, U2, counting crowns and all those on the top list but also to Beyonce ?

Maybe Lil Wayne makes you stupid no matter how much you listen to classical :P

I suppose all the critics are jerks :P

I don't think that picture they have is part of the guys "study", I think its just a random picture.

it's not that Radiohead makes you smart, it's that you have to be smart in order to like Radiohead. therefore, Radiohead listeners are already smarter than the average person

As much as I find some of the results agreeable it's sort of a distorted picture since they're going by "your favorite artist". I mean, anyone whose really into music would be uncomfortable answering that question. I mean, my favorite band is coldplay. But that's only a drop in the bucket of my wide range of tastes. On any given day I might feel like ignoring all my coldplay tracks and instead go through my collection of Chopin's Nocturne's. Lately I've been listening to U2 and Radiohead just as much if not more, but if the survey only registers "Coldplay", then it's like I only have one band on my mp3 player.

 

I think a much more accurate picture would be created if random people were given a long list of music artists, and were then asked to put a check mark beside those that they listen to regularly. Then you compile the stats...Because it's ridiculous to try to define someone's musical tastes on one band. (and did anyone else notice that while Beethoven was way ahead, "classical" was way over on the left hand side in the below 1000 area?)

Pop makes you dumb...:laugh3:

I know, I mean I kissed a girl and I liked it?

well who doesn't :dozey:

As much as I find some of the results agreeable it's sort of a distorted picture since they're going by "your favorite artist". I mean, anyone whose really into music would be uncomfortable answering that question. I mean, my favorite band is coldplay. But that's only a drop in the bucket of my wide range of tastes. On any given day I might feel like ignoring all my coldplay tracks and instead go through my collection of Chopin's Nocturne's. Lately I've been listening to U2 and Radiohead just as much if not more, but if the survey only registers "Coldplay", then it's like I only have one band on my mp3 player.

 

I think a much more accurate picture would be created if random people were given a long list of music artists, and were then asked to put a check mark beside those that they listen to regularly. Then you compile the stats...Because it's ridiculous to try to define someone's musical tastes on one band. (and did anyone else notice that while Beethoven was way ahead, "classical" was way over on the left hand side in the below 1000 area?)

wtf.... that's completely ridiculous, I mean, it's just stupid, despite being Beethoven one of my fav classical composers

I think this whole "study" thing completely fails.

 

Besides, aren't there more important things to study than test scores?

Pop makes you dumb...:laugh3:

 

So what does that make you if you listen to the Backdoor Boys? A cretin??:laugh3:

Classic case study on the shortcomings of statistics. This is how ridiculous concepts can be supported by anyone with a Google search tab.

Besides, aren't there more important things to study than test scores?

I agree... although I do believe Lil Wayners are stupid :P

I agree... although I do believe Lil Wayners are stupid :P

 

I reckon that's a total no-brainer!!:P

^^ Backdoor Boys...REALLY? :p

 

^ YEAH, GOOGLE! xD

^^ Backdoor Boys...REALLY? :p

 

 

Or Backward if you prefer!!:P

I agree... although I do believe Lil Wayners are stupid :P

 

I like some Lil Wayne, I won't lie.

So what does that make you if you listen to the Backdoor Boys? A cretin??:laugh3:

 

 

 

No,something far worse...:rolleyes:

Oh I thought this was actually like, a scientific study. Not some dude with too much time on his hands.

Who is Lil Wayne,eh?

Big Wayne's brother.