For the last several years, a software application writer by the name of Virgil Griffith has charted musical tastes based on the average SAT scores of various college institutions. From his website:
Well, here’s one idea.
- Get a friend of yours to download, using Facebook, the ten most frequent “favorite music” at every college via that college’s Network Statistics page on Facebook (manually — as not to violate Facebook’s ToS). These ten “favorite musics” are perhaps indicative of the overall intellectual milieu of that college.
- Download the average SAT/ACT score (from CollegeBoard) for students attending every college.
- Presto! We have a correlation between musical tastes and dumbitude (smartitude too)!
Music <=> Colleges <=> Average SAT Scores - Plot the average SAT of each “favorite music”, discarding those with too few samples to have a reliable average.
- Post the results on your website, pondering what the Internet will think of it.
Yes, I’m aware correlation ≠ causation. The results are hilarity incarnate regardless of causality.
You can stop sending me email about this distinction. Thanks.
See the full result of Griffith’s findings below:
Good Music. Good Life. 