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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   35646 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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I would bet dollars to donuts that no SC justice is actually below average IQ, even among lawyers or judges. Maybe appellate courts, but I don’t think the bar is actually that high.

Partisan, yes. Political, obviously. But those are not always correlated against intelligence.

Googling "American lawyer average IQ" gives various estimates in the 115-125 range, with comments that successful lawyers (white-shoe partners, lawprofs, federal judges) are mostly going to be 130+.

I am pretty confident Sotomayor is in the 115-130 range - above average for traffic court lawyers, but well below the average federal judge. KBJ is even dumber than her. Kagan, Alito, Roberts, Kav, Barrett and Gorsuch are all smart enough to be e.g. High Court judges in England. I don't have an estimate on Thomas because so much of what he writes is easy dissents (or increasingly, concurrences) where he applies his simple but wrong (at least according to the majority and stare decisiis) law to the facts.

I suspect Alito is the smartest justice, but it isn't obvious because he is also the most partisan of the smart justices and partisanship makes you act dumber that you are.

Bottom tier: Sotomayor and KBJ. There are random white male judges (who went to unremarkable state law schools) I could pick from my state's court of appeals (not even supreme court) who would leave both in the dust.

Next tier: Kavanaugh and Barrett. Subpar by federal appellate judge standards. Probably still higher than most of the recent retirees from the Supreme Court, though.

Next tier: Thomas (probably higher when younger--some of his opinions interpreting and harmonizing conflicting federal statutes are not for lightweights) and Roberts. Maybe Gorsuch, but maybe he's highest tier. Gorsuch's writing style is excessively casual and sometimes sloppy, which I don't think is a good feature for a justice.

Highest tier: Alito and Kagan.

Agreed, though I think Gorsuch's writing style is mostly a calculated folksy affectation. Still annoying if that's not your bag, but he's very clearly going for a "less strident and elitist Scalia" image.

Below 100 IQ is improbable. Below the IQ of your average white male county judge is very plausible.

You obviously have no personal experience with the average white male county judge.

Sure but you can see how we should have higher standards for supreme court justices than "a bit above average for judges"?

A weird theory considering I see several most days of the week.

Especially the average white male county judge in counties where they are elected. Oh boy.

It seems just barely possible for KJB? It's pretty clear she just kept getting appointed to higher and higher spots on the basis of her race and gender, and it's entirely possible to me that was enough to get someone a bit dim by the standards of the judiciary, at least, into a high-powered law school.

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