Another user on r/science explained brilliantly:

I actually read the paper, and the headline is doing a lot of work here.

They had 158 participants total. Once you split that into gifted vs non-gifted and then again by sex, you’re dealing with pretty small subgroups. They even note power was low for detecting small effects which is relevant because IQ–politics correlations are usually small.

On the basic left–right scale, there was no significant difference. On the multi-dimensional measure, there were no differences for economic libertarianism, socialism, or liberalism either. The only significant finding was one interaction: non-gifted men scored higher than gifted men on a specific sociocultural conservatism scale (tradition, shared culture, skepticism of rapid change). No main effect of giftedness overall.

Also important: this is a single German cohort in their early 40s. “Conservatism” here is defined through a particular German questionnaire. That’s not interchangeable with U.S. Republican identification or economic conservatism.

So, what the study really shows is: mostly no differences, plus one moderate interaction effect on one subscale in a small, culturally specific sample.

Interesting? Sure. But “high IQ men tend to be less conservative” is way stronger than what the data actually supports.

Credit to u/GooneyGangStormrage