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Trent Strong · Aug 13, 2013

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013...e-correlation-between-intelligence-and-faith/

This is the first systematic meta-analysis of 63 studies conducted between 1928 and 2012. In such an analysis, the authors look at each study’s sample size, quality of data collection, and analysis methods and then account for biases that may have inadvertently crept into the work.

Out of 63 studies, 53 showed a negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity, while 10 showed a positive one. Significant negative correlations were seen in 35 studies, whereas only two studies showed significant positive correlations

Overall, Zuckerman, Silberman, and Hall conclude that, according to their meta-analysis, there is little doubt a significant negative correlation exists (i.e. people who are more religious score worse on varying measures of intelligence). The correlation is more negative when religiosity measures beliefs rather than behavior. That may be because religious behavior may be used to help someone appear to be part of a group even though they may not believe in the supernatural.

There's a lot more in the actual article, including ideas on why more religious people seem to have lower intelligence, but I'm too lazy to quote more.

k_trout · Aug 13, 2013

and yet most of the great scientific discoveries across time were made by people who believed in a deity
go figure

Kad5 · Aug 13, 2013

k_trout said:
and yet most of the great scientific discoveries across time were made by people who believed in a deity
go figure

Being spiritual and religious are two different things. You can believe in a deity and not be religious.

k_trout · Aug 13, 2013

Kad5 said:
Being spiritual and religious are two different things. You can believe in a deity and not be religious.

pure semantics
sorry but it is
if you believe in a deity then you are following the natural religious function

the word religion is from religio which means - linking back - and nothing else

SpoonyBard · Aug 13, 2013

k_trout said:
and yet most of the great scientific discoveries across time were made by people who believed in a deity
go figure

It's pretty unlikely though, I think most cases they lied or avoided the subject in order to avoid persecution. Like Einstein for example.

k_trout · Aug 13, 2013

SpoonyBard said:
It's pretty unlikely though, I think most cases they lied or avoided the subject in order to avoid persecution. Like Einstein for example.

thats just speculation

Kabouter · Aug 13, 2013

k_trout said:
and yet most of the great scientific discoveries across time were made by people who believed in a deity
go figure

You're telling me that in societies where the vast majority was religious, most scientific discoveries were made by religious people? I am stunned.

milanbaros · Aug 13, 2013

k_trout said:
and yet most of the great scientific discoveries across time were made by people who believed in a deity
go figure

Not sure why but I love this post. Perfectly captures an ill thought out reply.

k_trout · Aug 13, 2013

Kabouter said:
You're telling me that in societies where the vast majority was religious, most scientific discoveries were made by religious people? I am stunned.

and yet the point of the the thread is that smart people arent religious or are less likely to be
but............

NoRéN · Aug 13, 2013

milanbaros said:
Not sure why but I love this post. Perfectly captures an ill thought out reply.

Must have been made by a religious person.

I jest

.

Kabouter · Aug 13, 2013

k_trout said:
and yet the point of the the thread is that smart people arent religious or are less likely to be
but............

There is no but. It is perfectly possible for both things to be true. If 1 in 10 common people are non-religious, and 1 in 3 highly intelligent people are non-religious, then the result of the study would be true. However, if we suppose that the highly intelligent people would make scientific discoveries at an equal rate, that would still mean 2/3 of scientific discoveries were made by religious people.

I don't know why I'm allowing myself to be trolled like this

squidyj · Aug 13, 2013

k_trout said:
and yet the point of the the thread is that smart people arent religious or are less likely to be
but............

Yes your interpretation that the study is stating that no religious person could ever be smart is very smart in and of itself.

archnemesis · Aug 13, 2013

I liked this quote that The Independent mentioned in their article yesterday.

The paper concludes that: "Most extant explanations (of a negative relation) share one central theme the premise that religious beliefs are irrational, not anchored in science, not testable and, therefore, unappealing to intelligent people who 'know better'."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...hing-back-over-decades-concludes-8758046.html

TheYanger · Aug 13, 2013

In this thread, Gaf continues its crusade to prove that anyone who has faith is a neanderthal and anyone who doesn't is a genius?

Should we start making threads about black-white test score gaps and see how long it takes before those get locked? What a sham.

Anyway, read the article people. Nothing particularly surprising contained within, just intentional flame bait to respond to this thread.

k_trout · Aug 13, 2013

lol
dont give up so soon with the...must be a troll comment
jeeze
just a nice little conversation about religion
dont take my opinion so heavily just cause it isnt in line with yours

User 100115 · Aug 13, 2013

TheYanger said:
In this thread, Gaf continues its crusade to prove that anyone who has faith is a neanderthal and anyone who doesn't is a genius?

Should we start making threads about black-white test score gaps and see how long it takes before those get locked? What a sham.

Anyway, read the article people. Nothing particularly surprising contained within, just intentional flame bait to respond to this thread.

I don't think that's a good comparison to make, since religion is a choice, and being black or white is not.

dragonelite · Aug 13, 2013

People know more about the world, so less questions like why does it thunder? that need to be answered with an deity like figure.

ThoseDeafMutes · Aug 13, 2013

TheYanger said:
In this thread, Gaf continues its crusade to prove that anyone who has faith is a neanderthal and anyone who doesn't is a genius?

Should we start making threads about black-white test score gaps and see how long it takes before those get locked? What a sham.

Could you point out where it is you believe in this thread people are saying that religious people are stupid or anything remotely to that effect?

Edit:

Damnit, other mods.

jaxword · Aug 13, 2013

k_trout said:
thats just speculation

But nothing you say is speculation, right?

squidyj · Aug 13, 2013

TheYanger said:
In this thread, Gaf continues its crusade to prove that anyone who has faith is a neanderthal and anyone who doesn't is a genius?

Should we start making threads about black-white test score gaps and see how long it takes before those get locked? What a sham.

Anyway, read the article people. Nothing particularly surprising contained within, just intentional flame bait to respond to this thread.

Except I conjecture that black-white scoring gaps would be explained away by wealth disparity. Whereas here it seems the researchers have managed to control for that across the studies. Not to mention the idea that a belief system is something you maintain and a skin color is something you're born with.

Kad5 · Aug 13, 2013

k_trout said:
pure semantics
sorry but it is
if you believe in a deity then you are following the natural religious function

the word religion is from religio which means - linking back - and nothing else

To me spiritual refers to the private aspects of personal belief and religion has more to do with established doctrines.

There have been plenty of scientists of many different faiths and many who were also deists as well as those who are atheists.

Einstein was a pantheist if I remember correctly....

User 100115 · Aug 13, 2013

And really, this should be kinda obvious. It isn't saying that all religious people are stupid. But some super religious people tend to not seek out knowledge, because most things can be explained as 'part of God's plan' or some such. Why would you go looking for answers when you already thought you had all the answers?

Kabouter · Aug 13, 2013

dragonelite said:
People know more about the world, so less questions like why does it thunder? that need to be answered with an deity like figure.

I think it's rather dismissive of people's experience with religion to define their reason for believing to be why does it thunder?, even when it's just an example.

Kevtones · Aug 13, 2013

as a hipster, it's easy to be religious
for someone religious, it's difficult to become a hipster

k_trout · Aug 13, 2013

dragonelite said:
People know more about the world, so less questions like why does it thunder? that need to be answered with an deity like figure.

it is a good point that science and its utilisation of things has made it more unlikely that "intelligent" people will believe in something irrational but that does not remove the fact that the irrational is an actual part of existence
every night we are irrational to the extreme in our dreams
the idea of a deity is irrational, but thats the whole point
its to support the vast unexplainable in the universe so we dont stare into the abyss too long

Haly · Aug 13, 2013

Kabouter said:
I think it's rather dismissive of people's experience with religion to define their reason for believing to be why does it thunder?, even when it's just an example.

Agreed.

It works as an explanation for primitive humans, but modern religion is a lot more nuanced than that and so are its practitioners.

k_trout · Aug 13, 2013

jaxword said:
But nothing you say is speculation, right?

actually its historical fact that most prominent scientists in history were deeply religious
so if it is speculation it is not my speculation its the people who write history
so i apologise for their inaccuracies
or maybe i just read all the wrong books
which is possible

Zaptruder · Aug 13, 2013

What's remarkable is how many intelligent and well informed people hold onto their beliefs, despite mountains of data showing how incogruent those beliefs are to the rest of the world... and even internally on a regular basis!

Truly a marvel of the brain; to be able to hold massive networks of competing and contradictory ideas in place, with a similar level of belief and respect for each.

pants · Aug 13, 2013

Kabouter said:
I think it's rather dismissive of people's experience with religion to define their reason for believing to be why does it thunder?, even when it's just an example.

There was that guy with the waves go in and waves go out :/

Dennis · Aug 13, 2013

No SHOCKING NEWS in the thread?

Antiochus · Aug 13, 2013

One would think intelligence is a nebulous, hopelessly complicated matter that cannot be measured with any precision, accuracy, or confidence. And that it means very many things and very many different types for different people. Why then are people trusting in this study?

k_trout · Aug 13, 2013

Kad5 said:
To me spiritual refers to the private aspects of personal belief and religion has more to do with established doctrines.

There have been plenty of scientists of many different faiths and many who were also deists as well as those who are atheists.

Einstein was a pantheist if I remember correctly....

which is still part of the religious function which is innate to human beings
its how we deal with the irrational aspects of reality

Septimius · Aug 13, 2013

k_trout said:
lol
dont give up so soon with the...must be a troll comment
jeeze
just a nice little conversation about religion
dont take my opinion so heavily just cause it isnt in line with yours

Problem is that it isn't an opinion, it's a logical fallacy. The majority of people a hundred years ago were religious. Many great scientific discoveries, and I'm sure a lot of the people you aim to call out, were doing those scientific discoveries when being religious was the norm.

Being smart doesn't automatically not make you religious. Being religious doesn't automatically make you stupid. And saying "most scientific discoveries were done by religious people" is a very flaky argument, to boot. If you'd like to name names, date of their discovery, citation that they were religious (psst, Einstein wasn't) and a percentage of religious people in their society, and you'll being to see that there's nothing surprising about, the actual argument you made: "people were religious in religious societies".

Martian · Aug 13, 2013

Dennis said:
No SHOCKING NEWS in the thread?

Yeah, I believe this was common knowledge.
When people are more intelligent, they are commonly taught to be skeptical. When you become more skeptical, you are less likely to believe in dieties.

k_trout said:
and yet most of the great scientific discoveries across time were made by people who believed in a deity
go figure

Also, atheism is rather new, so that statement isn't very contrary to what the articles states.

(also, where did you find that statistic?)

Haly · Aug 13, 2013

k_trout said:
which is still part of the religious function which is innate to human beings
its how we deal with the irrational aspects of reality

It's one way, and it's popular and has social approval so that helps.

But it's not the only way.

Unless by "religious function" you're referring to people's tendency to rationalize their environment in a way that "makes sense". Otherwise I have no idea what this "religious function" is.

k_trout · Aug 13, 2013

Septimius said:
Problem is that it isn't an opinion, it's a logical fallacy. The majority of people a hundred years ago were religious. Many great scientific discoveries, and I'm sure a lot of the people you aim to call out, were doing those scientific discoveries when being religious was the norm.

Being smart doesn't automatically not make you religious. Being religious doesn't automatically make you stupid. And saying "most scientific discoveries were done by religious people" is a very flaky argument, to boot. If you'd like to name names, date of their discovery, citation that they were religious (psst, Einstein wasn't) and a percentage of religious people in their society, and you'll being to see that there's nothing surprising about, the actual argument you made: "people were religious in religious societies".

i disagree ....it definitely is my opinion lol
fallacy or not its still my opinion

HalfBakedProphet · Aug 13, 2013

I don't see this as very surprising. Arent intelligent people much more likey to suffer from depression too?

SpoonyBard · Aug 13, 2013

Kabouter said:
I think it's rather dismissive of people's experience with religion to define their reason for believing to be why does it thunder?, even when it's just an example.

God of the gaps is a common theme among religions, and as knowledge of science has grown these gaps have gotten smaller and smaller. Hardly no-one believes these days that god makes thunder, or whatever, but there are still people who believe in creationism because we don't known the full fossil history of every single animal...

Mavromatis · Aug 13, 2013

Does that mean more intelligent people are less religious but since they are intelligent they act religious to avoid persecution?

Septimius · Aug 13, 2013

k_trout said:
which is still part of the religious function which is innate to human beings
its how we deal with the irrational aspects of reality

Einsteins pantheism was more of the understanding that "the universe can't be stupid if it is this elegant", coming from a rather opposing interpretation of "stupid building blocks of the universe", as we like to see the atoms in the west. Simply put, he was stunned by the beauty of the universe as he discovered it. To attribute that to a feeling that the whole thing is an elegant thing, as opposed to just cold dead matter that happened to make humans, is very irrelevant in a discussion of religion. But you might as well go ahead and abuse the quote on the matter, for as he said "in that regard, I am a deeply religious man".

k_trout said:
i disagree ....it definitely is my opinion lol
fallacy or not its still my opinion

This is completely analogous to saying 1 + 1 = 3, and saying it is your opinion. It serves you no purpose, because you lack a critical view of your own statement. As such, you're contributing merely with a type of word salad to this thread. Syntactically correct sentences that, in the end, give no insight or meaning.

Hypron · Aug 13, 2013

Antiochus said:
One would think intelligence is a nebulous, hopelessly complicated matter that cannot be measured with any precision, accuracy, or confidence. And that it means very many things and very many different types for different people. Why then are people trusting in these 63 studies?

FTFY.

Scoring high on a IQ test (or similar) actually has a meaning. It might only measure one facet of your intelligence, but the fact that it doesn't measure your emotional (and other types of) intelligence doesn't make it useless. If a vast majority of these 63 studies found a correlation between people scoring high in these sorts of tests and not believing in religion, it means that there is substantial evidence that there actually exists such a correlation.

k_trout · Aug 13, 2013

Haly said:
It's one way, and it's popular and has social approval so that helps.

But it's not the only way.

Unless by "religious function" you're referring to people's tendency to rationalize their environment in a way that "makes sense". Otherwise I have no idea what this "religious function" is.

what i mean by the religious function is one of the natural archetypal structures of the psyche
a specific ordering system which is a priori (before consciousness)
it is part of what human is and can not be negated by simple denial of it
it is an energic flow from outside the ego consciousness
part of what defines human nature

Zaptruder · Aug 13, 2013

k_trout said:
i disagree ....it definitely is my opinion lol
fallacy or not its still my opinion

I like to label statements of facts as opinions in order to stop people from hurting my feelings when they call me out on my wretched stupidity... too.

Martian · Aug 13, 2013

k_trout said:
what i mean by the religious function is one of the natural archetypal structures of the psyche
a specific ordering system which is a priori (before consciousness)
it is part of what human is and cant be neagted by simple denial of it
it is an energic flow from outside the ego consciousness
part of what defines human nature

That's new to me. I don't believe I ever saw a region of the brain for religious stuff.

Yes, searching for explanations is in the human nature. But that doesn't mean religion is in the human nature.

dragonelite · Aug 13, 2013

Kabouter said:
I think it's rather dismissive of people's experience with religion to define their reason for believing to be why does it thunder?, even when it's just an example.

It was an bad example should have used "why is bad stuff happening?".
But i'm not religious so i can't really see/tell why people want to believe in an deity or deities maybe they find strength or hope in their religion for better times.

k_trout · Aug 13, 2013

Zaptruder said:
I like to label statements of facts as opinions in order to stop people from hurting my feelings when they call me out on my wretched stupidity... too.

lol cant hide from our opinions
especially when they are wretchedly stupid
somehow we need to gather ourselves up and just get on with it

k_trout · Aug 13, 2013

Martian said:
That's new to me. I don't believe I ever saw a region of the brain for religious stuff.

Yes, searching for explanations is in the human nature. But that doesn't mean religion is in the human nature.

it was new to me 20 years ago when i started studying Jung
i would recommend his collected works it explains it WAY better than i can

Haly · Aug 13, 2013

k_trout said:
what i mean by the religious function is one of the natural archetypal structures of the psyche
a specific ordering system which is a priori (before consciousness)
it is part of what human is and can not be negated by simple denial of it
it is an energic flow from outside the ego consciousness
part of what defines human nature

Calling it the "religious function" is grossly misleading. This is the same aspect of the human psyche that puts stock in everyday superstitions, and falls for cognitive traps like the Gambler's fallacy and loss aversion.

aly · Aug 13, 2013

I don't find this study surprising at all. Of course you also have religious people who are very intelligent and non intelligent non religious people too. Which is why I don't assume things about people or group them together.

V_Arnold · Aug 13, 2013

GAF, what makes thunder?

On a serious note, yeah....if I had to make a choice between christianity and atheism, I would pretty much be considered 0 on the religious scale. Not like that means anything.

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