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Psychology Today: less intelligence = more religious. GAF prepares Fedoras

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D

Damaniel

Banned
Samarecarm said:
It's tricky because the question asks when the (Jewish) Sabbath begins, which is sundown on Friday--which is still Friday on any secular clock rather than Saturday.
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Yep, I knew this part. Didn't realize that Catholics considered communion to involve the 'literal' body/blood of Christ. That's kind of creepy.

I got the other 14 correct, though.
 
A

arab

Member
ajAEmPE.jpg
 
phisheep

phisheep

NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
The Lamp said:
Haha I'm an outlier. I'm a devout Christian, really open to experience and new ideas and I'm well educated (and I assume intelligent).

It'll be interesting if they ever find out what a third underlying factor might be! These statistics are certainly apparent when talking about certain extreme groups of people but I wonder what the grey areas look like and why.
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I'm guessing the review covered only US surveys, and as I know nothing about the US I can't sensibly guess at other factors there. But if the same thing were run in the UK there would be a whole bunch of socioeconomic and cultural things going on - like poverty/access to education/age/which religion it is (with probably on average higher intelligence among the religions that traditionally value learning more, probably Judaism and mainstream Islam and on average lower for Catholicism and nonconformist and age a big factor for Anglicans) - or something like that. Layer regional variations on top and there's a whole load of factors to control for.
 
A

Anura

Member
Air said:
The ability for atheists to do this probably has something to due with placating a human need that atheists lack, but are fulfilled by some religious act or knowledge. This will also explain why atheists tend to know a bit more about a religion (generally speaking this religions is Christianity) than the believers.
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I have to ask what kind of "need" this would be? Sometimes it is just as simple as people wanting to learn instead of "lacking" something important.
 
T

ThoseDeafMutes

Member
If we want to start speculating as to the reasons why this is, I'd say it's because the western world is still predominantly religious (especially America) and most people are content to believe whatever they were raised to be. The kind of people who change their mind after putting serious thought and examining arguments are not likely to be homeless, uneducated people with an IQ of 86. In a hypothetical atheist dominated society, we might see the inverse effect, where the only people who believe in god are the ones who do because they considered philosophical arguments around them and found them to be convincing, which biases the sample of such people towards the intelligent. In both cases they would still be a minority, but that minority would tend to include smarter people on average.
 
A

Air

Banned
Anura said:
I have to ask what kind of "need" this would be? Sometimes it is just as simple as people wanting to learn instead of "lacking" something important.
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It could be that too. I'm just theorizing. I only formulated that because many religions tend to placate or comfort it's believers about something, let's use death. Atheists or agnostic people, by default, do not carry that notion (or if they do I would wager it's a rare case), so they may search for an answer, or embark on a journey of knowledge.

ThoseDeafMutes said:
If we want to start speculating as to the reasons why this is, I'd say it's because the western world is still predominantly religious (especially America) and most people are content to believe whatever they were raised to be. The kind of people who change their mind after putting serious thought and examining arguments are not likely to be homeless, uneducated people with an IQ of 86. In a hypothetical atheist dominated society, we might see the inverse effect, where the only people who believe in god are the ones who do because they considered philosophical arguments around them and found them to be convincing, which biases the sample of such people towards the intelligent. In both cases they would still be a minority, but that minority would tend to include smarter people on average.
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I could see this working as well.
 
A

Anura

Member
Air said:
It could be that too. I'm just theorizing. I only formulated that because many religions tend to placate or comfort it's believers about something, let's use death. Atheists or agnostic people, by default, do not carry that notion (or if they do I would wager it's a rare case), so they may search for an answer, or embark on a journey of knowledge.
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Fair enough. Although when it comes to death everyone seems to come to different conclusions even with religious inspirations
 
V

Valhelm

contribute something
I think the issue is that more religious people are less likely to be educated and less likely to be wealthy. The poorest parts of America are also some of the least secular. The poorest parts of the world are also some of the least secular.

It's pretty well-documented that less-educated people are less likely to perform well on IQ tests. I think religion is an irrelevant variable here.
 
A

Air

Banned
Anura said:
Fair enough. Although when it comes to death everyone seems to come to different conclusions even with religious inspirations
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Well yeah, that goes without saying. I'm just saying there may be extra motivation for an atheist to turn to other sources of knowledge (and perhaps abandoning others), than believers. That's why I also don't think that atheists are smarter or better people than believers, just more motivated in a certain aspect. I say this as a panentheist btw.
 
C

Chumpion

Member
A fiendish thought just occurred to me. Since religious people are so STUPID, we could make them our SLAVES. Just make up some random bullshit about deities and afterlife... they'll eat it up! Then they have to obey us and give us presents!
 
S

SteveWinwood

Member
ThoseDeafMutes said:
If we want to start speculating as to the reasons why this is, I'd say it's because the western world is still predominantly religious (especially America) and most people are content to believe whatever they were raised to be. The kind of people who change their mind after putting serious thought and examining arguments are not likely to be homeless, uneducated people with an IQ of 86. In a hypothetical atheist dominated society, we might see the inverse effect, where the only people who believe in god are the ones who do because they considered philosophical arguments around them and found them to be convincing, which biases the sample of such people towards the intelligent. In both cases they would still be a minority, but that minority would tend to include smarter people on average.
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yo u callin us dumb
 
Z

Zaptruder

Banned
ThoseDeafMutes said:
If we want to start speculating as to the reasons why this is, I'd say it's because the western world is still predominantly religious (especially America) and most people are content to believe whatever they were raised to be. The kind of people who change their mind after putting serious thought and examining arguments are not likely to be homeless, uneducated people with an IQ of 86. In a hypothetical atheist dominated society, we might see the inverse effect, where the only people who believe in god are the ones who do because they considered philosophical arguments around them and found them to be convincing, which biases the sample of such people towards the intelligent. In both cases they would still be a minority, but that minority would tend to include smarter people on average.
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Oh, you're preempting the citation of the Tea Party = higher IQ than average argument.

Yes, well... as knowledge of science goes up, religious affiliation goes down.

Take that Tea Party!
 
M

Mr_Elysia

Member
The same type of atheist will be excited about this news as white people who are excited about race IQ trending. Not people anyone really wants to be around.
 
O

Orayn

Member
Part of me wants to grumble about atheist stereotypes, but at the same time I realize where those stereotypes come from and don't want to be lumped in with them by bringing it up.

As far as the actual correlation in the study, I defer to the third cause they listed. It's quite possible that being an inquisitive, thoughtful person could have a corrosive effect on religious belief, and it's obviously more nuanced than "lol religious people are STOOPID." (Though there are some unpleasant people on both sides of the debate who would love to have that argument.)
 
A

Acorn

Member
Valhelm said:
I think the issue is that more religious people are less likely to be educated and less likely to be wealthy. The poorest parts of America are also some of the least secular. The poorest parts of the world are also some of the least secular.

It's pretty well-documented that less-educated people are less likely to perform well on IQ tests. I think religion is an irrelevant variable here.
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I'm of that opinion too.
 
R

ronito

Member
ThoseDeafMutes said:
If we want to start speculating as to the reasons why this is, I'd say it's because the western world is still predominantly religious (especially America) and most people are content to believe whatever they were raised to be. The kind of people who change their mind after putting serious thought and examining arguments are not likely to be homeless, uneducated people with an IQ of 86. In a hypothetical atheist dominated society, we might see the inverse effect, where the only people who believe in god are the ones who do because they considered philosophical arguments around them and found them to be convincing, which biases the sample of such people towards the intelligent. In both cases they would still be a minority, but that minority would tend to include smarter people on average.
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I think this assumes a lot of home dynamics that might/might not be true.
My bet is on openess to experience. As that TED talk about psychology of morality was going on about, liberal minded people are always looking for new experiences at the expense of order, whereas conservative people look for similar/samey experiences. I'd say that being open to experience makes people seek out differing experiences whereas conservative folk seek out the familiar.

By the acts of doing so you'd find that in looking for new experiences you'd experience different versions of "truth" that would require one to reassess and rethink their faith. Whereas someone who constantly looking for the familiar are seldom put into a situation where they have to reassess and if they are they shy away from it.
 
J

jay

Member
God created so called smart people in order to test the faithful. Of course we are the abused, outcast, downtrodden minority. The bible even says so.
 
M

Mr_Elysia

Member
Log4Girlz said:
People have a choice in beliefs, not in race. I don't see the similarity.
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My point only being that the stereotypical fedora atheist will cling to this as justification for himself.

But on that note, since we're here, if one were to believe that their intelligence was the primary distinction as to why they were atheist and another person religious then you could say that the choice in the matter was much lessened. It's still not the same as race, and I'm not trying to say it is, I'm just furthering the argument for argument sake.
 
M

Mumei

Member
The article is new, but the meta-analysis this article is based off of actually had a topic in August.

Also relevant, and posted in the other topic.

There’s a study going around by Zuckerman, Silberman, and Hall that purports to show an inverse relationship between intelligence and religiosity. Here’s the abstract.

A meta-analysis of 63 studies showed a significant negative association between intelligence and religiosity. The association was stronger for college students and the general population than for participants younger than college age; it was also stronger for religious beliefs than religious behavior. For college students and the general population, means of weighted and unweighted correlations between intelligence and the strength of religious beliefs ranged from −.20 to −.25 (mean r = −.24). Three possible interpretations were discussed. First, intelligent people are less likely to conform and, thus, are more likely to resist religious dogma. Second, intelligent people tend to adopt an analytic (as opposed to intuitive) thinking style, which has been shown to undermine religious beliefs. Third, several functions of religiosity, including compensatory control, self-regulation, self-enhancement, and secure attachment, are also conferred by intelligence. Intelligent people may therefore have less need for religious beliefs and practices.​

After reading the paper, I’m reasonably confident that they processed the data competently. However, I’d add a fourth interpretation that they don’t take seriously enough: that there was systematic bias in the intelligence studies they analyzed. I’m actually personally put off (bias alert!) by any study that attempts to reduce something as complex as intelligence to a simple number amenable to statistical analysis. The various studies measure intelligence by GPA (grade point average), UEE (university entrance exams), Mensa membership, and Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests. Can you say apples and oranges? Yeah, I thought so. And anyone who has spent any time with Mensa people knows they aren’t particularly shining examples of crystal clear analytical intelligence, for instance.

[...]

Again, the statistics in the paper seem fine to my casual eye, but it really looks like a case of garbage in, garbage out. I’m not at all impressed that we can discern a trend when the floor is defined by people willing to embrace racist bullshit.

I thought the attempts to explain the pattern were quite nice, addressing a number of different hypotheses, and some of them were reasonable in trying to find a broader cause than simply “hicks is dumb”. But I had a hard time getting past the implicit bias in the study that they were looking at “intelligence”. I don’t think they were. I think you could find that ignorance is associated with religiosity — a lot of religions oppose education and insist on keeping certain segments of the population (i.e., women) as uninformed and uneducated as possible, and just that fact is going to skew the results to fit their conclusion. They also note studies that show the higher echelons of academia and educated individuals are less likely to be religious, and I can honestly believe that analytical examination of the claims of religion leads to a loss of faith. But we typically associate “intelligence” with something intrinsic to the individual, a biological property of their brains, and nothing in this study allows that conclusion to be made. The word is heavily loaded and entirely inappropriate.

[...]

I’m more inclined to accept Gregory Paul’s thesis that religiosity is coupled to socioeconomic status — that if you’re poor, you’re less likely to get the education that would help you see beyond the delusions of faith, and that also you’re going to be more reliant on the social safety net of your church. But it’s not lack of intelligence that is at the heart of religion, it’s class and emotional/cultural/historical concerns. Poor performance on IQ tests is simply a side-effect of discrimination and deprivation.

And, I must add, even if the correlation does hold up in studies that aren’t from racist jerks, it’s no consolation for you: your intelligence is a property of the individual, and being a member of statistically slightly superior group doesn’t confer any special abilities on you, other than the ability to hide behind Richard Feynman and pretend his brilliance somehow rubbed off on you. It didn’t, sorry.
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And again, there's more at the link.
 
M

Moofers

Member
Holy shit, the smug in here is bad enough to label this thread as a choking hazard. I recently converted from atheist to Christian and its been a real interesting journey. I see the old me sitting there, closed-minded and pre-judging people when I found out they were religious. I was writing off somebody's opinion or thoughts on the subject because I was sure they didn't know what the hell they were talking about, or that they could ever have a point. I was certain they were indoctrinated or a product of their upbringing, or some other condition. It was only when I started to actually look into things and combine what I thought I knew as an atheist with what I had learned about Christianity, that I started to really open up to the possibility that certain things could be true.

Not saying I expect you all to convert right now, I'm just saying I changed my mind when I was sure it would never happen. Open up, don't judge people, and be willing to ignore the loud idiots (Westboro Baptist, etc.) who really just get in the way and confuse things. That's all I'm saying, GAF. I'd like to think that doesn't mean I'm an idiot.
 
A

Air

Banned
Moofers said:
Holy shit, the smug in here is bad enough to label this thread as a choking hazard. I recently converted from atheist to Christian and its been a real interesting journey. I see the old me sitting there, closed-minded and pre-judging people when I found out they were religious. I was writing off somebody's opinion or thoughts on the subject because I was sure they didn't know what the hell they were talking about, or that they could ever have a point. I was certain they were indoctrinated or a product of their upbringing, or some other condition. It was only when I started to actually look into things and combine what I thought I knew as an atheist with what I had learned about Christianity, that I started to really open up to the possibility that certain things could be true.

Not saying I expect you all to convert right now, I'm just saying I changed my mind when I was sure it would never happen. Open up, don't judge people, and be willing to ignore the loud idiots (Westboro Baptist, etc.) who really just get in the way and confuse things. That's all I'm saying, GAF. I'd like to think that doesn't mean I'm an idiot.
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There's definitely some smugness in the thread, but I think it's been fairly civil actually.

I do get out of the euphoric fedora meme though, but that's my vice to deal with.
 
S

SquiddyCracker

Banned
Well, if you say so, I guess I'm super intelligent seeing as I'm so not religious.
I wish I had a fedora to grace this beautiful head full of intelligence.
 
S

Sutton Dagger

Member
Moofers said:
Holy shit, the smug in here is bad enough to label this thread as a choking hazard. I recently converted from atheist to Christian and its been a real interesting journey. I see the old me sitting there, closed-minded and pre-judging people when I found out they were religious. I was writing off somebody's opinion or thoughts on the subject because I was sure they didn't know what the hell they were talking about, or that they could ever have a point. I was certain they were indoctrinated or a product of their upbringing, or some other condition. It was only when I started to actually look into things and combine what I thought I knew as an atheist with what I had learned about Christianity, that I started to really open up to the possibility that certain things could be true.

Not saying I expect you all to convert right now, I'm just saying I changed my mind when I was sure it would never happen. Open up, don't judge people, and be willing to ignore the loud idiots (Westboro Baptist, etc.) who really just get in the way and confuse things. That's all I'm saying, GAF. I'd like to think that doesn't mean I'm an idiot.
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Wow, nice straw man. The conversation in here is interesting and respectful, interestingly you're literally doing what you're rallying against, insinuating that those who don't accept claims on faith need to open up.

On a personal note, I'd be interested in hearing what made you go from an atheist to a Christian?
 
H

HalfBakedProphet

Member
What was the common, cliche view of your average atheist in the 80s and 90s? Nerdy scientist? College professor? r/atheist goer sporting a fedora is just fucking awful
 
J

jaxword

Member
HalfBakedProphet said:
What was the common, cliche view of your average atheist in the 80s and 90s? Nerdy scientist? College professor? r/atheist goer sporting a fedora is just fucking awful
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There doesn't appear to have been one, it was fairly randomly widespread.

Somehow the fedora-wearing trenchcoaters took over the image.

It was likely the internet being used as a replacement for socializing from 2000-onwards for the awkward, socially-inept crowd, and it spread from there.
 
L

Lautaro

Member
ITT people claiming "athiests" are smarter. Oh the irony.

Now seriously, Is there really a subculture in the US regarding atheism? I ask because all that talk of fedoras and stuff... I mean, in my country I have yet to see another atheist show me solidarity, we don't give a fuck about each other and we certainly don't use some specific dress code.
 
D

Dead Man

Member
Lautaro said:
ITT people claiming "athiests" are smarter. Oh the irony.

Now seriously, Is there really a subculture in the US regarding atheism? I ask because all that talk of fedoras and stuff... I mean, in my country I have yet to see another atheist show me solidarity, we don't give a fuck about each other and we certainly don't use some specific dress code.
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I think America is a special place, they need to categorise everyone. Apparently not belonging to a particular group is all it takes to make you a member of a group.

edit: And your first sentence is a bit... nonsensical.
 
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