Religion
Related: About this forumIs there a correlation between intelligence and religiosity?
I have heard it said that there is zero correlation between intelligence and religiosity.
Oddly that seems to not be the case.
In a 2013 meta-analysis, led by Professor Miron Zuckerman, of 63 scientific studies about IQ and religiosity, a negative relation between intelligence and religiosity was found in 53, and a positive relation in the remaining ten. Controlling for other factors, they can only confidently show strong negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity among American Protestants.
The relationship between countries' belief in a god and average Intelligence Quotient, measured by Lynn, Harvey & Nyborg.
Nyborg also co-authored a study with Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Ulster, which compared religious belief and average national IQs in 137 countries. The study analysed the issue from several viewpoints. Firstly, using data from a U.S. study of 6,825 adolescents, the authors found that atheists scored 6 IQ points higher than non-atheists.
Secondly, the authors investigated the link between religiosity and intelligence on a country level. Among the sample of 137 countries, only 23 (17%) had more than 20% of atheists, which constituted “virtually all... higher IQ countries.” The authors reported a correlation of 0.60 between atheism rates and level of intelligence, which was determined to be “highly statistically significant”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence
It seems that at a minimum a claim that there is a negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity would not be a claim that is "pure bunk", that is a claim without any merit or substantiating evidence. Instead it would be a claim substantiated by lots of research.
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hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)
mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)But two of them eloped and started a fire.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)
mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)
rug
(82,333 posts)
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)The conclusions they extracted reinforce the self-selected nature of one of the two groups compared.
The second possible explanation is that more intelligent persons rely more logical reasoning and empirical evidence in their belief systems. It might not be intelligence per se that leads to a lack of religious beliefs, but a cognitive style that is more critical of the prevailing religious beliefs in a community.
The third explanation offered, which is relatively new in the literature, is that religious beliefs satisfy a number of psychological “functions,” such as a sense that the world is orderly and predictable. The authors argue that intelligence confers a sense of personal control that negates the need for religious beliefs. A second function that religiosity might offer is greater ability to control impulses. Finally, religion might serve the function of enhancing self-esteem (most religions emphasize a personal relationship with god—a superior being), and religious communities offer a sense of belonging.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)It takes effort to break it.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)If it take effort to conform, non-conformity can be super-easy.
rug
(82,333 posts)AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Some people care about shit like 'peer pressure'. Etcetera.
Brettongarcia
(2,262 posts)Brettongarcia
(2,262 posts)AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Except children, that are often force-indoctrinated.
rug
(82,333 posts)I hazard a guess that, by far, atheists arrive at that place and do not start there.
Put up a poll.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)I suspect I am a minority, in always having been an atheist. Little point in a poll, you just hand-waved away a hundred years of various studies and surveys.
rug
(82,333 posts)I'm just an inveterate nonconformist.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Story of my life.
bvf
(6,604 posts)And your link -- what should one be looking for on the main page? Just trying to understand your argument here.
rug
(82,333 posts)The link goes to the stories of many who have left Christianity. There are similar sites for virtually every religion.
The process often starts in high school, college and beyond and includes reading, research and argument.
So, the demographics of the starting point, reinforced by the process, yields the results seen in the meta-analysis posted.
Many other people go through this process and do not end up nonbelievers. But it's likely the vast majority simply are not interested in the first place and don't bother.
That's why I say one of the groups compared is self-selected compared to the other. When you compare the manual dexterity of quilters to nonquilters, you should not be surprised at the results.
bvf
(6,604 posts)but they don't explain anything.
I don't see in any of this why conformism (if that's a word) is any less self-selective. If you're hiding in the crowd, you're still identifying with the crowd, like it or not.
You can only hide for so long before you become something other that what you think you are.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)That intelligent people often self select out of religion? Cause your data point does not invalidate the study.
rug
(82,333 posts)Last edited Sat Nov 29, 2014, 06:43 PM - Edit history (1)
Atheists are generally drawn from a more educated demographic. Note the emphasis is on the starting demographic. They are much less likely to be drawn from a less educated demographic.
By far, the vast majority of those in the more educated demographic do not move on to atheism. Presumably their intelligence remains intact.
What you end up is with a small, self-selected group, atheists, compared to the population at large, theists. The results should not be surprising. It is like comparing a smalll group of college graduates to the larger population of high school graduates, some of whom have gone on to college and some of whom did not.
i thought you were intelligent enough to get it the first time.
BTW, i have not provided a data point at all. It's a critique of a meta-analysis.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)The self selection is a red herring you are throwing in to muddy the waters.
It's like examining a bunch of high school students, and finding that aa higher percentage of dropouts (a "self selected hroup" were going to college than non drop outs.
Atheists make up a disproportionately smaller population of prisons as well, it's not about the number of people in the group, it's the overall performance of the group showing a statistically significant difference.
Please refrain from adding personal attacks, you can make better arguments without them.
rug
(82,333 posts)To compare a smaller group to a larger group, the better practice is to describe the smaller group and extraxct from the larger group a more representative sample. The smaller group can be demographically described by education, race, gender, location, and the like and the sample from the larger group should match as closely as possible. Then you can see if the desired value is different or not.
Your example about prisons demonstrates the point. If you use race and gender alone as descriptors you may conclude that African American males are more inclined to crime than non-African American males. That would be ludicrous, if not racist.
The meta-analysis doesn't do this at all. Nor is it possible to determine from the link whether any of the dozens of articles it surveyed did it either.
In any event, these attempts to describe intelligence within human populations tend to end up being as inaccurate as they are odious.
And I shall refrain from personal attacks as long as you refrain from mixing metaphors. Throwing a red herring in to muddy the waters?
"...these attempts to describe intelligence within human populations tend to end up being as inaccurate as they are odious."
You have data to back that up, of course. I mean numbers from primary studies that employ a methodology you approve of.
Interesting quid pro quo there, too, to suggest that use of a mixed metaphor justifies a personal attack in response.
The elephant in the room certainly is loaded for bear and walking on thin ice.
rug
(82,333 posts)An elephant is about to land on you.
bvf
(6,604 posts)That's fine. Wilson is pretty widely known, and Shockley rang a bell. This was in the first hit I came up with while trying to jog my memory:
"Dr. Shockley had alienated many of his fellow scientists by straying far beyond his ken. He drew further scorn when he proposed financial rewards for the ''genetically disadvantaged'' if they volunteered for sterilization."
Now I remember.
rug
(82,333 posts)"He preached a philosophy of ''retrogressive evolution.'' Stipulating that intelligence was genetically transmitted, he deemed blacks genetically inferior to whites and unable to achieve their intellectual level. As a corollary, he suggested that blacks were reproducing faster than whites - hence, the retrogression in human evolution."
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0213.html
I also added Arthur Jensen to the list.
bvf
(6,604 posts)I'd prefer to see examples of results from studies that used a methodology you thought appropriate.
Unless you're suggesting that there should be no such studies whatsoever. Pointing to a few controversial individuals out of hundreds doesn't really support your case. We're not talking genetics here. We're talking belief.
rug
(82,333 posts)If you're bent on ignoring the racist eugenicists who have tried to make spurious divisions among human groups based on "intelligence" testing and have been roundly repudiated for thirty years, I'll just leave this and go back to the movie.
bvf
(6,604 posts)Last edited Sat Nov 29, 2014, 11:16 PM - Edit history (1)
Again, this isn't about race-based studies. You would obviously prefer it to be, given your examples, but it's not.
It's about belief. That you run away from the distinction simply says you can't stay on point. I don't know if there's a correlation between intelligence and preference for Lifetime TV, but I could make an educated guess.
On edit:
Spoiler alert:
Grumpy Cat dies at the end.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)He simply presumes atheists self-selected out of the religious believers population by de-converting.
An odious and inaccurate guess. SOME atheists are, indeed, de-converted former believers.
Why it is amusing to me, is simple English.
DE-conversion, implies the believer group was converted in the first place. Which belies the true natural state of humans; non-believers. (Though, humans are clearly predisposed to faith, still, we are not born with faith/belief. We are just likely to choose to subscribe to it, or inflict it on our children at some point.)
The answer was staring him in the face in his own objection.
"Because deconversion is a process of selection, self-selection."
Deconversion is, and conversion isn't? DO TELL.
bvf
(6,604 posts)It is an odd distinction to make.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)I tend to look at believers as one of two categories:
forced indoctrination.
self-selected voluntary inclusion.
rug
(82,333 posts)By far, most current atheists started somewhere else.
If you keep pulling on that binary thinking you'll go blind.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)I tend to agree, but that's just based on my personal experience. It's sort of important here.
I'd also like to know why you use the word de-convert when that implies the religious adherents converted in the first place.
Kinda blows up the whole 'your group is self selected' thing, huh?
rug
(82,333 posts)Unless the claim is that atheists primarily emerge from other atheists, it's highly likely the growth of atheists come from theist families who as you've indicated, indoctrinate their children in theism.
The term deconversion is in vogue on atheist sites describing how the scales fell from their eyes.
Here are some examples:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki_Atheism_FAQ_for_the_Newly_Deconverted
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/camelswithhammers/dans-deconversion/
http://humanknowledge.net/Philosophy/Metaphysics/Theology/AtheistDeconversion.html
Debaptism is also an occasional sport.
rogerashton
(3,920 posts)Mother was a deist. My granddad, her father, said was an agnostic, but said his mother, my great-grandmother, told him that one could not be an atheist unless he was a third-generation agnostic, and he was only second-generation. A joke, of course. But granddad was a freethinker of some sort. Great-grandmother was serious about her agnosticism -- a new idea not long before her generation, since the word was coined by T. H. Huxley.
My point is that some of us have long family histories of free thought. Free thought has been around for a long time. Why, then do you assume that freethinkers come to their ideas from other convictions?
rug
(82,333 posts)That's based on decades of polling on religious belief and nonbelief.
I suppose we could do an internet poll.
in the meantime, I'm waiting to see if any studies come out of the former Soviet Union, which now has a ninety year history where the dominant social mode was nonbelief. And then there's China.
Old and In the Way
(37,540 posts)The more intelligent, the less religoous. Or vice-versa.
roguevalley
(40,656 posts)things and therefore self limit your outlook. I could be wrong too. 
Old and In the Way
(37,540 posts)You could be right.
Notafraidtoo
(402 posts)Cognitive dissonance, childhood indoctrination and instinctive fear can prevent intelligent people from self examining religious beliefs while being curious and intellectual about everything else. The reason religion often means low intellect is the lack of respect for the scientific method, the scientific method is the best way to discover the facts and truths in any field,all important fields from medicine, technology,history,education,economics use a lot of science, to deny its credibility automatically puts you at a disadvantage when intelligence matters.
Warpy
(111,590 posts)In addition, "god did it" from powerful religious figures has had a bad habit of shutting down scientific and philosophical inquiry, contributing to the impression that a whole country's IQ had dropped in the process.
One of my favorite people online had gone from a migrant worker camp as a child to a master's degree in a highly scientific profession. S/he also claimed to be a Christian fundamentalist. S/he was far from stupid.
Yet I've known a few fellow atheists who were dumb as stumps.
So yes, human psychology is extremely complex and blanket statements about the intelligence of various groups are invariably wrong and mostly the result of measuring it improperly.
bvf
(6,604 posts)Last edited Sat Nov 29, 2014, 05:29 AM - Edit history (1)
for improving the methodology? When is stating the result of a social and/or psychological study not seen as a "blanket statement"?
Trillo
(9,154 posts)I realized the study was flawed. Christians are such an extremist sect of those who believe in something better than our miserable prison conditions on this planet.
bvf
(6,604 posts)And the Protestants hate the Catholics
And the Hindus hate the Moslems
And everybody hates the Jews.
- Tom Lehrer, "National Brotherhood Week"
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
It's what was taught to me in private Christian schools. Hatred and contempt.
I wish the government hadn't allowed that, but the government seemed instrumental in it (i.e., "compulsory education" , the private religious schools satisfied the governmental compulsory requirement.
Can't you teach an old dog new tricks? Since I've been reading DU, my negative beliefs about the Christians have only hardened.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)The meta study merely concluded that a correlation could be found only within American protestants. Other studies had different results.
stone space
(6,498 posts)Brettongarcia
(2,262 posts)stone space
(6,498 posts)
stone space
(6,498 posts)stone space
(6,498 posts)Here's an article of his on intelligence, immigration and race from the White Supremacist website VDARE.
By Richard Lynn on May 20, 2009, 9:00 am
http://www.vdare.com/articles/race-differences-immigration-and-the-twilight-of-the-european-peoples
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)I'm willing to shoot the messenger, if the messenger might have credible reason to be fucking around with the message en route. Fair enough.
Now do this one:
http://psr.sagepub.com/content/17/4/325
Because, I note Lynn is not a contributor to this one.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)stone space
(6,498 posts)Date of Birth: 1930
Groups: Pioneer Fund
Ideology: White Nationalist
For 50 years, Richard Lynn has been at the forefront of scientific racism. An unapologetic eugenicist, Lynn uses his authority as professor (emeritus) of psychology at the University of Ulster to argue for the genetic inferiority of non-white people. Lynn believes that IQ tests can be used to determine the worth of groups of people, especially racial groups and nations. The wealth and power of nations, according to Lynn, is due to their racial intelligence and “homogeneity” (or “purity”). He argues that the nations with the highest IQs must subjugate or eliminate the lower-IQ groups within their borders in order to preserve their dominance.
snip------------------
(more at link)
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/profiles/Richard-Lynn
stone space
(6,498 posts)— Richard Lynn, American Renaissance, 2002
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/american-renaissance
rug
(82,333 posts)stone space
(6,498 posts)stone space
(6,498 posts)This sort of thing is as old as dirt.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)about evaluating a definite, unequivocal claim that "There is zero correlation between intelligence and religiosity."
Would you agree, as a Very Smart Person on this board has claimed, that such a claim can't be justified without absolute proof from the person making the claim? Would you do what any intelligent skeptic who understands critical thinking would, and look for counter-evidence, evidence that there IS a correlation?
stone space
(6,498 posts)...try to elevate themselves as being intellectually superior over another group of people, they are engaging in a body of thought that has a long and ugly history attached to it.
In discussions of science, I would never be inclined to cross reference sources with individuals who have their own SPLC page. I mean, why would it even occur to me to check?
However, in discussions of pseudoscience, cross-referencing sources with the SPLC website can be useful.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)with regard to general intellectual superiority, as opposed to being demonstrably and conclusively right about certain specific issues, feel free to point them out.
In the meantime, feel free to scold anyone arrogant enough to call creationists "a bunch of dumbasses".
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)Yet you seem to be quite upset by it, why is that?
stone space
(6,498 posts)This is the last sort of thing that I'd be expecting a militant atheist to be engaging in.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)Perhaps you need go out online and meet some others that consider themselves militant atheists and have a chat about where you fit. You might be shocked as to what other militant atheists out in the real word have to say (given how shocked you are about what atheists at DU so, you may want to be sitting down on your fainting couch from the get go).
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)Too bad it was a 0-7 
On Sun Nov 30, 2014, 12:31 PM an alert was sent on the following post:
Perhaps you are using the word incorrectly.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=166436
REASON FOR ALERT
This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.
ALERTER'S COMMENTS
He can make his point without resorting to personal insults, especially ones that contain sexist imagery.
"Speculation about the need for fainting couches
Corsets: One theory for the predominance of fainting couches is that women were actually fainting, because their corsets were too tight, restricting blood flow. However, pictures from the 1860s show women horseback riding, playing tennis, and engaging in other vigorous activities in corsets without hindrance.
Female hysteria: The second most common theory for the predominance of fainting couches is home treatment of female hysteria through manual pelvic massage by home visiting doctors and midwives. As a "disease" that needed constant, recurring (usually weekly) in-home treatment with a procedure that through manual massage could sometimes take hours, creating specialized furniture for maximum comfort during the extended procedure seems likely, as does the later creation of fainting rooms for privacy during the intimate massage procedure."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fainting_couch
You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Sun Nov 30, 2014, 01:00 PM, and the Jury voted 0-7 to LEAVE IT.
Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Judged on this post, however couldn't locate the the post the alerter copied - which is definitely cause for hiding.
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Why was this even alerted on? Ridiculous.
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: huh?
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Damn alerter, you sure wrote a lot of dumb shit for a "Leave it". You bored, brah?
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: "Sexist imagery". Where overwrought PC meets the Thought Police. Thanks for the laugh. Voting to Leave it Alone.
Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)I do not think it means what you think it means.
stone space
(6,498 posts)This is a false stereotype.
Most of us see no need to engage in such bullshit, possibly because most of us don't have such a high level of intellectual insecurity, or if we do, at least we don't feel the need to broadcast our own intellectual insecurities with threads like this.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)But that means something completely different from what you think it means. Militant anything generally describes people who use force to get their ideals across, Militant Christians kill abortion doctors. Militant Muslims, well we all know about that. Militant atheists burn down churches, how many churches have you burned down?
If you think I'm exaggerating, look it up. It's rather rare, and most church burnings in the US are done by rival religions or vandals, but it happens. I think the Nordic countries have problems with it.
stone space
(6,498 posts)You do understand the difference between force and violence, do you not?
*Sigh*
No, I guess you don't.
Ok, where to start? I thought I had a thread around here somewhere on Christian Militants.
Anyway, I suppose that you could take a look at the book Nonviolence in Theory and Practice by Robert Holmes and Barry Gan.
http://www.amazon.com/Nonviolence-Theory-Practice-Robert-Holmes/dp/1577667603#reader_1577667603
Part 3 of the book is titled "Women and Nonviolence". There is a section titled "Women and Militant Nonviolence in the Nuclear Age". It has two chapters. The first is Chapter 18, titled "On Revolution and Equilibrium", a very famous essay on nonviolence by Barbara Deming, an essay of particular historical importance, given that it addresses nonviolence from an explicitely secular nonreligious viewpoint in language that atheists might be more comfortable with, and which should be required reading for all thinking atheists. Chapter 19 is titled "Molly Rush and the Plowshares Eight", about a militant Christian who, along with 7 others, who used force to get their ideas across, banging their sledgehammers on nuclear warhead nose cones, and pouring human blood on documents and files, enacting a prophesy from Isaiah about beating swords into plowshares. Since these Christian militants use religious language and symbolism, you might find that chapter more difficult to follow and understand.
And let's not forget the man dubbed "the apostle of militant nonviolence" by one biographer, the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. When you talk about so-called "militants" only in terms of murdering doctors and burning down churches, you slander militants like MLK, who never never murdered a single doctor, and who never burned a single church in his entire life. In fact, your stereotypes and slanders make it easier for state forces to come down hard on militants who already face years in prison for their militant actions, so the stereotypes to present of militants are indeed quite dangerous as they enable very violent forces of repression in our society.
If you seriously want to understand militants (which I would definitely encourage given your inexplicable tendency to demonize them), here's an old New York Times article about a now deceased militant who has spent more than a decade in prison for his militant actions. It talks about the religious motivations behind his militancy, and how he viewed his militant actions as a requirement of his faith.
By CAREY GOLDBERG
Published: November 29, 1997
At 74, Philip Berrigan is in prison, again; convicted, again, of damaging weapons of war, and staining them with his blood, in the name of peace; sentenced, again, to the confinement he endures to confront what he sees as the militaristic sins of the United States.
A full generation on, slowed by age but not halted, Mr. Berrigan continues the activism that he and his brother, Daniel, began during the Vietnam War, when the two Roman Catholic priests became household names as the court-defying, church-defying, war-denouncing Berrigan Brothers who first went to prison in 1968 for burning draft records.
snip-----------------
Yet it goes on acting out the Biblical prophecies of Isaiah (2:4) to ''beat swords into plowshares.'' Philip Berrigan sees it as a requirement of his faith, he said in the visiting room of the Maine Correctional Center here recently, to ''confront the institutions of injustice'' by fighting nuclear weapons and demanding a shift in spending from defense to social needs.
snip-----------------
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/29/us/from-prison-old-militant-struggles-on.html
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)dballance
(5,756 posts)Who would have thought such a thing?
stone space
(6,498 posts)
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/File:InvertedIQbyCountry.png
I guess those dark countries just don't have as many atheists...or something.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)You are close to a gish gallup.
However my only point was to dispute the assertion that anyone claiming a correlation between lack of belief and intelligence would be spouting "pure bunk". The data is there. The assertion can be made, and disputed, but it is not "pure bunk".
Leontius
(2,270 posts)goldent
(1,582 posts)of spreading his message of salvation.
edhopper
(33,776 posts)there are more intelligent countries is as close to pure bunk as you can get. Better educated, yes, but more intelligent, no. It says more about the metrics used to define intelligence than the intelligence of the whole country.
And to test whether intelligence and religiosity are linked you need to eliminate as many other variable as you can, so looking at populations from the same country with the same level of education, and only comparing IQ's might show something, but this country's IQ thing is dubious at a minimum.
okasha
(11,573 posts)Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)and disputing that making a claim that there is a correlation is an act of "pure bunk". Are all of these studies valid? That is a different question. The question of what is intelligence and how does one measure it is obviously difficult and has plagued the social sciences for a very long time. Claiming that the premise of a particular study is "pure bunk" is one thing, claiming that a more general statement about intelligence and religiosity is "pure bunk" is something else, as in making such a claim is without foundation. The research exists, there is lots of it.
edhopper
(33,776 posts)but I am saying measurements of the intelligence of different countries is as pure bunk as measurements of different races or by gender.
Now there might be other studies of intelligence and religiosity, but this one is too flawed to take seriously.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,487 posts)http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/08/new-meta-analysis-checks-the-correlation-between-intelligence-and-faith/
It used studies taken inside countries, rather than across them.
edhopper
(33,776 posts)So that would be the Lynn et al study I have a problem with.
Researching religiosity and intelligence within specific populations is different.
struggle4progress
(118,379 posts)Bradical79
(4,490 posts)That's almost what I named my post below. Good ol computer science and systems analysis. It's defenitely given me some useful educational tools, though I've got to review some things :-P
goldent
(1,582 posts)I want to see who wins between the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and the Reformed Protestant Church - there seems to be a lot of trash talking between them.
And we probably should throw the various Atheist/Agnostic sects in. I have some anecdotal evidence about the New Atheists - would be curious if my hunch is right.
carolinayellowdog
(3,247 posts)"Controlling for other factors, they can only confidently show strong negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity among American Protestants."
Seems like this is being used as an argument for a correlation in all cultures and all religions, whereas the question it raises for me is what specifically about US Protestantism drives out the higher-IQ folks into the atheist camp.
And on edit, the answer I propose is that obscurantist anti-scientific religion is more highly developed in US Protestantism than anywhere else in the world.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)of many other studies, the meta analysis concluded, as you observed "only protestants". But that really wasn't the point, the point was that an observation that there is a inverse correlation between intelligence and religiosity is not "pure bunk". It might be disputable, it is not groundless.
Brettongarcia
(2,262 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)It's an inverse relationship.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)From your link:
"Controlling for other factors, they can only confidently show strong negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity among American Protestants."
The conclusions are a lot more limited than you've been presenting, in my opinion. Adding in other issues like the difficulty in defining both intellegence and religiosity, and the different roles religion has played historically, I'm not sure you can make such broad conclusions one way or the other.