Paper links religion with lower intelligence

[Judi Lynn]

Paper links religion with lower intelligence
By Joe Duarte
Feb 16, 2014 - 10 hours ago in Science

A recently published data analysis presents a hypothesis some people on the science side of the religion versus science debate have claimed for some time—religious people aren’t as smart as scientific people.

Published in the Interdisciplinary Journal on Research and Religion, the paper states that university professors with discipline in the social sciences tend to be more religious than their smarter, physical-science counterparts.

The paper is actually an analysis of existing data that proved (a) natural scientists have higher intelligence than social scientists; (b) political and religious extremists have lower intelligence; and (c) physicists at elite institutions are less likely to believe in God or be politically polarized.

It also assumed that professors at elite institutions are smarter than their counterparts at lower level institutions, when it revealed that physical science professors at institutions other than the most elite were also more likely to attend church than their social science fellows.

http://digitaljournal.com/tech/science/paper-links-religion-with-lower-intelligence/article/371191#ixzz2tYQnT844

[elleng]

1. How is 'smarter' diagnosed?

[greyl]

2. It's not a diagnosis, it's a measurement.

Reading the article, it looks like they compared IQs.

[BlueStreak]

3. Is it cause, effect or both in a sad vicious circle?

The broad concept of spirituality is not necessarily contradictory to science because there are certain questions that science is never likely to answer, such as who created the universe, and are there other universes we can't know about? A spiritual answer to these questions is no more or less valid than scientific theories.

But that isn't what most religious people believe. Most religious people believe utter nonsense -- a nanny god that is in a perpetual battle with the devil, and still has time and desire to determine the outcome of sporting games. People who believe this are not smart -- no way around that one.

But the question is, do they become religious because their minds can't deal well with knowledge and they crave answers they can understand? Or do they have normal mental aptitude until religion inhibits that?

My money is on all of the above. Simple people are naturally drawn to the simplicity of religion and religion perpetuates and multiplies that state of ignorance.

[Vashta Nerada]

4. I'm shocked--*SHOCKED*--by those results.

Although, I'm an anthropologist and I disagree with their results. I'm a staunch atheist, but I am an archaeologist (my specialty is molluscan faunal analysis), which deals mainly with science.

[bananas]

14. So you have a foot in both worlds.

Last edited Mon Feb 17, 2014, 12:02 PM - Edit history (1)

When you're doing archaeology, you're a high-IQ natural scientist,
when you're doing anthropology, you're a low-IQ social scientist!

(edit to add - I'm poking fun at the paper, not at you, the paper claims that natural scientists have higher IQ's than social scientists)

[Vashta Nerada]

17. Maybe when I'm done getting my Master's...

I should get my PhD in archaeology. That way, I can be on-par with a biologist with only a BA.

[kristopher]

34. I glanced at the paper

Here are some of the basic data. I'd like to see the distribution plotted because I'd be willing to bet that the social science curve is much flatter than the physical science curve.

Harmon (1961) researched the school records of all 8,930 students who were awarded Ph.D.s in the United States in 1958. She ended up with a usable sample of 6,259 subjects, 80 percent of the Ph.D. graduates of 1958 who were U.S. citizens. Using their various school IQ tests, she standardized the tests according to the Army General Classification Test, which was still in use at the time. That test, which was not precisely comparable to an IQ test, had a mean score of 100 and a standard deviation of 20. Harmon found that the average Ph.D. student scored 130.8, which Eysenck (1979: 96) claims is an IQ of “about 125” (in fact, 123). Math Ph.D. students scored 138 (IQ: 128), physics Ph.D. students scored 140 (IQ: 130), and social science Ph.D. students scored 132 (IQ: 124); the mean score was reduced by the scores of education Ph.D. students, who scored only 123 (IQ: 117). We can see that these are approximately comparable to the IQ scores of Gibson and Light’s (1967) Cambridge University sample, and the significant dif- ference between social science and physics and math is replicated. However, the small differences are noteworthy. Gibson and Light’s social science category was composed of geography, economics, and politics, while Harmon conflated all so- cial sciences; this might partly explain the different scores. Not only did Gibson and Light use an elite academic sample, which replicates Harmon’s interdiscipli- nary differences based on a large sample, but also their categories allow us to be more specific.2

[MisterP]

5. Richard Lynn of course

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lynn
I'm really tickled by his explanation for south Italy's poverty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:National_IQ_Lynn_Vanhanen_2006_IQ_and_Global_Inequality.png

[bananas]

13. So this is pseudo-science by a couple of racists - thanks for pointing that out.

No surprise pseudo-scientific atheists are gullibly swallowing it hook, line, and sinker.
Because it fits their religious prejudices.

[Tumbulu]

6. And so why is having lower than genius intelligence something to ridicule?

Last edited Mon Feb 17, 2014, 02:59 PM - Edit history (1)

I am old enough to find these discussions simply sad. So, many super intelligent people know that God is a construct to help simpler people survive in a world that is unpredictable and so often unfair.

So, many people with higher to normal intelligence see how important a belief system is to those who are not capable of deep intellectual thought at all. That it serves to help them through a rough and unkind world.

Is this a reason to pick on normal people? Is this a reason to think that the super intelligent are imprisoned by their lack of imagination and a method to communicate and or guide their unconscience? No, there are more complexities to it all.

But dubbing people who are aware of the importance of a spiritual life "less intelligent" is unkind. But typical of the sort of usual atheist banter that provokes most people to simply want to stay away from them.

[PADemD]

12. +1000

[bananas]

16. Some people try to lift themselves up by pushing others down.

They're called "assholes".

[mindwalker_i]

7. I'll take "no shit" for $500, Alex

The idea of faith is not only to believe something without evidence, it's to believe something IN SPITE of evidence. Of course, that only works for a limited time, until the evidence is so overwhelming that denying it is impossible. Until that point in reached, however, a great deal of effort is generally spent deluding oneself.

Put another way, God is an invisible friend. Normally those are for children.

[PADemD]

8. I'd rather have an invisible friend than a snob who looks down on ordinary people.

[mindwalker_i]

9. When "ordinary people" attach a big off switch to their brains

then yes, I'll be a snob and look down on them. When they actively fight to keep that switch in the OFF position...

[bananas]

15. Those of us who studied pure math look down on all of you.

In case you didn't read the actual OP, it claims that social scientists have lower IQ's than natural scientists.

To those of us who studied pure math, you are like children bickering among yourselves.



Computer scientists can become enlightened - if they study the foundational theory:



Then, as the old saying goes, "ye shall know ye are gods".

[mindwalker_i]

18. Truth is, everyone looks down on everyone

I look down of religious people as needing an invisible friend to get through the day. They look down on me for ignoring the truth and not being with the "in" crowd. Physicists looks down on engineers - I'm both, which makes life interesting.

[ElboRuum]

23. What I like about snobs...

...is that they think they're looking down on people.

Then I ask them why they're hanging upside down.

[Feral Child]

11. How interesting.

You'd rather have a comforting deceit than have to deal with an uncomfortable reality.

PoTP...

[mindwalker_i]

19. And justify it by saying

they're not a snob, so that's all virtuous and stuff

[Feral Child]

25. Exactly.

But they sure look down on atheists...

[qazplm]

21. we all have our versions of comforting deceit

to deal with our personal uncomfortable reality whether it's I'm average-looking, or not that fat, or I'm a decent person, or what have you to deal with some shortcoming, flaw, or bad situation.

I'm not religious at all, but I have all sorts of comforting deceits, just like you do.

Unless one of you are professing that you have absolute self-awareness and zero self-deception going on in your life.

Which would be itself self-deception, or a lie.

So color me unimpressed at deciding that the comforting deceit of religion is somehow worse than any other of the myriad self-deceptions each of us engage in to make life just a little less uncomfortable. The only time religion is a problem is when it negatively intrudes upon others (just like any other human activity).

[Feral Child]

26. Dude

You can find comforting truths.



As to Religion as a coping mechanism: it usually intrudes on others.

Not every individual that practices a religion of course, but every institution does, by the very notion of organized religion.

For most folks it's a social club and I care no more about that than Light Action Role-Playing. The thing is, fantasy enactors don't profess to believe what they're doing and don't get all evangelical.

Thing is, organized religion forces it's morality on society. It attempts to insinuate itself into all aspects of society. It tries to control education and medical decisions. It censors art and expression. It even tries to dictate laws; sometimes ridiculous laws like Blue Laws, sometimes horrific laws like Honor Killings and genital mutilation. And Sanctity of Marriage(tm).

And eventually, it gets out of hand. Like our present TeaBagging militant Christians.

I hear what you're saying, but if you truly are not religious but think religion is harmless coping, you're also PoTP.

[qazplm]

28. overgeneralize much?

I'll say it again, you, yes you, have comforting deceits you use to make life better for you, yes you.

You aren't that special flower that is fully self-aware and only engages in truths.

No, not every organized religion intrudes on others. Several of the Eastern Religions neither proselytize nor care how many or who follows them for example. Generally speaking, liberal Jewish and Christian sects don't generally proselytize much either, or if they do so, it's in no more intrusive manner than any secular entity.

Yes, for many it IS a social club, a group of folks who get together in comfort, unity, and seeking meaning. You've decided you don't like that, the very fact that they believe something you don't appears to annoy you.

That's your right, but doesn't make it objectively non-douche (or even reasonable or logical).

Morality is a collective societal thing. If religion wasn't forcing it, something else would be. The alternative is each of us having and operating under our own individual moral compasses, and we don't have that in societies (it's why we have justice systems and codified laws as opposed to everyone just doing what they think is morally right).

Secular governments have done all the things you list. The Soviets were officially atheist. They did all sorts of horrible things, killing, torture, censoring, etc.

Of course, the fact that an extreme group did that, and that they were atheist does not make all atheists bad, far from it. Tarring all with the broad brush of some is illogical.

I'm not "part of the problem" at all, because the problem is your own personal disdain/dislike for folks who are religious. For most others, we deal with religious folks on an individual basis. Those that mind their own business and lead good lives are mighty fine in my book, and however they deal with death, suffering and the search for meaning that works for them and makes them happy then more power to them.

Those that tried to impose on others will be actively fought against. Pretty simple concept.

[Feral Child]

29. Hmmm

The Soviets themselves weren't the monsters, most of the really horrific oppression is directly attributable to Stalin.

They weren't "Atheists", they were "Anti-Theists", and with good cause. The Eastern Orthodox church was incredibly oppressive under the Czars.


Just as the Catholics were for most of their history.

As the Protestants were in the early colonies.

As the Muslims , and the Xian Fundies in Africa are now.

Open a book other than the Bible.


I don't really care about Everyman sitting at home using an archaic mythology to convince himself he isn't going to die. It's weak, but it's hisbiz, UNTIL he gives a shitload of Mammon to his personal huckster who uses it to bribe the government into dividing and repressing the Others. It's organized, institutionalized religion that's the enemy of man.

Judge me how you want, but you do not know anything about me, other than I don't buy into a communal hysteria over a myth.


I don't believe you're not religious. I think your just another Christer pretending to be a disinterested party but defending their crap. As such, I have no interest in discussing Fundy talking points. Unless you delude yourself into thinking science and evolution are my "self-deceits", you're talking trash about me. It's rude and presumptive.

I, and YOU, will die someday and turn to ash or mulch. That's a reality that I have no problem with.

Excuse me now, I'm going to look for a realistic discussion to enter.

May Christ be with you...

[qazplm]

30. Just Stalin?

So he personally on his own killed 20 million people?

I know enough about you to know that you are that special type of person who enters into value judgments as quickly and easily as the very folks you criticize.

You don't believe I'm not religious? lol yeah, ok. I'm not defending "their crap" in fact I've conceded it's a false conceit that gives false information for the purpose of comfort. I've also said I do the same thing, and so do you, just in different ways.

I'm quite aware that when I die the most likely result by far is personal annihilation and extinction. I don't like that reality, good on you if you say it is something you have no problem with.

Of course, no one believes you. Fear of death is a primal thing all humans have, and again, you ain't special or different.

[Feral Child]

32. You've timed out.

You're repeating yourself and have nothing to offer but Christian apologia.

[qazplm]

33. the only compliment I can give you

is you chose your screen name to fit you.

[notemason]

35. Thank you for

the most intelligent response I've read on this site.

[Tumbulu]

20. Me too, Temple Grandin has interesting things to say about this

need of humans, have you read her work at all?

[PADemD]

22. No, I haven't read her book, but I did see the movie and a documentary on her life.

I see she did a Ted talk: "The World Needs All Kinds of Minds"

I'll have to check it out.

The qualities I look for in any person, be they genius or less than genius, religious or not, are humility, kindness and compassion.

[Tumbulu]

24. Well she is quite gruff

But I think it is a result of her autism. I believe in her book "Animals in Translation" she shares her theory on why we as humans need religions/spiritual pursuits. I always give her books away as I love them so much and try to share them with everyone ... Which is why I cannot say for sure.

I do share your criteria for people with whom I choose to spend time with.

[SamKnause]

10. Not in the least surprised.

Watched the documentary Questioning Darwin on HBO.

A preacher proudly stated that if the Bible told him 2+2=5 he would believe it.

Creationism is the fastest growing religion, not only in the U.S., but around the globe.

That is terrifying !!!!!

[madrchsod]

27. the other author of this paper has very little credibility

http://mundaneman.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/edward-dutton-the-finnuit/

i am always impressed when people make assumptions without doing a simple 2 minute google search on the authors of these types of articles.

yes i am guilty of doing the same thing

[Pterodactyl]

31. The conclusion is not relevant to society as a whole. It compares only two subcultures.

Last edited Wed Feb 19, 2014, 10:48 PM - Edit history (1)

However, it does conclude that physical science people are smarter than social science people, which is obviously true.