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Intelligence and Religiosity

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  • Intelligence and Religiosity

    The following sarcastic comment reminded me of some of the scientific evidence on intelligence and religiosity:

    Originally posted by Darth Ovious View Post
    Compassion is an emotion, it is not built on any logical foundation. I assume you are not trying to argue here that Atheists are more emotional than Christians but I was told by Atheists that were oh so very much more clever than we are.
    My response was as follows:

    Given what I said, I wanted to go over some evidence in support of my claim that "there is data showing that, on average, non-religious people tend to score better on metrics of intelligence than do religious people, and that non-religious people tend to be more analytic thinkers than are religious people." The following meta-analysis goes over a number of scientific papers supporting said claim:

    "The Relation Between Intelligence and Religiosity: A Meta-Analysis and Some Proposed Explanations"
    http://diyhpl.us/~nmz787/pdf/The_Rel...planations.pdf
    "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."


    And some more recent work on how analytic thinking promotes religious non-belief:

    "Cognitive style and religiosity: The role of conflict detection"
    http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~dkoehl...eligiosity.pdf
    "Recent research has indicated a negative relation between the propensity for analytic reasoning and religious beliefs and practices. Here, we propose conflict detection as a mechanism underlying this relation, on the basis of the hypothesis that more-analytic people are less religious, in part, because they are more sensitive to conflicts between immaterial religious beliefs and beliefs about the material world. To examine cognitive conflict sensitivity, we presented problems containing stereotypes that conflicted with base-rate probabilities in a task with no religious content. In three studies, we found evidence that religiosity is negatively related to conflict detection during reasoning. Independent measures of analytic cognitive style also positively predicted conflict detection. The present findings provide evidence for a mechanism potentially contributing to the negative association between analytic thinking and religiosity, and more generally, they illustrate the insights to be gained from integrating individual-difference factors and contextual factors to investigate analytic reasoning."
    Last edited by Jichard; 09-11-2015, 08:11 PM.
    "Instead, we argue, it is necessary to shift the debate from the subject under consideration, instead exposing to public scrutiny the tactics they [denialists] employ and identifying them publicly for what they are."

  • #2
    I do love it when people try to use studies, that use tiny sample sizes, in order to 'prove' they are slightly superior to those who disagree with them. Always amusing to watch.
    Last edited by lilpixieofterror; 09-11-2015, 09:34 PM.
    "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
    GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
      I do love it when people try to use studies that use tiny sample sizes, in order to 'prove' they are slightly superior to those who disagree with them. Always amusing to watch.
      Further, psychological studies are notoriously difficult to replicate - cognitive studies were shown to have a whopping 50% repeatability rate. A meta-analysis is only as good as the input data (and when the data is this unreliable, it's doubtless not difficult to cherry-pick a dataset that gives the results you want).
      Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

      Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
      sigpic
      I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
        Further, psychological studies are notoriously difficult to replicate - cognitive studies were shown to have a whopping 50% repeatability rate. A meta-analysis is only as good as the input data (and when the data is this unreliable, it's doubtless not difficult to cherry-pick a dataset that gives the results you want).
        He doesn't want to hear your 'fact' stuff. The experiment that one of his articles cited, used 200 people for a 'sample size', it's really difficult to pull such broad conclusions, about billions, based on such a tiny data set. Why didn't they head to Biola University or something like that, to do the 'study' in? Likewise, what were these people majoring in? We don't hear about that either. I think our friend here just wants to feel superior to Christians, without actually being superior, in any measurable way.
        "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
        GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
          I do love it when people try to use studies, that use tiny sample sizes, in order to 'prove' they are slightly superior to those who disagree with them. Always amusing to watch.
          I don't think that the studies can be tossed so easily into the discard basket in this case.
          Nor do I believe that the findings of the study are at all significant. It is reasonable to assume that the combined effect of religious authorities' inclination to oppose questioning of their teachings and the appeal to self aggrandisement by atheist proselytisers would result in a push away by the religious hierarchy and a pull towards by atheists on people of moderately high intelligence.
          Last edited by tabibito; 09-11-2015, 10:03 PM.
          1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
          .
          ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
          Scripture before Tradition:
          but that won't prevent others from
          taking it upon themselves to deprive you
          of the right to call yourself Christian.

          ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
            I do love it when people try to use studies, that use tiny sample sizes, in order to 'prove' they are slightly superior to those who disagree with them. Always amusing to watch.
            Yes, because a meta-analysis of 60+ studies, is a small sample size.

            Can you try to read studies, befoe making us false, ideologically-convenient claims about them?
            "Instead, we argue, it is necessary to shift the debate from the subject under consideration, instead exposing to public scrutiny the tactics they [denialists] employ and identifying them publicly for what they are."

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Jichard View Post
              Yes, because a meta-analysis of 60+ studies, is a small sample size.

              Can you try to read studies, befoe making us false, ideologically-convenient claims about them?
              I was talking about your first link sweety (which yes, I did read and found that issue, that you still haven't addressed). Most of these studies suffer from small sample sizes and problems that OBP brought up (and I see you ignored it). It really isn't that hard to 'prove' that one group is better than another, by using small sample sizes and limited questions to get the results you want to hear. This was being done to prove blacks, Jews, Irish, (insert whatever group you dislike here) for decades. Unless you want to conclude that blacks are not as smart as whites (which data analysis does show slight differences in IQ scores and test similar to this one) you really just have your own bigotry posing as science. I know, you hate the fact that Christians actually do know what they are talking about, but bigotry isn't hard to spot (IE yours against Christians and anybody who isn't an atheist).
              "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
              GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

              Comment


              • #8
                The final line in OBPs cited article:

                “What it takes to be a successful academic is not necessarily that well aligned with what it takes to be a good scientist.”
                Aint it the truth.
                1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
                .
                ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
                Scripture before Tradition:
                but that won't prevent others from
                taking it upon themselves to deprive you
                of the right to call yourself Christian.

                ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
                  Further, psychological studies are notoriously difficult to replicate - cognitive studies were shown to have a whopping 50% repeatability rate. A meta-analysis is only as good as the input data (and when the data is this unreliable, it's doubtless not difficult to cherry-pick a dataset that gives the results you want).
                  Which is irrelevant since the research in question was replicated multiple times using multiple techniques, as you would know if you read the paper.

                  But I'm glad that you're willing to disregard scientific evidence because you read something in The Guardian.
                  "Instead, we argue, it is necessary to shift the debate from the subject under consideration, instead exposing to public scrutiny the tactics they [denialists] employ and identifying them publicly for what they are."

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
                    I was talking about your first link sweety (which yes, I did read and found that issue, that you still haven't addressed).
                    The first link in the OP is a meta-analysis, sweety.

                    Most of these studies suffer from small sample sizes and problems that OBP brought up (and I see you ignored it).
                    Not at all, since there a multiple studies, with replication, with a large pooled sample size. So no, it doesn't have the problems you mentioned.

                    It really isn't that hard to 'prove' that one group is better than another, by using small sample sizes and limited questions to get the results you want to hear.
                    Who said anything about "better"?

                    Anyway, as I told you, there's a large pooled sample size, with replication, using multiple different techniques, as you would know if you read the study.

                    This was being done to prove blacks, Jews, Irish, (insert whatever group you dislike here) for decades.
                    It'd help if you actually read the research in question to see the methods, as opposed to pretending they are the same methods as some other studies.

                    Unless you want to conclude that blacks are not as smart as whites (which data analysis does show slight differences in IQ scores and test similar to this one) you really just have your own bigotry posing as science.
                    Already read that research. Shows no such thing. If you actually want a fair representation of the research, I suggest reading some of Nisbett's work.

                    I know, you hate the fact that Christians actually do know what they are talking about, but bigotry isn't hard to spot (IE yours against Christians and anybody who isn't an atheist).
                    Still not addressing the scientific evidence.
                    "Instead, we argue, it is necessary to shift the debate from the subject under consideration, instead exposing to public scrutiny the tactics they [denialists] employ and identifying them publicly for what they are."

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      So what do you conclude from this? The simplest conclusion would simple be that the atheist communities are not as diverse as religious communities. It wasn't long ago that feminist atheists started actively complaining that various meetups in America such as The Amazing Meeting, and Skepticon (though both are not atheist per say, the majority were undoubtedly atheists) consisted mostly of a bunch of old, white, college educated males (especially the speakers).

                      And what of the future? I think avoiding selection bias is going to be hard in such a study. There are plenty of entirely non-religious people who don't identify as atheists, but who don't believe in God either. People who identify as atheists are the kind of people who care about labels like that, and the way they are used. So there's going to be an over representation of certain population groups.

                      However if atheism in America starts to become more diverse, we should also see a drop in average intelligence. No because atheists are becoming dumber, but simple because they'd be spanning across a larger subsection of society.

                      As for me I've got a fairly high IQ score. This statistical study says nothing about why I believe (or why many on theologyweb believes for that matter), and if you think that it does you're dumber than most I know.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Jichard View Post
                        The first link in the OP is a meta-analysis, sweety.
                        Poor little fundy atheist, he's attempting to hurl elephants at everybody and desperately hoping his little games work. I know you like to pretend your superior to every Christian here on tWeb, by virtue of being an atheist, but you haven't refuted a single point I made and just mindlessly repeated yourself.

                        Not at all, since there a multiple studies, with replication, with a large pooled sample size. So no, it doesn't have the problems you mentioned.
                        Repeating yourself again in the hopes you become right? Compared to the billions of believers on the planet and the conclusions you're attempting to draw, yeah they do suffer from tiny sample sizes and not giving complete sets of data. We do not know anything about the people being studied, from their individual beliefs, to their education levels, etc to be able to see if the comparisons are even fair to begin with. We also don't know the number of theist vs atheist being tested either (based on the population stats though, it's a good bet most of them were religious of some type). My point is quite simple; you're trying to make yourself feel superior, without actually proving you're superior in any real measure. Unless of course, you want to 'prove' you're good at mindlessly parroting what other people say and pretending as though this 'study' proves you're smarter than your opponents here on tWeb, just by virtue of being an atheist (you'll be quite disappointed since tWeb tends to attract pretty intelligent regulars).

                        Who said anything about "better"?
                        So the point of this entire thread is....

                        Anyway, as I told you, there's a large pooled sample size, with replication, using multiple different techniques, as you would know if you read the study.
                        Already addressed above. Compared to billions of humans on the planet that you're attempting to draw conclusions about? Nope, the simple size is tiny, but do keep trying and who knows... maybe if you repeat yourself long enough and hard enough, it will magically become true!

                        It'd help if you actually read the research in question to see the methods, as opposed to pretending they are the same methods as some other studies.
                        I know you don't believe this, but is quite possible to read stuff and end up disagreeing with you and giving reasons for disagreements. Perhaps you'll try actually asking what said instead of just parroting whatever you want to believe and not actually addressing anything that was said?

                        Already read that research. Shows no such thing. If you actually want a fair representation of the research, I suggest reading some of Nisbett's work.
                        Wash, rinse, repeat, nothing addressing a word that was said...

                        Still not addressing the scientific evidence.
                        Already addressed, but your bigotry seems to be shining though quite well though.
                        "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                        GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Jichard View Post
                          Which is irrelevant since the research in question was replicated multiple times using multiple techniques, as you would know if you read the paper.

                          But I'm glad that you're willing to disregard scientific evidence because you read something in The Guardian.
                          Nice genetic fallacy, but do you care to actually address WHY the article is wrong or do you want to keep making all kinds of logical fallacies, while pretending that your opponents are not as smart as you because you're an atheist and we're not?
                          "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                          GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Jichard View Post
                            Given what I said, I wanted to go over some evidence in support of my claim that "there is data showing that, on average, non-religious people tend to score better on metrics of intelligence than do religious people, and that non-religious people tend to be more analytic thinkers than are religious people." The following meta-analysis goes over a number of scientific papers supporting said claim:

                            "The Relation Between Intelligence and Religiosity: A Meta-Analysis and Some Proposed Explanations"
                            http://diyhpl.us/~nmz787/pdf/The_Rel...planations.pdf
                            "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."

                            Interesting.

                            I would propose a fourth interpretation, which is somewhat of an expansion of their third interpretation: 4) High-achieving individuals tend to be self-sufficient and self-confident, with less tendency to admit their need for a higher power.

                            I'm not surprised that this is more prominent for college students, who are competing for grades. After they graduate, competition shifts to other areas. It would be interesting to see if similar negative correlations exist between wealth and religiosity, social status and religiosity, job title and religiosity, etc. I'll bet they do.

                            Religion (especially biblical Christianity) entails admitting that we have needs which we cannot solve on our own, and humbly turning to God in faith to step into our lives and address these needs.

                            "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
                            "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." – Albert Einstein

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Kbertsche View Post
                              Interesting.

                              I would propose a fourth interpretation, which is somewhat of an expansion of their third interpretation: 4) High-achieving individuals tend to be self-sufficient and self-confident, with less tendency to admit their need for a higher power.

                              I'm not surprised that this is more prominent for college students, who are competing for grades. After they graduate, competition shifts to other areas. It would be interesting to see if similar negative correlations exist between wealth and religiosity, social status and religiosity, job title and religiosity, etc. I'll bet they do.

                              Religion (especially biblical Christianity) entails admitting that we have needs which we cannot solve on our own, and humbly turning to God in faith to step into our lives and address these needs.

                              "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
                              Yeah. I would also argue that many atheists are quite strong in their religious belief that God does not exist, which would be contrary to the assumptions built into the studies. I'd be sort of interested in seeing the argument that analytic thinking tends to undermine religious belief; analysis of my beliefs has tended to strengthen, not weaken, them.
                              Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

                              Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
                              sigpic
                              I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

                              Comment

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