Thread: The Nonreligious Are More Intelligent

I recently read an article by Dr. James Allan Cheyne which argued a new hypothesis on the Flynn effect. With it came a lot of other evidence to provide the idea that rising Atheism is related to rising intelligence.

The Flynn Effect

For those un-aware, each generation has been having rising average IQ scores.
+ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19056409
+ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

So, for each generation, we are getting smarter! But it is silly think that our older ancestors were complete retards, so we must think of what it is we are getting smarter at!

ACH Thinking

Abstract Categorical and Hypothetical (ACH) thinking is assessed in the Raven's and Weschler Similarities tests (segments of the primary IQ tests). Now while our ancestors and elders are obviously not complete Neanderthals, they were actually lacking in their scores for ACH thinking. Instead of focusing on developing independent ACH thinking, there was more focus on fundamental learning for immediate pertinent use (ie. writing, arithmetic, and reading - the three "R"'s).

In our later generations, though, we have developed this thinking and learned to become more engrossed in our creative venture. It was because of people like Dewey who encouraged pragmatic learning that encourage this ACH thinking.
+ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey
+ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatism/

But what does ACH thinking encourage for religious beliefs and how is it affected?

Rise of Atheism

It is of no question that Atheism has been a minority group for a long time in our history. However, correlated with the Flynn effect and rising ACH thinking is Atheism! To better represent this, we can see the highly educated peoples beliefs in God rise over time. Within the National Academy of Science, it is only around 7% of them (in 2007) that believe in a higher power.


+ http://community.boredofstudies.org/...reject-god.pdf


+ http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm

Atheism and IQ

Now, in consideration of the above, let us look at comparisons of Atheism and intelligence.

Spoiler for Intelligence and Belief in God - Large Graph:

+ http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...f6f8ce4b6001de

"Atheists score 1.95 IQ points higher than Agnostics, 3.82 points higher than Liberal persuasions, and 5.89 IQ points higher than Dogmatic persuasions. Denominations differ significantly in IQ and income. Religiosity declines between ages 12 to 17"
+ http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...603d3a648ff43a


+ http://hypnosis.home.netcom.com/iq_vs_religiosity.htm
- The one circled in red is the US.
- Verified link: http://hypnosis.home.netcom.com/iq_vs_religiosity.htm
- Note; the image above is a remake of the graph from the link provided here.

It is easy to see then that there is a direct correlation with Atheism and intelligence. Furthermore, countries religious beliefs reflect their IQ scores.

Evolution

As a side note, I wanted to quickly review the relation of evolution to Atheism and IQ.


- This is a visual representation of IQ scores and countries
+ http://www.lnb.lt/stotisFiles/upload...9617104937.pdf


+ http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=507

I cannot help but notice the striking evolutionary nonacceptance and the United States' still relatively high IQ. So I looked further;


+ http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=...TOKEN=46350460

"The results show that the majority of people polled have heard of Charles Darwin with the highest levels of awareness in Russia (93%), Mexico (91%), Great Britain (91%), and China (90%) whilst less than half of people polled in Egypt (38%) and South Africa (27%) saying they had not heard of him. Overall, the majority (70%) of people surveyed have heard of the British naturalist.

Adults in the United States (84%) showed the highest levels of awareness and understanding of evolution and Darwin’s theories followed by Great Britain (80%) saying they had a ‘good or some knowledge’ of the theory of evolution

In all countries polled more people agreed than disagreed that it is possible to believe in a God and hold the view that life evolved on Earth by means of natural selection at the same time, with those in India most likely (85%) to be of this opinion, followed by Mexico (65%), Argentina (63%), South Africa, Great Britain (54%), USA, Russia (53%), Egypt, Spain (45%), and China (39%).

In six out of ten countries the majority of people who had heard of Charles Darwin and know something about his theory of evolution agreed with the view that there is enough scientific evidence that exists to support the theory against an overall average of 54 percent.

Only Russia (48%), USA (42%), South Africa (41%) and Egypt (25%) remained sceptical about the scientific evidence that exists to support Darwin’s theory.

The results also show that a significant proportion of those people surveyed in the USA, South Africa and India (43%) believe that all life on Earth, including human life, has always existed in its current form.

In all other countries, people in China (74%), Mexico (69%), Argentina (68%), Great Britain (63%) Russia, Spain (56%), and Egypt (52%) were of the view that more people thought that life on Earth, including human life, evolved over time either by a process guided by God or as a result of natural selection in which no God played a part."
+ http://www.britishcouncil.org/new/Pr...-of-evolution/
+ http://www.britishcouncil.org/darwin...vey_global.pdf

The odd thing about these surveys is that the USA stands out as an outlier. Although the USA has the second lowest acceptance of evolution, it still maintains a rather high IQ. However, in the words of this blogger:

As you can see, there is a clear correlation between religiosity and intelligence on the international stage. Countries with a high religious population have an inversely proportional intelligence rate. High religiosity indicates low intelligence, high intelligence indicates low religiosity.

On closer inspection you notice the one outlier; the United States (shown in red). The US has a moderately high intelligence rate, it doesn’t break 100, but it’s fairly good, but also has a rather high religiosity. My opinion is that this is due to their unique “Separation of Church and State” laws, which, whether you like it or not, are blatantly apparent in the constitution and memoirs of the founding fathers. This lack of government support forced the Churches to adapt to the community in order to survive and as a result less of the population dropped their religion. This is why religion in the US is much more progressive than fundamentalist groups in Europe, which have lost up to 90% of the population to Atheism.

Notice how the most religious country is also the least intelligent. Australia is shown in blue.

Conclusions

Abstract categorical and hypothetical (ACH) thinking is rising. Atheism is rising. Intelligence is rising. Evolutionary acceptance and knowledge is rising.

It is really just that simple.

What do you think...?

~

this is pretty much the same as Christians are more moral then athiest thread over in R/S

I would also rather be the person I am today then to be brilliant and not have God in my life.
I may not be the smartest person in the world but I have a great job, i have a great wife and I have a great daughter. We make planty of money and want for nothing. And I owe that all to God and all the blessings he has given me...

Originally Posted by davej

this is pretty much the same as Christians are more moral then athiest thread over in R/S

These are from numerous peer reviewed and scientific journals. How are any of th biased or problematic? You are not actually saying anything here but demonstrating negligence.

Originally Posted by davej

I would also rather be the person I am today then to be brilliant and not have God in my life.
I may not be the smartest person in the world but I have a great job, i have a great wife and I have a great daughter. We make planty of money and want for nothing. And I owe that all to God and all the blessings he has given me...

Do you think that the nonreligious cannot have a great job, great wife, great family? Do you not think that people of every denomination feel just as passionate/delusional as you?

Either way the point remains - religious people are not as intelligent.

~

it came out of a scientific journal so it must be right.....
I didn't say that others couldn't have a great life. I said that i did and i wouldn't trade what i have and my faith to be "smarter".
Just because a person is a Christian or of any other religion does not mean they can't learn. it is if they believe it or not. basically what you are saying is that something shuts the brain off inside a religious person to where they can not learn. so are you saying that someone of religion doesn't have the functioning brain to learn? i don't want to assume you are saying something you are not.

and by the way, a statement like this

Either way the point remains - religious people are not as intelligent.

is just as bad as if i were to say white people are more intelligent then black
*i don't believe that by the way*

I find it interesting

that if you switch it around, and say "less intelligent people are more religious"

SUDDENLY

it's somewhat less offensive-seeming.

It didn't offend me ha ha... i just think it is ironic how everyone got their feather ruffled over in the religious are more moral thread but then i turn around and see a post like this.

.

Or maybe there is no direct correlation between religious belief and intelligence.

In all honesty, it seems much more reasonable to contribute the world's rising Atheism, not to the fact that intelligence on average is also rising, but rather because of the progression of science and its increasing ability to account for things that otherwise used to fall in the domain of religious belief. The second factor to consider is the ever increasing exposure to opposing cultures and belief systems that conflict with one another.

The increase in Intelligence/ACH is no doubt related to the fact that the percentage of people going to school has been increasing over the years. And in addition, on average the number of years of education completed by people has been rising as well. A second thing to consider is the progression of technology and how that has impacted our average level of intelligence. I don't know about you, but I most likely wouldn't be as intelligent as I am now if I didn't have the Internet. Plus the increase of technology not only allows for more education, it also allows for more expsoure to other cultures and belief systems...

If you consider all of these things, the increase in Atheism seems more likely attributed to the advancement of technology an its increasing availability rather than intelligence itself. The fact that Atheists on average higher ACH/IQ than Religious Believers can be attributed to the fact that the people who have less technology available to them (and thus are more likely to be religious) are also the people who have less education on average (and thus are more likely to be less intelligent)...not that a higher intelligence leads to Atheism. That would be on par with saying humans evolved from monkeys. The causal relationships within the data is what is suspect, not the actual data itself.

There are no doubt millions of things that have positive and negative correlations with the rise of atheism, but most of those things have no direct relationship to one another. This is called "spurious correlation", and it doesn't take much to create a provocative theory fueled by these types of correlations, whether it be knowingly or unknowingly, but they would be fallacious nonetheless.

Originally Posted by ethen

Or maybe there is no direct correlation between religious belief and intelligence.

In all honesty, it seems much more reasonable to contribute the world's rising Atheism, not to the fact that intelligence on average is also rising, but rather because of the progression of science and its increasing ability to account for things that otherwise used to fall in the domain of religious belief. The second factor to consider is the ever increasing exposure to opposing cultures and belief systems that conflict with one another.

What exactly would that correlation be..? What is used to measure that progression?

Why are you so convinced that my original intents were not to have a civil discussion? I offer some new controversial evidence that warrants further investigation and inquiry, and you reply by saying, "That is too offensive, let us ignore it"?? Do you truly believe that?

The increase in Intelligence/ACH is no doubt related to the fact that the percentage of people going to school has been increasing over the years. And in addition, on average the number of years of education completed by people has been rising as well. A second thing to consider is the progression of technology and how that has impacted our average level of intelligence. I don't know about you, but I most likely wouldn't be as intelligent as I am now if I didn't have the Internet. Plus the increase of technology not only allows for more education, it also allows for more expsoure to other cultures and belief systems...

You can see a rise in the IQ's of those in the National Academy of Sciences which would quell your education argument. There have always been scientists.

If you consider all of these things, the increase in Atheism seems more likely attributed to the advancement of technology an its increasing availability rather than intelligence itself. The fact that Atheists on average higher ACH/IQ than Religious Believers can be attributed to the fact that the people who have less technology available to them (and thus are more likely to be religious) are also the people who have less education on average (and thus are more likely to be less intelligent)...not that a higher intelligence leads to Atheism. That would be on par with saying humans evolved from monkeys. The causal relationships within the data is what is suspect, not the actual data itself.

It sounds more like you are actually trying to give a causal argument for why atheists are more intelligent than the religious.

That is fine with me. But I still think it warrants further investigation.

There are no doubt millions of things that have positive and negative correlations with the rise of atheism, but most of those things have no direct relationship to one another. This is called "spurious correlation", and it doesn't take much to create a provocative theory fueled by these types of correlations, whether it be knowingly or unknowingly, but they would be fallacious nonetheless.

I do not understand this screwed up perception of the data being that you must be Atheist to be intelligent. I never said anything near that. There are obviously some religious people in the higher echelons of education (albeit, a minority).

Perhaps you ought to understand that some people out there want to learn and develop. The best things to learn from are obviously the most controversial things, not the most mundane and politically correct. How else do you progress as a human being?

Be open-minded.

~

I believe that there was more to your motivation to post this topic than civil debate. Clearly you feel strong enough about atheism to do that amount of research on the issue, and then title the way you did??


I don't mean to seem closed minded, but I am a realist. Are you telling me that "taking a jab at religion" played no part in your motivation? Because I am definitely getting that vibe




Anywho, my whole point comes down to these things:

- I believe that our level of intelligence is rising on average
- I believe that the number of atheists is also rising (per capita)
- I believe that your ACH chart was not falsified.

However, with those things said, showing that Atheists score higher on ACH tests as compared to Religious people implies something that I feel deserves more investigation. It implies that there is a direct correlation between being intelligent and being an atheist...and that relationship is what I feel is suspect.

Here is a classic example that helps illustrate my point. There is plenty of evidence that shows, as hand size increases, so to do the convictions of shoplifting. If that was as far as we went, stopping at just that set of data, we could conclude that people with larger hands are more likely to shoplift.

Though it is true that there is a statistical correlation between hand-size and shoplifting (similarly to there being a statistical correlation between religious belief and ACH scores), the reason why there is a correlation is not always correctly implied by the data.

In truth, the reason why people with larger hands are more likely to shoplift is because, on average, men have larger hands than women...and on average, men are more likely to shoplift than women. Therefore, in a way, it is true that there is some sort of relationship between hand-size and shoplifting, but not what the data would seem to suggest on the surface.

Bringing this all back to Atheism and Intelligence, I assume the data itself it accurate, and that there is some sort of (real) inverse correlation between religious belief and ACH scores. Why there is this relationship is the question...

I have already voiced possible reasons why this relationship exists, but your stance regarding "why" there is an inverse correlation seems to be implied in your argument. Maybe I am mistaken, but did you or did you not mean to make the implication that there is a direct correlation between intelligence and religious belief? After all, the title kind of says it all...

If that is the case, you will have to do a lot more than show that ACH scores decrease with religious belief, even if we assume that data is perfectly accurate. Don't you agree?

Alright. Logic lesson. If there is a negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence tests, then there is a positive correlation between irreligiosity and intelligence tests. Simply because religiosity and irreligiosity are opposites. It's a logical consequence.

Also, correlation doesn't imply causation. The original post never spoke of causation. You're the one talking about it.

Finally, I don't think O'nus point with this thread was to bitch. If any single person on this entire forum is reasonable, it's him. Any other person (including me) would brag about the correlation, but he didn't. Now please stop accusing him of something he didn't do. Of course he could be biased because he is irreligious, but he wasn't - simply because he's only posting a statistical fact, and not building a philosophical argument. For the tenth time in this thread: there are no arguments against facts.

The only thing you could attack in the statistics is the method of evaluation of intelligence, but unless you are a pedagogue or a psychiatrist, I don't think you're qualified to do it.

Originally Posted by ethen

I believe that there was more to your motivation to post this topic than civil debate. Clearly you feel strong enough about atheism to do that amount of research on the issue, and then title the way you did??

I study psychology and philosophy.. of course this is important to me. I also value the opinion of the people on DV. Ought I not present controversial topics for discussion? Perhaps we should only discuss teddy bears.

I don't mean to seem closed minded, but I am a realist. Are you telling me that "taking a jab at religion" played no part in your motivation? Because I am definitely getting that vibe

What benefit would that give me? I have nothing to gain from the pretension of "atheists are smarter than theists". That gives me no satisfaction at all. What purpose would it even hold to hold such glory if the people are actually dumber?

Remember, I did actually provide real evidence for it. I did not just randomly say it with no justification or reason.

Anywho, my whole point comes down to these things:

- I believe that our level of intelligence is rising on average
- I believe that the number of atheists is also rising (per capita)
- I believe that your ACH chart was not falsified.

I agree. The evidence is also supportive of this.

However, with those things said, showing that Atheists score higher on ACH tests as compared to Religious people implies something that I feel deserves more investigation. It implies that there is a direct correlation between being intelligent and being an atheist...and that relationship is what I feel is suspect.

I agree. It does deserve further investigation.

Here is a classic example that helps illustrate my point. There is plenty of evidence that shows, as hand size increases, so to do the convictions of shoplifting. If that was as far as we went, stopping at just that set of data, we could conclude that people with larger hands are more likely to shoplift.

Though it is true that there is a statistical correlation between hand-size and shoplifting (similarly to there being a statistical correlation between religious belief and ACH scores), the reason why there is a correlation is not always correctly implied by the data.

In truth, the reason why people with larger hands are more likely to shoplift is because, on average, men have larger hands than women...and on average, men are more likely to shoplift than women. Therefore, in a way, it is true that there is some sort of relationship between hand-size and shoplifting, but not what the data would seem to suggest on the surface.

Bringing this all back to Atheism and Intelligence, I assume the data itself it accurate, and that there is some sort of (real) inverse correlation between religious belief and ACH scores. Why there is this relationship is the question...

Yes, Stats 101. Thank you.

Of course, there is also the irrefutable fact that the mass majority of acclaimed scientists are always non-religious. Why do you ignore that now?

I have already voiced possible reasons why this relationship exists, but your stance regarding "why" there is an inverse correlation seems to be implied in your argument. Maybe I am mistaken, but did you or did you not mean to make the implication that there is a direct correlation between intelligence and religious belief? After all, the title kind of says it all...

The evidence was pretty clear; people who claimed to be religious were less intelligent, on average, to those that claimed to not be religious.

What else do, or can, you take from this?

Grabbing for straws.

If that is the case, you will have to do a lot more than show that ACH scores decrease with religious belief, even if we assume that data is perfectly accurate. Don't you agree?

Of course I agree it is worth further investigation. I have said this from the beginning. Unfortunately, people are too nervous to fund such a research. Just look at the reactions on here; imagine the public in general!

The unfortunate truth is that the mass majority of society is pretty dumb. Education is a rarity and especially in statistics. The public would not be able to grasp the idea of z scores and bell curves, let alone outliers and correlations. So why fund such a thing?

Well, personally, I think funding such a thing is important and deserves investigation. The benefits are worth it and it certainly pisses me off that religious zealots best argument is that out of sensitivity.

I suppose we should always be gentle with our closed-minded, dim-witted, inane, religious brethren. Not that I want to. You must understand how counter-productive religion has been for science in the past. I would like to finally see some damn balls from the scientific community to say, "back off, you don't know what you're talking about" with actual evidence.

~

Originally Posted by Kromoh

Alright. Logic lesson. If there is a negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence tests, then there is a positive correlation between irreligiosity and intelligence tests. Simply because religiosity and irreligiosity are opposites. It's a logical consequence.

OK, I'm not sure why you brought this up but I agree nonetheless.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

Also, correlation doesn't imply causation. The original post never spoke of causation. You're the one talking about it.

Indeed, correlation does not imply causation (that was the general point I was making with my post). Granted the OP did not come out an say "The more religious you are, the dumber you are...", the title he chose to use says something about his intentions/motivation (whether this was a conscious decision, or just his personal feelings on the subject unconsciously affecting his word choice). It would have been more accurate (and scientific) to title this thread "The nonreligious score higher on ACH testing"...since that would be a purely objective conclusion to draw off of the findings. In short, his word choice and the overall way he formulated this finding seems to make the implication of causation on his behalf. This is a just nice way of being able to say what you want to say without making yourself vulnerable to counter criticism.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

For the tenth time in this thread: there are no arguments against facts.

The only thing you could attack in the statistics is the method of evaluation of intelligence, but unless you are a pedagogue or a psychiatrist, I don't think you're qualified to do it.

I never argued the facts presented, I just questioned the implied causation created by the way the facts were assembled and portrayed.

___________________________________________

Originally Posted by O'nus

...Ought I not present controversial topics for discussion? Perhaps we should only discuss teddy bears.

This more or less the sort of thing I am talking about. It's not that the topic itself is controversial, but rather the way you relish and perpetuate the controversy. Every time you say something like "perhaps we should only discuss teddy bears..." it gives a glimpse of where you are truly coming from. Thats all I'm saying...

Originally Posted by O'nus

What benefit would that give me? I have nothing to gain from the pretension of "atheists are smarter than theists". That gives me no satisfaction at all. What purpose would it even hold to hold such glory if the people are actually dumber?

To me it's clear that you have some sort of grudge against religion...

Originally Posted by O'nus

I suppose we should always be gentle with our closed-minded, dim-witted, inane, religious brethren. Not that I want to. You must understand how counter-productive religion has been for science in the past.

It doesn't seem all that unreasonable to think that you would get some sort of pleasure from posting statistical facts that could suggest that those you have a grudge against are, on average, less intelligent than yourself and those who share your same beliefs.

Originally Posted by O'nus

I would like to finally see some damn balls from the scientific community...

Perhaps, like you, they are simply trying to save face

Originally Posted by O'nus

Of course, there is also the irrefutable fact that the mass majority of acclaimed scientists are always non-religious. Why do you ignore that now?

I don't know what relevance this has to what you had quoted of my post, or why you assert that I was ignoring the fact that most acclaimed scientists are nonreligious. All I was doing is pointing out that data does not always suggest what it seems to suggest on the surface.

In fact, I actually proposed that one of the reasons I felt atheism was growing was because of the progression of science (and its increasing ability to account for phenomena that otherwise would normally fall under the realm of religion). This seems to fall right in line with "...the mass majority of acclaimed scientists are always non-religious", wouldn't you say?

Originally Posted by O'nus

The evidence was pretty clear; people who claimed to be religious were less intelligent, on average, to those that claimed to not be religious.

What else do, or can, you take from this?

Implied causation, obviously. You didn't attempt to explore why religious people score less on ACH tests, possibly because that was beyond the point of posting this finding in the first place.

You seem like a bright guy, and I am sure you are very familiar with how people (especially politicians) can "misuse" statistics to suggest things that otherwise may not be entirely true. When you post sets of data that correlate with one another, people are automatically going to attempt to determine causation. In this case, without going why religious people score lower on ACH tests, people have no choice but to assume that there is a direct correlation between being unintelligent and being religious...as if one lends to the other.

If I had to guess, this is most likely the overall point of the posting this finding....eventhough, as I am sure you already know given your background, stats do not suggest anything, people do. The reality of the situation is that a direct correlation is not justified by the data present, which you seem to agree with. And yet, I feel that a direct correlation is implicit in your thesis, given your tone, word choice, etc.

I don't expect you to admit to it (nor will denying it change my opinion), but to me it's the elephant in the room. Its like this:

Person 1: "Look at these stats, they show a spike in being African American and the number of times, on average, people eat at KFC a month as compared to other Ethnicities."

Person 2: "I see. So what are you getting at?"

Person 1: "Who me? nothing."

Person 2: "You're not trying to imply that African Americans like KFC?"

Person 1: "Whoa whoa whoa, hold on a second, I didn't say that!"

Person 2: "..."

Person 1: "Just Sayin"


Your impartiality is transparent and your point is clear, let's stop acting so coy, shall we?

Originally Posted by O'nus

Of course, there is also the irrefutable fact that the mass majority of acclaimed scientists are always non-religious. Why do you ignore that now?

Are you impying that the majority of acclaimed scientists are intelligent? I've heard of many scientific explanations that are simply shallow and fallacious, etc.

What have you to say about those intelligent people who believe in God?