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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Religious people less intelligent
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
This news story in the Independent caught my eye - the abstract is available free from here
How likely is this to be true? (I'm not paying to look at the full paper but suspect there may be people who can read it)
The abstract gives the following reasons:
quote:
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.
Is it true analysis undermines religious beliefs? And is it true that more intelligent people have less need for religion?
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
Well, "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" (1Cor 1:20)
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
What about C.S.Lewis? Super intelligent, and who came to Christianity in a real sense as an adult, after the usual nominal religious upbringing which left him an atheist. Not all of his religious thought processes hold water imo because he tried to express them via academic logical routes rather than those of emotional/inspirational intelligence. (I have never found the "proofs" of religion convincing.) BUT Lewis was intelligent and religious, if a pain in the butt a good deal of the time.
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But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon
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The man who made time, made plenty.
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Andromeda
Shipmate
# 11304
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Posted
It would be interesting to read the actual study ad see how they've defined religiosity.
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In this world you’ll have trouble. But cheer up! I have overcome the world.
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
I think I'll reserve judgment until we've actually figured out what "intelligence" is. Oh, wait -- and "religiosity."
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Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Yes, Andromeda, that's why I was hoping someone might be able to read the report.
I suspect that this meta-analysis may not necessarily be comparing like with like - religion and/or religiosity needs definition before any studies can be carried out, and I wondered if the 63 research papers used all started from similar definitions.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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hanginginthere
Shipmate
# 17541
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Posted
If we were to compile a list of intelligent people who are also religious it would be a very long one. (One of the things that has always baffled me about Dawkins' claims along the lines of this article is that as an Oxford professor he must know an awful lot of intelligent believers.)
It is difficult to discuss the individual claims in this abstract without reading the whole article, but to say that analytic thinking is more intelligent than intuitive thinking seems to me dubious at least. Also intelligent believers, far from conforming unthinkingly to dogma, as implied here, bring their intelligence to bear on the claims of religion, as they do with any other claim. Just because they come to a different conclusion from that of non-believers says nothing about the intelligence that has brought them to that conclusion.
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
My reaction to the op, without reading the links, leaves me wondering not only how intelligence and religiosity are being narrowed down, but also whether to be religious is to conform, and why some suggest that religion is a need.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
On the subject of "intelligence" I'm puzzled and/or amused. The abstract to the study includes the line "intelligent people tend to adopt an analytic (as opposed to intuitive) thinking style, which has been shown to undermine religious beliefs".
That's clear enough but as far as I know we measure intelligence on the basis of the ability to analyse information. Doesn't that make the methodology circular?
The first and third parts of the abstract are also a little contradictory. The first states that "intelligent people are less likely to conform" then the third states that "several functions of religiosity, including compensatory control, self-regulation, self-enhancement, and secure attachment, are also conferred by intelligence" which has me wondering if intelligent people conform just as much, only by a different route or mechanism.
Anyhow, there are plenty of smart people on the Ship and some of them aren't atheists. I'm not much worried by a bit of popular science writing in a mainstream newspaper.
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
- First, intelligent people are less likely to conform and, thus, are more likely to resist religious dogma.
Well, quite. And, therefore, the belief they have will be well thought out and founded on the personal experience of their encounters with God. The church I go to was essentially founded by nuclear scientists from a nearby research establishment 50 years ago and it still has a very strong, white collar, frighteningly brainy attendance from the same place. Unchallenged religious dogma is very rare.
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
From the Independent article (they screwed up the parentheses, not me):
quote:
More intelligent people get higher level jobs (and better employment (and higher salary) may lead to higher self-esteem, and encourage personal control beliefs.
Or, as Jesus might have said, "They have their reward".
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
Of course, there are no Christians with BAs, MAs and PhDs, are there?
[ 13. August 2013, 13:08: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
The fact that this survey was carried out in the USA seems relevant. When religiosity is widespread throughout all social groups, then the atheism that exists is probably a deliberate reaction against that dominant culture. It's not surprising that the well-educated, self-confident, intelligent people are the ones pioneering that reaction.
Secularisation has penetrated the whole of British society so deeply that you don't really need to be particularly 'intelligent' to be an atheist. Interestingly, though, British churchgoers tend to have a higher level of education than the general population. This could be because churchgoing, as opposed to simply claiming a CofE/RCC/etc. identity, requires not only a knowledge of religious content and requirements, but the ability to reflect on and justify one's religious involvement in a society that's largely post-Christian in this respect.
[ 13. August 2013, 13:09: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
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would love to belong
Shipmate
# 16747
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The fact that this survey was carried out in the USA seems relevant. When religiosity is widespread throughout all social groups, then the atheism that exists is probably a deliberate reaction against that dominant culture. It's not surprising that the well-educated, self-confident, intelligent people are the ones pioneering that reaction.
Secularisation has penetrated the whole of British society so deeply that you don't really need to be particularly 'intelligent' to be an atheist. Interestingly, though, British churchgoers tend to have a higher level of education than the general population. This could be because churchgoing, as opposed to simply claiming a CofE/RCC/etc. identity, requires not only a knowledge of religious content and requirements, but the ability to reflect on and justify one's religious involvement in a society that's largely post-Christian in this respect.
A very thoughtful post if I may say so. My own experience of Protestant churchgoing in the UK confirms to be that I am among peopleof higher than average intelligence.
It may be different in the US. It may also be different among RCC adherents, I don't have any experience of RC churchgoing.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
would love to belong
Thanks. I have to say, though, that I'm not too keen on emphasising intelligence with regards to Christianity, and it seems like a poor strategy for atheism as well.
Jesus Christ came for all, and God, so liberation theology tells us, has a bias to the poor, and a special place for the oppressed and those who suffer all kinds of disadvantages, including intellectual ones. And many atheists would presumably like everyone, the intelligent and the unintelligent alike, to abandon their gods; focusing on the intelligence of atheists and the foolishness of religious people surely risks undermining that goal.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
I couldn't see anything in the article about the culture(s) in which this reserach took place. On the subject of education- which is I know not the same thing as 'intelligence'- IIRC the last British Social Attitudes Survey suggested that religious belief and, I think (but I'm not sure), practice are higher among people with now or low qualifications and people with a degree or more: it's the ones with a bit of education, but not all that much, who tend to be most sceptical. At the risk of sounding snobbish, that's pretty much in line with my experience of people.
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Andromeda
Shipmate
# 11304
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Posted
Of course, even if religious people can be shown to be less intelligent than non-religious, that doesn't mean belief in all religions is itself unintelligent.
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In this world you’ll have trouble. But cheer up! I have overcome the world.
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Caissa
Shipmate
# 16710
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Posted
I suppose a study would require the provision of IQ tests to randomly selected groups of religious and non-religious groups.
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
From the Independent article (they screwed up the parentheses, not me):
quote:
More intelligent people get higher level jobs (and better employment (and higher salary) may lead to higher self-esteem, and encourage personal control beliefs.
Or, as Jesus might have said, "They have their reward".
Or, to put it yet another way, they don't have any holes in their life that need to be filled by religion.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
From the Independent article (they screwed up the parentheses, not me):
quote:
More intelligent people get higher level jobs (and better employment (and higher salary) may lead to higher self-esteem, and encourage personal control beliefs.
Or, as Jesus might have said, "They have their reward".
Or, to put it yet another way, they don't have any holes in their life that need to be filled by religion.
Or not aware of them.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Or, to put it yet another way, they don't have any holes in their life that need to be filled by religion.
Or not aware of them.
That amounts to the same thing as far as this conversation is concerned.
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Hail Gallaxhar
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Secularisation has penetrated the whole of British society so deeply that you don't really need to be particularly 'intelligent' to be an atheist. Interestingly, though, British churchgoers tend to have a higher level of education than the general population.
Interestingly in the US you will find that members of mainline Protestant denominations - i.e. those that originated largely in the British Isles (e.g. Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist) have higher rates of education than evangelicals and compared to national averages.
Pew Research - Education by Religious Tradition
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Cedd
Shipmate
# 8436
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Posted
I have worked for City law firms and with lots of clergy. On the whole the clergy have more degrees per capita than the lawyers...
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Cedd
Churchmanship: This week I am mostly an evangelical, catholic, orthodox with both liberal and illiberal tendancies. Terms and conditions apply.
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
The article does not say "There are no religious people who are intelligent."
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I managed to download the journal article through the University's subscription. Here's some highlights.
quote:
Following Gottfredson (1997), we define intelligence as the “ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience” (p. 13).
In practice this included (just reading off the table of results, remember this is a meta-analysis): UEE, Mensa membership, Otis Test of Mental Ability, WAIS III block design and Vocabulary, Thurston Primary Mental Abilities Scale, Groninger Intelligence Test, GPA, Thomdike Intelligence Test, Iowa Comprehensive Test, Wonderlic Personal Test, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Verbal synonyms, Stanford-Binet, Shipley Vocabulary Test, WAIS III Matrix Reasoning Test, Scientific Literary Scale from General Social Survey, Shipley Design for Living Scale, Immediate free recall, Syllogisms, IQ from school records, Raven Progressive Matrices
quote:
Religiosity can be defined as the degree of involvement in some or all facets of religion. According to Atran and Norenzayan (2004), such facets include beliefs in supernatural agents, costly commitment to these agents (e.g., offering of property), using beliefs in those agents to lower existential anxieties such as anxiety over death, and communal rituals that validate and affirm religious beliefs.
The entries in the table were: Attendance, Beliefs, Mixed, Membership
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I only half understand the statistics speak, but the correlation between intelligence and religiosity, when the GPA-based tests are thrown out, is for precollege, college, and non-college persons -.06, -.14, and -.23 respectively (unweighted) and -.07, -.15, and -.15 (weighted). The p value was (for these numbers) in all cases less than .05.
Interestingly when they broke out religious belief and religious behavior, belief had a significantly higher negative correlation with intelligence than religious behavior, for non-college it was -.04 for behavior and -.20 for belief (weighted).
I couldn't with a brief overview figure out what the weighting was based on.
PM me for more.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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S. Bacchus
Shipmate
# 17778
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Interestingly in the US you will find that members of mainline Protestant denominations - i.e. those that originated largely in the British Isles (e.g. Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist) have higher rates of education than evangelicals and compared to national averages.
Pew Research - Education by Religious Tradition
Those figures are really interesting.
Unsurprisingly, American Protestants have, when taken as a single group, an educational profile very close to that of the general population (but with slightly fewer having post-grad degrees). 'Mainline' Protestants are more likely better educated than the general population, Evangelicals are less likely to be so.
Roman Catholics have a wider spread, with similar numbers holding bachelors of graduate degrees to Protestants, but also with more members who left school with no qualifications. The divide is presumably between middle class Roman Catholics, and working class RC communities (often, but not always, recent immigrants).
Members of historically African American churches have lower levels of education than their counterparts of European descent, although the gap narrows in the fields of those with BAs and higher degrees (the largest discrepancy is in the number who did not finish school). This again almost certainly divides on class lines.
Unitarians are better educated than more orthodox Christians, which is no surprise, as every Unitarian I've met has been quite middle class.
Jews are, unsurprisingly, much better educated than Christians or the population at large. Amongst Reform Jews, only 1% have not finished school, and fully 35% have advanced degrees. Strangely, though, there is no subcategory for Orthodox Jews. Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) and Hasidic Jews presumably have relatively low levels of secular education, although very high levels of religious education.
Two groups surprised me, though:
I would have expected Hindus to be better educated than the general population, but not nearly to the extent that they in fact are. With nearly half having postgraduate degrees, and three quarters being university graduates, Hindus are by far the most educated religious group in America. Buddhists are also quite well educated, although it's hard to tell to what extent this is the result of well-educated middle class converts.
The second surprising group is the Orthodox, whom I would have expected to have a similar educational profile to Roman Catholics, but are in fact the most educated sub-branch of Christians listed.
The conclusion seems to be that minority immigrant groups with a clear ethnic identity (Jews, Greeks, Hindu Indians) tend to do quite well educationally in America. I'm sure there's formal sociological studies on this.
I wonder what the figures are for the UK. I haven't been able to find an exact equivalent, but there seems to be some evidence to suggest that, whilst atheists tend to be better educated than theists, the opposite is true for 'converts' in each direction, i.e. religious people who become atheists are disproportionately poorly educated, whilst non-religious people who find religion are disproportionately well-educated (WARNING: this article if from the 'Guardian's' 'Comment is Free' section, so don't read the comments below the line if you value your sanity).
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Spiffy
Ship's WonderSheep
# 5267
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Posted
The biggest red flag for me is the wide variety of intelligence tests used in the 62 studies, because all intelligence tests are not created equal. In fact, most are heavily weighted towards the majority culture and therefore people who are not of that culture who may be remarkably intelligent do poorly on the tests.
The second is the major section on atheism is framed as a lack of belief-- but this is the social scientist in me getting in an arm wrestling match with the psychologist because atheism in social science is just another facet of belief.
The third is stated in the Limitations section and not the major sections which is SUPER irksome because they say, and I quote:
quote:
The available data did not allow adequate consideration of the role of religion type and of culture. [...]Of the 41 studies in the college and no-college groups (the populations on which we base most of our conclusions), 33 were conducted in the United States;[...] Clearly, the present results are limited to Western societies.
33 of the 62 studies were performed in the US. Yeah. That's not going to skew the results at all.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
But this is the kind of story the Indy loves. So all in all it's about as reliable as one in the Mail on, say, crime and migration.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by S. Bacchus:
I would have expected Hindus to be better educated than the general population, but not nearly to the extent that they in fact are. With nearly half having postgraduate degrees, and three quarters being university graduates, Hindus are by far the most educated religious group in America. Buddhists are also quite well educated, although it's hard to tell to what extent this is the result of well-educated middle class converts.
The second surprising group is the Orthodox, whom I would have expected to have a similar educational profile to Roman Catholics, but are in fact the most educated sub-branch of Christians listed.
The conclusion seems to be that minority immigrant groups with a clear ethnic identity (Jews, Greeks, Hindu Indians) tend to do quite well educationally in America. I'm sure there's formal sociological studies on this.
Or maybe the conclusion is that well-educated or wealthy Indians and Arabs and Eastern Europeans find it much easier to get into the United States than others do? I'd imagine taht many Hindus (and maybe Orthodox) will be first-generation immigrants and have got their education outside the USA.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
My reaction: "Hogwash!"
My apologies to the hogs.
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S. Bacchus
Shipmate
# 17778
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by S. Bacchus:
I would have expected Hindus to be better educated than the general population, but not nearly to the extent that they in fact are. With nearly half having postgraduate degrees, and three quarters being university graduates, Hindus are by far the most educated religious group in America. Buddhists are also quite well educated, although it's hard to tell to what extent this is the result of well-educated middle class converts.
The second surprising group is the Orthodox, whom I would have expected to have a similar educational profile to Roman Catholics, but are in fact the most educated sub-branch of Christians listed.
The conclusion seems to be that minority immigrant groups with a clear ethnic identity (Jews, Greeks, Hindu Indians) tend to do quite well educationally in America. I'm sure there's formal sociological studies on this.
Or maybe the conclusion is that well-educated or wealthy Indians and Arabs and Eastern Europeans find it much easier to get into the United States than others do? I'd imagine taht many Hindus (and maybe Orthodox) will be first-generation immigrants and have got their education outside the USA.
Yes, that's certainly very possible. Although note that American Muslims are not, on average, very well educated. Of religious groups that one would expect to be formed largely of first or second generation migrants, Muslims are the only ones not better educated than the general population (Muslims have the similar rates of university and postgraduate education as Protestants and Americans at large, but are much less likely to have finished school).
That's less of an objection to your point about Arabs than it might seem, though, as about two thirds of American Arabs are Christians (mostly Marionite or Melkite Catholic, with a substantial number of Orthodox). The demographics of American Arabs would seem to have less to do with Arab demography more broadly, and more to do with the very real desire/need for many Arab Christians to leave their homeland.
However, based totally on extrapolation from the UK, I would have thought that a substantial number of American Muslims would be of Indian or Pakistani extraction and from similar social backgrounds as American Hindus. My impression has also been that Americans of North African, Middle Eastern and Iranian extraction tend to be relatively well-educated and middle class.
ETA: One possible explanation, of course, is that in some Muslim families, education for daughters will be discouraged or at least not a priority. That's a delicate issue, and is certainly not true of all Muslim families or even of all religiously conservative ones. But it might be one possible explanation (or partial explanation) of the discrepancy.
[ 13. August 2013, 16:09: Message edited by: S. Bacchus ]
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Anyuta
Shipmate
# 14692
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by S. Bacchus:
I would have expected Hindus to be better educated than the general population, but not nearly to the extent that they in fact are. With nearly half having postgraduate degrees, and three quarters being university graduates, Hindus are by far the most educated religious group in America. Buddhists are also quite well educated, although it's hard to tell to what extent this is the result of well-educated middle class converts.
The second surprising group is the Orthodox, whom I would have expected to have a similar educational profile to Roman Catholics, but are in fact the most educated sub-branch of Christians listed.
The conclusion seems to be that minority immigrant groups with a clear ethnic identity (Jews, Greeks, Hindu Indians) tend to do quite well educationally in America. I'm sure there's formal sociological studies on this.
Or maybe the conclusion is that well-educated or wealthy Indians and Arabs and Eastern Europeans find it much easier to get into the United States than others do? I'd imagine taht many Hindus (and maybe Orthodox) will be first-generation immigrants and have got their education outside the USA.
This was exactly my thought when I saw the numbers. At least as far as Hindus and Budhists. Not so much Orthodox, because a great many (perhaps most)recent immigrants from historically Orthodox countries such as Russia were in fact raised Atheist. at least half of Orthodox in the US today (even after the recent influx post 1991) are, I believe, born and educated here, even if they belong to ethnic communities (children, grandchildren, great grandchildren of immigrants). So, while it's probably true that it's easier for a well educated Russian to come to the US than a poorly educated Russian (and take into account the education levels in Russia in general are higher than in the US) it's not particularly likely that these well educated Russians are Orthodox. I focus on Russians because this is the group with which I'm most familiar. I know that it's true that most Greeks in the US were born and raised here, but can't speak to other historically Orthodox nationalities, and can only assume it's similar.
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Another possibility and one that will upset people is that the fact is that the atheist among the less intelligent are not showing as atheists. A number of mechanism by which this could be the case.
Right there is a high correlations between intelligence, education and social class. This is important because two different mechanism could be in play.
First Grace Davie notes in Believing but Not Belonging that the poorer people tended more often to believe without active belonging at least in the UK. That is they maintain a low level religious status, while people who are higher up the social income tend to also belong if religious. So being religious for a middle class person is more expensive than for a working class person.
Second is the claim I have seen that children have to be taught to be atheist, they are not naturally. I do not think that they are naturally Christian but some sort of animism is probable. Now if that is the case, and people who are intelligent spend longer in education then there is more chance that they will be taught to be atheist.
If atheist think that is bad, how about the suggestion that atheism is only really interested in the intelligentsia and not in average kind of Joe. In other words there are few people of lower intelligent who are atheist because atheist do not see these people as worth bothering about.
I suppose this post boils down to the old statistical statement. Correlation does not imply causation.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spiffy:
The biggest red flag for me is the wide variety of intelligence tests used in the 62 studies, because all intelligence tests are not created equal. In fact, most are heavily weighted towards the majority culture and therefore people who are not of that culture who may be remarkably intelligent do poorly on the tests.
Bingo. Not only are IQ tests not created equal, I'm skeptical that "intelligence" is what they measure.
Most such tests are paper-&-pencil instruments in which speed of response affects the scoring. Even before the test starts, an advantage goes to testees more fluent in written language, and to testees with quicker eye-hand reflexes. Are these traits which consistently accompany high intelligence? Only if that's one of the ways in which you define high intelligence.
Forgive me if I've told this story before, but it gripes me to this day.
While working for a protection and advocacy agency some years back, I had a client referred to me from a sheltered workshop (a facility where people labeled "unemployable" because of significant disabilities are allowed to do piece-work for pennies-a-whack at tedious repetitive tasks). Typical week's wages: 62 cents.
The complaint was that he -- let's call him Jim --was inappropriately placed in the sheltered workshop. On investigation, I found an adult in his 30s with severe cerebral palsy plus limited hearing. After several sessions (it took time to get accustomed to Jim's Sign language and for me, a non-native Signer, to read it, since it was affected by his cerebral palsy), I discovered a man who, despite extraordinary limitations in his education, was bright, had an acerbic wit, an impressive vocabulary, and a lot to say about his situation with a certain gallows humor.
All Jim's co-workers had significant cognitive deficits (and frankly some of the staff weren't a whole lot better off). Only one part-time staffer had any Sign, and this was pretty much limited to things like "bathroom," "coffee," "break time," etc. To make matters worse, the "work" at this Sweatshop of Disabled Slavery consisted of setting up cardboard boxes -- a task at which Jim was frankly hopeless due to his having only partial use of his hands (cerebral palsy).
The icing on the cake? The sweatshop sucked at being a sweatshop and had had no active contracts for months. So at the end of each "workday," the staff collapsed all the boxes the clients had set up under the noses of the clients while they awaited their transport home so the clients would have something to do next day: set the @#$! back up again.
Jim was going mad. He was bored out of his skull, he was frustrated beyond imagining, he had nobody to talk to all day, and on and on.
So I ordered that he have his IQ tested, as a first step to demonstrating that Jim was indeed inappropriately placed at this workshop. Big mistake.
I informed the psychologist of Jim's situation -- he was nearly deaf, he used a wheelchair, he communicated through Sign, his cerebral palsy affected his communication, etc. etc., assuming that the psych would come equipped with instruments designed for testees with special needs.
The shrink arrived, slapped something like a standard Wechsler on Jim's tray table with a pencil, and asked Jim if he was ready.
Jim started his answer, which I began interpreting to the shrink: "R-e-a-d-y f-o-r w-h--?" and the shrink interrupted and said, "Begin . . . NOW!" and started his timer.
When we finally wormed a report out of this a**hole some weeks later, he diagnosed Jim as "profoundly retarded."
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by S. Bacchus:
Yes, that's certainly very possible. Although note that American Muslims are not, on average, very well educated. Of religious groups that one would expect to be formed largely of first or second generation migrants, Muslims are the only ones not better educated than the general population (Muslims have the similar rates of university and postgraduate education as Protestants and Americans at large, but are much less likely to have finished school).
A fair number of US Muslims are black men who have converted to Islam in prison. Prisoners are rather more likely than average to have not finished high school.
[ 13. August 2013, 17:56: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
Here's a statistician's view: Briggs. Basically, there's a lot of nonsense going on in this paper with the author's mixing data sets from way back in time (all the way to 1928), from very different places, with different gender compositions, very different sample sizes etc.: "Data of every flavor was observed, data that should not be mixed without an idea of how to combine the uncertainty inherent in each study and in how, say, kinds of IQ measurements maps to other kinds of IQ measurements. In other words, data which should not be mixed, because nobody has any idea how to make these corrections."
This appears to be a basic stats fail, best to be simply ignored.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
As far as Hindus, I don's know how numerically significant they are, but a lot of people come here from the subcontinent as computer programmers on work visas.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Belle Ringer
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# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
[*]First, intelligent people are less likely to conform and, thus, are more likely to resist religious dogma.
I don't personally know any believers who agree with everything their church teaches. Where do these pro-atheists get the idea believers avoid thinking and pretend to be robots? Gosh, imagine a church with no politics, no music wars, no churches splitting over theological disagreements, no etc. Not gonna happen because believers do NOT just mindlessly believe whatever they are told! ![[Smile]](smile.gif) quote:
[*]Second, intelligent people tend to adopt an analytic (as opposed to intuitive) thinking style, which has been shown to undermine religious beliefs.
Believers can't be analytical? Read any theology books lately? (Besides, a lot of creative thinkers in any field, including business and yes science, use intuitive as well as analytical processes in making innovative discoveries.) quote:
[*]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.
Ah, yes, ye old "religion is a crutch for weak people" argument. I'm not sure just what "self-enhancement" etc refers to, but do intelligent atheists scorn marriage because their intelligence gives them all the "secure attachment" they could possibly want?
I belonged to Mensa for a while, got awfully bored listening to people (who were holding jobs like taxi diver or receptionist) talk about their superior intelligence. Seemed like feeling smarter than anyone else made them feel good about themselves because they had nothing else to feel good about. I went and got a job where people use their intelligence productively (and didn't bother belonging to Mensa) instead of just talking about it.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
Count me as an atheist who thinks that intelligence tests are dubious predictors.
My 7th grade math teacher left to work with inner city youth who were trying to get into the construction unions apprentice program. It had been changed by court order from admission of youths suggested by current (all white) union members to a merit based admission based on intelligence tests.
My teacher and his friends created what they called "the six week program to raise your IQ score by 40 points." It was successful in getting the youth in despite their horrible educations.
So when you show me an atheists do well on intelligence test I suspect there's a heavy class correlation which becomes... atheists are more likely to be middle or upper class
As pointed out above, this is from the United States and my story is 40 years old. It might be different in a country with working class atheists I remain unconvinced of the predictive value of intelligence tests.
(Including the marshmallow test... ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) )
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
I belonged to Mensa for a while, got awfully bored listening to people (who were holding jobs like taxi diver or receptionist) talk about their superior intelligence. Seemed like feeling smarter than anyone else made them feel good about themselves because they had nothing else to feel good about. I went and got a job where people use their intelligence productively (and didn't bother belonging to Mensa) instead of just talking about it.
Belle Ringer has just added to my, admittedly small, sample of people known to have passed the entrance IQ test for Mensa. I was going to post yesterday about my observations based on this sample. The sample divides into two, those who stayed in and those who left.
Those who left appeared to me to be better company and more capable of discussing things in an interesting way.
Oddly, those I have personally known who stayed in (I exclude public figures) included two who both had religious leanings. One, seeking ordination, believed that it was possible to develop a sort of religious quotient test for people's morality - his was a bit dubious in a number of ways. The other, generous to himself with his understanding of plagiarism from others, became converted to Orthodoxy, and boasted of it in the same way he publicised his membership of Mensa.
The consequence of these observations (augmented by readings of their magazines and BR's message) is that I don't trust their IQ tests to be as rigorous as others.
I also suspect that there may be a considerable intersection in the Venn diagram of Mensa members and adherents of certain aspects of religion (not what for want of a better word I'm calling spirituality) when it comes to character. Belonging to a group which regards itself as somehow better than non-members comes to mind.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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argona
Shipmate
# 14037
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Posted
A goodfrom article from Frank Furedi.
Posts: 327 | From: Oriental dill patch? (4,7) | Registered: Aug 2008
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Belle Ringer has just added to my, admittedly small, sample of people known to have passed the entrance IQ test for Mensa.
Well, you can add yours truly. I joined as a young teenager and got out a few years later. I would not agree that most people in Mensa are there because they want to feel superior to others. They may well feel superior, but most didn't really need Mensa for that... Frankly, it had more a feel of "Alcoholics Anonymous" for me, a group of people that often struggle with life in a specific way meeting for mutual support and company. It really is a kind of "nerds & geeks only" club. As I was starting to find my own feet in many ways in regular society, Mensa meetings began to feel fairly pointless, so I left that behind. But no hard feelings, and I really don't see any hurt in Mensa.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Pottage
Shipmate
# 9529
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I would not agree that most people in Mensa are there because they want to feel superior to others. They may well feel superior, but most didn't really need Mensa for that... Frankly, it had more a feel of "Alcoholics Anonymous" for me, a group of people that often struggle with life in a specific way meeting for mutual support and company. It really is a kind of "nerds & geeks only" club. As I was starting to find my own feet in many ways in regular society, Mensa meetings began to feel fairly pointless, so I left that behind. But no hard feelings, and I really don't see any hurt in Mensa.
That's also my impression. I still am a member, although I couldn't tell you the last time I went to a meeting. I tend just to read the magazine. To judge from the existence of Mensa special interest groups for people of faith, and from the letters in the magazine when faith issues are aired, UK Mensa's population isn't very different from the UK's wider population in the size of its religious minority.
Posts: 701 | From: middle England | Registered: May 2005
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chris stiles
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# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Count me as an atheist who thinks that intelligence tests are dubious predictors.
The current thoughts are that IQ measures some component 'q' which is loosely correlated with intelligence amongst other things.
So there is probably also a correlation with social class, background etc. Primarily because these tend to be proxies for other things. There's also the rather peculiar fact that 'q' has tended to drift upwards over time - without people becoming noticeably more intelligent.
Mensa didn't seem to me to be too different from any other cross section of Britain - the social awkwardness was no more than what you would expect in any other gathering of slightly studious youths. I imagine it would have been different amongst older age groups. The more selective societies seemed to consist of groups of people who were superficially very intelligent, but were often very frustrated that they obviously weren't as brilliant as they had been taught to believe.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Caissa
Shipmate
# 16710
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Posted
All a test score measures, when push comes to shove, is how well you performed on the test on a given day in a given set of circumstances. We often try to infer other things from the results.
Posts: 972 | From: Saint John, N.B. | Registered: Oct 2011
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BWSmith
Shipmate
# 2981
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Is it true analysis undermines religious beliefs? And is it true that more intelligent people have less need for religion?
What is being undermined is the credibility of scientific studies in general.
"Studies show that [people who are not like me] tend to exhibit [negative characteristic]." Bleh. As long as one chooses their study wording and subject pool very carefully, one can 'scientifically' prove anything, and slandering one's enemies in print through this process can be very profitable.
Intelligent people don't have "less need for religion", but less need for media spin posing as "scientific fact".
Posts: 722 | From: North Carolina, USA | Registered: Jul 2002
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by BWSmith:
What is being undermined is the credibility of scientific studies in general.
"Studies show that [people who are not like me] tend to exhibit [negative characteristic]." Bleh. As long as one chooses their study wording and subject pool very carefully, one can 'scientifically' prove anything, and slandering one's enemies in print through this process can be very profitable.
In general scientific studies are publicly available. You can look up the study, read what it claims, check out the statistics. A citation index (like Google Scholar) will tell you a bit more about it. Some scientists have an axe to grind, read the paper and find it. And so on.
It is rare for a scientific paper to claim to have 'proved' something - rather it offers part of the evidence.
Newspapers and TV on the other hand, seize on such things and make whatever they think appropriate of it: usually leaving out all the technical details. It is true that scientific credibility is undermined but in this case maybe you should blame the messenger.
The paper cited by th OP sounds nonsense. But then, I trust SoF posters a lot more than newspapers and haven't read the original article.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
I actually think that it is undoubtedly true that, on average, atheists are more 'intelligent' (in the sense of academically successful) than those of us who believe in God. In fact, I would be rather shocked if it were not true. The poor, the downtrodden, the disadvantaged and the desperate turn to the living God in their need, and, of course, among the ranks of such people are millions who have not benefited from a great education or any education at all.
What's the point of this study? Given that such a conclusion does not actually tell us anything about the truth or falsehood of religion or atheism, then so what?
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
IngoB and Pottage, thank you for adding to my collection. Having met men who I would run a mile from rather than join something they belonged to has rather given a bias to my impressions. I'm glad to lose it - though you do both seem to belong now to the group that isn't in (even Pottage).
On another tack - my education theory final exam posed the question "We cannot define intelligence, but we can measure it. Discuss." I was probably supposed to discuss tests. I discussed how you cannot measure things longer than a 12 inch ruler accurately if that's all you have. The act of measuring imposes a definition. I am pleased to see the posts making similar points.
And yet another tack - there was a scheme to call atheists "brights" to distinguish them from the dull religious at some point. Haven't heard much about that recently.
[ 14. August 2013, 18:26: Message edited by: Penny S ]
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