NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/atheism/24534

Text File | 1992-12-30 | 3.2 KB | 69 lines

Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!darwin.sura.net!sgiblab!munnari.oz.au!bruce.cs.monash.edu.au!monu6!yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au!darice
From: [e-mail] (Fred Rice)
Subject: Re: iq<->religion: connection?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Usenet system)
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
References: <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 04:48:27 GMT
Lines: 57

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (James F. Tims) writes:

>Here is a brief summary of some studies, which I am sure will interest
>no one on this thread.  For every study there is the counterargument
>that it proves nothing.

[...list of studies deleted...]

Some comments on these studies (trying to provide the counterarguments
that they prove nothing, or at least not as much as others might have
them prove...):

Just as background, many of the studies cited purportedly showed a
negative correlation between religiosity and IQ, except for a couple of
them in which no correlation was found.

Some things to note:

1. Most of the studies cited, I assume, were done in the USA (this is
only stated in some of the citations, in other citations it is not
stated where the studies were done).  Thus, most likely where
"religiosity" is mentioned, it means Christian religiosity (except for
the one study on Orthodox Judaism).  This is not extendable, then, to
other religions, or even to Christianity in other societies, i.e.
American culture and impressions of Christianity in that culture could
play a fundamental role in the results of these studies.

2. Another explanation can be found for the negative correlation found
in many of these studies between "religiosity" and IQ other than it
being a relationship between religiosity and IQ per se.  For example,
perhaps it is more likely for people with high IQ to be willing to
challenge the norms of their society, and to have a likelihood to move
against the flow.  Since the society in which these studies were taken
is presumably a predominantly Christian one, according to this thesis
those with high IQs would tend to leave or oppose Christianity.
According to this thesis, if the studies cited by the previous poster
were taken in predominantly atheist societies, those with higher IQs
would be the religious.

Some evidence (not necessarily hard evidence, but at least evidence that
can be investigated further) relevant to the 2 above comments:

In many Islamic countries over the past 20 or so years, there seems to
have been an "Islamic revival".  This seems to have been largely led by
the university educated and by students, rebelling against the period of
widespread "Westernization" and Arab socialism (in some places) that
occurred in many Islamic countries in the preceding decades.  Women
university students, for example, have taken up wearing headscarves (as
specified by Islam) where their mothers had discarded them.  This
example seems to be a counter-example to the negative correlation
between religiosity and IQ purportedly found in the studies cited by the
previous poster, and perhaps some positive evidence for my two points
made above.

 Fred Rice
 [e-mail]