NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/atheism/24553

Text File | 1992-12-30 | 6.4 KB | 137 lines

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From: "James F. Tims" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: iq<->religion: connection?
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Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 06:30:27 GMT
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>DATE:   Wed, 30 Dec 1992 04:48:27 GMT
>FROM:   Fred Rice <[e-mail]>
>
>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

I remember none done anywhere else.

>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.
>

A worthwhile observation.

>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.
>

I agree that the studies do not apply transculturally, but for the USA
they do, in general, support the hyposthesis that atheists in
the USA are more intelligent than their devout Xian counterparts.

For your hypothesis to be true, one must assume that belief in any given
god and disbelief in all gods are equally likely outcomes given
intelligent and learned scrutiny of the available facts.  I believe this
begs the larger question, that intelligence and education together tend
to undermine religious faith synergistically.  You have shifted the
ground by suggesting that the religous rebels would have somehow found
an equal truth, and that their faith would be just as genuine as the
faith of those who comprise the society with a majority of the devout.

You also make the assumption that intelligent people
rebel for no particular reason, and that this automatic rebellion would
aim itself directly at the converse of atheism.  Further, we must assume
either that any religion will suffice or that these intelligent people will
somehow find the ultimate truth of the existence of god.  There seem rather
too many degrees of freedom in your conjecture, perhaps too many even to
support meaningful speculation.

>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]
>
What is their motive?  Political power?  Wealth?  Rebellion against the
USA for its imperialism seems somehow an empty reason for belief in Allah.
We have no guarantee that the students are the most intelligent, rather
they were the most privileged and influential, as I understand it.  I could
be wrong.  There is also nothing to indicate that they were outstanding
students, poor students, failing students, nothing.  We also have no
feel for whether they freely profess belief.  I think the Koran has you
thrown from the highest mosque, repeatedly, until you are dead, if you
denounce Allah.  It could be that the atheists that once lived in Iraq or
Iran are all dead, now, leaving relatively more stupid people.
We also have no indication of the students' curricula.  They do
not seem overly burdened with scientists, judging from the interviews with
the Tehran embassy team.  Political science and law would teach you precious
little about the arguments for atheism.

Oh, well.  Being an atheist, I guess I'm just biased.  Let me offer
another premise:  Were any given religion true, one would assume that more
intelligent people than not would find it so on exposure to its truth.
Studies which indicated the predicted intellectual superiority of believers
would surely have surfaced.  I have seen no more than equality for
believers, and, far more often, that non-believers are superior.
Speculations about theoretical societies does little to blunt the
thrust of the studies' implications without some sort of counterevidence
beyond vague observations about the nations of Islam.
  ,...,.,,
 /666;    ',    jim tims
////;    _~ -   [e-mail]
(/@/----0-~-0
 ;'  . `` ~ \'
  , `    ' , >      IMO, the most likely of all the thread's speculations:
;;|\..((   -C---->> The smarter you are, the more likely it
;;| >-  `.__),;;    becomes that you will learn enough to reject religion.