What do you think of these studies that show a NEGATIVE correlation between religiosity and IQ?

Question

http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Jesus/Intelligence%20&%20religion.htm

Most of the people who are arguing against the studies and methods (and rather point out some of the people they know) are failing to understand the bias of the VERY SMALL sample size.

Answer 1

It's probably true, but I suspect it has more to do with education than innate IQ. Educated people aren't generally religious. Virtually all leading scientists are atheists, and it's not necessarily because they're dramatically smarter than everyone else, but more likely because they have a better understanding of reality.

Answer 2

Not all of those studies showed a negative correlation between IQ and "religiosity."

Furthermore, I would be willing to bet that out of all the studies, none of them apart from the Brown and Love study of 1951 tested more than five hundred people. Other than the scientists, of course. But it's nothing new that most scientists don't believe in God.

I can only speak for myself, but my IQ has been tested at between 125 and 145 (though I think that was a fluke, because most of the tests put me at 131), and I'm a Christian.

I don't put too much faith (pun intended) in the relevance and accuracy of those studies. I don't believe that they are even CLOSE to being comprehensive enough to determine that being religious has anything to do with intelligence or lack thereof.

Answer 3

I suspect the test is a bit biased.
Obviously, the more intelligent a person is, the more he is going to question the world around him...including the concept of God.
However, the idea that intelligence insists on irrefutable evidence is just nonsense.
There is no irrefutable evidence that can finally prove that what we percieve with our five senses is all there is.
As a matter of fact, there is no irrefutble evidence that what we percieve in this way is even actually real.
It cannot be proven, for instance, that you are not completely alone, floating in a universe that consists completely of nothing but you, and everything you think you see, taste, smell, hear, and feel around you is all nothing but delusion.
It cannot be proven that you didn't just pop into existence two seconds ago, with all these delusions already in place, and will pop back out two seconds from now...
Maybe this is what it is really like to be dead...
Following that line of reasoning could land you in a rubber room...







Or, is that stuff really rubber????

Answer 4

What study? How come you do no longer furnish a link to them? i'm no longer non secular, however the entire viewed IQ is dumb. the only element that IQ correlates to statistically is how properly you score on an IQ attempt. completely beside the point and valueless in my opinion. IQ does no longer correlate - a minimum of no longer certainly - to how happy you would be, income means, social judgment of right and incorrect, how good of a parent you would be, wellness, athletic means, inventive expertise, interpersonal skills, etc. So what precisely does it let us know some individual's means?

Answer 5

Most of them deal with the differences between SCIENTISTS and the general population. Scientists have scientific minds. They have a hard time NOT thinking about things scientifically, and THAT is why so many are atheist.

Francis Collins said, "I frankly couldn't see why I needed to have any God at all. I was in a very reductionist frame of mind. That's often what science imposes upon your thought process, and it's a good thing when you apply it to the natural world. But I sought to apply it to everything else. Obviously the spiritual world is another entity."

Answer 6

I have two college degrees,Gene Scott had a PHD from Stanford,Billy Graham went to Wheaton College.What's your point.I know just as many high school grads and dropouts that go both ways on the issue.Just because one is a brilliant "Carl Sagan" doesn't mean they are not spiritually dead inside.I've seen so called Christians whom God called and called and finally let go.You could see their (as Paul says) "consciences sear over".
Brilliant men like Sir Isaac Newton,Geo. Washington,Gamaliel,Paul (the Einstein of his day) were staunch believers in God as well as the regular folks.It is a spiritual knowledge not so much a head knowledge.
We are body,soul and spirit.But the spirit is dead until it is re-born.

Answer 7

I think studies can be done to support just about any theory.

I am no Chrisitian and have no religion but I do know there are plenty of highly intelligent people who are scholars and scientists, and also believe in a God, and I think it is wrong to imply that others are less intelligent based solely on the fact that they are capable of faith. this hardly seems like an action critical thinkers should practice

Answer 8

Fantiscy Facts. Hijacked Science.url

Answer 9

Too bad there isn't a positive correlation between atheism and having a friggin pizza right now.

C'mon, delivery! Hurry up!

Answer 10

I have noticed the same type of trend as well. Most of the people that I know who are educated past college level are atheists or agnostic, not many at all who are devout believers. I think that the more you are educated the more of a free thinker you become, religions don't save much room for free thinkers.