Religious people are less intelligent than atheists, according to analysis of scores of scientific studies stretching back over decades

[Ben Kenobi]

studies are dismissed just like science

To do this study right, you'd take a batch of kids with 135 IQ and track their religious views over time vs another batch with 100 IQ and do the same. Then you'd have to compare it with your third group - your control. That's not what this study does - they take a self-selected sample which introduces systematic bias.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yes, exactly. Which is part of why the correlation becomes closer. We could predict that less intelligent people from an athiest background were more likely to become religious when they hit college age than more intelligent people from an athiest background.

The problem with this is that it assumes that college is a neutral environment. It is not. If more intelligent people are more likely to go to college, and college drives people away from religion, then the study isn't really showing that intelligence is correlated with religiousity, rather that college is associated with religiousity.

I did a study of this myself, where I was able to show a correlation between specific beliefs and years of education. Certain beliefs, the most significant factor is years of education over and above everything else.

You'd have to track the kids prior to going to college, preferably two groups, one with 135 who went to college and one with 135 who did not - then you could control for college attendence. If we saw that the kids with 135 were more likely to go to church if they did not attend college, you would uncover this correlation.

[MikeH]

Er... have you read the paper? Probably not.

This is why science behind paywalls is terrible.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I did a study of this myself

JSTOR link pls.

[MikeH]

The problem with this is that it assumes that college is a neutral environment. It is not. If more intelligent people are more likely to go to college, and college drives people away from religion, then the study isn't really showing that intelligence is correlated with religiousity, rather that college is associated with religiousity.

I did a study of this myself, where I was able to show a correlation between specific beliefs and years of education. Certain beliefs, the most significant factor is years of education over and above everything else.

You'd have to track the kids prior to going to college, preferably two groups, one with 135 who went to college and one with 135 who did not - then you could control for college attendence. If we saw that the kids with 135 were more likely to go to church if they did not attend college, you would uncover this correlation.

They eliminated education bias. It's "pre-college age" not "pre-college"

See if you can find someone with a login to the portal and read the whole paper.

[The Mad Monk]

That's about the only way to settle this.

[giblets]

I understand that, but if you don't consider the effects of college itself it's a pretty arbitrary age for religiosity to suddenly drop off, especially considering the relationship between college and perceived intelligence.

They didn't say there was a sudden drop-off, however. They only indicated that the correlation between intelligence and belief is weakest among those who are pre-college age.

I'm wondering how they measure religious belief, however. There may be a lot of below average intelligence people who nominally subscribe to a religious belief system but haven't given it much thought.

[Dauphin]

I'd be interested in knowing what religions they are. For example do dumb-****s believe in X, average Joe's believe in Y, whilst those few intelligent religious believe in Z.

Stupid people will often believe anything. Is the study indicative of "religion" necessarily? Aren't there similar studies around "non-religious" superstitions?

[Kidlicious]

I think some atheist claim that it's smart to believe in god.

[Sava]

belief in nothing is the same idiocy as belief in something

because the only wise answer is "i don't know"

and all things being equal, do what makes you happy (if it doesn't hurt anyone else)

militant atheists are just as horrible as the BK's of the world

[Hauldren Collider]

So the takeaway is is that college creates atheists.

QFT

PS: I'm an atheist

Personally, I find a strong correlation between being atheist and having essentially religious beliefs in things that are equally nonsensical, i.e. leftism. Maybe that's just cause the commies are all nominally atheist and I'm in college where a lot of kids go through their ****-you-dad collectivization phase, but whatever.

[giblets]

The takeaway from this thread is some people don't read.

[Sava]

Personally, I find a strong correlation between being atheist and having essentially religious beliefs in things that are equally nonsensical, i.e. leftism. Maybe that's just cause the commies are all nominally atheist and I'm in college where a lot of kids go through their ****-you-dad collectivization phase, but whatever.

yeah like treating people like human beings and stuff

thats stupid lol

[Hauldren Collider]

belief in nothing is the same idiocy as belief in something

because the only wise answer is "i don't know"

and all things being equal, do what makes you happy (if it doesn't hurt anyone else)

militant atheists are just as horrible as the BK's of the world

Militant atheists really annoy me because they tend to see themselves as victims despite generally being upper middle class college graduates.

[MikeH]

QFT

PS: I'm an atheist

Personally, I find a strong correlation between being atheist and having essentially religious beliefs in things that are equally nonsensical, i.e. leftism. Maybe that's just cause the commies are all nominally atheist and I'm in college where a lot of kids go through their ****-you-dad collectivization phase, but whatever.

You are one of the worst offenders for treating your political beliefs as "Truth", as shown by this post.

Maybe you were being deliberately ironic.