This comment was posted on a website where an inverse correlation between verbal IQ and religiosity was discussed.
My experience suggests several things: higher verbal IQ scores result from interaction of genetic cognitive potential with education, which in turn forces more logical approaches, which in turn reduces religiosity. Since most Westerners are introduced to religious concepts when young, most agnostics and atheists have moved away from religious belief. I think that this directionality does suggest that intelligence (read as logic combined with education) precedes, and hence causes, reduced religiosity.
"We all know that correlation does not necessarily indicated causation, though causation may be indirectly linked to the correlation."
Most people are not particularly logical, and those with little formal education are the least logical. Those people whom I have known who are both intelligent and religious typically have emotional issues that necessitate a comforting belief system. So, emotionality is a confounding factor, as are early indoctrination and community peer pressure. I think that to tease out the truth about the connection between religiosity and intelligence would require examining all the possible variables and not merely religiosity and verbal IQ."
There's a graph showing the U.S. compared to some wealthy nations and more links here.
Who knows what level of intelligence these folks possess? They ought to be embarrassed about singing such prejudiced, hateful material, but I'm certain that they will not. It is the typical error of those who band together in hatefulness to assume that they take the higher moral ground. This strikes me as one of the perks of religious fanaticism – guilt free obnoxiousness. Jesus would roll in his grave at what has become of his pleas for tolerance.
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Related to this, in Bob Altemeyer's social science work regarding authoritarians, it turns out that people who follow authority figures (in the "right-wing authoritarian model he discusses) across the board do not think critically. They are also by and large more religious than most of the population.
ReplyDeleteAltemeyer never correlated this to IQ scores, but I suspect there is other research out there discussing lack of intellectual curiosity and how it maps to high or low IQ.
I don't know what that correlation would be, exactly, but there may well be one there between religiosity and IQ.
Which then would lead to the question: are stupid people drawn to religion, or does religion make people stupid?
(I'm not saying all religious people are stupid. I'm saying it has been demonstrated that a statistically significant number of uncritical thinkers also rate themselves as 'very religious'. Things that make you go, 'hmm...')
Hi, teramis. I apologize again for having accidentally deleted your previous comment.
ReplyDeleteI became interested in this topic through interaction with creationists. I frequently observe what I regard as a "cognitive-personality disorder" -- a combination of misinformation, illogic, and bigotry.
I did read that Altemeyer did *not* find a correlation between high-RWAs / high-SDOs, and IQ. (In March, I posted some abstracts related to these types.)
However, Altemeyer did demonstrate their propensity for illogical, conclusion-driven thinking. That is, rather than assessing a conclusion on the basis of premises, authority-oriented types assess premises on the basis of the conclusion. For example, "God inspired the Bible, so Genesis is true, so biological evolution is incorrect."
Black-white, right-wrong, good-bad thinking.
I regard critical thinking (functional IQ) as a capacity for nuanced, logical, empiricism-based thinking. Since IQ tests are designed to predict scholastic success ("crude" logic), I think that standard IQ tests fail to discriminate between critical thinking and "rote" thinking.
However, most studies *have* found a negative correlation between religiosity and IQ / education / liberal attitudes. Since those studies compare college students, I suspect that the discrepancies are even greater than reported. For example, based on comparisons of theist versus atheist comments on atheist / evolutionist videos, there is at least a five-point gap in IQ.
I have pondered that chicken-egg question too.
Since children are directed (or outright indoctrinated) into the religious environment of their parents, being religious seems more likely to result from failure to escape religion. Admittedly some from low-religiosity families are drawn to religion, but most probably continue the family pattern.
I have observed that those who deconvert for rational reasons (rather than emotional “abandonment” reasons) are typically intelligent and truth-oriented. That is, they will follow the truth wherever it takes them.
The worrying question is whether religion makes people functionally stupid. I think that it does. Fundamentalist religions insist on conformity of thinking, and that is a bad habit. I think that I will actually turn this part into a separate post.