Talk:Religiosity and intelligence/Archive 1

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avoid hearsay, link to original studies

Some of the citations of this article link only to hearsay about studies, instead of the original studies. This should be avoided when you're talking about the content of the study itself. Citation #7 links to a short summary that doesn't link to the study to which it refers, and that study isn't on Google Scholar. Please find the original study that's referred to in http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/050811_scientists_god.html . If the original study cannot be found, the paragraph should be removed. 130.126.245.188 02:10, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Results of Previous surveys of the NAS?

A 1998 survey[6] by Larson and Witham of the 517 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences showed that 72.2% of the members expressed "personal disbelief" in a personal God while 20.8% expressed "doubt or agnosticism" and only 7.0% expressed "personal belief". This was a follow-up to their own earlier 1996 study[7] which itself was a follow-up to a 1916 study by James Leuba[8].

The article states that there were previous surveys of the religious beliefs of NAS, but it neglects to mention them. Can anyone dig any information on the previous surveys results were?

References

a google search comes up with a lot more references: [1] [2] [3] [4] good stuff to build an article --Rikurzhen 01:15, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

Truth and Lies

Samuel Clemmens said it best: "There are lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics".

Just mentioning that "studies say" without a reference to the study a mentioning of the sample points, the qualifications or status of the parties and such, says that whoever produced this article didn't care enough to really look for truth, but merely to get their point across. Statistics mean something only, to me, when they are clearly defined and include references. rather than bluntly mentioning percentages.

There is a swedish joke: Ole took a course in statistics, and after spending some time on a study he determined that 3 out of 4 people constitute 75% of americans.

IQ tests don't mean anything if the subject material is worth knowing. It's for some just a means to be a snob.

I did not read the entire article, but I make podcasts of such articles. And I'm considering this one myself, and I think I might splice on the discussion page to the end. Hows that?

From the above comments I can safely infer that the person who wrote them: 1) (Personal attack removed)

Caralheiros 16:47, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

If you would bother to read the references in this article (especially footnote #1) you would realize that what you just said is false.

Actually 3 out of 4 people does not constitute 75% of americans, which is part of the problem with this section. 3 out of 4 people constitutes 100% of Americans plus the Chinese, the Indians, the Russians and a whole bunch more in the world. This article is entirely too America centric.

IQ and education

Educational attainment and IQ are associated strongly. The mean IQ of scientist, the college educated, individuals with professional degrees, etc. are all much greater than average. The source of this relationship has even been examined by the methods of behavior genetics and found to be greatly heritable. For example, see:

• Rowe, D. C., W. J. Vesterdal, and J. L. Rodgers, "The Bell Curve Revisited: How Genes and Shared Environment Mediate IQ-SES Associations," University of Arizona, 1997
• Tambs K, Sundet JM, Magnus P, Berg K. "Genetic and environmental contributions to the covariance between occupational status, educational attainment, and IQ: a study of twins." Behav Genet. 1989 Mar;19(2):209-22.

The relationship between occupation, income, education and IQ is well established. --Rikurzhen 19:16, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

Individual correlations may be well-established. However, correlation is not transitive: that is, you cannot draw the conclusion that because A is correlated with B, and B (or let's say B', since in separate studies the factor will not be quite the same thing: different populations, different methods, etc.) is correlated with C, you cannot draw the conclusion that A is correlated with C. It requires a separate set of data to establish that correlation; and it's why we should be careful in the article not to smear measurements of different things (level of education, for example, or membership in certain societies) together. Demi ^T/_C 21:23, 2005 May 29 (UTC)

That's fine. Except some studies find correlations between high IQ and low religiosity. I haven't looked hard enough to see if multiple-correlation studies have been done. You could help by looking into the literature. --Rikurzhen 21:52, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I guess you're wondering why I mentioned IQ and education... because they are both highly heritable. While heritability is a correlation as well, the direction of causation is almost certain (from genes to phenotype). It all paints an interesting picture, but I fear the final research needed to say something meaningful has not been done. --Rikurzhen 21:57, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

• Well, I confess I'm not sure how the two sources above relate to the "Genetics" section you've added: this article is ostensibly on intelligence and religiousness, so I'm not sure how establishing the heritability of intelligence (or the other factors you mention) adds to this article (maybe it belongs in Intelligence quotient or another subarticle? I'm also not clear on how the claim that religiosity is inherited is supported--is that also in the two sources above? Demi ^T/_C 01:34, 2005 May 30 (UTC)

• The article is on religiousness and intelligence, and both have been shown to be heritable.[5] This seems germane to establish in the article. Excerpt from the reference:

"A study published in the current issue of Journal of Personality studied adult male monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins to find that difference in religiousness are influenced by both genes and environment. But during the transition from adolescence to adulthood, genetic factors increase in importance while shared environmental factors decrease. Environmental factors (i.e. parenting and family life) influence a child’s religiousness, but their effects decline with the transition into adulthood. An analysis of self-reported religiousness showed that MZ twins maintained their religious similarity over time, while the DZ twins became more dissimilar. “These correlations suggest low genetic and high environmental influences when the twins were young but a larger genetic influence as the twins age” the authors state." TRUE

--Nectarflowed ^T 07:26, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

IQ/SAT and religiosity

See [6], a direct comparison of test scores and religiosity. --Rikurzhen 19:43, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

Deleting content on articles up for deletion

I have restored the previous version, as it appears from the edit summary that the previous reversion was due to a misunderstanding rather than an editorial decision; it is perfectly acceptable to delete content from articles on VfD if that is done to improve the article by removing unsourced and/or POV material rather than as vandalism to make the page appear worse. If it was an editorial decision, please indicate as much; I won't concern myself further with it. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 19:59, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Explanations

The "Explanations" section that Ultramarine keeps adding appears to come from his or her own opinions. If this section is to stand, it should be supported by cited reputable sources offering these explanations. Demi ^T/_C 04:36, 2005 May 29 (UTC)

• Since no one has attempted to address these concerns, I am deleting it. Please discuss before adding back something resemebling it. Demi ^T/_C 20:56, 2005 May 30 (UTC)
  • Added explanations from an external source. Possible explanations do not need a peer-reviewed study since they are not facts. Give link to wikipedia policy saying otherwise if you do not agree. Ultramarine 01:05, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
    • Merely repeating speculation from some web page, with no standing or credibility of its own, is not the same thing as writing coverage about a debate. Read Wikipedia:No original research#Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, which makes it clear that the "no original research" policy applies to viewpoints as well as to specific facts. Demi ^T/_C 05:20, 2005 May 31 (UTC)

Npov do not state that the view must be in a peer-reviewed article. Only that all views should be presented fairly. Feel free to add your own view. Ultramarine 18:25, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I think you should review the section I cited. Specifically:

• If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
• If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
• If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not. (A polite, rational discussion in the Talk page or "votes for deletion" is probably the way to settle this)

The emphasis is in the original. "Your own opinion" and "my own opinion" and "some opinion from a website with no credibility or standing" should not be included--Wikipedia is not a scribbling-board for everyone's opinions. Demi ^T/_C 19:14, 2005 May 31 (UTC)

Adding your own explanations may not be original research, but it's POV. Especially on a topic as controversial as this one, we need to be able to say: "Jones performed study A and arrived at the following conclusions: blah blah. Smith performed study B and arrived at the following conclusions: blah blah blah" without adding our own conclusions at all. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 05:21, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I read on the VfD page a comment about big bang theorists shading towards religion (or at least, non-atheism). I could see a valid critique of the studies being "an overly narrow definition of religiousness". This type of critique will not appear in another scientific study, simply b/c it's not a scientific critique. But it is a valid point. You're setting the bar way too high if you expect someone to find out how the studies scored religion, then apply that metric to Einstein, Hawking, Witten, etc. Maybe "Explanations" is a bad label, but there needs to be room for critiques of the study. Feco 18:16, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

If we allow everyone who reads this page to post their own critiques and interpretations of the findings, the page will descend into a POV quagmire. The only way to keep that from happening is to coldly report on the studies done (including the ones that found no correlation between intelligence and irreligiousness) and report on what the researchers' conclusions were. Critiques of the studies are welcome, so long as they've been published. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 18:58, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Most of Wikipedia should be deleted if one should only paraphrase peer-reviewed studies. I have presented interpretations about the result of the peer-reviewed studies. These interpretations can be found on several atheist webpages. Ultramarine 19:18, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Most of Wikipedia isn't as controversial as this topic is. If we allow personal interpretations of these results it's going to turn into a shouting match. I've seen it happen on Homosexuality and Christianity and Homosexuality and Christianity: History and I have no doubt it will happen here. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 20:23, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

The title of this article is "Religiousness and intelligence", not "Scientific studies analyzing the relationship between religiousness and intelligence". In either case, it's much more of a 'soft' topic than a 'hard' one. Soft topics are more prone to POV problems, but POV would be "these studies are inferior because they presume ignoranc in people of faith." Stating "some of the studies cited were self-reporting surveys, which are considered less desirable in statistics because they produce a non-random sample" is not POV. Even if I can't find a reputable source that makes this statement, if I find that the study did use the self-reported survey methodology, then I can accurately make that critique. Doing so falls under the common knowledge framework... everyone with working knowledge of a field knows it to be true. As an aside, it appears that the main source for this article is a website that cuts and pastes from various other sources. Relying heavily on a secondary source isn't the best strategy for one hewing the line on strict sourcing... the primary sources are a little too far removed. The secondary source in question appears heavily biased towards the "religion is for dumb people" viewpoint. Feco 22:11, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

The discussion is under "Explanations", but it did not seem to contain any. Couldn't we have Ultramarine 's now-deleted section here, so we get to read it, speculative as it might be. "My Opinion" is that this inverse correlation of religiosity and IQ occurs because people with higher IQs (the more 'intelligent' people) would tend to question things more (pertaining to God or otherwise) and then draw their own conclusions about those issues themselves, instead of accepting without questions what their families or the environment they grew up in teaches them to believe. --59.183.128.150 23:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Problems with sources

Several sources are referenced in the "High intelligence groups" section but do not have bibliographic entries. "Simon and Schuster 2005" is not useful without a bibliographic entry to locate it.

"Clark (2005)" appears to be a school paper--this is not a reputable source.

Establishing that Mensa members are less religious than others only establishes just that--there's no reason to think Mensa members are typical of highly-intelligent people, most of whose intelligence is probably never measured. The only thing that supports such a correlation would be a randomized study that measured IQ and religiosity for that purpose.

Demi ^T/_C 04:40, 2005 May 29 (UTC)

Rather than deleting the Mensa study, I would suggest pointing out its limitations. Likewise, until we can find something better, we should retain what we can manage to scrape together in the way of explanations. Excessive deleting will prevent an article from ever developing. --Rikurzhen 22:25, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

• I see one of its limitations as "it isn't relevant to the subject of the article," as explained above (and unaddressed on this talk page). The fact that Mensa members are less religious than others is (perhaps) an interesting item for an article on Mensa, but not for "Religiousness and intelligence". Demi ^T/_C 22:35, 2005 May 30 (UTC)

From Mensa: Mensa is an organization for people with high IQs. Its sole requirement for entry is that potential members must score within the top 2% in any approved standardized intelligence test. What part of that is not relevant to this article? More direct evidence is obviously more important, but you take what you can get. It was important enough to make it into Burnham Beckwith's "The Effect of Intelligence on Religious Faith" article. --Rikurzhen 23:01, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

• Because it is only composed of people who want membership in a club of "high IQ people," and there's no reason to think that's representative of intelligent people as a whole. Demi ^T/_C 00:55, 2005 May 31 (UTC)

That's entirely possible, but it's just speculation on your part. It should remain, and criticisms can be added. By your theory, it at least shows that people who want to belong to a high IQ society tend to be less religious, which may reflect an assocation between opinions of religiousness and intelligence. People can decide for themselves. --Rikurzhen 01:04, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

• Are you claiming that Mensa is not composed of people wanting membership in a high-IQ society? If not, I don't know what you would be regarding as "speculation." One needs to be white to have membership in the KKK--does that mean their views are shared "by whites?" If we do a study, and find that KKK members are racist, should we edit Caucasian to include a contention that whites are racist, and support it with this fact? Demi ^T/_C 05:01, 2005 May 31 (UTC)
• Your KKK analogy is flawed - to be a member you must be white (or look it) and profess racist views. If you aren't a racist then you can't join the KKK. However, with Mensa, if you are religious you can still join. -James Padgett

Sorry, I believe you misunderstand me. But I've implemented my suggestion in the article. --Rikurzhen 05:22, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Also, the highly ranked vs lower ranked schools belongs in the high IQ section -- both groups are highly educated, but one group has passed a more stringent entrance requirement. --Rikurzhen 23:01, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

One more thing... I think it's inappropriate at this stage in the article's development to delete material for reference problems alone. The solution is to add references, not to delete the material. --Rikurzhen 23:04, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

---

Clark appears to be published by UC Davis, in a journal for undergraduate research. Thus, it is reputable. --Rikurzhen 06:55, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but a journal publishing undergraduate research from its own university does not count as a reputed scholarly source. For an article to be reputable, it has to be published in a peer-reviewed venue or journal, preferrably not a local one.

(I'm not discussing the specifics of this article; just general facts about scientific publications.) David.Monniaux 08:50, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

How is that different from a University published student thesis or an academic monograph? --Rikurzhen 09:02, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

A thesis is, at least in all places I know, reviewed by a committee of academics (and sometimes industrial practicioners) in the field. In some universities, it is mandatory that external, or even foreign academics report on the thesis, in order to ward off suspicions of self-indulgence.

An academic monograph, or a research report, published by a university is generally only reviewed cursorily.

The latter do not qualify as "peer-reviewed research". On controversial issues, I think we should prefer research published in reputable journals etc., and confirmed by several works, to research published without peer review. David.Monniaux 17:11, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree with your description of priority. But on this topic we are dealing with a relatively sparse literature. Clark is the most recent paper I could find; and to show that this finding has been made over time we need something from the last decade or so. --Rikurzhen 17:54, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

It may be difficult to determine full citations for some of the references, but that should of course be our goal. --Rikurzhen 06:56, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

Has anyone here actually seen the articles cited? It seems to me they're copied from other websites that cite them, but I think if we're going to cite them, some Wikipedian should be able to say, "I have a copy of the article here on my desk and what it says is..." Especially regarding the Explanations section: that should NOT be our speculations on possible reasons for a possible link between academic achievement (which is what this really is, not intelligence) and irreligiousness, but rather a report on what conclusions (if any) the authors of the original articles came to. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 17:19, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

• This was my concern as well, which is why I added a comment to this effect in the References section. Citing a referenced source without actually reading it is sloppy. Demi ^T/_C 17:56, 2005 May 29 (UTC)

POV tag

I've added the POV tag to this article until consensus can be reached about how to report these findings (assuming the article survives VfD). --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 05:37, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I guess the POV that bothers me the most is the assumption that test scores (IQ test, SAT, GPA) and level of education are accurate indicators of intelligence. I have a Ph.D. myself, but I've certainly met other Ph.D.'s who were rather dim bulbs, as well as 8th-grade drop-outs who were smart as a whip. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 12:05, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Angr, the claim that IQ is a meaningful measure of intelligence is very common among psychometric researchers. See intelligence. --Rikurzhen 17:57, May 29, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is saying that the correlation is absolute. Eixo 05:25, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Look at [7], one of the pages cited above. Does anyone really believe that the average IQ in Angola is 69? Are there really that many mentally retarded people there? Or is it just that the education system there is very poor, thanks to extreme poverty and civil unrest, so that people don't "test well"? Was the test administered in written form there? I suspect illiteracy is pretty high there, making it difficult for people to do well on a written test. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 05:36, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

If you're actually intersted in that question, look at IQ and the Wealth of Nations. The test was non-written and based on abstract images. --Rikurzhen 05:45, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out that page. It just confirms my belief that Stephen Jay Gould was right, psychometrics are bunk. Reading IQ and the Wealth of Nations it seems the white man's burden is back, disguised as the smart man's burden. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 06:21, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Angr, am I correct in understanding that you added the POV tag because the article (which seems pretty NPOV to me) disagreed with your POV? And that moreover your POV is at variance with Mainstream science on intelligence? That's a bit like a creationist slapping a POV warning on the Evolution article. (I fully understand that you and the creationist may actually be right, and that mainstream science will correct itself sooner or later. But the POVness or NPOVness of the Evolution or Religiousness and intelligence has nothing to do with that. That's a feature of how the results are presented, not what they mean.) Arbor 5 July 2005 13:23 (UTC)

No, you are not correct in that assumption. I added the tag because at the time it seemed to me the article was taking the claim that religious people are less intelligent than nonreligious people, and finding statistics to back it up, while providing no counterarguments or discussion of the controversy surrounding intelligence testing. To this day, the only counterbalance to the POV of the article is a list of religious intellectuals, many of whom were added by me. But as the page has progressed and as I've read more of the external links provided on the page, I've come to the conclusion that the problem is not with this page, it's with the research itself. Nonreligious scientists decided on a conclusion they wanted to find, and then proceeded to do research to find it. Thank you for providing the link above to "Mainstream Science on Intelligence"; I've read it and it has only strengthened the belief I mentioned in my post of 06:21, 30 May 2005. If you want to remove the POV tag, go ahead; I won't object or revert. I'm sorry I voted to keep this article, and I'm unwatching it now. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 5 July 2005 14:07 (UTC)

Why was the POV tag removed when the issues here are clearly unresolved?Borisblue 03:43, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

The tag being discussed above was removed long ago, ostenisbly because Angr withdrew his POV concern. The tag I removed today was recently added by an anonymous editor whose suggestions I implemented (see above) --Rikurzhen 03:57, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Oh. Why exactly is new stuff being added on the top of the talk page instead of the bottom?

the controversy surrounding intelligence testing

Gmaxwell write: intelligence testing itself isn't the largest point of contention, but rather the use of statistics on other factors to predict intellegence testing results. I believe this is a misunderstanding of the controversy. Associations/correlations between groups/factors and IQ do not involve prediction. We should update this aspect of the intro, and for NPOV we should note that intelligence testing (IQ, SAT, GRE, etc) is used widely. I won't have time for a while. --Rikurzhen 23:15, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

I would like to add that if a variety of intelligence quotients, educational qualifications, knowledgeability and the opinion of peers are not together measures of intelligence, then we have no such measure and this entire entry becomes meaningless; just as disputing the definition of religiousness until everyone with a sense of awe or spirituality is religious, or nobody is, makes the entry pointless. The point being, the dispute should not be centred around whether the results demonstrate true representations of religiousness and intelligence, but whether sufficient sources are provided satisfactorily to cover all definitions of each. Joss 16:54, 11 Aug 2005 (BST)

religious intellectuals -- who weren't that religious

I've identified four of the "religious intellectuals" who weren't models of religiocity. For example, Jeffereson was called an atheist by critics and Spinoza was excommunicated. Should they be removed from the list?

Not on that basis alone. John Spong is also called an atheist by his critics, and Luther was also excommunicated (he's not on the list AFAIK but the point is being excommunicated doesn't mean you're unreligious). --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 06:26, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Okay. Then check these guys out and see what you think. --Rikurzhen 06:31, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

• Baruch Spinoza (1632 – 1677) (Cartesian)
• Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727) (Unitarianism)
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 – 1716) (Cartesian)
• Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826) (Deism)

Spinoza thought the Bible was only metaphorical and Jefferson labored to write an edited version of the Bible w/o miracles. They should stay, but maybe they need to be moved into the intermediate category. --Rikurzhen 06:34, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC) -- Einstien was a firm believer in causation, and the physical laws of the universe. He did not believe in things like prayer or a personal god.

I replaced Jefferson with John Jay for USer content. He was pretty solidly Christian. I think I took Isaac Newton off, but then I put him back as he was a Unitarian of his era. In his age Unitarians were solidly Christian of a kind and some sources indicate he believed in Biblical prophecy. Leibnitz was solidly, if eccentrically, Christian and I've never seen much doubt there before now. Spinoza I think was some kind of Pantheist and I'll delete him for now, but he can be put back if there is objection.--T. Anthony 09:31, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Changed John Jay to John Witherspoon. Mr. Witherspoon is less known, but was an actual minister with a Master's Degree who signed the Declaration of Independence. Added a fairly recent Catholic theologian and also added to the atheist list. Christopher Hitchens as he is described as "atheist, even anti-theist" on his Wiki page.--T. Anthony 05:51, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Thoughts on balance and accuracy

Currently, I think this article is in depserate need of balance. Part of that is of course, I think its reasonable to suspect the original authors had a POV. The other part is that the article is a bit thin. It needs to clearly establish what religiousness is, what intelligence is, and how that is diffrent from education and superstition. Furthermore, it needs to define what degrees of intelligence and religiousosity we're talking about and so on and so forth.

Also. Just to see if you're truly NPOV, think about what you would want to see on an equivlent article: Religiousness and morality--Tznkai 5 July 2005 16:27 (UTC)

One issue is that it kind of is treating "religious" as monolithic in a way even the studies it cites do not. I mentioned a bit about how five of the studies only indicated that smarter kids had "more liberal religious views." Anyway there are many religious which reject modern science or education. The Amish, Primitive Baptists, etc. However there are other denominations that embrace science wholeheartedly. From what I've read in encyclopedias and other sources Quakers were overrepresented in science academies compared to their population numbers. To give a sense of that estimates indicate there are currently 300,000 Quakers in the world and in least one of them is a Nobel Prize winner in Physics. Now there's estimated to be in least 200 million outright atheists in the world. So there'd have to be about 660 Nobel Prize winning atheists to have the same rate per-capita and that's virtually impossible. The Zoroastrians I believe are also overrepresented in science. I'm just not sure how to write something up to show the non-monolithic nature of being "religious."--T. Anthony 09:57, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Noted intellectuals

I'm a bit curious as to why the following religious leaders were included:

• Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 – 1968)
• John Spong (b. June 16, 1931)
• Desmond Tutu (b. October 7, 1931)

As far as I know, Martin Luther King, Jr and Desmond Tutu were never noted for "intellectual" work (in the sense of complex, involved theories or analyses) but, rather, for their militantism in the face of an unjust cause. This, of course, does not belittle them in the least; but I wonder whether this counts as a "noted intellectual". (The fact that some obtained doctoral degrees in theology does not, in my humble opinion, make them "noted intellectuals" – otherwise just any college professor or researcher would be one.) David.Monniaux 07:32, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I am moving Einstein from the atheist/agnostist list to the religious list. Einstein was a deist, as shown by quotes like these (From The Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press):

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."

"The scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection."

Harkenbane 23:59, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I very very strongly disagree. Einstein was a pantheist, which is religiousness only in the most ridiculously broad of senses. From a letter Einstein wrote in English, dated 24 March 1954, included in "Albert Einstein: The Human Side" published by Princeton University Press:

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

Also:

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings."

Einstein's name should be under the other list or on neither.

I freely admit that I am neither NPOV nor a seasoned Wikipedia editor, thus I'll not make the edit myself. Joss. 15:47, 11 August 2005.

I can only assume that you are unfamiliar with deism, as the quotes which you have provided are so consistent with deism that they could have been written by Thomas Paine himself. Sorry Joss, Einstein is obviously a dead deist, not an atheist or agnostic. Harkenbane 00:41, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry Harkenbane, I am fully versed in the beliefs of the deist. Without going into detail, the most important distinction here is that a deist believes there was an intelligent creator of the universe. A pantheist, and Einstein, do not. Read up on Spinoza. (Regardless, I would consider the inclusion of a deist as a noted religious adherent disingenuous at best. Deists are not religious.) Joss, 25th October 2005.

New study worth inclusion

See the full article here: [8] Rice University recently released a study on religiousness among scientists. It seems that the findings are worthy of mention here. A couple of points pulled from the news story:

• "social sciences are more likely to believe in God and attend religious services than researchers in the natural sciences"
• "nearly 38 percent of natural scientists ... only 31 percent of the social scientists do not believe"

Feco 20:24, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I put it in. I feared I'd bias it too much the other way, but for balance I switched the one link from IQ scores by nation to TIMSS. The reason I see that as "balance" is TIMSS is more credible then a site saying most Africans are effectively mentally challenged or retarded. (Whichever term is preferred)--T. Anthony 09:34, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

It's interesting how this wikipedia article automatically assumes scientists are more intelligent than non-scientists.

Recent additions

I worry about saying this, but I wonder about some of the inclusions of Jewish scientists. As this is about religiousness and intelligence it seems like Jewish Nobel Laureates should be limited to people who are known to be of the Jewish faith. I believe many Jewish Nobel Laureates are Jewish by ethnicity and religiously are agnostic or atheist. Still in the "intellectuals who are religious" category I probably should've added Isaac Bashevis Singer or Marc Chagall. I just worry the lists in this article could lead to a kind of "list war" which benefits nothing.--T. Anthony 08:38, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Good point. Also worthy of thought is that these arguments always end up being Christian vs. non-Christian or not-so Christian, etc. but all Western nonetheless. The lists, while perhaps not completely irrelevant, are counterproductive. I also don't see names such as the Muslim al-Khwarizmi, or the "apostate" Khayyám. And I don't know what else to use besides Nobel Laureates anyway. The only two non-Europeans I can think of off the top of my head besides Tutu and Annan are Tagore and Gandhi. Why is this relevant? Because, while in India Parsis may be the most educated (and education and intelligence are two seperate things - you can have one without the other), they aren't calling the Hindus stupid and in turn the Hindus may have a history of communal violence with Muslims but they aren't arguing about who has the bigger I.Q., etc. Yes they argue about many things, but only extremists deal in absolutes (forgive the platitude). Add in Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism and we've got ourself quite a few different belief systems similar to (the varying shades of) Christianity, Atheism, Agnosticism, Deism, etc. I would also imagine many Japanese to be intelligent right? Where are the Shintoists, Zen Buddhists, etc. And so on and so on around the world. So either rename this 'Christianity and intelligence', or get rid of it. The "see also" links don't exactly cut it for me. Khirad 11:54, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

You are correct that it is essentially "Christianity and intelligence" although there's a brief mention that kids more devout in their Judaism are allegedly dumber than the ones not. Still mostly it's studying a very Judaeo-Christian world and making points based on that. Even at that the ultimate point is even more specific and essentially equals "Religious Right and Intelligence." It doesn't say that outright, but several of the studies it mentions indicate those with a "liberal view of their religion" do fine. Actually it's really more specific still and amounts to "Conservative Judaeo-Christianity and Math/Science aptitude" as it has little to support the idea in other academic fields. Personally I'd be for dumping it, I can't imagine this in a a real Encyclopedia, but it apparently survived a delete vote. What can you do?--T. Anthony 15:40, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Interpretations

The two paragraphs in this section offer no claim that anyone notable has argued in favor of the criticisms and interpretations they present. Until sources can be found for these opinions, they should be removed in the name of Wikipedia's policy on verifiability. -- Schaefer 20:40, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

One interpretation states that religious beliefs are more easily dismissed as irrational and contradictory by those with higher intelligence and education (various arguments which suggest this is the correct attitude are accepted by a majority of philosophers). Another suggests that intelligence leads to maturity which causes one to "outgrow religion." Also, it has been argued that Judaeo-Christianity, which is the relevant tradition here (as the studies typically deal only with the Western world), is anti-intellectual by nature, which might naturally put off those inclined towards intellectualism. Another view suggess intelligence, especially scientific intelligence, involves a greater tendency to follow logic rather than emotion.

Critical interpretations note that this correlation is sometimes shown by focussing on students, who would generally be unmarried and without children. That matters because as a whole people become more conservative and religious after starting a family with a spouse, but presumably do not lose IQ points due to these events.[9] Another point made is that the studies are flawed by relying on selected regions and populations. Hence the previously linked Pew Survey shows above average rates of education among what they styled "Enterprisers" and "Social Conservatives." The relevance here being those two segments have higher church attendance than four of the seven other segments. Still another critique is against using the IQ tests themselves in this manner, see IQ and intelligence.

I've removed these two paragraphs. I strongly susepct they're just original research, but I'm pasting them here on talk so they can be reinserted if they're actually the views of anybody whose opinion on this topic is notable. If anyone can find proper attribution, please reinsert them. -- Schaefer 19:28, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Most articles I've seen on this topic are written by atheists in order to dis religion. It's essentially a kind of trollery on some boards I've been to. So it's true that some of it comes close to original research, however the Pew study really did note that the more conservative segments had higher college graduation rates then expected. The idea people become more conservative or religion on having kids is fairly well established. Many of the articles on it are archives now, and I'm not registered, but I'll look for more if need be.

Granted this leads to a problem. Some issues are so new or narrowly focussed or fringe that criticism, although it exists, might not be fully thought out yet. The New Chronology articles I've checked have that problem. However if criticism or interpretation can't be listed as original research you just end up with articles that end up saying "every fringe or controversial notion is true" which is problemattic. Still I'll look for more support.--T. Anthony 11:22, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree these paragraphs weren't great, and came close to OR/POV-pushing. I think I tried cleaning them up once, but provisionally deleting them was probably a better call. I say 'provisionally' - I still think some of this material can (and should?) be salvaged, at least in rewritten form. Thomas Ash 13:24, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Atheism is religious and intelligence is not a number

I think this article is an incorrect and illogical attack on people who hold traditional religous beliefs. For example it says Jewish achievments have nothing to do with their religion because many of the people are 'strongly athiest'. First off, strongly athiest means you strongly believe there is no God, this is still a religous position, a position of faith. Only agnostics should count as non-religous people. But this is a silly topic since all people have some sort of ideology based on what they see around them, often non religous people are socialists, or environmentalists, or athiests. Every single human whose ever lived comes to ideological positions based on information they recieved, and if they are intellectually lazy it seems like common sense, usually they never realize the leap of faith they have taken. More importantly, what the example shows is that many of these so called non-religous people who are called smarter, were raised religous and left their religion. This is ignoring the fact that religion may still be a big factor why they seem so intelligent. I think non-religous people should also have to be raised as agnostic for their intelligence to count as seperated from religion. I mean how many athiest civilizations have arisin in history? Religions form a natural organization and an educated and scholared class. I could argue that religion makes a collective society more intelligent, and is the reason for their success.

People who think intelligence can be summed up by a number, I have to question their intelligence. Suppose hypothetically an intelligence test was designed by a creature of perfect intelligence (God) that outputs a single number. Even in this case IQ tests are flawed and show nothing. We are all different, and better at somethings worse at others. This one number does not tell if we are good at math or english, logic or art, quick witted or a deep thinker, genius at certain things or all around intelligent. If it is true that education increases both IQ score and the likelyness of rejecting religion, I will argue that this is not because education makes you more intelligent, but because schools are dominated by socialist dogma, and socialists indoctrinate people against religion. If education increases IQ score, this at least shows that IQ scores do not measure inate intelligence we are born with but rather learned behavior 71.108.194.98 19:58, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree this article is, or in least was, basically ridiculous. I haven't checked it for awhile though so maybe it's improved. Mostly though it was based on intensely biased, and deeply misleading, studies. However atheism is so small in the US I guess they feel the need to speak out as much as possible on the Net.(Why many atheists in Britain are almost as outspoken is more of a mystery to me) Still there are studies that indicate atheists are more suicidal and more likely to get drunk. I would never ever think of starting "Atheism and suicidal ideation" or "Atheism and Alcoholism" article out of respect for them. It's disappointing that only goes one way.--T. Anthony 10:59, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree these articles are often started with an agenda, but I think that unlike the topics you mention there is a case for having this article, don't you? It is, if nothing else, a commonly debated and researched topic. Thomas Ash 13:27, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

First, atheism is not a religion. You are using a weak definition of "faith" in order to sneak in your stronger version. Look up the general requirements for a religion, including but not limited to codified traditions, supernatural trappery, etc, and tell me how atheism conforms at all. Secondly, I would not support an article titled "atheism and suicide" or "atheism and alcoholism", because that's only representative of one set of beliefs. Rather, "suicide and religion" (already exists) or "religion and alcoholism" would be appropriate titles where the same content would be applicable. -- goatasaur 04:28, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Which is a nice way to make it where nothing bad can be said of atheists. Still how about "Secular Humanism and alcoholism" or "Marxism and suicide." Added to that no, "religion and blank" doesn't work much better than "atheism and blank." Religion is a broad thing which means all kinds of things. For example is this article really dealing with religion in general? Is there any evidence here that applies to all religions? Added to that if you read this article you'll see that in many cases it's clearly equating generalized theism with lack of intelligence. If generalized atheism is too broad, why isn't generalized theism too broad? There are non-religious theists and there are also religions which are not theistic. Like Buddhism or Jainism. What in this article shows that Buddhism negatively correlates with intelligence? This article is trollery. I know because I've been on forums where an earlier variant of it was used and that was the whole point of it. The purpose is to tick off theists and make atheists feel good. It's just the kind of trollery this place can live with it. I'm not editing it or do anything to it as I concede it represents something about this place.--T. Anthony 04:57, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not looking for an "out" for atheists and I don't understand how you came to that conclusion. The hypothetical "religion and x" article can include information on atheists, religious-atheists, whatever, as long as it's sourced and relevant. Those would all be in the context of religion. I also don't understand how you can call the article a troll. There are caveats in every section and nothing seems particularly baited. -- goatasaur 11:19, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Flashed back to when it started, sorry. It is improved from the original version. At heart I don't think this is encyclopedic and I think "religiousness" is a very broad term as is "intelligence." So although I still think it's inherently pointless it's not as bad as all that. I just get in a mood sometimes.--T. Anthony 14:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Goatasaur's is correct about atheism. And I don't think this is "trollish" in the slightest, if anything Race and intelligence as a topic is more controversial so does that mean all the researchers involved are trolls? This topic simply documents the relationship between two variables – something that is widely done in science. Skinnyweed 16:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Atheism is not a religion, but IQ is a very dubious measure of intelligence, as are SAT scores, college degrees, and "success": the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. That being said, T. Anthony seems to have some peculiar ideas about atheism, apparently identifying it with "secular humanism" and even Marxism. There are plenty of atheists who find these appalling. Likewise, it is unsound to think that atheists are generally noisy, aggressive, and outspoken because you can hear the noisy, aggressive, and outspoken ones.--OinkOink 17:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment on section Opinions of famous intellectuals

The second paragraph begins by saying that many intellectuals are religious. The next sentence offers a number of lists of people. Notice for example "List of Jewish Nobel Prize Winners". By doing so, the reader gets the impression that these lists support the idea that many intellectuals are religious. This however, doesn't follow! Remember that being a jew does not simply refer to a religion, but also to an ethicity. Thus, it is possible to be a jew but not be religious. In fact, on this very list ("List of Jewish Nobel Prize Winners") Steven Weinberg is mentioned. A man who is quoted in the first section as having said that "religion is complete nonsense"! It is my opinion that this paragraph has to be changed. PJ 22:49, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Because of the issues you mentioned, and because compiling and referring to lists of individuals sorted by religion (or lack thereof) and using it as support for any viewpoint on correlations between religiousness and intelligence violates Wikipedia policy on original research, I am removing this paragraph. -- Schaefer 22:59, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I concur. --Rikurzhen 23:43, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, after a little thought, I've decided I'm in favor of removing the entire section. It's just plain obvious to anybody that atheism and religion have been heavily debated by famous intellectuals, and that there are intellectuals on both ends of the God-o-meter. It's just not relevant here, because anecdotes about a few particular famous smart people says nothing about the religiosity of intelligence of smart people in general. Note that I'm not saying that the religious views of geniuses aren't relevant, but just that we should be looking for studies that try to answer these questions in some objective way and citing those instead of pulling atheist intellectuals and pious scholars out of hats and parading them as evidence. -- Schaefer 01:08, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Nobody's responded to this for fifteen days, so I'm removing the paragraph. -- Schaefer 19:20, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

moved from criticism section

i'm moving this text from the criticism section to be worked on:

Another Gallup International study indicated that internationally the highly educated are slightly more likely to describe themselves as "a religious person" than those with only a secondary education.[10] Although the difference is insignificant and the most educated describe themselves as "a religious person" 12 percent less often then those with little or no education. They are also twice as likely to identify as atheist. There was no discernable difference in percentage terms between those with secondary education and higher educations on the issue of self-identifying as either "a convinced atheist" or "non-religious."

this data supports the reported IQ-religiocity correlation, here are the data tables for education and income:

Table 2: Education

Category, Total, No education / only basic education, Secondary school, High level education

• A religious person, 66%, 76%, 62%, 64%
• Not a religious person, 25%, 18%, 27%, 27%
• A convinced atheist, 6%, 3%, 7%, 7%
• DK/NA, 3%, 3%, 3%, 2%

Source: Gallup International Association – Voice of the People 2005

Table 3: Household Income

Category, Total, Low / Med Low, Med / Med High, High

• A religious person, 66%, 70%, 63%, 62%
• Not a religious person, 25%, 22%, 28%, 28%
• A convinced atheist, 6%, 5%, 6%, 8%
• DK/NA, 3%, 3%, 3%, 2%

Source: Gallup International Association – Voice of the People 2005

religiocity drops from 76% to 64% from low to high education and 70% to 62% from low to high income --Rikurzhen 01:31, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

A problem with the text you quoted was that it was ridiculously confusing, giving decidedly mixed messages. Well moved. Thomas Ash 10:24, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

"belief in a personal God and the belief that a supreme being exists"

A survey of members of the United States National Academy of Sciences showed that 72% are outright atheists, 21% are agnostic and only 7% admit to belief in a personal God.^[11] (Note that the belief in a personal God and the belief that a supreme being exists are two very different different questions. When the later question is asked the above poll numbers are nearly turned upside down, as shown in the links below.)

The extra notation there looked like it referred to the dataset in question, but the Nature report says nothing of the sort. I removed the notation, as the below links don't actually appear, and doesn't have anything to do with the Nature report on the subject.

Probably a good idea. The main, and possibly only, purpose of this article is to encourage pride in being non-theist. Anything that diminishes the thesis that atheists really are smarter I've noticed is pretty much always removed as it does sap the point of the thing. (I'm tempted to create an "atheists and suicide" article so theists can feel good too, but I won't)--T. Anthony 12:18, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Such an article already exists: Suicide and religion. From a page linked to at the end of that article: "The United States exhibits typical rates of youth suicide [...], which show little if any correlation with theistic factors in the prosperous democracies [...]." From later in the article: "Youth suicide is an exception to the general trend because there is not a significant relationship between it and religious or secular factors." If you have evidence that contradicts this, it might be worth mentioning over at Suicide and religion. This is getting a bit off topic for this talk page. -- Schaefer 21:18, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind the bit about the article. It just now got redirected to Religious views of suicide. Still, I'm personally curious what studies exist that suggest a correlation between secularism and suicide rates. -- Schaefer 22:03, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

First youth suicide isn't the main factor in suicide in most nations. Middle age or older suicide is usually more common. I believe New Zealand is an exception to that as their rate of young male suicide is high. Anyway studies consistently show atheists and secularist have a less negative view of suicide. Added to that suicide rates are consistently higher in Eastern Europe[12] and Scandinavia. Both those regions have high rates of atheism according to Gallup International. Granted correlation isn't causation, but to a large extent this is also working on correlation. There was also some study I read in Free Inquiry that did indicate a higher rate of depression and suicide among atheists. In any event I'm not really interested in doing an article on this as these "X groups are dumb, depressed, or generally bad" articles strike me as unencyclopedic activism.--T. Anthony 04:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

According to the study "Religious Affiliation and Suicide Attempt" (K. Dervic MD et al.), published in the The American Journal of Psychiatry, there is a positive correlation between religious affiliating and a lower tendency of suicide (http://www.adherents.com/misc/religion_suicide.html, http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/161/12/2303). However, the conlusion in particular was that atheists have "fewer moral objections to suicide". Thus, the study does not show that atheists are less happy than belivers. A more reasonable conclusion, I believe is that a person below the threshold for what constitutes a life worth living often has an additional reason reason for not committing suicide if he/she is a believer, i.e. a moral reason. But whether there should be a moral reason for living besides life quality is a different and equally controversial topic (see e.g. "Euthenasia", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia). So I don't know why theists would feel particularly good about the proposed article "atheists and suicide". PJ 14:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually that's what I thought, although I thought they also a higher depression rate. As a theist I would be pretty good with such an article. Although that could be the problem with it. Atheists being more okay with euthanasia strikes me as a big negative to atheism. Chucking out because of an inability to deal with suffering, as a guy who has had 200 bone fractures, strikes me as kind of pathetic. So I wouldn't create such an article. That said I think this article inherently has all kinds of POV issues. They have been dealt with well enough no one is protesting it, but it's not just great. "Religiosity" is after all rather open to interpretation even moreso than intelligence and the initial article was largely based on disparagment. I still feel that ideally this shouldn't exist, but my ideals can't be made the norm here nor should they be.--T. Anthony 07:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

This is probably not the right forum for this discussion, but I will give a short reply anyway. I don't see how you, as a theist, can be happy about such an article. It shouldn't move you either way, in my opinion. Having a moral reason not to committ suicide, is to have a moral duty not to committ suicide. That means that someone else is stipulating when it is OK for you to die. No matter if you perceive your live as torture, you are still obligated to go on living in order to please someone else. Your pain and suffering is just not enough to decide the case. Now you probaly say, as a theist, that this obligation is to a god (e.g. Yahweh, Allah, Zeus.), and that this shows that belief in a god is good. But this is merely to beg the question. You are assuming what you are trying to prove, i.e. that suicide is morally reprehensible. An atheist who does not think that there is a moral duty to go on living under any circumstances, could with the same logic say that this shows why belief in a god is bad. Thus, the argument shouldn't move you either way. Consider, for example, the following sitution: you live in a country ruled by a dictator who commands you to go on living no matter what, or he will punish your family for your disobedience. (Remember that your moral actions decide the outcome for you in your after life - i.e. reward or punishment - so the situation is analogous.) Would you say that this command adds any credibility to the dictator? I would think not. PJ 14:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposed move

Several people in the VfD discussion noted the title of the article was less than ideal, and a couple of alternatives were suggested. Because the nature of the discussion was not movement of the article, nothing was formalized. Noting that we have an article on religiosity but not religiousness, and that the words have two different meanings, I think "religiosity and intelligence" is a more applicable title. -- goatasaur 19:31, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. -- Schaefer 01:04, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Agree --Rikurzhen 01:06, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Statistical Accuracy

No sample sizes are given, nor any information about how the research was conducted. How statistically reliable are these studies? Particuarly as one of the studies was carried out by the magazine Sceptic we can not assume that the research would not have been deliberatly biased so that they had a nice article that proved the magazine's aims. Also, nothing states what is considered to be an "eminent" scientist, if the person who did that study just decided what they personally considered an eminent scientist to be then they may let their opinion that beliving in God stops you from being creditable bias the study.

-I think this is a valid point

I'm also critical of this article. I've seen older versions of this article, it existed before there was a Wikipedia, and angering religious people is its main purpose. However I think there could be a shred of truth to it to an extent. I think for an uneducated or unintelligent person religion could be more necessary than for most people. If you are slow or illiterate churches provide programs you may find beneficial. Atheism/Agnosticism/Deism won't and for that matter it probably can't. Those are philosophical positions not organized anythings. Added to that more people will be born into religion then will be born into atheism. Atheism is largely a faith of converts. Converting to something does require a strength of character and to a degree intellect. If you look at List of Roman Catholic converts you'll find some pretty bright people listed. The ability to figure out what you personally believe is something atheists, and other converts, share. However most religions are dominated by non-converts. (I am a non-convert myself, but my Dad being a convert changes the dynamic some)--T. Anthony 10:52, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

WIth every kind of statistics, there's a possibility that they are corrupted but if we were to be so distrustful all the time advance would come slowly. People tend to, hypocritically, distrust sources that go against their beliefs but support those that follow their beliefs. Personally I do believe there may be a link but only because of the general religious POV. I do not have any reason to underestimate someone simply because he is religious, however, the way most people tend to be religious would, to me, support low intelligence. As in general, the religious people I have met base themselves on faith, dogma and even organised religions, but for those who have a more deistic and personal point of view, I have no reason to underestimate them. I will, however, support the thought that if you average all of those who have religious thoughts together, it's going to be lower than the atheists/agnostics. But if you look at individuals, you will find brillance and stupidity on both sides. Many atheists, such as many people of religion, are so because of their family - and these kinds of people are no different in intelligence. --A Sunshade Lust 20:58, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Christian Response Section

I wrote the Christian Response section a few months ago, but on reflection it is more of a personal opinion than something that should be included in wikipedia, I was thinking of deleting it but wondered if anyone had any comments on this? 155.198.63.111 17:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Deleted. Icek 22:43, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Counter Trends

Two of the external links in this section are broken, and the one that works links to the homepage of NCLS, not to the mentioned study. Could the author provide a link to the specific study? Icek 22:43, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, I thought this research looked a bit questionable.--Hontogaichiban 23:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I've put the link into the specific study now 1:40pm, 14 June, but my stuff keeps being deleted. I suspect that counter trends are not popular because the basic thesis of this whole subject is that "Christians become atheists when they use their brains", which is patronising and does not fit the facts.

It won't be deleted if it is not POV, original research and most importantly is cited from reliable sources and independent studies. Whether the thesis is patronising or not is irrelevant, what is important is whether it is true. The independent studies do seem to show that it is true to a significant extent.--Hontogaichiban 17:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree that the 'independent' studies show this, especially as they are so America centric. A set of surveys collated by "Skeptic" magazine is highly likely to have a POV. The thesis would still expect to find "unthinking" dimboes in church in England, but inconveniently the opposite is true.

NCLS is a primarily church-funded organization (see http://www.ncls.org.au/default.aspx?sitemapid=22) and hardly independent. What do you mean exactly with A set of surveys collated by "Skeptic" magazine is highly likely to have a POV? Not being associated with the object of study makes them certainly more independent than NCLS. Icek 04:48, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I think if you're keen on the "scientific method" as atheists allegedly are, then you have to use it even when it provides inconvenient results. Someone put a gloss on my small addition which basically says "oh there's another explanation for that". You could do that for any study at any time, but you end up entirely with POV. If it fits the thesis it must be true, if it doesn't then there's a reason. This is circular reasoning. Perhaps in itself it calls into question the idea that atheists are somehow more objective, rational and intelligent than us biased Christians? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.41.200.197 (talk • contribs) .

I think you'll find most rational scientists are actually agnostic. Being sure there is no god, is just as illogical as being sure that there is a god. Agnostics are often patronising, because we don't understand why religious people can't see this: "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." God=Zeus=Shiva=Pan=literary creation, etc. My god is more real than your god, this book says so! Anyway, that's my 10 second summation of a since-prehistoric-times argument. ;-) -Quiddity 19:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, there are two issues with the alleged illogicality of atheism. Firstly, god can be ruled out for all practical purposes; e. g. consider the question after you introduced your friend to your parents: "And these people are really your parents?" - most people wouldn't hesitate to give an answer which indicates that they are 100% sure although they haven't done a genetical test. Similarly I don't see any reason not to answer "no" if I'm asked "Does God exist?". Secondly, and even more importantly, I (and presumably some other people) don't quite know what the concept "god" really means - it doesn't seem to be a meaningful concept. Btw, we should talk about that wikipedia article here .... Icek 23:00, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

On-topic, I hope that we agree on only including results based on the scientific method. It's just that the results of NCLS are equally unsurprising as a study funded by a tobacco company claiming that smoking does not cause lung cancer. Btw, I agree that it's undesirable to have small relativizing glosses everywhere. Icek 23:00, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I deleted the NCLS paragraph:

In Australia the Church in Life Survey of 2001 [13] found that 23 % of the churchgoers have a degree qualification, compared to 13 % for the average population. It should be noted however, that as church attendance is so low in both countries there would still have been many more degrees among the non-churchgoers than the attendees. Therefore there may be other confounding effects to account for this. One possible explanation may be that both church attendance and university attendance are partly dependent on class.

There seems to be no independent (i. e. not church-funded) research confirming it. Icek 20:54, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

That was likely a good decision. Should Michael Shermer's also be removed as he's not exactly an independent on this issue either.--T. Anthony 02:09, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree strongly with the assumption that NCLS research, being church funded, is biased. It is particularly thorough and extensive research, 'scientific' in its methodology. I suspect that you won't find comparable non- church- funded research simply because the NCLS does such a thorough job of it, matching their survey as closely as possible to the Australian census so that such comparisons can be made as accurately as possible. A specific purpose of the survey is to help churches "check if people's perceptions of their community are up to date" [14]. The NCLS reports on trends within participating Australian churches- some of which give results the churches like to hear, some of which don't. On the linked page, it should be noted that these results are used more as criticism of the churches (not reflecting the demographics of their communities), not something they would like to show off about. (They also provide some commentary/ explanation as to why this trend exists). WotherspoonSmith 13:29, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think that it was a good move to remove material from the article related to studies which do not directly measure the relation between intelligence (that means IQ) and religiosity. Your arguments are probably valid, but it's not really relevant for the article. Icek 21:32, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Rephrase?

"the proportion of LDS scientists who had received baccalaureate degrees from universities in Utah who believed that Joseph Smith was inspired by God in the formation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was 91%.[20] Belief in God and in the divinity of Jesus Christ showed similarly high numbers"

Shouldn't it be a given that, logically, at least as many people should believe in God (and one would imagine Jesus Christ) as believe that Joseph Smith was inspired by such?

We need more reliable sources.

I did edits in this article trying to differentiate when the text talks about "IQ", "education", "science", or "intelligence" etc. - Those are not the same things and should be treated separately.

I also fixed the undue weight in favor of the 20 years old and non-academic essay from the Free Inquiry magazine.

My modifications were made after I spent some time searching scientific articles on religion. Until now, I found little reference for studies suggesting such supposedly "consistent inverse correlation between religiosity and intelligence". --Leinad ¬ »saudações! 00:05, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

• IQ and intelligence can probably be stated as the same thing on this page as there is basically no other ways of objectivily measuring intelligence. AmitDeshwar 08:50, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

• I think you did a good job editing and I commend you for it.--T. Anthony 08:30, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Anthony. I did some more edits and think that the article is coming closer to express what the sources provided actually say on the subject. For one thing, I added a very important note regarding the fact that studies about other socio-cultural factors can’t be assumed to imply a correlation between intelligence and religion. On the other hand, it wasn’t particularly hard to improve the article, since it was in a poor state before. For example: this study (which is the closest thing we have for a reliable source dealing directly with the topic) was cited without mentioning that it failed to find any significant correlations between religiosity and IQ. Go figure... --Leinad ¬ »saudações! 21:58, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The original was something I'd seen on usenet, I don't post there, and several other places as a way to anger theists. It was created by a Secular Humanist for that express purpose. I wasn't able to argue for editing effectively as I'm rather open about being a Catholic, was too combative against it even existing, and back then I was seeing Wikipedia as being a kind of reference work. (I'm enjoying Wikipedia again, but a valid reference source it is not and whenever I start seeing it that way I know it's time to back off. It's more like a trivia game that's spawned from Net-culture or a kind of Mideast bazaar of information)--T. Anthony 21:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

in this famous study i can read:

“ Unfortunately, characteristics of my sample may limit generalization of the findings. One such char-

acteristic is gender. The study consisted primarily of women, who are universally more religious than men (Stark, 2003). The mean IQ of the population is also an area of concern. Mean IQ scores for both men and women in this study reached well into the high-average range of cognitive ability (the general population mean is 100). The findings might be somewhat different, or even stronger, if a wider range of intellectual ability were sampled.

”

--Pixel ;-) 13:56, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Discrepency in Mormon correlation with college graduation and devoutness.

"As Mormons attain more education, it seems, they become more devout.[10]"

This is not the only explanation of the data, or even the most simple explanation.

Some other explanations: 1) Mormons who decide to attend college are more devout. 2) Many less devout Mormons that go through college do not consider themselves Mormons by the time they graduate. (The less devout are "weeded out" by whatever presumed pressure there is against their beliefs in college.)

I don't know where we would find citations for these other explanations, if anywhere, but just because one explanation is the only one with a citation does not mean that it is the most valid explanation or even a correct explanation.

I think that the explanation for the correlation given should be stated as, "it may seem that as Mormons attain more education they become more devout, although other explanations are that ..."

Less interpretation and more description

"A caveat is in order. Those who regard church attendance as a measure of religiosity must take into account the fact - noted by sociologists - that people attend church regularly from a variety of motivations: conformity, sociability, status needs, even coercion." I think that statements such as these (as true as they might me) should not be mixed with description of statistical data or study results and conclusions. That kind of discussion should have its own sub-section of the article, because it mixes the objective (actual study results) with the subjective (non-measurable speculations, or information from non-related populations and sources) --164.77.106.168 01:34, 18 November 2006 (UTC) user:guruclef

Tautological findings

The following paragraph was taken from the "Counter Trends" section before I edited it:

In 1992, Richard Wootton found that the proportion of LDS scientists who had received baccalaureate degrees from universities in Utah who believed that Joseph Smith was inspired by God in the formation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was 91%. Belief in God and in the divinity of Jesus Christ showed similarly high numbers. The percentages contrasted enough with mainstream survey data that the study was performed a second time, with the same results.

These findings are a tautology. It is expected that LDS scientists would believe that Joseph Smith was inspired by God in the formation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as this is crucial to LDS beliefs. Same goes with belief in God and in the divinity of Jesus Christ-- LDS scientists would by definition be expected to have such beliefs. These findings do not necessarily apply to scientists at large, and therefore do not mean anything. For these reasons, I am deleting the paragraph above. --Uthbrian (talk) 22:17, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

LDS scientists aren't scientists? To me, it seems like there's a problem in saying the data doesn't apply when scientists say they're religious, simply because they hold a certain belief. That's similar to saying the data on scientists who say they don't believe in God is biased because they were asking atheists. Meh. ~ UBeR 01:45, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

LDS scientists are not representative of scientists as a whole. --Uthbrian (talk) 03:11, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Older studies section

I rewrote this section to try to clean up the block quote and make it more understandable. I found one other quotation of this text on the web: http://www.skepticfiles.org/atheist/religiq2.htm which varies from this one a little bit. I don't know which one is correct, but a check against the original might be in order, if someone has it. Cpastern 18:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Neither. ~ UBeR 03:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Deletion of Beliefs among Scientists

I would like to delete the section on Beliefs among Scientists, but before I take such a radical step, I'd like to hear what others think. I don't see its relevance to this article. It pertains to the article Relationship between religion and science instead.--OinkOink 17:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I am indifferent at this point. I believe it's there, however, to show differences between scientists and the "general public." ~ UBeR 19:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I'm obtuse, but I don't yet see what this has to do with religiosity and intelligence. If there is a reason for this material, it should be explicit in the article so people like me aren't baffled.--OinkOink 21:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

They're trying to imply scientists are more intelligent than the "general population," and a lower percent of scientists consider themselves theists. ~ UBeR 23:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

How is this less inane than examining the religious beliefs of professional chess players, who are probably a fair bit brighter than scientists on average? I still don't see how this addresses Religion and intelligence, but maybe I should hold off for a few weeks.

I'm also concerned that this section is really about 3 surveys, all somewhat problematic, even for Relationship between religion and science. Scientific American is a popular-science magazine, not a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, and the bit cited in this article looks bizarre:

"...while only 40% of the scientists with a BS did so...." It's possible to be a scientist with only a BS, or without any schooling at all, but it's so rare as to suggest that they are counting many, many non-scientists as scientists.

The National Academy of Sciences survey is mentioned as having only a 50% rate of return, which would make it of marginal use even in the religion and science article.

Finally we come to the Elaine Howard Ecklund study. I think that this was rather misrepresented in earlier versions of this article. The links are not to results of the study, but to press releases about the study, which is still ongoing. But the results quoted look peculiar. "38% of the natural scientists...say they do not believe in God." I happen to have spent a lot of my life in the company of natural scientists, and among those I've known, religious belief has been quite rare. I don't know what causes the discrepancy, but I'd like a look at that list of "elite research universities." Another possibility is that engineers might be included among "natural scientists". (In my experience, engineers are much more likely to be religious.)

I'm going to natter on a bit in order to make it clear that I am not accusing Ecklund or her backers in the Templeton Foundation of lacking integrity. Ecklund sounds like an interesting though minor academic. She's currently a post-doc at Tufts. Her principal research has been on religion and assimilation among Korean-Americans, and I wouldn't mind reading her book on the subject. The John Templeton Foundation is controversial, but I don't think they lack integrity. They gave money to the Discovery Institute at one time, but a lot of smart, honest people have been taken in by those charlatans, including the president of the United States. Even Sean Carroll, one of their most noted opponents, who refused to speak at a conference they funded, said: "I appreciate that the Templeton Foundation is actually, in its own way, quite pro-science, and is not nearly as objectionable as the anti-scientific crackpots at the Discovery Institute."

Nonetheless the Templeton Foundation has a distinct point of view. I went to their website to see what they were about, and here is the very first grant I found:

Construction of the Interstellar Messages Describing the Evolution of Altruistic Behavior

Dr. Douglas A. Vakoch, Director of Interstellar Message Composition

This grant supported research on the possibility of translating spiritual information through interstellar messages. The project identified key principles of altruism that can be translated for communication with extraterrestrial intelligence. This translation, in turn, provides the foundation for a dialogue with theologians to capture the essence of altruistic love from a theological perspective.

June 2001 $120,000

Honest they may be, but they are a bit eccentric. They have integrity and Ecklund has integrity, but it is still possible that Ecklund got the grant rather than someone else because her preliminary results seemed to make more sense and to be more interesting in their world view.

In any case, all these surveys deal with religion and science, not, as far as I can see, with religion and intelligence. The problem may be that there really isn't anything to be said about religion and intelligence, and I am wasting time in trying to clean up a hopeless topic! --OinkOink 02:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't disagree with what has been said. I don't even think I'd disagree with an article deletion. ~ UBeR 04:02, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with much of what's said here, but for the record I think scientists are probably smarter than chess players. Chess is a skill, but ultimately I think it doesn't correlate to intelligence as well as people believe. I know of good to great chess players who are basically average or even below average in intelligence. Those chess-players are basically just savants of a special kind. To be a good, even at a local level, scientist requires a bit more than one savant skill. On religiosity of scientists it might depend where you are. In more rural "red-state" areas like mine it's not that unusual to find a scientist who's some kind of liberal Protestantism or a theistic variant of Hinduism. Whether that says anything about intelligence in general I don't know. The article deals very little, or not at all, on academic achievers in the Humanities. (In my History Department most everyone is nominally Christian or even actively of a church even though I go to a public University)--T. Anthony 08:03, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Caplovitz and Sherrow

The article currently reads: "The studies Beckwith reviewed included Caplovitz and Sherrow's 1977 study, which concluded that students attending higher-ranked schools have fewer religious beliefs than those attending lower-ranked schools." I haven't seen the study, but can this "fewer religious beliefs" be right? Would anyone count the number of religious beliefs a person has? I think this must be a mistake, but since I haven't seen the study, I'm shy about editing it.--OinkOink 06:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I still haven't seen the study, but googling suggests it is being radically misrepresented here. Has anyone seen it?--OinkOink 07:02, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't make any sense. Their study seems to be on apostasy and social factors, not intelligence... ~ UBeR 08:23, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. It looks like either Burnham Beckwith is misrepresenting his source, or someone is misrepresenting him. Since Burnham Beckwith seems to be an obscure vanity-published crackpot with no apparent qualifications, I have been thinking of removing this whole section. But it would be good to hear from someone who has actually seen the original texts, first.--OinkOink 01:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I found (and linked to in the article) what appears to be an excerpt from the Burnham Beckwith article, and in the "Student Body Comparisons" section it just sums up the Caplovitz and Sherrow 1977 study as: "Apostasy rates rose continuously from 5 percent in 'low' ranked schools to 17 percent in 'high' ranked schools." (see here) I don't know how accurate that summary is, but that's what the Beckwith article apparently says. So, the correlation is between rejection of religion and the rank of school you attend (i.e. your education.) FYI, I also removed the hidden comment "Caplovitz and Sherrow seem grossly misrepresented here. Can someone confirm?" from the article since this is discussed here. -- HiEv 09:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Older Studies

I have removed the contents of the Older Studies section, which were entirely about the Burnham Beckwith essay. I could think of no reason for this to be retained. Feel free to restore it if you wish, but please add your reasoning on this discussion page. --OinkOink 22:49, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Not an essay but a scholarly article citing other scholarly articles.Ultramarine 23:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

No. Burnham Beckwith is not a scholar, but a vanity-published crank. Furthermore he has misrepresented at least some of the studies he cites. The magazine he published in, Free Inquiry, is not a scholarly journal but the organ of Paul Kurtz's Council for Secular Humanism. Paul Kurtz is a fanatic who believes that it should be forbidden to expose adolescents to religion.

Furthermore, Ultramarine, I don't believe you have read the source here yourself. (From the page history, you seem to have been the original author). I think, based on the internal evidence of the inaccuracy of the provenance and bits that just don't make sense, that you just paraphrased this from some militant-atheist webpage. That's really not a respectable sort of source. At minimum, a reference must have been read by the person introducing it, unless that person provides a disclaimer and an explanation as to why an unread source is used. --OinkOink 03:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

All right, I've convinced myself. A case could be made for restoring the version of this section that I originally deleted, and if someone restored that, I'd sit back happily and wait for a consensus to form. But the version which was restored here is unacceptable. Accordingly, I've deleted it. --OinkOink 04:14, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Double-checking, I find that Paul Kurtz's statement was not as extreme as I thought, and I was unfair to him. In A Secular Humanist Declaration he said: "We do not think it is moral to baptize infants, to confirm adolescents, or to impose a religious creed on young people before they are able to consent. Although children should learn about the history of religious moral practices, these young minds should not be indoctrinated in a faith before they are mature enough to evaluate the merits for themselves." That bit about "should not be indoctrinated in a faith before they are mature enough" allows ominous wiggle room, but is not the outright prohibition of religious instruction of youth that I had thought.--OinkOink 05:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Attacking the character or views of the author instead of using factual arguments is ad hominem. For example environmentalists, Marxists, or Catholics publish academic journals where the authors and the journal may share a certain POV. This does not automatically make these journals invalid, what matter is the factual arguments. Free Inquiry is listed in Google Scholar.Ultramarine 12:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Free Inquiry is no more an academic journal than the Daily Worker. Could someone like Burnham Beckwith ever survive peer review? Especially since it seems that not only has he been "selective", he has been deliberately misrepresenting his sources, at least in the case of Caplovitz and Sherrow. A wikipedia article should provide reliable sources, or, failing that, provide adequate caveats concerning the sources.

Someone needs to do some spade work to clean up this section. (Not me: I'm busy with other things.) As I see it, a promising plan is to start with the studies that Burnham Beckwith mentions and read them to see what they actually say. Then look at the references given by those studies and see if other studies reach similar conclusions. The final result should refer only to real scholars engaged in real scholarship, without ideologues serving as interpreters and intermediaries. --OinkOink 15:49, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Beliefs among scientists Deleted

I've removed the section titled Beliefs among scientists as irrelevant. Feel free to restore it if you think it should be kept, but please add your reasoning to this discussion page. --OinkOink 23:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it should be kept - it is relatively well-sourced, and although the link of "scientist == mostly above-average intelligence" is not proven here, I think that no reasonable person would argue the opposite. -- Marcika 11:21, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Marcika for sharing your reasoning. It still seems to me that this material really belongs on Relationship between religion and science rather than here, but I shall leave it unless I can change your mind or unless a consensus to delete is established. And of course I remain open to having my mind changed.

I do not find your reasoning persuasive, however. Rather than "scientist == mostly above-average intelligence" you should say that "scientist => mostly above-average intelligence", since most people of above-average intelligence are not scientists. It is also true that "theologian => mostly above-average intelligence" and "science-fiction writer => mostly above-average intelligence" and "professional chess-player => definitely far above-average intelligence, though quite possibly a jerk"! An attempt to invert a study of the religiousness of any of these groups to draw a conclusion about religiousness and intelligence in general is unsound. This is especially so with scientists, since there are clearly serious difficulties in reconciling religion and science.

In addition, the specific material being restored seems dubious, for reasons given in the section on Proposed deletion of Beliefs among scientists. Perhaps you can look this over and tell us why this material should be retained anyway. --OinkOink 00:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

As to the first point, I think you knew what I meant: to become a university-trained scientist (even in social sciences), you need to have above-average reasoning/logic/etc. skills. (Of course this does not preclude other groups having above-average intelligence as well...) The comparison with theologicians is misleading insofar as theologicians are in all probability a self-selectedly religious group, while scientists in general (or for that matter science-fiction authors) are not atheists by selection (and indeed there were many many eminent Christian scientists).

Since science is about falsifiable theories, or at least verifiable matters, the "difficulties in reconciling religion and science" you mentioned and the link to the science vs. religion topic should maybe be at the core of this article -- since the discrepancies seem to stem from many religions requiring "blind faith" and the scientific method (which has been one of the driving forces of progress in the last centuries) expressly denying credence to unfalsifiable assumptions.

On the dubiosity of the sources: They are popular journal articles and serious (though maybe imperfect or flawed) studies - Wikipedia often cites far less authentic sources. Unless there are better sources which contradict them, the honest way would be to present both their statements and the criticism that were leveled against them.

In summary: I think it is very easy to criticise these articles and studies as flawed, non-representative or influenced by outside contributions; but if no "perfect" results exist, I would rather have the flawed studies presented to me (with caveats, of course) than not having anything. -- Marcika 02:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughts. I think I failed to convey my main point, though, which is that scientists are not a representative sample of intelligent people, and therefore you cannot extrapolate from their opinions about religion to the opinions of intelligent people in general. On the list of Christian thinkers in science, of course there were many significant Christian scientists in history, but what is relevant is that science today tends to be incompatible with religion. If you look at the end of the list, you will notice an absence of really top scientists. The only first-rate more-or-less contemporary scientist I can think of who was religious is Abdus Salam, who was an Ahmadi muslim. --OinkOink 04:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

OinkOink is very much correct. Scientists are not the only intelligent people in the world, nor are they the "smartest." ~ UBeR 19:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

That's not exactly the point. I think it might even be true that the smartest scientists are also the smartest people (including mathematicians as scientists for luck). The point is that they are not a representative sample of intelligent people, so they cannot be used to infer properties of the population of intelligent people as a whole. My concern is with statistical validity. --OinkOink 20:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Which was my point. ;) ~ UBeR 20:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I just found out while browsing wikipedia that William Daniel Phillips, a Nobel-prize winner in physics, is a Methodist. Oddly, he's not in the List of Christian thinkers in science. --OinkOink 06:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The list is limited to scientist who were notable for their Christianity as in they wrote about natural theology or religion/science linkages. At the time I created it Category:Christians in science still existed, but since then it's been decided scientists must never be categorized by who they are as people. Anyway when the category existed I didn't need to put every scientist who happens to be Christian in it. (As for something you said above I think Townes and Collins are first-rate scientists in the living section)--T. Anthony 05:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I would have to agree almost completely with OinkOink. Although I personally like to quote Hemingway's "All thinking Men are atheists", this entire section is a synthesis of studies, where no source is given for the conclusion that they establish a statistically significant correlation between intelligence and religiosity (as opposed to reflect the incompatibility of methodological naturalism with supernatural belief). I think the disbelief among top scientists does say something significant about the difficulties of NOMA, but I'm not at all sure it says anything about intelligence. I like to think that it does, because I don't believe in God and I'm so damn intelligent ;) but sadly I know far more intelligent people who still do believe in God. Anyway... in summary, this conclusion is not obvious, it is not sourced, and is highly controversial/offensive, so I fully support a delete (or a move to talk page) until we can find a reliable source that cites any of these studies in relation to the topic of the current article: the correlation between intelligence and religiosity. --Merzul 23:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

To be "offensive" is not an argument for deleting a citing. I think it should stay, and I'm not opposed in including some criticism on the statistical significance.--BMF81 17:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Additional sources

http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Jesus/Intelligence%20&%20religion.htm is a page with different sources. It's probably biased but references other sources. Maybe it can contribute to the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Beau (talk • contribs) 09:06, 27 January 2007 (UTC).

Nope is just a copy/paste of the same Web site that was trying to be referenced. Much of what is stated there is false and pretentious. It's imprudent to think that studies, some over 200 pages long, can be summarized in a six-word quote. In fact, many of studies have qualifiers, which, of course, are not mentioned or discussed. Many actually state the opposite of the message the Web site is trying to impose. Etcetera. ~ UBeR 22:21, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to point out it has a list of related papers which are references in itself. Like I said, the page is biased and can not be used as a reference but that doesn't mean the articles themselves can't be valid references, no? You are correct that the six-word quotes can't be used and should be checked/expanded. The articles mentioned on the page are relavent to the article even if the author of the web page interprets them in a very subjective manner.--Beau 15:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes the studies are helpful. If you can find them. I've used my University's extensive scholastic resources in attempts to locate and read some of these studies. They are nonexistent or very difficult to find (i.e. dated studies). The mentioned Web site doesn't exactly document the studies well, probably for some obvious reasons. Some studies may be irrelevant to this article, as well (e.g. how conservative some religious people are). ~ UBeR 18:56, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Problems with the criticism section

I removed the criticism section twice and apparently I didn't explain clearly why. I deleted it for three reasons. First the criticism of psychometrics is not really a criticism of these studies and Gould's criticism was about race and intelligence. Second the article is not about religiosity and age or religiosity and education. Because of this it seems to be someone half facts and really side tracks into psychometrics' problems and not this field of study. Can someone explain why the criticisms are not directed at religiosity and intelligence.You very nice place 08:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, the section can broken down into four paragraphs:

• "The attempt to use psychometric measures of intelligence such as the IQ test may be criticized. Some scientists object to the idea that intelligence is a single, measurable characteristic; others object to the use of specific tests. As such, any studies about intelligence tend to be controversial.

• "Studies focusing on correlations between religiosity and other socioeconomic factors, such as higher education or interest in science, are not reliable to predict a relationship between religion and intelligence, even if it is assumed that these factors are typically associated with intelligence. Correlation is not transitive: that is, even if A is correlated with B, and B is correlated with C, you cannot draw the conclusion that A is correlated with C. It requires a separate set of data to establish that correlation.

• "Some of the studies primarily deal with unmarried high-school and university students, and other studies show people become more religious after they marry and have children. A recent Gallup International survey indicates this is international. It showed that levels of atheism decline after age 30 while self-description as "a religious person" rises.

• "Studies of religiousness and intelligence have been predominantly performed in the U.S., which is not necessarily representative of other populations. The USA has, for example, a higher level of religiosity than other developed nations."

The first paragraph is criticizing the idea, used by people attempting to measure religiosity and intelligence, that intelligence can be measured as one characteristic or with a simple and sometimes discriminating IQ test.

The second paragraph is criticism of the method, used by some people trying to measure religiosity and intelligence, in which things usually associated with intelligence (e.g. social standing, strong science understanding, etc.) are being used to measure intelligence as a whole.

The third paragraph criticizes the subject pool (by age bias) being used to determine religiosity and intelligence.

The fourth paragraph criticizes the subject pool (by location bias) being used to determine religiosity and intelligence. ~ UBeR 20:53, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Liberal & conservative religious views

At the end of the paragraph that starts with, "Five of these reviewed studies concerned how liberal or conservative a person's religious views were," there was a hidden comment I just removed that asked, "what does this have to do with liberalism or conservatism?" Just to clarify, it isn't about liberalism or conservatism in the political sense, it is about how liberal or conservative your religious views are. A conservative religious view would be strongly religious and would want stricter adherence to their particular religious views, while a liberal view would be less religious and be more tolerant of other religious views. For example, agnostics would generally on the far end of the "liberal religious view" scale. Thus, "liberal" would mean "less religious" in this context, and "conservative" would mean "more religious." Anyways, I just wanted to answer the question and explain why I removed that hidden comment. -- HiEv 09:30, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking liberal or conservative as in a theological/interpretation sense. Like "I believe in my holy book, but read it in a symbolic way that's inclusive of modern thought" versus "I believe my holy book is the only truth and is inerrant." A person with a "liberal" interpretation of the Bible or Torah or Qur'an can be as religious as a conservative one. For an Islamic example see Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, in Christianity see Adolf von Harnack or Hans Küng, and in Judaism see Mordecai Kaplan. Also any reference been made to This recent study?--T. Anthony 00:30, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem with your interpretation of liberal/conservative in this context is that it only includes theists who have holy books, whereas the studies clearly include atheists, agnostics, and some others as part of the "liberal religious views" group. As such, that interpretation cannot be correct. Also, regarding the study you mentioned, it says nothing about the intelligence of the students. It just says that college attendees are less likely to have a decline in their religion than non-college students, however it doesn't say anything about whether more non-religious or less religious people go to college in the first place. For example, I was an atheist when I went to college, so there was no decline in my "religion" after I started college because it was already at zero. Heck, if higher intelligence means that you are more likely to have liberal religious views and are more likely to go to college, then that could be entirely consistent with that study, since more people in that group would start out with less ability to have a decline in their religion. Based on the data in that study you cannot make any conclusions regarding the existence or non-existence of a correlation between religiosity and intelligence. -- HiEv 19:58, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Peer reviewed studies

This article begins by jumping right into non peer reviewed studies. Are there any that have been peer reviewed? —WikiMarshall 19:19, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

It appears this is just the result of a pov-pushing campaign going on here. I have the impression that some editors are trying to create a smoke screen by "shooting the messenger". It appears that Bell has reviewed 43 peer-reviewed studies in a respectable magazine. Dismissing this as "a non peer-reviewed study" is inappropriate. It stands to reason that the more intelligent people are, the more complex reservations they will have on questions of spirituality. This does not necessarily mean that intelligence leads to irreligiosity, but statistically it is perfectly plausible that run-of-the-mill religiosity diminishes with increasing intelligence: mainstream religion is cut out for, well, the mainstream, which cannot be expected to follow complex arguments, that's pretty much a tautology. dab (𒁳) 08:36, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Not always the case. See above, re NCLS studies in Australia. Church attenders there tend to be more highly educated, and churches are urged to be less academic/ intellectual in their approach. (See also comments below, under "Removal of Burnhan Beckwith block quote, inclusion of Dawkins")WotherspoonSmith 12:52, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

let's clean up

This article is hard to read, or to take too seriously, as it stands. Might I suggest, as a starting point for clean up, that we define what we mean by intelligence- the opening line says this is measured by SAT Scores, IQ, Education, etc. If we're going to dispute whether any/ all of these truly is a measure of intelligence, we should state this early on. Socio-cultural biases in each should be recognised. We should note the limitations of the studies.

Define what we mean by religiosity. Wikipedia's own article on the subject says it includes "numerous aspects of religious activity, dedication, and belief," and goes on to suggest that "knowing (cognition), feeling (affect), and doing (behavior)" are all aspects of religiosity. So we should include these aspects of religiosity in our definition, and, again state whether some of these truly are measures of religiosity. Socio-cultural factors should be recognised here also- as noted above, the studies all seem to have a limited cultural view on what is 'religiosity' (ie Western, predominantly Christian).

There should, surely, be a discussion about whether any of the studies suggest a causitive link between the two concepts, or a discussion specifying that there is no causitive link established or suggested. One way or the other, this should be in the opening paragraph.

I suggest we then break down the collection of studies, and categorise them, rather than list them according to who wrote an article listing them all. For example, there is already a start on an exploration of the links between educational attainment and religiosity. Some of the listed studies would be best added here. Likewise, a section on IQ and religiosity.

So, it would look like this:

introduction (definitions, summary)

religiosity and IQ

religiosity and educational attainment

and perhaps:

other factors affecting religiosity

other factors affecting IQ (link to IQ page)

Any comments?WotherspoonSmith 15:57, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

science and religion

I support the view that there should only be a brief mention, if any, regarding the number of scientists who are religious. We have an article [relationship between science and religion]- we should use it. The exception would be if someone could point us towards an article showing how scientists are representative of all intelligent people. I propose moving these sections to the science and religion page.WotherspoonSmith 15:57, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. But there is more: the sections "Beliefs among scientists", "Public", and "Reported 'importance of religion' and statistics among nations" have precisely ZERO studies specifically dealing with the topic of intelligence. Their inclusion here was apparently based solely on the fact that editors thought it was a good idea to include them. However, this is an infringement of WP:NOR. The inclusion of studies that are not actually measuring intelligence, and are instead only measuring other factors that some editors believe to be related with intelligence constitutes non-trivial novel synthesis (WP:SYN). --Leinad ∴ -diz aí. 08:41, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I just applied WP:BOLD and removed the problematic content. I also removed the section "Other trends" because educational level is not the same as intelligence, even though it may be closer than "inclination for science" as an estimation of it. --Leinad ∴ -diz aí. 14:40, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I applaud your boldness, though it contrasts somewhat with the {controversial} tag on the talk page. If we further examine the remaining text, there's really not a lot to show. Many of the studies in the Free Enquiry article, for example, equate educational level with intelligence. I'm just a bit fascinated with the comment that "the author, while conceding that it was easy to find fault with the studies he reviewed" found them to be collectively worth looking at. This reeks of a barrow pushing, rather than scientific approach to me, but I haven't yet found the original article. I'll examine the source when i can and edit as appropriate.

However, if we're removing educational level as an indicator of intelligence, we'd need to redefine intelligence in the first paragraph. I'm inclined to mention, with references the points made, that the connection is often made. This has been discussed above, and in the nomination for deletion debate.

If there are frequent connections made in public debate between intelligence=scientists or intelligence=education, should we not include a couple of lines (only) mentioning the assumptions and refuting them? This article survived a nomination for deletion, the points raised in the deletion discussion suggest this should be an article which discusses the public debate, as well as the research that is relevant. It then stops being 'is there a connection between intelligence and religiosity' and becomes 'what is the public debate about intelligence and religiosity', like the race and intelligence page WotherspoonSmith 05:03, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

First of all, thank you very much for trying to improve this article, it needs attention.

As a psychologist, I am skeptical of the possibility that one can point to trustworthy or authoritative sources (per WP:RS) claiming that educational level is a measure of intelligence. For instance, when designing intelligence tests one of the main concerns of a researcher is to make sure that his test is measuring "mental capacity" instead of the amount of schooling or acquired culture. I also notice that educational level is not considered an indicator of intelligence neither in the page about "intelligence" nor in the page about "race and intelligence". Modifying the definition of intelligence at the introduction is not a problem - the definition from the article about Intelligence is a good start. It is this article that needs to adapt itself to the academic concept of intelligence, and not the other way around.

It is not necessarily the case that the studies/"polls" reported in the Free Inquiry Magazine were originally equating educational level with intelligence. It appears, instead, that the author of the essay is the one interpreting them (and other factors) as doing so. The fact that both the Mensa Magazine and the Free Inquiry essays appear to conflate disparate constructs as if they were a measurement of intelligence is actually suggestive of the (lack of) quality in these articles. (Either that or what they actually say is being erroneously reported here). For all I know, the authors of both essays would never get away with it if they had tried to publish them in actual peer-reviewed scientific journals instead of in magazines.

Your suggestion that this article should not be about 'is there a connection between intelligence and religiosity' but about 'what is the public debate about intelligence and religiosity' deserves careful consideration. However, There are some things Wikipedia is not, and it is "not an indiscriminate collection of items of information". In "race and intelligence", not only the scientific question per se, but also the "public debate" surrounding the topic is notable/encyclopedic. Books such as The Bell Curve receive not only academic attention, but also extensive media coverage. On the other hand, it appears that a public debate regarding "intelligence and religiosity", if it exists, is much more restricted. --Leinad ∴ -diz aí. 15:40, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that "It is not necessarily the case that the studies/"polls" reported in the Free Inquiry Magazine were originally equating educational level with intelligence." My mistake. Personally, I would gladly remove all references to educational level as indicator of intelligence in this article. This would mean butchering the Free Enquiry articles somewhat, and probably the Mensa one, too.WotherspoonSmith 12:52, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Removal of Burnhan Beckwith block quote, inclusion of Dawkins

I have removed the Burnham Beckwith quote. It was long, dominated the first paragraph, had inaccuracies and, frankly, most of the studies he quoted were more than 40 years old. The linked studies are reproduced numerous times on the web, and I'd love to do a systematic dismantling of some of the fallacies it includes, but have avoided original research.

I have quoted Richard Dawkins as citing the Mensa article. The original article is available only to members, and shouldn't be quoted at all WP:RS, but Dawkins has quoted it so it is reproduced all over the net, and I felt this made it worth leaving in place. (If anyone can find a copy of this document, please let me know. WP:RS may be more discerning than Dawkins, and I'm really curious if it is the same 43 studies since 1927 that Beckwith uses).WotherspoonSmith 16:11, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I have still been unable to find anyone who can give/ loan me a copy of the UK MENSA members’ magazine. I’ve searched, others on Dawkins’ own web forums have searched- http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9106&p=325651. (Given that the only source is someone else's quote, it's a wonder more atheists don't question its very existence.)

Similarly, I felt that Beckwith’s article deserved a mention, not because it meets Wikipedia standards (it doesn’t) but because it is invariably quoted whenever this is discussed in forums etc, and has been quoted so extensively as ‘proof’ of an inverse relationship.

For these reasons, I have rearranged the article, clarifying the reason why these are included. If anyone has a more elegant way of dealing with this than a link to a google search, I’m all ears (eyes?) WotherspoonSmith 12:52, 8 August 2007 (UTC)