Intelligence, Atheism & Relgiosity.

[juvenissun]

I find both unsettling. My faith is not an excuse for low-intelligence. I should be capable of accomplishing more as the result of His indwelling. I am better off when I've utilized the gifts and talents He's bestowed to their fullest extent. Mediocrity of any stripe is unacceptable.

The key idea is that the scale of intelligence is a human measure. It has nothing to do with the faith to God. Use the amount of faith to measure the degree of intelligence is like use the speed of light to measure the size of an airplane.

 

[Kaon]

Intelligence, September-October 2013, Vol.41(5), pp.482-489

Abstract
Is there a positive impact of intelligence on religious disbelief after we account for the fact that both average intelligence and religious disbelief tend to be higher in more developed countries? We carry out four beta regression analyses and conclude that the answer is yes. We also compute impact curves that show how the effect of intelligence on atheism changes with average intelligence quotients. The impact is stronger at lower intelligence levels, peaks somewhere between 100 and 110, and then weakens. Bootstrap standard errors for our point estimates and bootstrap confidence intervals are also computed. •It has been established that intelligence positively correlates with atheism.•We show that intelligence impacts atheism even we account for economic development.•Impact curves of intelligence on religious disbelief are constructed.

The conclusions are a little concerning when seeking a religious pathway.

I found my Father through mathematics. I wasn't actually a faith-driven believer until after university.

Intelligent people usually stop seeking after a situation point - the "vindication". This is the point at which an intellectual is content in his or her qualms about existentialism. It is much more scary to continue seeking with an open mine, ultimately recognising particles of truth in the plethora of lies told by humans.

Eventually, you come to a point where life imitates art, and truth is stranger than fiction. I still feel guilty regurgitating the things people told me decades ago - things I scoffed at - that I am now trying to get other people to see (who give the same resistance as I gave in the past.) Turnabout is fair play, but I would hope others come to the Truth.

There is a gulf of difference between intelligence and wisdom, and the two aren't nessarily inclusive.

 

[Roidecoeur78]

The key idea is that the scale of intelligence is a human measure. It has nothing to do with the faith to God. Use the amount of faith to measure the degree of intelligence is like use the speed of light to measure the size of an airplane.

You are taking this far too seriously. The point is all humans are stupid, but those that are aware of their own ignorance are at least marginally better than those that cannot or will not do so. Even the smartest human is no more than a vain talking ape headed back to the soil, when compared to Yahweh.

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness” 1 Corinthians 3:19

 

[Zoii]

It doesn't seem as if someone posted the actual article yet. I have attached it.

Reading it, I am not much impressed. They are extrapolating from single variables to try and make further correlation: That wealthier countries have more atheists, countries with higher IQs are wealthier, so Atheists are more likely with higher IQs. They then attempt to correct for wealth as a factor, with limited success.
Correlation is not causation, and of course, humans would rely less on God if better off - this is that old problem of self-worship, distraction, and the selfish nature of man. Compelle Intrare has always been a way many approach God, for we must realise ourselves powerless sometimes, to be able to set the self aside at all, for God. Many other factors may be at play, from political to social to historical, that may account for this. Nordic countries weigh it in favour of Atheism, while the US bucks the trend. This is better explicable from the history of thought in those countries, through the Enlightenment, Existentialism and the middle way Socialism in Scandinavia. The conclusions are presented as statistically valid, but the external validity thereof is frankly lacking. I hadn't seen it before, but it really doesn't add to the discussion of Intelligence and Religiosity except in obfuscation.

Fairly pointless, and says very little.

I dont understand your statistical argument. Correlation, which can be measured and a coefficient assigned to it, is simply identifying if the movement in one variable has a mathematical relationship to the other. I saw no problem with the manner they statistically analysed...but perhaps you can expand on the statistical argument you are posing.

 

[Zoii]

Why not just tell us what you are, and do away with any confusion? I doubt asking or telling that is against the rules.

This isn't a thread that seeks to ask personal questions of people or demand to know anything of their faith or any other personal matters. This thread does not seek to blight a person's religious path, regardless of what that may be, and nor does it seek to extol or denounce any teachings of any religion.

Therefore can I ask that you stay on topic.

This thread is focused on a particular piece of research concerning religiosity and IQ

 

[Zoii]

ntelligent people usually stop seeking after a situation point - the "vindication". This is the point at which an intellectual is content in his or her qualms about existentialism. It is much more scary to continue seeking with an open mine, ultimately recognising particles of truth in the plethora of lies told by humans.

I dont believe there is any evidence that intelligent people refuse to continue to examine the science behind our human existence.

I'd like to see more follow-up papers asking atheists why they believe there is not even the possibility of universal intelligence. Dawkins, I know bases his opinions on a lack of evidence to support the hypothesis that there is an intelligence ie God, of some description.

 

[durangodawood]

....They then attempt to correct for wealth as a factor, with limited success.....

How do you know they arent successful in this?

 

[durangodawood]

....For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness” 1 Corinthians 3:19

Bible believers here were just telling us that while intelligence is suspect, its wisdom thats valued by God...???

 

[Roidecoeur78]

Bible believers here were just telling us that while intelligence is suspect, its wisdom thats valued by God...???

It depends on the translation, and always within the reason of context junior, it refers to specifically to them that are wise in their own eyes (e.g. the vain, conceited). Whereas true wisdom would include being accurately aware of one's own abilities, inabilities, parameters and limitations. Someone that wants or needs to believe they are somehow better or more valuable than someone else, due to a perceived level of intelligence which they themselves had no hand in making, maintaining, or even fully employing for good purposes, and which will eventually be taken away from them, is likely to be who is being referred to in that particular verse.

But have your personal research and experience shown you otherwise?

 

[durangodawood]

It depends on the translation, and always within the reason of context junior, it refers to specifically to them that are wise in their own eyes (e.g. the vain, conceited). Whereas true wisdom would include being accurately aware of one's own abilities, inabilities, parameters and limitations. Someone that wants or needs to believe they are somehow better or more valuable than someone else, due to a perceived level of intelligence which they themselves had no hand in making, maintaining, or even fully employing for good purposes, and which will eventually be taken away from them, is likely to be who is being referred to in that particular verse.

But have your personal research and experience shown you otherwise?

I do grasp the distinction between intellect and wisdom.

But when that distinction is critical to a Biblical point, and then the translation uses the the exact wrong word.... well, its madness.

 

[Roidecoeur78]

I do grasp the distinction between intellect and wisdom.

But when that distinction is critical to a Biblical point, and then the translation uses the the exact wrong word.... well, its madness.

The meaning of a word is what gives it its value, the physical construct and appearance of it is no more than a method of transport, specific to a language of a time/place/culture. If syntax is used as a valid excuse for not seeking the true meaning of something, then one does not truly wish to understand and no understanding will be had.

 

[Zoii]

I hadn't seen it before, but it really doesn't add to the discussion of Intelligence and Religiosity except in obfuscation.

Fairly pointless, and says very little.

Nor it should - A scientific paper should use the Discussion section to purely summarise the findings ie whether the hypothesis was proven or not, and if there were any limiting factors. Its not a researchers role to then carry on espousing theories about why Lower IQ is correlated to higher religiosity. That's not its function.

As for being pointless - quite the contrary - it robustly showed a strong correlation with tight confidence intervals and IQ p values at 10 - 4. Thats hardly pointless - its very tight.

 

[Uber Genius]

I do not know what you mean by 'Genetic Fallacy'



That is another research topic though I suspect would be very difficult to objectively measure.

This research is not about any particular God and looks at a broad spectrum of religions and measures religiosity against the participants IQ.

This OP is not about Christian doctrine.



You certainly could. You assert your hypothesis and then attain objective measures. You identify the child abuse rates of atheists and measure that against the general population or even those with religious convictions. Not a good example though given whats known re historical child abuse within religious institutions.



By all means outline where you felt the research design failed research methodology standards.

A: type "genetic fallacy" into any search engine and then don't commit it.
B. Type in "straw man fallacy" since I am not referring to "Christian doctrine" but the very proposal of wether there exists anything like God.
The research design fails in its inception due to the fact that IQ, the color of one's eyes or skin, the length of one's foot, and all other genetic factors about people who hold certain beliefs are not predictive of the truth-value of those beliefs. We learn this fact in the US in our first logic class in our freshman year in undergraduate school.

The "research" sidesteps whether a proposition is true for unrelated features of the believers of that proposition.

Example: suppose I say George Washington is the best POTUS in history. Suppose further that I give a dozen reasons in support of that claim. Now suppose that I you find out I'm being treated for mental illness and the real reason I claim Washington is best is because I have wooden dentures and he is the only POTUS that I know also had wooden dentures how would that injure my claim?

It wouldn't!

My claim would still stand or fall on the truth of the 12 premises initially presented.

This is why genetic fallacies and ad hominem attacks also tu quoques are false.

Lots of fake research out there, don't fall for false claims like the research you highlight in your OP. It is an appeal to intellectual snobbery "If you choose atheism people will think you are smarter."

It is intellectually childish attempt at skirting the theistic/atheistic inference.

 

[Zoii]

A: type "genetic fallacy" into any search engine and then don't commit it.
B. Type in "straw man fallacy" since I am not referring to "Christian doctrine" but the very proposal of wether there exists anything like God.
The research design fails in its inception due to the fact that IQ, the color of one's eyes or skin, the length of one's foot, and all other genetic factors about people who hold certain beliefs are not predictive of the truth-value of those beliefs. We learn this fact in the US in our first logic class in our freshman year in undergraduate school.

The "research" sidesteps whether a proposition is true for unrelated features of the believers of that proposition.

Example: suppose I say George Washington is the best POTUS in history. Suppose further that I give a dozen reasons in support of that claim. Now suppose that I you find out I'm being treated for mental

Good grief - Would you like to try again if you believe there is a statistical error and highlight where in the statistical method, incorrect methods were used. What you just described ie genetic factors, has nothing to do with the methodology. Are you off on some other tangent? Can you explain what you are trying to get at in another way because I've read the methodology and analysis several times and I have no idea what you are talking about....and I'm no slouch with research methods.

 

[Kaon]

I dont believe there is any evidence that intelligent people refuse to continue to examine the science behind our human existence.

I didn't say intelligent people refuse to continue to examine the science behind our existence. Clearly there are learned people who make it their life to study the science behind our existence.

The saturation point I am speaking of is the point at which one is intellectually satisfied with one's search for the truth. One may continue to refine the truth through philosophy and further study, but the growth is asymptotic.

The odyssey is fatally flawed, and grossly limited to self, or projection of self . Intelligence only gets one so far, especially if one is dependent on standards created by other finite institutions and/or authorities. This is why I also said there is a gulf of difference between wisdom and intelligence.

I'd like to see more follow-up papers asking atheists why they believe there is not even the possibility of universal intelligence. Dawkins, I know bases his opinions on a lack of evidence to support the hypothesis that there is an intelligence ie God, of some description.

This is part of the folly and fatal flaw I am speaking about. Humans are taught to forget their common sense in exchange for an academic paradigm - the programming to accept the postulates of the social; and academic world begins at Pre-K. When you study something "beyond" academia, you are told to forget everything you know because it is a false paradigm of social and psychological engineering. You cannot wield magic, for example, if you think like an academic physicist that claims manipulation of different (i.e. undiscovered, unverified) energies is impossible.

The issue of intelligence is more important than the status of one's spirituality - I would say. There are plenty of intellectual believers/theologians that are sharp as a medical scalpels, but spiritually dead as a doorknob. One reason why atheists (and humans, for that matter) cannot reconcile spirit is because spirit is simultaneously outside of the person, and inside of the person. This doesn't make sense academically, and so most of the "religuosity" is put on the back-burner until a kernel of "observable" substance is found.

This "waiting for vindication" is what keeps every age at an asymptotic level of social, economic and technological advancement. The issue is about psychology more than it is about religion. You cannot prove anything to anyone, technically. You can only meet their level of vindication and substantiation that makes them comfortable with the acceptance step. That is why faith is just as important as intellect/science - because science will FAIL at many points, and there must needs a space for faith to keep one's journey in gaining going. A lot of intelligent atheists lack faith (they don't even realize how much they have), and it is that blindness that hinders progress.

 

[Roidecoeur78]

Watch out everyone! There are a lot of brick walls beating themselves against other brick walls around here. (Thank God for the common sense it takes to see that, and the ability to walk away from it)

 

[juvenissun]

You are taking this far too seriously.

The so-called scientist took it seriously (spent years to make such a research report), I am just respond to that.

 

[Uber Genius]

Good grief - I'm guessing research and statistics isn't your thing.... which is fine of course... Would you like to try again if you believe there is a statistical error and highlight where in the statistical method, incorrect methods were used. What you just described ie genetic factors, has nothing to do with the methodology. Are you off on some other tangent? Can you explain what you are trying to get at in another way because I've read the methodology and analysis several times and I have no idea what you are talking about....and I'm no slouch with research methods.

I'm a professor at a business school in the US. I teach how to do research and statistics and how to do detection of bad research. However I'm not arguing from my 30+ years of experience doing research but rather that the inability demonstrated in the OP and later replies to recognize a common fallacy recognizable by any sophomore at any undergraduate school in the US.

Apparently instead of doing a simple 30-second search on Google to engage my claim or my examples or an apology for engaging in propaganda like appeals to snobbery, we get, "Apparently research isn't your thing."

We now have added reading comprehension to the list of challenges.

No straw men, sweeping generalizations, ad hominems or other informal fallacies can rescue your claims.

We simple derive philosophical truth claims based on logic not genetic characteristics of claimants. Please engage arguments sans propaganda and we will have a informative discussion.

Here is a link since your search engine is not functioning:

GENETIC FALLACY
(also known as: fallacy of origins, fallacy of virtue)

Description: Basing the truth claim of an argument on the origin of its claims or premises.


Your study's claim: atheism is held by the smartest people.
Implicit premise: smarter people produce more true beliefs about the world then less smart people
Implicit argument: therefore atheism is true.

Logical Form:

The origin of the claim is presented.

Therefore, the claim is true/false.

Example #1:

Lisa was brainwashed as a child into thinking that people are generally good. Therefore, people are not generally good.

Explanation: That fact that Lisa may have been brainwashed as a child, is irrelevant to the claim that people are generally good.

Example #2:

He was born to Catholic parents and raised as a Catholic until his confirmation in 8th grade. Therefore, he is bound to want to defend some Catholic traditions and, therefore, cannot be taken seriously.

Explanation: I am referring to myself here. While my upbringing was Catholic, and I have long since considered myself a Catholic, that is irrelevant to any defenses I make of Catholicism -- like the fact that many local churches do focus on helping the community through charity work. If I make an argument defending anything Catholic, the argument should be evaluated on the argument itself, not on the history of the one making the argument or how I came to hold the claims as true or false.

Exception: At times, the origin of the claim is relevant to the truth of the claim.

I believe in closet monsters because my big sister told me unless I do whatever she tells me, the closet monsters will eat me.

References:



Engel, S. M., Soldan, A., & Durand, K. (2007). The Study of Philosophy. Rowman & Littlefield.

IN YOUR FAKE RESEARCH YOU MAKE AN APPEAL TO IQ (a genetic trait) an an explanation of a claim about God's existence.

If we are uneducated or fooled by your research-speak, we might miss the fact that the Kalam and leibnizian cosmological arguments for God's existence stand or fall based on the soundness of the argument and truth-value of their premises.

So too for the fine-tuning argument for life based on the laws and values of the constants and other teleological arguments such as the sudden arrival of massive amounts of complex specified information in first biological life.

So too the moral argument from the intuitive notion that objective moral values and duties exist.

Or various transcendent arguments such as the strange applicability of math towards discovery of features of our universe to there seem to be no atheists in fox holes.

Your pretense is getting absurd.

There are good arguments in support of both theistic and atheistic inferences. But why should we let "research" dodge engaging the evidence and premises and arguments?

 

[durangodawood]

...GENETIC FALLACY
(also known as: fallacy of origins, fallacy of virtue)....

Did you identify a specific instance of where (or explanation of how) the authors of this paper committed a genetic fallacy earlier. Post #? Now I'm curious.

 

[Uber Genius]

Did you identify a specific instance of where (or explanation of how) the authors of this paper committed a genetic fallacy earlier. Post #? Now I'm curious.

Yes. And it is obvious on its face. So you tell me how they are guilty of a faulty design now that I have spelled out the fallacy. And any curiosity at all would have answered your own question. This isn't a connect the dots puzzle. I presented the fallacy, copied and pasted it, explained in detail why such fallacies are necessarily false. So spend more time studying why logical dodges are not a way to investigate philosophical truth claims.