Who is smarter?

[Faint]

Does anyone know if there have been an studies that show religious people to be (on average) less intelligent than agnostic/non-religious people? Or vice versa?

I ask this because it seems like I read more stories about religious people doing stupid things as opposed to the non-religious, but maybe I'm just biased.

For example, consider all the riots this past week over A CARTOON.

For another example, consider the story below about some folk in Arkansas giving CPR to a nearly-drowned chicken:

"I picked her up and started giving her the Heimlich maneuver. I pushed on her belly and patted her on the back," he said. As a preacher, he also thought to say a few words over her. "I said, 'In the name of Jesus, you will live. You will not die.'"

The bird was one limp, wet hen, but "she started twitching," Becky said.

[snip]

She began mouth-to-beak resuscitation, "I breathed into its beak, and its dad-gum eyes popped open. I breathed into its beak again, and its eyes popped open again. "I said, 'I think this chicken's alive now. Keep it warm.'" She admitted that she didn't know how to find a pulse on a chicken.

[snip]

"The next day Jackie put her in a box on the front porch in the sunshine," Becky said. She said she was also sitting in the sunshine reading her Bible. "It started making a noise. I was reading about Lazarus being raised from the dead, and it jumped up on the edge of the box and was balancing there."

[snip]

Oh, yes. Boo Boo [the chicken] has been renamed. She's now called Lazarette, a female version of Lazarus.

Does anyone have any stories of agnostics acting this ridiculous?

 

[mr.guy]

ridiculously.

 

[Evelyn]

Faint, I think this goes beyond bias. I'm certainly not going to riot but you attaching intelligence for acts of others to the whole of "religious people" seems rather bigoted of you. I'm offended by this thread.

 

[CaptainXeroid]

...maybe I'm just biased...

Here's the answer. There are plenty of stories people can site to prove any presumption they were predisposed to believe in the first place.

 

[SCIRLIN]

thanks for the tip i am going to try that to my death bird.

 

[Cynic]

Does anyone have any stories of agnostics acting this ridiculous?

Yes, I have some personal ones.

 

[Mike182]

there are inteligent people and there are (looking for a non offensive word) less inteligent people in both religious and non religious groups

what point are you trying to make?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

In my opinion, nearly half the theists I've met are below average.

 

[Revasser]

There are more stupid religious people in the world because there are more significantly more religious people in the world than there are non-religious people. I imagine the proportions, however, would be roughly the same.

 

[Bangbang]

My answer would be offensive so I will keep it to myself.

 

[jewscout]

Here's the answer. There are plenty of stories people can site to prove any presumption they were predisposed to believe in the first place.

:clap haha:clap

 

[jeffrey]

I tend to think that, as a whole, Atheists tend to be more knowledgable then most. There are exceptions, but look at this forum alone. IMO, 3 of the top 4 people on this forum I call super-intelligent are Atheists.

 

[Faint]

Hey now people, I was trying to be honest by admitting I'm a little biased (based on experience) towards thinking that religious types are less intelligent, but I AM open to reading some studies (if you can cite any) that show the opposite, so don't get all huffy. I've done stupid things too, and I'm not religious. But on average, I ask again, who do you think is smarter?

Here's something I found on google. It seems self-explanatory but you might note the dates on most of the studies are very old. Anyone have anything more current?:

Myth: Intelligent people tend to be more religious.

Fact: Intelligent people tend to be more secular.

The broad consensus of research shows that people with higher IQs tend to be less religious, not more so.

The following is a review of several studies of IQ and religiosity, paraphrased and summarized from Burnham Beckwith's article, "The Effect of Intelligence on Religious Faith," Free Inquiry, Spring 1986: (1)

STUDIES OF STUDENTS

1. Thomas Howells, 1927
Study of 461 students showed religiously conservative students "are, in general, relatively inferior in intellectual ability."

2. Hilding Carlsojn, 1933
Study of 215 students showed that "there is a tendency for the more intelligent undergraduate to be sympathetic toward… atheism."

3. Abraham Franzblau, 1934
Confirming Howells and Carlson, tested 354 Jewish children, aged 10-16. Found a negative correlation between religiosity and IQ as measured by the Terman intelligence test.

4. Thomas Symington, 1935
Tested 400 young people in colleges and church groups. He reported, "There is a constant positive relation in all the groups between liberal religious thinking and mental ability… There is also a constant positive relation between liberal scores and intelligence…"

5. Vernon Jones, 1938
Tested 381 students, concluding "a slight tendency for intelligence and liberal attitudes to go together."

6. A. R. Gilliland, 1940
At variance with all other studies, found "little or no relationship between intelligence and attitude toward god."

7. Donald Gragg, 1942
Reported an inverse correlation between 100 ACE freshman test scores and Thurstone "reality of god" scores.

8. Brown and Love, 1951
At the University of Denver, tested 613 male and female students. The mean test scores of non-believers was 119 points, and for believers it was 100. The non-believers ranked in the 80th percentile, and believers in the 50th. Their findings "strongly corroborate those of Howells."

9. Michael Argyle, 1958
Concluded that "although intelligent children grasp religious concepts earlier, they are also the first to doubt the truth of religion, and intelligent students are much less likely to accept orthodox beliefs."

10. Jeffrey Hadden, 1963
Found no correlation between intelligence and grades. This was an anomalous finding, since GPA corresponds closely with intelligence. Other factors may have influenced the results at the University of Wisconsin.

11. Young, Dustin and Holtzman, 1966
Average religiosity decreased as GPA rose.

12. James Trent, 1967
Polled 1400 college seniors. Found little difference, but high-ability students in his sample group were over-represented.

13. C. Plant and E. Minium, 1967
The more intelligent students were less religious, both before entering college and after 2 years of college.

14. Robert Wuthnow, 1978
Of 532 students, 37 percent of Christians, 58 percent of apostates, and 53 percent of non-religious scored above average on SATs.

15. Hastings and Hoge, 1967, 1974
Polled 200 college students and found no significant correlations.

16. Norman Poythress, 1975
Mean SATs for strongly antireligious (1148), moderately anti-religious (1119), slightly antireligious (1108), and religious (1022).

17. Wiebe and Fleck, 1980
Studied 158 male and female Canadian university students. They reported "nonreligious S's tended to be strongly intelligent" and "more intelligent than religious S's."

STUDENT BODY COMPARISONS

1. Rose Goldsen, 1952
Percentage of students who believe in a divine god: Harvard 30; UCLA 32; Dartmouth 35; Yale 36; Cornell 42; Wayne 43; Weslyan 43; Michigan 45; Fisk 60; Texas 62; North Carolina 68.

2. National Review Study, 1970
Percentage of students who believe in a Spirit or Divine God: Reed 15; Brandeis 25; Sarah Lawrence 28; Williams 36; Stanford 41; Boston U. 41; Yale 42; Howard 47; Indiana 57; Davidson 59; S. Carolina 65; Marquette 77.

3. Caplovitz and Sherrow, 1977
Apostasy rates rose continuously from 5 percent in "low" ranked schools to 17 percent in "high" ranked schools.

4. Niemi, Ross, and Alexander, 1978
In elite schools, organized religion was judged important by only 26 percent of their students, compared with 44 percent of all students.

STUDIES OF VERY-HIGH IQ GROUPS

1. Terman, 1959
Studied group with IQ's over 140. Of men, 10 percent held strong religious belief, of women 18 percent. Sixty-two percent of men and 57 percent of women claimed "little religious inclination" while 28 percent of the men and 23 percent of the women claimed it was "not at all important."

2. Warren and Heist, 1960
Found no differences among National Merit Scholars. Results may have been effected by the fact that NM scholars are not selected on the basis of intelligence or grades alone, but also on "leadership" and such like.

3. Southern and Plant, 1968
Studied 42 male and 30 female members of Mensa. Mensa members were much less religious in belief than the typical American college alumnus or adult.

STUDIES Of SCIENTISTS

1. William S. Ament, 1927
C. C. Little, president of the University of Michigan, checked persons listed in Who's Who in America: "Unitarians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Universalists, and Presbyterians [who are less religious] are… far more numerous in Who's Who than would be expected on the basis of the population which they form. Baptists, Methodists, and Catholics are distinctly less numerous."

Ament confirmed Little's conclusion. He noted that Unitarians, the least religious, were more than 40 times as numerous in Who's Who as in the U.S. population.

2. Lehman and Witty, 1931
Identified 1189 scientists found in both Who's Who (1927) and American Men of Science (1927). Only 25 percent of those listed in the latter and 50 percent of those in the former reported their religious denomination, despite the specific request to do so, under the heading of "religious denomination (if any)." Well over 90 percent of the general population claims religious affiliation. The figure of 25 percent suggests far less religiosity among scientists.

Unitarians were 81.4 times as numerous among eminent scientists as non-Unitarians.

3. Kelley and Fisk, 1951
Found a negative (-.39) correlation between the strength of religious values and research competence. [How these were measured is unknown.]

4. Ann Roe, 1953
Interviewed 64 "eminent scientists, nearly all members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences or the American Philosophical Society. She reported that, while nearly all of them had religious parents and had attended Sunday school, 'now only three of these men are seriously active in church. A few others attend upon occasion, or even give some financial support to a church which they do not attend… All the others have long since dismissed religion as any guide to them, and the church plays no part in their lives… A few are militantly atheistic, but most are just not interested.'"

5. Francis Bello, 1954
Interviewed or questionnaired 107 nonindustrial scientists under the age of 40 judged by senior colleagues to be outstanding. Of the 87 responses, 45 percent claimed to be "agnostic or atheistic" and an additional 22 percent claimed no religious affiliation. For 20 most eminent, "the proportion who are now a-religious is considerably higher than in the entire survey group."

6. Jack Chambers, 1964
Questionnaired 740 US psychologists and chemists. He reported, "The highly creative men… significantly more often show either no preference for a particular religion or little or no interest in religion." Found that the most eminent psychologists showed 40 percent no preference, 16 percent for the most eminent chemists.

7. Vaughan, Smith, and Sjoberg, 1965
Polled 850 US physicists, zoologists, chemical engineers, and geologists listed in American Men of Science (1955) on church membership, and attendance patterns, and belief in afterlife. Of the 642 replies, 38.5 percent did not believe in an afterlife, whereas 31.8 percent did. Belief in immortality was less common among major university staff than among those employed by business, government, or minor universities. The Gallup poll taken about this time showed that two-thirds of the U.S. population believed in an afterlife, so scientists were far less religious than the typical adult.


Why does this correlation exist? The first answer that comes to mind is that religious beliefs tend to be more illogical or incoherent than secular beliefs, and intelligent people tend to recognize that more quickly. But this explanation will surely be rejected by religious people, who will seek other explanations and rationalizations.
(http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-thinkingchristians.htm)

 

[nutshell]

IQ is overrated. It's not IQ, but behavioral traits that make a true difference in life.

 

[Faint]

Okay, here's something more recent:

In Explorations: An undergraduate research journal, Regan Clarke reports religious belief and behavior were negatively correlated with SAT scores in the USA.[4] In 2000, noted skeptic Michael Shermer found a negative correlation between education and religosity in the United States, though Rice University indicates this may not apply to the social sciences.[5]

Several studies on Americans focus on the beliefs of high-IQ individuals. In one study, 90% of the general population surveyed professed a distinct belief in a personal god and afterlife, while only 40% of the scientists with a BS surveyed did so, and only 10% of those considered "eminent."[6]. Another study found that mathematicians were just over 40%, biologists just under 30%, and physicists were barely over 20% likely to believe in God.[7]

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.[8]

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiousness_and_intelligence)

 

[Cynic]

Okay, here's something more recent:

In Explorations: An undergraduate research journal, Regan Clarke reports religious belief and behavior were negatively correlated with SAT scores in the USA.[4] In 2000, noted skeptic Michael Shermer found a negative correlation between education and religosity in the United States, though Rice University indicates this may not apply to the social sciences.[5]

Several studies on Americans focus on the beliefs of high-IQ individuals. In one study, 90% of the general population surveyed professed a distinct belief in a personal god and afterlife, while only 40% of the scientists with a BS surveyed did so, and only 10% of those considered "eminent."[6]. Another study found that mathematicians were just over 40%, biologists just under 30%, and physicists were barely over 20% likely to believe in God.[7]

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.[8]

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiousness_and_intelligence)

Information is the fuel of intelligence, but not the engine. I have no doubt that religious people generally have the same intellectual capacity as the non religious.

 

[michel]

Does anyone know if there have been an studies that show religious people to be (on average) less intelligent than agnostic/non-religious people? Or vice versa?

I ask this because it seems like I read more stories about religious people doing stupid things as opposed to the non-religious, but maybe I'm just biased.

For example, consider all the riots this past week over A CARTOON.

For another example, consider the story below about some folk in Arkansas giving CPR to a nearly-drowned chicken:

"I picked her up and started giving her the Heimlich maneuver. I pushed on her belly and patted her on the back," he said. As a preacher, he also thought to say a few words over her. "I said, 'In the name of Jesus, you will live. You will not die.'"

The bird was one limp, wet hen, but "she started twitching," Becky said.

[snip]

She began mouth-to-beak resuscitation, "I breathed into its beak, and its dad-gum eyes popped open. I breathed into its beak again, and its eyes popped open again. "I said, 'I think this chicken's alive now. Keep it warm.'" She admitted that she didn't know how to find a pulse on a chicken.

[snip]

"The next day Jackie put her in a box on the front porch in the sunshine," Becky said. She said she was also sitting in the sunshine reading her Bible. "It started making a noise. I was reading about Lazarus being raised from the dead, and it jumped up on the edge of the box and was balancing there."

[snip]

Oh, yes. Boo Boo [the chicken] has been renamed. She's now called Lazarette, a female version of Lazarus.

Does anyone have any stories of agnostics acting this ridiculous?

Yes, but because I am Religious and therefore 'mentally challenged', I can't remember it!:biglaugh:

Faint, you have come up with some wierd ideas, but this beats all of them!

 

[c0da]

I personally think that there are more important things than intelligence, and that if somebody lives a life in which they give back to their fellow man and cares for others, then they should still be held in very high regard, whatever their level of intelligence

 

[Revasser]

Here's a page that goes about trying to refute the "atheists are smarter" claim. I only skimmed it and it definitely seems to have an agenda, but you guys can judge for yourselves.

Also, are there any studies from outside the USA? I'm not sure how representative the US would be of world population considering the fairly hostile attitude toward the intelligentsia in general that exists there among a lot of the mainstream religious folks there that doesn't really have an equivalent anywhere else in the Western world.

With regards to IQ tests, though, I am skeptical of their effectiveness. As far as I've been able to see, IQ tests measure little more than a person's ability to do standardised IQ tests. Back in High School, I participated in an experiment with about 30 other students. For 6 weeks we took a different standardised IQ test a week (I volunteered because it got me out of maths class a day a week, ugh). My IQ shot up between week 1 and week 6 (from about 135 on the first test to 146 on the sixth, IIRC) as I became accustomed to the format of the tests and developed techniques for getting through them. Most other students showed similar results. As such, I don't put a great deal of stock in IQ tests. Their scope is limited and the system is flawed. The numbers don't mean much to me anymore, to be honest.

 

[BucephalusBB]

You can make an avarage from anything. I think it's not weird that you want to compare avarages with eachother. no matter what the answer is, the question isn't weird.