Are those of higher intelligence less likely to believe in intelligent

[zomgwtf]

the data seems fairly discontinuous for that to be true.

Why?

 

[Proton Soup]

Why?

well, look at what happens if your IQ is just above 95. your religiosity isn't some average, it's a range of values from about 10 to 40%. that looks more like data on individuals. I'm not sure what to make of it unless it's supposed to be some sort of co-mixture of studies.

edit: actually, i see on the middle graph now that the title says by country.

 

[Frame Dragger]

I was far more impressed with the data provided by Gokul43201.

 

[lisab]

Any idea how IQ was tested?

I'm especially curious about the Mean IQ vs Religiosity by Country. The graph looks fishy. For one, most countries are below average. And there's a cluster of countries with a mean IQ under 75! Looks bogus to me.

 

[Proton Soup]

i am also wondering if NIST can calibrate a religiosity scale

 

[zomgwtf]

well, look at what happens if your IQ is just above 95. your religiosity isn't some average, it's a range of values from about 10 to 40%. that looks more like data on individuals. I'm not sure what to make of it unless it's supposed to be some sort of co-mixture of studies.

edit: actually, i see on the middle graph now that the title says by country.

Regardless of if it's by country or if it's by 'groups of people with this mean IQ' it still shows the same thing. The religiousity scale however I'm iffy about however in my experience I think that graph seems about right. Africans I know and have dated are MUCH more religous and fundamentalist believers than any other people I've ever met.

 

[Proton Soup]

Regardless of if it's by country or if it's by 'groups of people with this mean IQ' it still shows the same thing. The religiousity scale however I'm iffy about however in my experience I think that graph seems about right. Africans I know and have dated are MUCH more religous and fundamentalist believers than any other people I've ever met.

and you think it is a function of their intelligence?

it's not that i doubt there is an association, I'm just not sure what it all means. the US is generally considered a pretty religious country i think, and i also expect IQ here to be pretty close to the generally-accepted mean of 100. but what does "percent religiosity" mean to a researcher? what does 100% actually mean? does 10% mean you simply go to church on christmas and easter?

 

[Redbelly98]

It's because that's not a demographic graph of IQ, it's a graph of percentage of people with this IQ believing religion is very important.

There is a problem with this interpretation of the graph ...

So it would appear that people with IQs above about 95 have a tend to believe that religion is not important.

you have to read the titles

EDIT: to make it more clear the graph shows that around 11% of people with an IQ of 105 believe religion is very important. Thats for the first 3 graphs.

Okay, then what % of people with an IQ of 96 believe religion is important?

 

[zomgwtf]

There is a problem with this interpretation of the graph ...Okay, then what % of people with an IQ of 96 believe religion is important?

People in the mean IQ of 96 would have around 24% of them believing religion is very important... How can you not see that

EDIT: wait I see there are plenty more IQs of 96. There should be a key then.

I was wrong, I accept defeat on the analysis of those graphs! It still doesn't change the fact that as the mean IQ rises the tendency is belif that religion is very important goes down.

 

[jeffonfire]

Chill man, don't bash him.

 

[DaveC426913]

Not sure of the point in posting all three of these, since they are all the same data set.

http://ccannizzaro.com/images/iq_vs_religion_lg.bmp
http://lifeloveandcs.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/iq_vs_religion.png

 

[zomgwtf]

lol, so you repost them in a quote dave! Awesome
They arent' the same though, they have different colours an different fonts. As well some of the data points are different.

EDIT: One point is different on one graph!

 

[DaveC426913]

lol, so you repost them in a quote dave!

Yeah, I normally never do that. But this time I felt it was necessary to make my point.

 

[Gokul43201]

There is a problem with this interpretation of the graph ...


Okay, then what % of people with an IQ of 96 believe religion is important?

This is not a question that can be answered from the plot, as I suspect you were hoping to demonstrate.

Here's the origin of that now pretty well-circulated plot: it was essentially put together by bloggers at Gene Expressions, using country-by-country data from a Pew Survey on religiosity and similar data from Lynn & Vanhanen (2002) on IQs. The data is legitimate - any inferences of causality are likely treading on shaky ground.

http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/001523.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

 

[Redbelly98]

This is not a question that can be answered from the plot, as I suspect you were hoping to demonstrate.

Yes, exactly.

 

[zomgwtf]

This is not a question that can be answered from the plot, as I suspect you were hoping to demonstrate.

Yes I was mislead by the graphs and he was correcting me.

 

[MotoH]

So correct me if I am wrong.
These graphs show, the smarter you are, the less likely you are to believe in a God?

 

[zomgwtf]

So correct me if I am wrong.
These graphs show, the smarter you are, the less likely you are to believe in a God?

Not really, they show that countries with a higher mean IQ have a tendency to not place so much importance on religion. This means nothing about belief in God, ID, supernatural etc. it also doesn't show a relation between higher individual intelligence and belief in these things. The higher IQ and lower tendency to place importance on religion could just be coincidence based on how the countries have developed...

 

[MotoH]

So it basically has the same meaning as how important chocolate is to Neapolitan ice cream and how smart you are?

 

[DaveC426913]

So it basically has the same meaning as how important chocolate is to Neapolitan ice cream and how smart you are?

There is a correlation between IQ and lack of importance of God. But correlation does not imply causation. There may be a third factor that is the cause for both.

Contrarily, there is probably no correlative factor between chocolate ice cream and IQ.

 

[Gokul43201]

There is a correlation between IQ and lack of importance of God. But correlation does not imply causation. There may be a third factor that is the cause for both.

It has been posited by Lynn & Vanhanen that it may be the per capita GDP of the countries driving the IQs and had further been suggested in a few blogs I've read that the GDP may drive religiosity as well.

 

[arunma]

There is a problem with this interpretation of the graph ...


Okay, then what % of people with an IQ of 96 believe religion is important?

The problem here, I think, is that the information you want has been integrated out when calculating each data point. I don't know how their binning is (I assume this is a histogram), but in every IQ bin, they're only giving us the mean value of the IQ. As time consuming as it would be, I would be interested in seeing a distribution function of IQs for each religiosity % bin. My guess is that for the higher points, the distribution would be not-so-sharply peaked in the low IQ, and have a very large tail extending into higher IQs.

I would also be interested to know what's up with their binning. There's no data between 40% and ~55% religiosity. Are there just no moderately religious people in this data set? And as far as interpretation goes, the fact that the mean IQ of the less religious people is only 110 suggests that there are a lot of stupid, irreligious people out there. Sure, there's a definite trend to the data. But there are also enough outliers that you can't make the conclusions that the graph would suggest.

I don't think you need misleading graphs like this to argue that religion can make people do stupid things. That much is patently obvious by looking at creationists, anti-vaccine people, certain religious Republicans, Fox News anchors/viewers, etc. But the issue is a lot more complicated than "only stupid people are religious," and I think this needs to be recognized.

 

[Proton Soup]

It has been posited by Lynn & Vanhanen that it may be the per capita GDP of the countries driving the IQs and had further been suggested in a few blogs I've read that the GDP may drive religiosity as well.

i suspect it is likely that when people don't know where their next meal is coming from, that there would be more prayer. and when you never go hungry, you don't give it much thought.

 

[MotoH]

It could also be, because there is less technology and less information flowing around, they don't have much else to do besides be very religious. Something like a time occupier for poorer countries.

 

[jeffonfire]

If you barley had enough money to buy food and had aids you to would want something to believe in after death too.

 

[DaveC426913]

I don't think you need misleading graphs like this to argue that religion can make people do stupid things. That much is patently obvious by looking at creationists, anti-vaccine people, certain religious Republicans, Fox News anchors/viewers, etc.

Religion doesn't make people do stupid things. Stupid people do stupid things.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Religion doesn't make people do stupid things. Stupid people do stupid things.

...And then find convenient post hoc explanations: books, witches, religion, videogames, sex, not enough sex, etc... etc...

When are we just going to say, "wow, you're stupid, you're a sociopath, and you're... just a bit of a ****-up." It's not hard to make the distinctions.

 

[DaveC426913]

...And then find convenient post hoc explanations

Perfect. That's what I was trying to say.

 

[celebrei]

I sometimes question the validity of psychometrics, Richard Feynman had a measured IQ of only 125 and he was one of the greatest physicist of the 20th century...

 

[Frame Dragger]

I sometimes question the validity of psychometrics, Richard Feynman had a measured IQ of only 125 and he was one of the greatest physicist of the 20th century...

The IQ test... doesn't exist. There are several standard tests which yield a commonly accepted IQ. The thing is, if you have an ENORMOUS strength in one area, it has a limited ability (think between 1 and 10) to give you credit. Likewise, if for some reason, you struggle with paired-word association, or some element of visual geometry, or have a learning disability (Dyslexia, ADHD, etc...) will skew the score.

So, let's say you're a Feynman, and therefore a 20 out of 10 for math. You still get "10". One or two elements of the test he didn't care for or focus on, or had issues with would throw it off. Still, 125 is a very respectable IQ.

To be honest, IQ tests are best used in the context of a wider battery of neurological testing when someone is disabled. Determining their living conditions, the need or lack of education, etc is very important.

If you're a genius, you don't need the Windsor IQ score to tell people. However, some people do well on some of the various tests, and it's a reason to form clubs (such a s MENSA) where it is considered important. IQ tests are very crude, but in VAST quantities can show trends in predominantly white westerners.

The first question with Psychometrics should always be: Why are we doing this? What is the possible use of knowing your IQ, whatever that happens to be defined as at a given period of time? Do we really believe that a single axis such as Intelligene can meaningfully predict whatever the hell you define "religiosity" to be?

An IQ test is like a specific spatial configuration or operator... it's incredibly useful within a set of rigid rules, but outside of that it's no longer relevant.

EDIT: Then again, Einstein had an IQ of 163 which is absolutely off the charts (not literally)... so obviously it was accurate for him. 125 with a spark of genius that can't be quantified isn't hard to imagine either. Just to be the devil's advocate yah know.