Is There a Correlation Between Atheism and IQ?

[Dooga Blackrazor]

I read on a site once that higher IQ is found amongst Atheists, and I also heard that SAT scores were also correlated with religious affiliation. Does anyone have a reliable source that suggests or proves an Atheism and IQ correlation? Thanks.

 

[loseyourname]

http://www.objectivethought.com/atheism/iqstats.html is a catalogue of studies conducted over the last century that suggest a negative correlation between IQ and religiosity. It doesn't provide any links to these studies, however. It does talk about an article from Skeptic Magazine near the bottom of the page. You might be able to find that article in the online Skeptic archive.

 

[dextercioby]

There's no connection to the IQ,but definitely to the common sense...achieved after studying science intensively...

Daniel.

 

[Joel]

Hmm, just a thought: correlation is one thing and cause is another. I can correlate frequent ice-cream consumtion to increased levels of drowning because they both tend to occur in the summer. So...

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.

- From the link

What comes to mind may or may not have anything to do with the actual explanation. Maybe the university people are just so busy with their studies/research that they just don't have time or energy to practice any religion? Who knows, but my point is that just finding correlation without a testable theory is not very much of a study.

 

[franznietzsche]

Need to not post after have gone without sleep for so long...

 

[dextercioby]

Nope,it said IQ<---------->religion...IQ is both sothing you're born with and something you practice...While religion is something that's being stuffed to you.

There's no connection.It would defy logics.

Daniel.

 

[Andrew Mason]

I read on a site once that higher IQ is found amongst Atheists, and I also heard that SAT scores were also correlated with religious affiliation. Does anyone have a reliable source that suggests or proves an Atheism and IQ correlation? Thanks.

Atheism is a 'belief' based on faith - that no God exists - and is fundamentally the same as a religious belief.

There has been an interesting ebb and flow between religion and science. Galileo, Newton, Joule, Kelvin and Maxwell were all devoutly religious scientists. I don't think it is accurate to suggest that these scientists lacked common sense or intelligence. Until we understand everything - all the questions posed and all of them conclusively answered - perhaps it is best to keep an open mind on the subject.

AM

 

[selfAdjoint]

Atheism is a 'belief' based on faith - that no God exists - and is fundamentally the same as a religious belief.

There has been an interesting ebb and flow between religion and science. Galileo, Newton, Joule, Kelvin and Maxwell were all devoutly religious scientists. I don't think it is accurate to suggest that these scientists lacked common sense or intelligence. Until we understand everything - all the questions posed and all of them conclusively answered - perhaps it is best to keep an open mind on the subject.

AM

"Religion" in this country mostly means received religion. It is based on childhood teaching and authority. You believe what you were taught or what the group you have joined teaches.

Atheism, as the rejection of received religion requires one to think for onesself. Authority ("famous atheists") is distinctly a secondary thing and of course some famous atheists like Madalyn Ohair and Josef Stalin were scarcely poster children for atheism. Whether you want to call atheism itself a religion in the broader sense is up to you. It has nothing to do with the correlation.

 

[Dayle Record]

I think that Athiests are people who didn't invent a god, and don't believe the rhetoric of people that did.

 

[K.J.Healey]

I would have to disagree with the original poster. In the scientific community myself, It would appear that the majority of my coworkers are religious to an extent. Usually they all have (like me) the core beliefs, but they're not regular attendees to church or whatever.
When I first started my physics career, the more I learned, the less and less faith I had. Science just seemed so disproving of any religious beliefs. But then I hit a point where it started increasing again. Once I realized that really, this universe should not exist, then my beliefs incresed. Theres just too much that's unexplainable, too many "but why?" questions in science.

 

[Bartholomew]

Interesting that IQ is negatively correlated with religiosity... and both religiosity and IQ are positively correlated with physical health.

 

[K.J.Healey]

Im not sure about that site, it has the table:

                     Religion is        Religion can
                     "very important    "answer all or most
Respondents          in their life"     of today's problems"
------------------------------------------------------------
Attended college         53 percent         58 percent
No college               63                 65

So its saying that over half of the people who attended college believe religion is very important in their life? Isn't this site supposed to be showing how intelligent people aren't religious? But here it shows the opposite... Nothing is really convincing at all so far. I don't think there's that great of a correlation.

 

[Bartholomew]

That isn't how correlation works. It doesn't mean that intelligent people are not religious, it means they are less religious than less intelligent people in a somewhat linear fashion (more intelligence --> less religion).

 

[Janitor]

There are only two modern-day physicists I can think of who openly avow a religious faith: John Polkinghorne and Abdus Salaam. And since the deities they believe in are not the same, at least one of them has to be wrong.

 

[Lacy33]

Inspiration and creativity

Have studies been done on increased IQ after listening to music, seeing beauty, falling in love or being impassioned with something? I think so.
So an Atheist can have a higher IQ than a person who is not gaining creative inspiration from the teaching within the religious system they find themselves in. Makes sense.
From what I have see of organized religion, there is not a lot of independent investigation encouraged and it might be by following ones own intuition that brings oneself to flashes of creativity, enlightenment, sparks of genius. Seems creative people are always looking for inspiration almost like addicts.
This is pretty common knowledge. I think.

 

[Joel]

Nope,it said IQ<---------->religion...IQ is both sothing you're born with and something you practice...While religion is something that's being stuffed to you.

There's no connection.It would defy logics.

Daniel.

Yeah, but there where seven studies about scientists' religious tendencies that I was thinking about, when I spoke about university people. I admit, it wasn't in my quote, so my bad.

But I would still say my point holds also when talking about a correlation between IQ and religiosity. Also from the link:

Francis (1979)(using fequency of prayer and chruch attendence) 2272 school children between 9-11,"found no relationship between school assigned IQ's and religious behavior after controling for paternal social class."

(My bolding).

Statistics is a very good foundation to build theory upon, but in itself it says very little.

But in the end, we seem to agree: the relationship between Atheism and IQ is questionable, even if you can find a statistical correlation between the two.

 

[MrMorden]

there is no real correlation. I am religious, and of the two times I've have tooken my i.q., it was a 129 the first time, and 141 the second time. i believe that my actual i.q. lies somewhere in between, but the point is, i lack neither intelligence or common sense, yet am still...religious(if that's even the word i should use to describe myself) I am against, to a certain extent, organized religion, but i do have my own personal beliefs about God that i have come to from careful observation, not blind faith.

Forgive me, but it seems like arrogance produces such statements that religious people are dumber than non-religious people, which in itself is ludicrous, because IQ doesn't really represent any form of intelligence other than linear problem solving. for example, people with high IQs may not be capable of comprehending certain concepts that people with lower IQs find second nature. but, before i ramble any further, ill leave it at this for awhile

 

[Aquamarine]

This topic has been discussed before:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=46948

 

[Mentat]

Forgive me, but it seems like arrogance produces such statements that religious people are dumber than non-religious people, which in itself is ludicrous, because IQ doesn't really represent any form of intelligence other than linear problem solving.

This raises an interesting sub-problem: Does the ability for linear problem-solving preclude the acceptance of a belief-system/religion?

I don't see why it would (indeed, one could probably say that some people hold to rationality and logic "religiously), but it's worth considering.

 

[Curious3141]

I want to have my say (in a civil fashion of course) but I realize that it's useless in the long run, because sooner or later an admin is going to close this thread. The prior thread that was linked was closed even though it seemed fairly civil in the end with no flaming or ad-hominems. Yet, it was still closed.

 

[xJuggleboy]

Is it possible to start a poll on here to see what we (most likely people with higher IQs and college degrees) think about religion?

 

[MrMorden]

i don't understnad why this thread would have to be closed, at least not yet

 

[GCT]

A lot of it probably depends on the degree to which an individual is an atheist or religious. I've encountered some pretty dumb radical atheists.

 

[Solomaxwell6]

<i>Im not sure about that site, it has the table:
Religion is Religion can
"very important "answer all or most
Respondents in their life" of today's problems"
------------------------------------------------------------
Attended college 53 percent 58 percent
No college 63 65

So its saying that over half of the people who attended college believe religion is very important in their life? Isn't this site supposed to be showing how intelligent people aren't religious? But here it shows the opposite... Nothing is really convincing at all so far. I don't think there's that great of a correlation.</i>

But more than 53% of people are theists. Also, it's 53% of people who go to college are theists, while 63% of those who don't go to college are theists. So, they ARE more likely to not go to college than we atheists.

 

[loseyourname]

53% of people who go to college are theists, while 63% of those who don't go to college are theists. So, they ARE more likely to not go to college than we atheists.

That is a correlation. It isn't a particularly strong one, but this and other studies seem to suggest that, as a general statistical trend, non-theists are more intelligent than theists. This speaks only to means and distributions and there isn't necessarily very much of a difference, but there is a difference. If you are a highly intelligent person, you are less likely to be religious. This doesn't mean that all highly intelligent people will be non-religious, just that the proportion of highly intelligent people that are religious is smaller than the proportion of less intelligent people that are religious.

 

[0TheSwerve0]

Anyone know if racism and IQ are negatively correlated?

Also, anyone consider that there might be more important things that IQ doesn't measure that relate to theism? Since most human populations believed in some form of religion for most of human history, does that mean our ancestors were idiots? Beyond the misuse of religion for political control and conquest (there weren't many problems in early, small population egalitarian societies), religious systems work to heal social ills and keep things in a state of balance..
e.g. the interpersonal theory of disease in traditional theories of illness. Here's some text from a cultural anthropology book:

Simply stated, in the interpersonal theory of disease it is assumed that illness is caused not by microorganisms but by tensions or conflicts in social relations. So-called "natural" explanations for illness fail to take into account that witches, spirits, and souls are mediating concepts; they are theoretical entities that, like germs, provide a link between social cause-tension and conflict- and a physical result - illness or death.

Further
The Ndembu [agricultural society in Zambia] recognize that social strain and stress may produce physical illness, and one way to treat illness is to treat the sources of social strain. Western medical practice has been slow to recognize the impact of stress on physical health, but there is significant evidence that certain life events can significantly increase the likelihood of becoming ill.

So, is it that belief in religion requires less IQ/less intelligence or is it more a matter of how what your culture values and needs for social balance? Err, something like that.

 

[hitssquad]

Variables inversely correlated with g

Anyone know if racism and IQ are negatively correlated?

http://www.childrenofmillennium.org/science.htm

• Variables inversely correlated with g:
  
  • Accident proneness
  • Acquiescence
  • Aging
  • Alcoholism
  • Authoritarianism
  • Conservatism (of social views)
  • Crime
  • Delinquency
  • Dogmatism
  • Falsification ("Lie" scores)
  • Hysteria (versus other neuroses)
  • Impulsivity
  • Infant mortality
  • Psychoticism
  • Racial prejudice[/color]
  • Reaction times
  • Smoking
  • Truancy
  • Weight/height ratio

 

[0TheSwerve0]

Smoking eh? Interesting, not what I would have guessed.
What about those strange geniuses that have all sorts of OCD's, suffer from some paranoia, etc that come up with brilliant theories and inventions? I guess their g is high.

 

[Joel]

Alright, even if there seem to be some studies that don't find a significant correlation between IQ and religion, let's assume we work with a data set that does. Okay, the OP asked only for a correlation, but what conclusions can we (you, dooga) make based on it? What theory is tested?

Many of the studies presented in LYN's link present only statistics, no discussion, no methods and no theory. Yet, the site claims:

The consensus here is clear: more intelligent people tend not to believe in religion. And this observation is given added force when you consider that the above studies span a broad range of time, subjects and methodologies, and yet arrive at the same conclusion.

(Bold added).

How can they make such a conclusion without even stating what theory they are testing? Much less point out the variety of methods used in the presented studies. Without producing some more convincing discussion, IMHO the only thing they can claim is that there is more sets of statistical data that has a positive correlation than that hasn't. And that is not enough to say, "more intelligent people tend not to believe in religion", because it implies a generalization from the samples that can't be made without a theory.

I realize the site doesn't pretend to be a study, which is fine, such information is also needed. But to explain in some meaningful social scientific way if, why and how IQ and religion is related, I will need something more convincing.

 

[franznietzsche]

How can they make such a conclusion without even stating what theory they are testing?

You don't need a theory to make legitimate experimental observations. Thats not how science works. You don't write the theory then test it. You make observations, explain them afterwards, then continue testing them. To make the initial observation without some theory is perfectly fine.

 

[loseyourname]

Also, anyone consider that there might be more important things that IQ doesn't measure that relate to theism? Since most human populations believed in some form of religion for most of human history, does that mean our ancestors were idiots?

One of the leaders of the new Brights movement, Richard Dawkins, in The Blind Watchmaker, admits to being sympathetic to the argument from design as presented by William Paley. Before Darwin, there was nothing intellectually deficient about throwing up your hands and appealing to a creator to explain the origins of man (although Empedocles first proposed a theory of evolution 2000 years earlier). It is only in light of the ability of modern science and natural law to explain virtually all natural phenomena (and its seeming ability, in principle, to explain every last one) that it becomes less intellectually pleasing to appeal to a creator. Once you can see that everything we observe could easily have come about without a creator, what reason is there, intellectually speaking, to believe in one? There are other reasons, but these are mostly emotional reasons, which becomes less convincing with increased intelligence. Our ancestors could not see that all observed phenomena were explainable through natural law alone and so, in their era, belief in a creator was a reasonable belief.

 

[0TheSwerve0]

I wasn't actually saying they were scientifically/factually valid beliefs, I was putting forth religion's other merits. Religion originated more in the creation of culture than as an actual, true explanation (which are pretty hard to differentiate at times, esp from an ethnocentric perspective).

 

[Joel]

You don't need a theory to make legitimate experimental observations. Thats not how science works. You don't write the theory then test it. You make observations, explain them afterwards, then continue testing them. To make the initial observation without some theory is perfectly fine.

Yeah, that's true. But I was not objecting to the making of observations (or statistics about the social world in this case). I was objecting to their conclusions, in which they claimed to explain the statistics. Without a theory, such explanations are only speculations, not something you can generalize or call 'based on good scientific research'.

 

[franznietzsche]

Yeah, that's true. But I was not objecting to the making of observations (or statistics about the social world in this case). I was objecting to their conclusions, in which they claimed to explain the statistics. Without a theory, such explanations are only speculations, not something you can generalize or call 'based on good scientific research'.

All anyone said was a correlation. Thats just an observation. I haven't read anything different in all of this. The obervation that people of higher IQ on average are less religious. Its right there in the data.

 

[Joel]

All anyone said was a correlation. Thats just an observation. I haven't read anything different in all of this. The obervation that people of higher IQ on average are less religious. Its right there in the data.

Not, really. The observation is not that people of higher IQ on average are less religious. The observation is, as I have tried to point out, that more data sets show a correlation between indicators of religiosity and intelligence. There is a difference between a correlation of the statistical indicators and an actual correlation between the phenomenon. (It is this difference that hasn't been clear in this discussion). And to say something about the actual correlation based on the statistical correlation we need a theory (preferable well based on existing research, not just 'what comes to mind'), which in this case is lacking. Otherwise, we may conclude ridiculous things, like in my example of ice-cream consumtion and frequency of drownings.

 

[hitssquad]

"more intelligent people tend not to believe in religion" [...] implies a generalization from the samples

It does not, if you mean by "generalization" causation.

 

[hitssquad]

to say something about the actual correlation based on the statistical correlation

If you mean causation, could you please use that term instead of code-phrases like actual correlation?

 

[Joel]

It does not, if you mean by "generalization" causation.

Yeah, but I didn't mean causation. I meant generalization, which it indeed implies, wouldn't you say?

(And it's very good it doesn't imply a causation, based on the presented studies).

If you mean causation, could you please use that term instead of code-phrases like actual correlation?

I admit 'actual correlation' is a bit fuzzy, but I didn't mean causation with it either. I meant the 'correlation' between the phenomenon, if they would be observable directly. Of course they are not, so we need to relay on statistical indicators. And I think that to explain why and how the indicators are used should also need to be done before a general conclusion like, "more intelligent people tend not to believe in religion" could be made.

 

[loseyourname]

I admit 'actual correlation' is a bit fuzzy, but I didn't mean causation with it either. I meant the 'correlation' between the phenomenon, if they would be observable directly. Of course they are not, so we need to relay on statistical indicators. And I think that to explain why and how the indicators are used should also need to be done before a general conclusion like, "more intelligent people tend not to believe in religion" could be made.

"Statistical correlation" and "correlation" mean exactly the same thing. We observe two things together more often than we observe them apart. That's all it means. In this case, those two things are high intelligence and lack of religious belief.

 

[Joel]

"Statistical correlation" and "correlation" mean exactly the same thing. We observe two things together more often than we observe them apart. That's all it means. In this case, those two things are high intelligence and lack of religious belief.

I beg to differ, you can not observe religiosity like you can observe an electron, you are always dependant on better or worse indicators. That is why physical observations can be meaningful as such, but 'observations' about social phenomenon always require a theory of how the indicators relate to the actual phenomenon and the tested hypothesis. And since that's lacking, I can not determine if the statistics support the general conclusion made on the site.

But I feel I am repeating myself. Maybe I'm wrong, I only have two years of pol. sci. studies under my belt. Any social scientists around to give an expert opinion on this?

 

[loseyourname]

I beg to differ, you can not observe religiosity like you can observe an electron, you are always dependant on better or worse indicators. That is why physical observations can be meaningful as such, but 'observations' about social phenomenon always require a theory of how the indicators relate to the actual phenomenon and the tested hypothesis. And since that's lacking, I can not determine if the statistics support the general conclusion made on the site.

But I feel I am repeating myself. Maybe I'm wrong, I only have two years of pol. sci. studies under my belt. Any social scientists around to give an expert opinion on this?

Is this better for you: We observe a correlation between tested intelligence and self-stated religious belief. I suppose you're right to say that we can't actually observe the belief. But when the survey respondent says that he considers himself religious, we can generally take his word for it, unless you think these things are unreliable because people are lying. If that is the case, they sure lie an awful lot, as every study conducted seems to indicate a negative correlation between intelligence and people saying that they hold religious beliefs.

 

[Joel]

Is this better for you: We observe a correlation between tested intelligence and self-stated religious belief. I suppose you're right to say that we can't actually observe the belief. But when the survey respondent says that he considers himself religious, we can generally take his word for it, unless you think these things are unreliable because people are lying. If that is the case, they sure lie an awful lot, as every study conducted seems to indicate a negative correlation between intelligence and people saying that they hold religious beliefs.

Much better, thank you. And while I don't think they are lying too much, I have two other remarks.

1) Most of the studies had small samples of quite specific groups, so I don't think they are representative of a general population. The biggest sample was this one:

Francis (1979)(using fequency of prayer and chruch attendence) 2272 school children between 9-11,"found no relationship between school assigned IQ's and religious behavior after controling for paternal social class."

Francis'('86 replication) findings replicated in second study among 6955 students.

2) Not all studies showed a negative correlation, one showed non after checking for socioeconomic factors.

 

[loseyourname]

The studies that showed no correlation were in children. There are beliefs at that point are mostly not their own. The whole point of those ones was to corroborate the hypothesis that religious belief in children is not the result of either intelligence or lack of it, it is simply that their parents are religious.

 

[Joel]

The studies that showed no correlation were in children. There are beliefs at that point are mostly not their own. The whole point of those ones was to corroborate the hypothesis that religious belief in children is not the result of either intelligence or lack of it, it is simply that their parents are religious.

(My bolding).

Okay, maybe, I don't know. But I can not stress enough the point that there is still nothing that suggest a causation in any way.

 

[loseyourname]

(My bolding).

Okay, maybe, I don't know. But I can not stress enough the point that there is still nothing that suggest a causation in any way.

It is certainly one hypothesis that can explain the correlation. What alternative hypothesis would you propose?

 

[Joel]

It is certainly one hypothesis that can explain the correlation. What alternative hypothesis would you propose?

I do not think I have an alternative hypothesis for that. I agree that church attendance of children would probably have more to do with their parents religious habits than intelligence. I apologize if you only where refereing to this, I misunderstood.

But let me ask you a question in return to clarify, what do you think explain the correlation in the studies about college students? To this I can think of many reasons.

 

[loseyourname]

I do not think I have an alternative hypothesis for that. I agree that church attendance of children would probably have more to do with their parents religious habits than intelligence. I apologize if you only where refereing to this, I misunderstood.

But let me ask you a question in return to clarify, what do you think explain the correlation in the studies about college students? To this I can think of many reasons.

The hypothesis to explain the negative correlation between intelligence and religious belief in the adult population (whether in college or not) is that religious belief generally does not stand up to intellectual scrutiny. The more intelligent a given person is, the more likely she is to realize this.

 

[Joel]

The hypothesis to explain the negative correlation between intelligence and religious belief in the adult population (whether in college or not) is that religious belief generally does not stand up to intellectual scrutiny. The more intelligent a given person is, the more likely she is to realize this.

Maybe, but I find that another hypothesis is that people with high IQ may have more time consuming jobs that prevent them from practicing their religion, thus loosing their faith. Another hypothesis is that religion may be more common among people with a poor socioeconomic background, who may also be less likely to receive intellectual stimulation in their youth, that in turn may affect their IQ.

I also think it is questionable weather religiosity doesn't stand up to intellectual scrunity, because, as you said, it has provided an excellent way to understand our existence. And for scientifically unanswered questions it still provides some answer, as opposed to no answer. I'd say it is intellectually perfectly sound to chose weather to leave an unanswered question up to faith or without an answer, all depending on the situation.

So, how does the statistics presented in the link support any of our hypothesis? I do not think it does and I think it is hasty to make conclusions in one way or the other.

 

[omagdon7]

Perhaps because many truly devout religious people eschew logic and analysis for feeling and faith they have lower test scores. Religion can cripple your mental faculties if you are the type of person who counts the number of days from the time the Earth was created in the Bible to determine the age of the planet. Its kind of shocking that there would be people who argue being religious has no relation to logical intelligence (which is what tests measure) since this is such an obvious correlation to me.

 

[selfAdjoint]

All of the just-so story explanations being put forth here ignore the fact that the correlation is weak. There are some extremely smart theists, and some dead dumb atheists.