From: atdhb@acad2.alaska.edu
Subject: Re: iq<->religion: connection?
Organization: University of Alaska
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 06:12:51 GMT

In article <1992Dec19.224717.1993@prime.mdata.fi>, iikkap@mits.mdata.fi (Iikka Paavolainen) writes:
> Am I seeing wrongly, or is there a connection between one's IQ and one's
> religiousness? Of all people I know, I know only about 8 exceptionally smart
> people (IQ>125), and all of them happen to be atheists. On the contrary, the 
> dumbest people I've seen (eg. unable to use a remote control) are the most
> religious. Observing other atheists that I don't know (from this group for
> example) leads me to make a conclusion that on the average, atheists have a
> much better sense of logic (and thus usually have a higher IQ) and think much
> more clearly than religious people. From my own experiences, I can say that
> freeing oneself from the grasp of religion requires a certain level of logical
> thinking. Coincidentally, all these 8 people are mathematically gifted.
> When I speak of atheism here, I mean it to be a lack of belief in any god or
> superstition.
> Opinions?
> 
> BTW, if this offended you, go to a church instead of coming to alt.atheism.
> --
>  __/|_  ,  ,--------------------------------------------------------------,
> /o    \/:--| Iikka Paavolainen / iikkap@mits.mdata.fi, in Espoo, Finland  |
> \__~__/\:--| "I won't have a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent."    |
>    `    `  `--------------------------------------------------------------'



This has been my experience, too, and I believe I approach it
from a unique point of view.   I am a teacher of gifted kids; all
my students have IQ's of at least 130, and some have been
measured as high as the mid-160's.

From the discussions I have with my students, I can conclude that
a higher-than-average percentage of them are atheists or are at
least very, very skeptical.

Last year I taught seventh grade and at that age--twelve or
thirteen or so--kids are developing abstract thinking skills and
are questioning the cultural absolutes that have been handed down
by their parents and by society in general.  This year I teach
elementary kids, ranging in age from seven to twelve, and while
their skills in abstract reasoning may not be as strong at those
ages they are still quite willing to question that which has been
foisted upon them.  Though I have only limited experience
teaching so-called "average" kids, I taught one year in a poor
inner-city neighborhood with a high percentage of resource
students.  So, based on my experiences with gifted, average and
below average kids, I've concluded that the more intelligent the
child, the less superstitious and religious he will tend to be.

The effect in adults, as you've noted, is even more pronounced. 
I spent a number of years working at various jobs among the "salt
of the earth" working-class people in the Bible Belt, and I've
spent the last three years working as part of a university
faculty as an adjunct instructor.  There are few atheists among
the former group and few fundamentalist Christians in the latter.

It has been shown that there is a positive correlation between
intelligence (as measured by such instruments as the
Stanford-Binet IQ test) and level of education attained.  It has
further been demonstrated that there is a correlation between
level of education and degree of rejection of fundamentalist
beliefs.  Therefore, it can be concluded that there is a
correlation between intelligence and rejection of (at least)
rigidly-fundamentalist religious belief.  From here, one does not
have to go very far out on a limb to conclude that level of IQ
is, indeed, positively correlated to atheistic belief systems. 

My circle of friends, like yours, ranges from highly-gifted to
dumber than a stump.  The most intelligent--and some are Mensa
members or could be if they were joiners--are atheists, almost to
a man (or woman).  The not-so-brilliant ones, with a few notable
exceptions, are religious to one degree or another.  I have only
one fundamentalist friend, and she's that way more from emotional
problems than from lack of intellect (she's a Ph.D.).  

A caveat is in order here:  unless we test everyone we come
across, we cannot accurately judge one's intelligence.  Indeed, I
suspect we characterize as intelligent those who share our
beliefs, and hang the label "stupid" on those with whom we
disagree.  Part of my job involves teaching teachers how they can
recognize high intelligence in their students (it's not as easy
as it would seem) but even though I hold a master's in the area I
still cannot judge intelligence with a great degree of accuracy
based only on informal conversation.  However, with training and
exposure we get better and better, so I feel pretty confident
that I have more or less correctly ranked my friends and
acquaintances along the intelligence continuum.

Furthermore, there is some disagreement as to what intelligence
actually is, and whether it can be measured and, if so, how.  I
personally prefer Howard Gardner's definition(s) of intelligence. 
In his watershed book, _Frames_of_Mind_, Gardner enumerates seven
discrete yet interconnected intelligences:  verbal,
logical/mathematical, spatial, musical, psychomotor,
interpersonal and intrapersonal.  (Interestingly, you
"coincidentally" noticed that your friends who seemed to be high
in logical intelligence also rated high in mathematical ability. 
Gardner sees the two as connected, too.)  Therefore, if we speak
of someone as "intelligent," we must be prepared to define in
exactly what area this person is "intelligent."  You've done this
(I believe correctly) when you speak of a high
logical/mathematical intelligence in your atheist friends, but we
must also remember that many frothy-mouthed fundamentalist
preachers are apparently very high in verbal intelligence, and
almost assuredly in interpersonal intelligence as well.  (Of
course, these are the very areas that the "genius" of Adolph
Hitler manifested itself, but that's another track altogether.) 

One more item:  There is a positive correlation between
socio-economic status and intelligence as measured by
standardized instruments.  In other words, rich kids will test
out as more intelligent than poor kids.  There are a number of
possible explanations for this, but the fact is that the
difference exists.  Who can dispute the fact that there is a
correlation between socio-economic deprivation and religiosity? 
That the poor tend to be more fundamentalist than the rich?  If
this is true, then we have another avenue to show that
non-religious people are smarter than religious people.

Summary:   Rich or highly-educated people are more intelligent
than poor or poorly-educated people.  Rich or highly-educated
people tend to be less religious than poor or poorly-educated
people.  Therefore the more intelligent people tend to be less
religious than less intelligent people.  (Remember that a
correlation does not necessarily demonstrate a cause-and-effect
relationship--a correlation merely means that when one goes up,
the other tends to go up, too.)  As an extension of this
argument, we might fairly conclude that there are more atheists
among the richer, more intelligent people than among the poorer,
less educated people.


Don
Newsgroups: alt.atheism