From: "James F. Tims" <p00168@psilink.com>
Subject: The Moron Posts Again!
Organization: Semper Excelsior
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 03:43:29 GMT
X-Mailer: PSILink (3.2)

Paraphrased and summarized from The Effect of Intelligence on Religious Faith, 
Burnham P. Beckwith, _Free Inquiry_, Spring 1986:


1. Thomas Howells, 1927 
Study of 461 students showed religiously conversative 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, 10-16.
Negative correlation between religiosity and 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 stydents, 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 U. of Denver, tested 613 male and female students.  Mean test scores
of non-believers = 119, believers = 100.  Percentile NBs = 80, BBs = 50.
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 U. 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% of christians, 58% 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.  The reported
"nonreligious S's tended to be strongly intelligent" and "more
intelligent than religious S's.

Student Body Comparisons-

1. Rose Goldsen, Student belief in a divine god, percentages 1952.
Harvard  30; UCLA 32; Dartmouth 35; Yale 36; Cornell 42; Wayne 43;
Weslyan 43;  Michigan 45;  Fisk 60; Texas 62; N. Carolina 68.

2. National Review Study, 1970  Students Belief in Spirit or Divine God.
Percentages:
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% in "low" ranked schools to 17%
in "high" ranked schools.

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

Studies of Very-High-IQ groups.

1. Terman, 1959
Studied group with IQ > 140.  Of men, 10% held strong religious belief,
of women 18%.  62% of men and 57% if women claimed "little religious
inclination" while 28% men and 23% of 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
42 male and 30 female members of Mensa.  Mensa members were much less
religious in belief than the typical American college alumnis or adult.



1. William S. Ament, 1927 
C. C. Little, president U. of Michigan, checked persons listed in _Who's
Who in America_: "Unitarians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, 
Universalists, and Presbyterians are ... far more numerous in _Who's 
Who_ than would be expercted on the basis of the population which they 
form.  Baptists, Methodists, and Catholics are distinctly less numberous."

Ament confirmed Little's conclusion.  He noted that Unitarians, the 
least religious, were more than 40 times as numerous in _W'sW_ 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% in _AM of S_ and 50% of 
those listed in _W'sW_ reported their religious denomination despite the
specific requests to do so, "religious denomination (if any)."  Well 
over 90% of the general population claims religious affiliation.  The 
figure of 25% suggest 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 I have no idea.]

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 otheres 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
Questionaired or interviewed 107 young (<= 40) nonindustrial scientists 
judged by senior colleagues to be outstanding. 87 responded.  45% 
claimed to be "agnostic or atheistic" and an additional 22% 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
Questionaired 740 US psychologists and chemists. He reported, "the 
highly creative men [jft- assume no women included] ... 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% no preference, 16% 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. 642 replies.

38.5% did not believe in afterlife,  31.8% did. Belief in immortality was 
less common among major university staff than among those employed by 
business, government, or minor universities.  The contemporaneous Gallup 
poll showed 2/3 of US population believed in afterlife, so scientists 
were far less religious than typical adult.

From Beckwith's concluding remarks:

	Conclusions
	In this essay I ahve reviewed: (1)sixteen studies of the 
	correlation between individual measures of student intelligence and 
	religiosity, all but three of which reported an inverse 
	correlation. (2) five studies reporting that student bodies with high
	average IQ and/or SAT scores are much less religious than inferior
	student bodies;(3)three studies reporting that geniuses (IQ 150+)
	are much less religious than the general public (Average IQ, 100),
	and one dubious study,(4)seven studies reporting that highly 
	successful persons are much less religious in belief than are others;
	and (5) eight old and four new Gallup polls revealing that 
	college alumni (average IQ about 115) are much less religious in 
	belief than are grade-school pollees.

	I have also noted that many studies have shown that students 
	become less religious as they proceed through college, probably in
	part because average IQ rises.

	All but four of the forty-three polls I have reviewed support 
	the conclusion that native intelligence varies inversely with 
	degree of religious faith; i.e., that, other factors being equal,
	the more intelligent a person is, the less religious he is.  It 
	is easy to find fault with the studies I have reviewed, for all 
	were imperfect.  But the fact that all but four of them 
	supported the general conclusion provides overwhelming evidence 
	that, among American students and adults, the amount of religious
	faith tends to vary inversely and appreciably with intelligence.


I surrender.  Atheists and theists are exactly equal in intelligence.
That's what you want me to say, so I'll just say it and have done with it.
I previously stated an agreement with the drift of the above studies.
Even most atheists stand against me in this, and I don't understand why.
I have no axe to grind, since atheists being smarter than theists as a 
statistical group will not effect my own intelligence one way or the other.  
Living in a society (USA) which places stigmata on 1) high intelligence, 
2) interest in intellectual matters of any sort (that do not produce a 
substantial income), 3)academic pursuits of all kinds (ditto), 4) academic 
excellence, and 5) atheism, I cut my own social throat by supporting any
of the above.  Anyone who says they are smarter than any given percentage
of the population is branded an egotistical boor, even though they are
required to do so on their resumes -- I suppose that's why resumes are
such a secretive operation.  Proofs by way of scholastic awards are listed
in exquisite laser-printed scripts, names fully padded with titles,
but to mention any of them in social context is the mark of the overbearing  
egghead. Any suspicion that one might know the answer to a difficult
question can lead to personal rejection and even danger.  The posting of
an IQ score is in the worst of taste, for example.

I agree that there are no completely satisfactory measures of intelligence,
nor even any satisfactory definitions of what is to be measured. 
Intelligence seems to me to at least be something, though, and every tack we
take in trying to catch the elusive winds of thought carries us further
toward workable definitions.  Is intelligence a good memory, the
ability to sculpt or make a diving catch in center field,
play blindfold chess, construct sentences of "learned length and thundering
sound", time a punchline?  All of the above?  The synergy of all our
capacities of sense, perception, and reason, driven by chemical and
mindless motivations from prehistory?  Anyone who would care to try 
answering these questions, step right up.  Freud, Jung, Skinner, Adler,
Binet, Wechsler, James, and others I no longer recall (or care to) have 
given it their best shot.  The alt.atheism newsgroup has shit on them and
every other person who has ever attempted to give definition to the word
intelligence.  For this newsgroup, SAT tests, IQ tests, success in life,
measures of fame and esteem in peer groups, all fail to give that satisfying
finality that will produce the accurate, predictable readout of
how smart or stupid any given person is. 

So what are we talking about, if we are talking about anything at
all?  Alt.atheism has rejected every measure of intelligence yet
offered on any thread, so we can't even arrive at a concensus
that intelligence even exists.  Intelligence, then, has no meaning, and
is little more than another god to be destroyed.  Given that, these
studies only demonstrate to you that the people that did them were self-serving,
dishonest egomaniacs, whose neurotic sense of inferiority and lack of
confidence in their atheistic positions led them to conclusions which 
would raise their sense of self worth, and let them cope, however pitifully,
with their socially crippling delusions of mental superiority.  This
seems to me, so far, to be the collective opinion of the atheists and
theists alike, with very few exceptions.

Sorry to have butted into the IQ/atheism thread, and I apologize for my
outbursts.  I'm trying to quit smoking and I was a little testy there
for a while, but that doesn't excuse much. 8^)  

  ,...,.,,
 /666;    ',    jim tims
////;    _~ -   p00168@psilink.com
(/@/----0-~-0
 ;'  . `` ~ \'
  , `    ' , >
;;|\..((   -C----> I'm not even smart enough to find a job.
;;| >-  `.__),;;   That would seem to be a broad measure, at least to me.