From: iikkap@mits.mdata.fi (Iikka Paavolainen)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: iq<->religion: connection?
Date: 28 Dec 92 11:55:12 GMT
Organization: Microdata Oy, Helsinki, Finland

In article <1992Dec28.071210.1149@nmsu.edu> sdoe@nmsu.edu (Stephen Doe) writes:
>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."    |
>>   `    `  `--------------------------------------------------------------'
> 
>Ah, here's the first post in the series.  Well, old bean, in this
>first post you didn't:
>
>tell us the size of your sample (later you say it's 1000)

You really aren't so stupid that you think the sample was 8?? I don't know
the sample myself, but as I stated, every person I've met.

>
>tell us how you prevented any bias from creeping into your
>observations (oh, that's right, you're not biased at all.  Yeah,
>right, give me a break)

I'm not biased to anything. Just a matter of self-control.

>
>tell us how the sample was selected

That is told in the post.

>
>tell us how you determined degree of religiousness, and IQ, for the
>1000 person sample you later refer to 

By talking to them and making observations.
How else?

>
>etc.
>
>Do you see what I am getting at now?
>
>At most, tentative observations like this should prompt us to see if
>such a correlation exists.  In and of itself, this just doesn't cut it
>as a "proof" of your correlation, not without a lot more to back it
>up.  This isn't a bedtime story, you can't just make sweeping
>generalizations on the basis of such flimsy evidence.  Ah, but I
>forget, my emotional commitment to decent intellectual standards and
>fairness have blinded me to the Gospel as propounded by Iikka
>Paavolainen.  

If you look at the post, you see no "sweeping generalizations" or anything
passed as a hard fact. Get real.

>
>It still seems to me that this correlation is just being used as a
>convenient device to dismiss theists with the wave of a hand.  Ad
>hominem all the way.

Your personality has defined ad hominem very well.

>
>SD
>
>


--
 __/|_  ,  ,--------------------------------------------------------------,
/o    \/:--| Iikka Paavolainen / iikkap@mits.mdata.fi, in Espoo, Finland  |
\__~__/\:--| "I won't have a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent."    |
   `    `  `--------------------------------------------------------------'
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc