I actually did not believe that there is a correlation tough all of the studies i found show that religious persons have a lower IQ then non religious persons.
Tough this could be disputed because there are other causes that correlate like GDP.
So i looked further and i found more interesting studies like
1. Thomas Howells, 1927 Study of 461 students showed religiously conservative students "are, in general, relatively inferior in intellectual ability."
8. Brown and Love, 1951 At the University of Denver, tested 613 male and female students. The mean test scores of non-believers was 119 points, and for believers it was 100. The non-believers ranked in the 80th percentile, and believers in the 50th. Their findings "strongly corroborate those of Howells."
13. C. Plant and E. Minium, 1967 The more intelligent students were less religious, both before entering college and after 2 years of college.
17. Wiebe and Fleck, 1980 Studied 158 male and female Canadian university students. They reported "nonreligious S's tended to be strongly intelligent" and "more intelligent than religious S's."
So does this mean that we atheists had it all wrong and the religious are not being stubborn and deluded on purpose they just cannot grasp reality and evidence as easily as we can.
I predict if you were to measure this in China, where Atheism is the norm, you'd find that the religious have a higher IQ on average.
IQ is a measurement of different skills it has nothing to do with knowledge (well a small bit one need to know how to read, and in some cases calculate).
I dunno if you have ever taken an iq test but while i was in school one was preformed before you entered primary school. (just in case some one with a very high iq or a very low IQ would not be neglected or misunderstood.) And one some where in the middle of primary school to see how we are doing. I dunno those tests tough as a joke i applied for Mensa and failed by 20 points lol still not bad.
And IQ does not remain the same trough ones lifetime. If you think of the brain as a muscle the more you use it the stronger it gets and if you do not use it it gets weak.
A better one to use would be Japan only 12% of them say religion is verry important and they have an average IQ of 105, While the US 60% of the people say that religion is verry important and you have an average IQ of 98/97
Sadly i do not have a survey perticulary questioning a person in those regions about their beliefs and their IQ as a comparison.
Even if the correlation is true, it's not clear that it means anything since it's abundantly clear that there are large numbers of clever believers, and stupid atheists.
I see IQ tests as measurements of culturally-dependent knowledge: I don't recall the source, but one infamous IQ test example involved questions about golf presented to inner city black kids. In general, a culturally-steeped bright kid will do well; a bright outsider will not.
Usualy IQ tests have no baring if you come from bangladesh or the US.
things like this are in it and you have to anwser right by selecting one of the answers.
The further you progress trough such a test the harder it gets and using the time it took you to solve it and the number of correct answers a psychologist then takes what not in to account and calculates your IQ
I see no reason why culture would have an impact, what would have an impact is the use of ones mind in the course of ones lifetime up to the test.
The culture of the materially advantaged differs dramatically from that of the materially disadvantaged.
So you are saying religious people tend to be poorer and tend not to promote education to their children.
And still what you have pointed out is not a cultural difference but a difference in standard countries with a lower GDP often tend to have a lower IQ average.
Tough many studies that have been preformed in the past 100 years show that people who are more religius tend to have a lower IQ and do less well in school to.
Thomas Howells, 1927 Study of 461 students showed religiously conservative students "are, in general, relatively inferior in intellectual ability."
Hilding Carlsojn, 1933 Study of 215 students showed that "there is a tendency for the more intelligent undergraduate to be sympathetic toward… atheism."
Abraham Franzblau, 1934 Confirming Howells and Carlson, tested 354 Jewish children, aged 10-16. Found a negative correlation between religiosity and IQ as measured by the Terman intelligence test.
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."
Plant and E. Minium, 1967 The more intelligent students were less religious, both before entering college and after 2 years of college.
Robert Wuthnow, 1978 Of 532 students, 37 percent of Christians, 58 percent of apostates, and 53 percent of non-religious scored above average on SATs.
Early on, students from low income families who have learning disabilities or who lag behind due to their familial environment are warehoused in "special" classes, where they lose even more ground.
They get to go to "special" care classes to they do lose ground because those classes proceed slower then normal classes so the children can at least learn the basic my neighbor was such a case and he finished highshcool of economics after he finished the "special/slower" primary school. We think of it as a good thing because if those children where in the same class as those whiteout learning disabilities the "normal" ones would suffer th same goes for the high IQ or smart kids the first iq test is ment to identify them early one so that the teachers can help them achieve their full potential. Usually after class stuff sometimes skipping grades ....
IQ tests are cultural artifacts. It is a tragic mistake to think they are objective measures of intelligence, actual or potential.
Actually they can be of use to find potential, tough as i said somewhere above IQ is not wholy given at birth if you do not use your brain it will get weak as your muscles get weak if you do not use them. One could use it also as an indicator of how much you actually use your brain.
What I was taught was that IQ tests best test the ability to take IQ tests.
Not only do IQ tests contain cultural biases, but also species biases. Hanabi-ko ("Fire Flower Girl", AKA "Fireworks Girl", because she was acquired on 04 July), AKA "Koko", the signing gorilla cover-girl for National Geographic, was given a number of human IQ tests and was scored at 85 and 95. The lower scores were attributed to species bias, such questions as where you would go when it starts to rain; two of the choices were a tree and a house, so as a gorilla she naturally chose the tree whereas a human child would have chosen the house.
Haha lol you cant compare ape minds with ours they evolved differently for example it is frustratingly hard to teach an ape how to count they dont get the just ad one tough their minds are way better then ours at remembering what was where. Example they thought an ape how to count and when the ape learned that they blacked out the randomized numbers on a screen after it pressed the first one astonishingly the ape pretty much did not care she pressed the numbers accordingly in no time while you and i would have a problem after the first 3 numbers.
I always have trouble with the one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-others questions.
hehe well usually one is rally different the others are slightly different.
Tough the above is only pattern recognition simple
small triangle larger triangle the largest triangle small ball larger ball the largest ball small square larger square ?????
The same principle applys to the word, or letter puzzles all you have to do is find a pattern and predict the outcome from this pattern for the thing in question.
Like say you have
The anwser is TDC both above have the last 2 letters and the first so the 3d should be the same.
NO NOO I was created in gods own image i am not......... wait thats right im an atheist and im an ape and proud to be one of the smartest animals on the planet.
What are you trying to deduce from any link between religion and IQ? That people are only religious because they're dim? Well, this is simply not true - the existence of highly intelligent believers proves that.
No what i am saying is that dummer people tend to be more religius then smarter people there are exceptions to every norm tough the stats clearly show that there is a correlation.
The only question is does religion make you dumb, or are you religius because you are dumb
There are exceptions in some studies those with "little faith" did better then those with "no faith" and both did way better then those with "lots of faith".
As I said earlier, I predict that if you perform such a study in China, you will find that the religious tend to have a higher IQ than the general population.
Though there is no evidence for this or at least i cannot find any study that would show this in china.
So to me this statement is a wild guess, i can see the logic behind it tough i doubt "smarter" people would follow it.
Why well we like to be sure of what we believe and religion is anything but sure in its facts.
There's no evidence for your interpretation either.
Every test or survey preformed from the 1920 supports the notion that less religious people are smarter. A test like yours and if it where true would debunk this notion and transformed it to smarter people tend to be outside the norm in cases of religion.
I have a hypothesis and evidence to back it up, and a way to debunk it so go ahead take the first flight to china and conduct a survey there.
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