But they're all based on the same premise - that intelligence can be measured in some meaningful way. |
They might be controversial but they measure intelligence in the way we define it. |
No they aren't, and no they don't. The studies did not all set out to test either religiosity or intelligence. Some were explicitly discussing the idea, but many were not. The requirement for inclusion in the metastudy was simply that it included a measure of something the authors considered to be a correlate of religiosity and something they consider to be a correlate of intelligence; and the necessary information to look at correlation between the two.
So 16 of the 63 measured performance on university entrance exams, for example, one looked at membership of Mensa.
Nor do they all measure religiosity in the same way. A few are based on declared religious affiliation, which is an obvious problem since we know from surveys that more people are self-professed Christians than believe in God (in Europe, at least). Most are based on a survey of beliefs, but they're not all asking the same questions; so it's not clear if they're directly comparable.
It is what it is - a series of studies that find the same thing. In another, less contentious, area we'd just nod and say ok. |
On EvC? I'd be surprised and disappointed.
When something publishes something which confirms your prejudices in an area that's contentious because it's very difficult to measure, nodding and saying 'ok' is not the right approach if you're actually interested in the subject. Looking at what they did and considering whether it actually provides any strong support for your prejudices would be better.
Found the pdf here.
Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.