IQ and Religion

This is complete bunk.

Why? Because firstly, IQ is flawed because it fails to take into account different forms of intelligence - for instance, an African living in the bush may not be as good linguistically, but will be a far more "intelligent" hunter than the average western person. IQ tests have been repeatedly criticised for failing to adapt to cultural differences, and are effectively geared towards a western understanding of human intelligence - essentially, it's like comparing a long jumper and a sprinter, having them both sprint, and then declaring the sprinter is a better all-round sportsman.

Religion could also be linked to, for instance, poverty or desperate conditions. It's all very well sitting back in our cities with power and relatively good pay and oodles of free time, philosophising to ourselves and declaring that god could not possible exist, but for people in packed, impoverished slums, religions serves as a motivator, either by being the only thing that gives people hope, or principally because one is taught it at a young age and doesn't have the time or education to question it with science or reason. This has nothing to do with a "lack of intelligence". Religion is also a much greater part of society - think about England several hundred years ago - many of the great minds were religious, simply because it was just the given thing to be, it was the Zeitgeist.

Apologies for the aggressive tone, but this study just reeks of cultural imperialism and sneering at others without really attempting to understand anything.

This graph might tempt you to believe lower IQ implies higher religiosity. In reality it's much more likely that poverty leads to both lower IQ [1] and higher religiosity [2].

Correlation does not imply causation.

[1]: http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/11/06/poverty-and-the-br... [2]: http://www.gallup.com/poll/142727/religiosity-highest-world-...

Well, religion (mythology) is the result of humans not understanding something and attempting to explain it using fantasy elements. Which is very normal and natural.

So if a society currently lacks the education or intelligence to understand complex scientific principals of course they're going to use fantasy to try to understand the world around them. Once people understand the world around them using non-fantasy or non-religious explanations, they usually abandon religion.

The way I see it, science and religion are just 2 different ways of achieving "understanding". All humans want answers, and will get those answers using which ever method, science or religion, they have access to (sometimes both).

So apparently:

- Religion causes people to have low IQs (No)

- People who are religious are usually of a lower intelligence (Not really)

- People who are of a lower intelligence usually tend to be more religious (Yes, usually)

- Some people are both very intelligent and very religious (Yes)

If these observations are true, how much of society will be offended by them?

I'm mostly amazed at the low average IQ in the bottom scoring countries.

My understanding is that having an IQ score below 70 has historically been the definition of mental retardation.

Intuitively I feel there must be some severe cultural bias present in this data (or what it measures). The alternative explanation being that most of the population of Africa would be, on average, mentally retarded...

Maybe someone with a better grasp of statistics (or IQ tests) can clarify?

I'm fairly skeptical about IQ, but levels of religious belief may correlate with wider social factors. An interesting source is:

Gregory S. Paul. Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies: A First Look. Journal of Religion and Society, Vol 7, 2005.

http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2005/2005-11.pdf

Quote: "In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion … None of the strongly secularised, pro-evolution democracies is experiencing high levels of measurable dysfunction.” Within the US, “the strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and midwest” have “markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the north-east where … secularisation, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms".

Where is Switzerland?

Correlation is not a causation. In poorer countries the importance of religion is generally higher and the quality of education is generally lower. On the other hand, in wealthier countries religion prominence comes down to cultural traits. There's Canada/Finland and there's UAE/Switzerland.

(edit) IQ is not lower because nation is more religious. IQ is lower because the nation is poorer. It is also more religious for the same reason. Wealth is the cause. Plotting two derivatives agains each other is fun, but makes little sense.

At first sight it looks like "More religious = Less IQ". Somehow I doubt that. Religion is not one value. Some religions are anti-knowledge (at least for woman and specific minorities). In Western Europe religious schools (Catholic, Protestant etc) are known to teach at a higher level. In my area they are in high demand due to the quality of their education, even for non-religious parents. (The level of "fanatic" religion is not high here).

The irony is that the religious tend to be extremely educated and in history served as teachers of many things.

The Catholic Church believes in evolution (although its not exactly dogma). Pope John Paul II:

In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation, provided that we do not lose sight of certain fixed points.... Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies—which was neither planned nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution

Dual Masters, Higher than avg IQ, & Catholic.

Per this analysis, the US manages to be more intelligent than any other equally- or more-religious country, and more religious than any other equally- or more-intelligent country. Perhaps the US national motto (adopted 1956) should be extended by a few words: "In God we trust but also verify".

"IQ is not lower because nation is more religious. IQ is lower because the nation is poorer."

I am mystified as to why people assume that education provides a higher IQ.

IQ is ability to learn; the brains ability to solve problems in an independent way and has nothing to do with education. If a person who rarely thinks deeply begins some form of education then they will receive a spike in IQ but it is not lasting.

A good way to think of it is the ability to think outside the box. There is no increase of IQ from education although a person with a high IQ may score better in an academic environment (or not if they are easily bored). Education is about memorizing facts whilst IQ is the ability to think.

Wealthy people don't feel a need for a God but poor people do.

I don't seem to understand why anybody would make such a correlation. I think the avarage IQ depends on how wealth and how well developed your country is, and not how many believe in religious stuff.

Looks remarkably similar to last year's Calamities of Nature graph..

http://www.calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=619

How are these data valuable without corrections for other potentially explanatory factors like wealth/GDP, education, etc.?

What on earth does this have to do with startups and hacking?

Answer: nothing! You can downvote me all you want, but it's been flagged right off the front page.

what pattern does this study tell? I couldn't make much sense.

Being more religious means you move towards lesser IQ?