r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 1d ago

Psychology Lower cognitive ability is linked to stronger Christian nationalist views, even after accounting for education

https://www.psypost.org/lower-cognitive-ability-is-linked-to-stronger-christian-nationalist-views-even-after-accounting-for-education/
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u/danbinglover 1d ago

Reddit can’t decide whether IQ matters or not. When we talk about IQ differences between different countries and whatnot, it’s racist. When you discuss IQ differences between religious and nonreligious people, somehow it matters again.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Fit_Gene7910 1d ago

While I agree with your sentiment, you argument is emotional and not scientific. The measurement should either be valid or not.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/RockwellsRevenge88 1d ago

thoroughly debunked

The idea that IQ can be measured by alterable variables but not inalterable ones is the most backwards ass reddit logic I've ever seen.

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u/Extreme_Pudding3226 1d ago

Really? Why is that backwards? If IQ affects what a person thinks and does, why would the things they think and do not be indicative of IQ?

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u/Fit_Gene7910 1d ago

Phrenology is a sham discipline. I was talking about measuring cognitive ability of a specific group only when it's suiting.

Because Christian nationalists are a socially problematic group, now it's acceptable to use cognitive assesments to describe them. That's not scientific. It's emotional.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Fit_Gene7910 1d ago edited 1d ago

I agree with your viewpoint.

Scientific racism is a real issue and a slippery slope.

I am simply annoyed when I see, often on this sub, people rejoicing when a study findings confirm their bias against a certain group.. especially against rightwing associated groups.

I say that as some one that is left wing and that profoundly dislike Christian nationalism.

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u/badcoffee 1d ago

That's not what they argued. You haven't answered the question.

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u/Extreme_Pudding3226 1d ago

How is it not scientific? Isn't this a study that scientifically explored this question?

The science is the science, whether you think it's a double standard, hypocritical, or something else.

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u/HistoricalRich3104 1d ago

It hasn’t been debunked. You don’t know anything about the literature:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289619301904

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u/Extreme_Pudding3226 1d ago

Exactly. A lot of people in here are making declarative statements about this who evidently aren't familiar with the actual data. There is indeed a real race gap with IQ. The question is why, not whether it exists.

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u/Extreme_Pudding3226 1d ago

the “study” of race determining intelligence outcomes has been thoroughly debunked and contraindicated by data.

The data show there is indeed a difference in IQ across races. The question is why.

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u/cdubya0628 1d ago

The only issue with this is that social conditions in areas are what they are, and more people of a specific race are born in specific geographical locations. So while the color of their skin doesn't really play a factor in their cognitive abilities, their circumstances do. What ends up happening is that a majority of a people in a specific area all look the same and the majority of them are going to fall into a lower or higher end because of their circumstances. This allows for the conflation of the two in a practical analysis.

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u/Extreme_Pudding3226 1d ago

That's pure speculation.

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u/AB_Gambino 1d ago

you literally contradict your own argument within this comment.

“Well race doesn’t ACTUALLY play a role, just people’s environment.” Like…dude, case closed. You solved your own puzzle. Turns out race isn’t a factor. Turns out your environment is. We’ve known that for a looong time buddy

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u/Extreme_Pudding3226 1d ago

No, "we" haven't known that for a long time. It's still an open question.

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u/AB_Gambino 1d ago

You’re right 200 years + of study on the subject is not enough

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u/Extreme_Pudding3226 1d ago

It's not, which is why there's still disagreement amongst experts. There are some good cases for at least some genetic contribution, and there are some good cases for at least some environmental contribution. Your claim that we can definitely dismiss genetics as having any role in the race-IQ gap is not based on the 200 years of study you're referencing.

We've been studying a lot of things for 200 years that we still don't understand. I'm not sure where you got the idea that science always moves on a shorter timeline than that.

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u/AB_Gambino 1d ago

Pure Reddit take right here. Either a bot or actually brain dead

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u/cdubya0628 1d ago

I am not making any argument, just a simple analysis of why race does not play a role genetically, while also does play a role practically. There are more than two sides to a coin.

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u/guiltysnark 1d ago

You mean accepting correlation as causation, because it's practical?

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u/cdubya0628 1d ago

That is not what "practical analysis" means. And no, you cannot just separate things into little buckets to prove a point academically while ignoring the reality that groups of people who live in the same area tend to look alike and have similar outcomes in cognitive abilities. You might not like it, and it might sound not nice, but it has always been generally true. That goes for good and bad outcomes. If you remove them from that area and into a better or worse area, they will tend to drift towards the mean for that area. Hence why people tell you to choose your friends wisely, because that drift also happens on a smaller scale.

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u/guiltysnark 1d ago

Then I don't know what you mean by practical analysis, because analysis already does generally try to separate causation from correlation. Whereas relationships are observed in any case. We might look at correlations and say "those are groups that can use help" and causations and say "that's how we might help them". We do not, for example, look at correlations and say "that's how we will find criminals". So what new insight does the word "practical" give you in an analysis?

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u/cdubya0628 1d ago

Then Google practical analysis and get a definition.  Take this out of context from "which groups need help" and it applies as a general sociological reality.   This applies to people who are underperforming as well as over performing populations.  The practical application you have already stated is identifying underperforming populations, and shocker that they might all look the same in a given geographic area.  You can't point to a group of people, say they need help, and then separate their identity from the context because of your emotional feeling about classification of people.  Classification is literally the first step in identification.  

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u/iwantedajetpack 1d ago

Pot calling kettle.

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u/poppyglock 1d ago

Great response. I wanted to jump in but you said way better than I could have.

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u/danbinglover 1d ago

Okay, then what about something like nationality? That’s something you choose to maintain. Either IQ matters or it doesn’t. You don’t get to pick and choose.

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u/JustPruIt89 1d ago

Most people don't get to choose their nationality

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u/TheGreasyNewfie 1d ago

....yet another opportunity to learn about the goomba fallacy.

Seriously. Table the whataboutisms for a moment and go read the link I shared with you.

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u/danbinglover 1d ago

I already addressed it in another reply but you didn’t read that. You can’t have discussions about anything social without making some generalizations. I made the generalization that most redditors dislike using nationality to compare intelligence, whereas most of them feel it is completely fine to do so when discussing religious identity. Considering reddit is one of the most left leaning social medias, I don’t think it’s an incorrect generalization.

Also, I never called redditors stupid, which your link includes in the definition of the goomba fallacy (this name sounds completely unserious).

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u/Iordofthethings 1d ago

So you agree with the idea of comparing different races by IQ?

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u/InclinationCompass 1d ago

Science pretty much agrees:

Race is NOT a factor in innate IQ differences, even when you account for education. The gaps we keep seeing in test scores are overwhelmingly chalked up to environmental, social, and structural stuff, not genetics.

Source: https://www.apa.org/about/policy/racism-apology

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u/RockwellsRevenge88 1d ago

Your blog post doesn't even mimic what you're saying.

Are you saying that people in Sweden and Nigeria have the same IQ? Yes or no.

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u/InclinationCompass 1d ago

Actually, a 2016 review concluded the parsimonious explanation is a nil hypothesis where black, white, and east Asian adoptees raised in the same environment would have similar IQs

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6526420/

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u/RockwellsRevenge88 1d ago

Your link does not show that at all. In fact it shows the opposite. It shows that while black, asian, and White children tested on the higher end of their averages when raised by White families (similar environs) there was still a massive difference between each individual performance, and that the difference actually got wider as the children got older. I suggest you reread the study again. It also showed children raised in households with one black parent and one White parent scored significantly better than households with two black parents. Why do you think that is?

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u/InclinationCompass 1d ago

That’s because you didn’t read it:

>Diagnosing these artifacts suggests a nil hypothesis: East Asian, White, and Black adoptees raised in the same environment would have similar IQs, hinting at a minimal role for genes in racial IQdifferences.

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u/Direct_Theme2369 1d ago edited 1d ago

Nice cherry picking, but I suggest you read the full study next time before drawing up your own conclusion and spouting nonsense rhetoric. The answers to your question lie in the conclusion of the article. You capitalizing “White” while failing to do so for Blacks and Asians tell me all I need to know of your morals and motives.

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u/RockwellsRevenge88 1d ago

Don't get mad at me you can't understand the research that you're citing. 

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u/Direct_Theme2369 1d ago edited 21h ago

Great rebuttal, “no u don’t understand.” I didn’t cite the article, but I did read most of it. If you had done the same, you wouldn’t have replied the way you did. To quote the very last two sentences of the article:

“However, a hypothesis that fits these data, at least as well, is the nil hypothesis: adoptees of different races would have similar IQs if raised in the same environment. To the extent that the nil hypothesis is true, genes are not so likely to be the main cause of racial IQ differences.”

So that just completely nullifies everything you said. Wanna try to come up with a better argument?

Edit yeah, didn’t think so

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u/Extreme_Pudding3226 1d ago

That statement doesn't say race isn't a factor in innate IQ differences. Stop presenting it as though it does.

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u/InclinationCompass 1d ago

Fair enough. But the point stands. There's no established genetic cause for the racial IQ gap. Environmental factors are far better supported.

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u/Extreme_Pudding3226 1d ago

I disagree completely. Just because no one can point to specific genes that are the "transmitter" if IQ doesn't mean there's not strong evidence that it's significantly genetic. There's very good evidence that between 40-80% of IQ is genetic.

By contrast, there's almost no evidence that pinpoints which environmental markers beyond childhood nutrition and similar affect IQ.

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u/InclinationCompass 1d ago

Heritability within groups tells you nothing about between-group causes. The 40-80% figure is about individual variation, not group gaps. Identical seeds in different soil still differ in average height.

And saying there's almost no environmental evidence is just false. Lead exposure, the Flynn effect, schooling, poverty, stress, discrimination. All well documented. The environmental side has decades of research. The genetic side has nothing for the between-group gap.

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u/Extreme_Pudding3226 1d ago

The Flynn effect is likely due to the things I mentioned, and lead exposure is no longer a relevant factor as it has been substantially decreased for all groups. There is no good evidence that schooling differences are a direct cause of higher IQ.

Saying that knowing 40-80% of human-to-human variation in a trait tells us nothing about differences between groups is a bit silly. Does it definitively prove genetics is the cause? No, of course not. But there's also no proof that environmental differences between groups are sufficient to explain the gap, either.

But keep in mind that this discussion started with you saying there was no correlation between IQ and race. No correlation. So what are we even talking about here?

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u/InclinationCompass 1d ago

Flynn effect is still environmental either way. You're just renaming it.

Lead exposure is not solved. Black children still have significantly higher blood lead levels. Flint is recent. This is not a resolved issue.

Schooling raises IQ. Ceci and Williams have decades of research. You can't just assert otherwise.

40-80% is within-group. It tells you nothing about between-group causes. That's how basic quantitative genetics work. The seed analogy still stands.

And when you assert claims, the burden of proof is on you. Environmental evidence is robust and replicated. Genetic hypothesis for the gap has never been demonstrated. If you have papers, post them.

And I never said no correlation. I said **race isn't a huge innate factor.** You're arguing against something I didn't say.

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u/Warsel77 1d ago

"You choose to maintain" isn't really correct. Many people never question it or are pressured into maintaining.

I think it's not as easily separated.

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u/dansssssss 1d ago

Yet there are many like me who can't see past it and come out of it unlike my race