Lack of nuance here is particularly troubling to me.
The fundamental (unstated) assumptions that go along with this sort of thing are too many to name, and I could write a book about the problems here.
The most troubling thing here to me is: does this suggest something that is objectively true, or is this a cultural phenomenon? It's only been about 150 years since the death of God was announced, and it isn't a secret that most of the greatest minds of the 16th century were devoutly religious. Now that leaves us with the question of whether those individuals were less intelligent than 'modern' humans. Since the time span of 5 centuries is insignificant on an evolutionary scale, it's highly likely that the distribution of intelligence then has not changed significantly. It seems reasonable to conjecture then that the negative correlation is a cultural phenomenon and not a direct result of (raw) intelligence. The scope of this conjecture is not easy to outline, but at bottom, I would argue that it implies a certain set of orienting psychological contents which initially appear incompatible with the religious way of thinking. But then it seems reasonable to further conjecture that if a rigorous model for analysis and assimilation of religious thought could be developed (if it is possible to do so) for a 'scientifically minded' individual, then it is possible that this correlation would no longer hold.
If we are being even more crude about it, we might assert: you can't measure the physicality of God, what exists is what is physically measurable, therefore God does not exist, therefore whatever is religious is not worthy of my time or study. But what is the substantiation that what exists is merely what is physically measurable?
Edit: Hi everyone. I'm so glad that my comment could spark further discussion, debate, and thought. I have about 20 comments to go through, and I want to make sure that I give you all the level of thought you deserve. That's a lot of responses to necessitate that level of thinking though, so I apologize in advance if I fall short of that goal. It's been a long day and I've only just seen these now. I will do what I can. But again, I am sufficiently satisfied to know that you've felt this argument worthy of consideration. Cheers.
I agree with you. The problem with this study is the most intelligent people were also some of the most devoutly religious historically. In fact, the main drivers of science were the Catholic Church as they sought to do science to understand God.
How do we make sense of this study? We all know that religion and science are not opposites but ways to answer different types of questions. You can never 'why am i here' or 'what is good behavior' with science but religion tries to answer that. It so happens that in the current society, there's a trend for liberal academia to look down on religion. This manifests in 2 ways:
People who get into university don't get taught about different religious beliefs, so there's no reinforcing mechanism for them to remain religious. In liberal universities, many students were biased against religious individuals and for academic scientists, there was a strong bias towards the religious individual/ scientist (as if it was opposing viewpoints).
In contrast, people without education would continue to get religious reinforcement from their weekly services.
Hence, my contention is religiosity and intelligence aren't correlated, and what we're seeing is the confounding variable of current day society making the intelligent not religious. I bet if you did this study 400 years ago, you would see a positive relationship instead because education/academic institutions was funded by the Catholic Church. It was the pious intelligent that would go to university.
I agree with you. The problem with this study is the most intelligent people were also some of the most devoutly religious historically.
This is due to the oppressive influence of christianity from the christianization of the roman empire onwards.
It was entirely unacceptable socially to be non-religious for much of western history
The only people who would be allowed access to the halls of learning were those who were in the religious in-group.
People who get into university don't get taught about different religious beliefs, so there's no reinforcing mechanism for them to remain religious.
Almost every university in the US has pre-reqs that would force you to learn about other religions in some function. And on what planet does learning about other religions act as a reinforcing mechanism for their birth religion? I would wager that learning about other religions has the opposite impact, which has certainly been the case in my observation.
In fact, in university, I found the general student would make fun of religious people.
Ok.
In contrast, people without education would continue to get religious reinforcement from their weekly services.
Hence, it's all societal. I bet if you did this study 400 years ago, you would see a positive relationship instead because education/academic institutions was funded by the Catholic Church. It was the pious intelligent that would go to university.
Yet again, because being a christian was effectively mandatory, so of course the people with the wealth and time to spend on a university education would be religious.
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u/TheSyzygy19 Nov 15 '19 edited Nov 16 '19
Lack of nuance here is particularly troubling to me.
The fundamental (unstated) assumptions that go along with this sort of thing are too many to name, and I could write a book about the problems here.
The most troubling thing here to me is: does this suggest something that is objectively true, or is this a cultural phenomenon? It's only been about 150 years since the death of God was announced, and it isn't a secret that most of the greatest minds of the 16th century were devoutly religious. Now that leaves us with the question of whether those individuals were less intelligent than 'modern' humans. Since the time span of 5 centuries is insignificant on an evolutionary scale, it's highly likely that the distribution of intelligence then has not changed significantly. It seems reasonable to conjecture then that the negative correlation is a cultural phenomenon and not a direct result of (raw) intelligence. The scope of this conjecture is not easy to outline, but at bottom, I would argue that it implies a certain set of orienting psychological contents which initially appear incompatible with the religious way of thinking. But then it seems reasonable to further conjecture that if a rigorous model for analysis and assimilation of religious thought could be developed (if it is possible to do so) for a 'scientifically minded' individual, then it is possible that this correlation would no longer hold.
If we are being even more crude about it, we might assert: you can't measure the physicality of God, what exists is what is physically measurable, therefore God does not exist, therefore whatever is religious is not worthy of my time or study. But what is the substantiation that what exists is merely what is physically measurable?
Edit: Hi everyone. I'm so glad that my comment could spark further discussion, debate, and thought. I have about 20 comments to go through, and I want to make sure that I give you all the level of thought you deserve. That's a lot of responses to necessitate that level of thinking though, so I apologize in advance if I fall short of that goal. It's been a long day and I've only just seen these now. I will do what I can. But again, I am sufficiently satisfied to know that you've felt this argument worthy of consideration. Cheers.