IQ versus Religiosity: an inverse correlation

Kelgar · Post by **Kelgar** » August 3, 2006, 5:24 am

Surprised? Not here.

http://paulsen.home.netcom.com/iq_vs_religiosity.htm

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » August 3, 2006, 10:12 am

Amazing how the USA is the most intelligent / religious country. Kudos to the US of A.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » August 3, 2006, 10:33 am

Even when the whole post is the Big Picture, you still can't see it!!

Lynks · Post by **Lynks** » August 3, 2006, 10:46 am

Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote:Amazing how the USA is the most intelligent / religious country. Kudos to the US of A.

I would of said Indonesia. You talk about "big picture" but all you can see is 1 small dot with a red circle around it.

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » August 3, 2006, 11:02 am

The whole thing is just surveys from different sources thrown together to form a picture that the person setting up the page wanted to show.

If you look at their sources, those IQ numbers are based solely on student scores in arithmetics as compiled by PISA

From the PISA webpage - http://www.pisa.oecd.org/pages/0,2966,e ... _1,00.html

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an internationally standardised assessment that was jointly developed by participating countries and administered to15-year-olds in schools.

If you has asked those 15 yo's what they thought of religion, you'd get a wildly varying answer.

Seperatly, those studies look about right. Mashed together, you have result that isn't really indicative of anything other than the agenda the author was trying to push.

And to the flag waver, being wildly out of the median like that is usually not good thing.

dibit_eq · Post by **dibit_eq** » August 3, 2006, 12:13 pm

As someone of agnostic background, I'm sure others like me would love to feel superior to some of the more religious nutjobs out there. I'm also not blind though. I'd bet that there's a similar total population percentage of intelligent devoted people as there are of the aethiest/agnostic crowd. I know that there are just more religious people in America, and having greater numbers means that there are bound to be a few that truly define stupidity.

Kelgar · Post by **Kelgar** » August 3, 2006, 12:41 pm

Animalor wrote:The whole thing is just surveys from different sources thrown together to form a picture that the person setting up the page wanted to show.

If you look at their sources, those IQ numbers are based solely on student scores in arithmetics as compiled by PISA

From the PISA webpage - http://www.pisa.oecd.org/pages/0,2966,e ... _1,00.html
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an internationally standardised assessment that was jointly developed by participating countries and administered to15-year-olds in schools.
If you has asked those 15 yo's what they thought of religion, you'd get a wildly varying answer.

Seperatly, those studies look about right. Mashed together, you have result that isn't really indicative of anything other than the agenda the author was trying to push.

And to the flag waver, being wildly out of the median like that is usually not good thing.

In fairness, if you're going to do a worldwide study math would be the area which can be least subjectively measured and is a reasonable indicator of logical aptitude.

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » August 3, 2006, 12:51 pm

Kelgar wrote: In fairness, if you're going to do a worldwide study math would be the area which can be least subjectively measured and is a reasonable indicator of logical aptitude.

Completely agree, but they would have to test the people they asked about religion for the conclusions in this thread to be accurate, not the 15 year old students tested for IQ.

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » August 3, 2006, 1:21 pm

Lynks wrote:
Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote:Amazing how the USA is the most intelligent / religious country. Kudos to the US of A.
I would of said Indonesia. You talk about "big picture" but all you can see is 1 small dot with a red circle around it.

Oh, you would have? I guess you didn't look at the graph then.

Kelgar · Post by **Kelgar** » August 3, 2006, 1:29 pm

Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote:
Lynks wrote:
Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote:Amazing how the USA is the most intelligent / religious country. Kudos to the US of A.
I would of said Indonesia. You talk about "big picture" but all you can see is 1 small dot with a red circle around it.
Oh, you would have? I guess you didn't look at the graph then.

You must have failed at basic statistics. You need to look at the deviation from the the yellow line. Indonesia has a higher deviation than the US.

US: 98 - (~87) = 11
Indonesia: 89- (~74) = 15

Lynks · Post by **Lynks** » August 3, 2006, 1:38 pm

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » August 3, 2006, 2:06 pm

Kelgar wrote: In fairness, if you're going to do a worldwide study math would be the area which can be least subjectively measured and is a reasonable indicator of logical aptitude.

Actually Vocabulary/Verbal Reasoning correlate far better with IQ...They are the best single predictor.

Trias · Post by **Trias** » August 3, 2006, 2:16 pm

this same image comes from that website...BEWARE THE DARK AGES USA!

i didn't copy the image to my server *yoink*

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » August 3, 2006, 2:21 pm

Kelgar wrote:
Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote:
Lynks wrote:
Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote:Amazing how the USA is the most intelligent / religious country. Kudos to the US of A.
I would of said Indonesia. You talk about "big picture" but all you can see is 1 small dot with a red circle around it.
Oh, you would have? I guess you didn't look at the graph then.
You must have failed at basic statistics. You need to look at the deviation from the the yellow line. Indonesia has a higher deviation than the US.

US: 98 - (~87) = 11
Indonesia: 89- (~74) = 15

I stand corrected. I believe I may have taken a statistics class, but I surely don't remember it at all. I didn't fail, but it was over 11 years ago. My bad.

Kelgar · Post by **Kelgar** » August 4, 2006, 3:08 am

Arborealus wrote:
Kelgar wrote: In fairness, if you're going to do a worldwide study math would be the area which can be least subjectively measured and is a reasonable indicator of logical aptitude.
Actually Vocabulary/Verbal Reasoning correlate far better with IQ...They are the best single predictor.

The key qualifier I used was "worldwide". Math is universal. Language isn't. I don't disagree with your assertion, but am merely pointing out that for the sake of convenience, math is a much more easily standardized reference to draw conclusions from. There are possible fudge factors not easily accounted for when measuring vocab/verbal reasoning skills due to different language structures.

Adex_Xeda · Post by **Adex_Xeda** » August 4, 2006, 2:01 pm

The one theme I learned from the statistics classes I took in college was you can make ANYTHING look like you want with statistics.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » August 4, 2006, 2:48 pm

Adex_Xeda wrote:The one theme I learned from the theology classes I took in college was you can make ANYTHING look like you want with religion.

fixed!

*~*stragi*~* · Post by ***~*stragi*~*** » August 4, 2006, 3:30 pm

Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote:
Kelgar wrote:
Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote:
Lynks wrote:
Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote:Amazing how the USA is the most intelligent / religious country. Kudos to the US of A.
I would of said Indonesia. You talk about "big picture" but all you can see is 1 small dot with a red circle around it.
Oh, you would have? I guess you didn't look at the graph then.
You must have failed at basic statistics. You need to look at the deviation from the the yellow line. Indonesia has a higher deviation than the US.

US: 98 - (~87) = 11
Indonesia: 89- (~74) = 15
I stand corrected. I believe I may have taken a statistics class, but I surely don't remember it at all. I didn't fail, but it was over 11 years ago. My bad.

republicans r dum

Syenye · Post by **Syenye** » August 4, 2006, 3:39 pm

i must be real dumb cause i don't know what religiosity is.

i looked it up and: excessively, obtrusively, or sentimentally religious.

that graph is real dumb too.

("real dumb" must be pronounced meatwad style).

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » August 4, 2006, 8:59 pm

Kelgar wrote:
Arborealus wrote:
Kelgar wrote: In fairness, if you're going to do a worldwide study math would be the area which can be least subjectively measured and is a reasonable indicator of logical aptitude.
Actually Vocabulary/Verbal Reasoning correlate far better with IQ...They are the best single predictor.
The key qualifier I used was "worldwide". Math is universal. Language isn't. I don't disagree with your assertion, but am merely pointing out that for the sake of convenience, math is a much more easily standardized reference to draw conclusions from. There are possible fudge factors not easily accounted for when measuring vocab/verbal reasoning skills due to different language structures.

Measuring Vocab and Verbal reasoning tested in native language on a culturally normed instrument is way superior. Exposure to arithmetic is itself culturally biased...Language usage is far closer to universal. Arithmetic is only universal among the highly educated.

masteen · Post by **masteen** » August 4, 2006, 9:06 pm

Language isn't universal?

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » August 4, 2006, 9:06 pm

Adex_Xeda wrote:The one theme I learned from the statistics classes I took in college was you can make ANYTHING look like you want with statistics.

Not really...You can make it look like you want with if you intentionally bias your statistics...which statistically invalidates your work.

Midnyte_Ragebringer · Post by **Midnyte_Ragebringer** » August 4, 2006, 9:18 pm

Arborealus wrote:
Adex_Xeda wrote:The one theme I learned from the statistics classes I took in college was you can make ANYTHING look like you want with statistics.
Not really...You can make it look like you want with if you intentionally bias your statistics...which statistically invalidates your work.

Read what is said there. In this case I think it's safe to say he was biased.

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » August 4, 2006, 9:50 pm

Midnyte_Ragebringer wrote:
Arborealus wrote:
Adex_Xeda wrote:The one theme I learned from the statistics classes I took in college was you can make ANYTHING look like you want with statistics.
Not really...You can make it look like you want with if you intentionally bias your statistics...which statistically invalidates your work.

Read what is said there. In this case I think it's safe to say he was biased.

A biased researcher can do a statistical analysis that is unbiased. Statistical bias is caused by uncontrolled extraneous variables. I would in this case say the research is crap, which doesn't not inherently invalidate the hypothesis, it just fails to prove it.

I do think the hypothesis is crap too actually in this case. I do not agree that intelligence is inversely proportional to religiosity, in either individuals or populations. It may well load in a multivariate analysis but I would say that amount of exposure to amount of differing cultures and points of view is what breaks down religiosity. Below some threshold of IQ individuals' minds become too rigid to accomodate self/other reasoning and true empathy.

The distribution isn't actually amenable to parametric statistics. So this simple correlation is obviously invalid though the statistics may or may not be biased. The model posited is way too simplistic and fails to account for many extraneous variables.

The mean IQ of any population as large as a country will always be very close to 100 if measured with any validity and reliablity IQ is norm referenced not criterion referenced, so there is clear bias in the IQ distribution. The fact that this wasn't noted and questioned shows that the fellow needs a decent review of stats, testing and measurement and research design and/or in all probability wanted to slam religious people.

I can slam religion just fine w/o resorting to all this pseudoscience...

Metanis · Post by **Metanis** » August 5, 2006, 10:33 am

Arborealus wrote:I can slam religion just fine w/o resorting to all this pseudoscience...

If there isn't a God then mankind would have invented one. Once you've invented God you need to worship him in order to validate your belief system. Your worship system must reflect your beliefs or it will not be sustainable across generations. A destructive belief system will not perpetuate itself as it kills off it's followers.

Given a choice between a hopeful constructive social experience such as religion and the stark abyss of atheism why is it so difficult to understand the world's vast preference for religion?

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » August 5, 2006, 11:59 am

Metanis wrote:
Arborealus wrote:I can slam religion just fine w/o resorting to all this pseudoscience...
If there isn't a God then mankind would have invented one. Once you've invented God you need to worship him in order to validate your belief system. Your worship system must reflect your beliefs or it will not be sustainable across generations. A destructive belief system will not perpetuate itself as it kills off it's followers.

Given a choice between a hopeful constructive social experience such as religion and the stark abyss of atheism why is it so difficult to understand the world's vast preference for religion?

Possibly the most delusional thing I've ever read. Good job.

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » August 5, 2006, 12:10 pm

Metanis wrote:Given a choice between a hopeful constructive social experience such as religion and the stark abyss of atheism why is it so difficult to understand the world's vast preference for religion?

Hrmmmmm funny the world doesn't look much like a stark abyss to me...In psychology we call that projection...

Kelgar · Post by **Kelgar** » August 5, 2006, 2:35 pm

Arborealus wrote:
Kelgar wrote:
Arborealus wrote:
Kelgar wrote: In fairness, if you're going to do a worldwide study math would be the area which can be least subjectively measured and is a reasonable indicator of logical aptitude.
Actually Vocabulary/Verbal Reasoning correlate far better with IQ...They are the best single predictor.
The key qualifier I used was "worldwide". Math is universal. Language isn't. I don't disagree with your assertion, but am merely pointing out that for the sake of convenience, math is a much more easily standardized reference to draw conclusions from. There are possible fudge factors not easily accounted for when measuring vocab/verbal reasoning skills due to different language structures.
Measuring Vocab and Verbal reasoning tested in native language on a culturally normed instrument is way superior. Exposure to arithmetic is itself culturally biased...Language usage is far closer to universal. Arithmetic is only universal among the highly educated.

I tend to agree that with your assessment, however, if it were possible to compile culturally normalized scores for every single country's verbal tests, then someone would likely have already done so. Seeing as how it's not, it's best to assume that it's simply not practical. Math lends itself to fewer interpretations than words do, making it easier to rely on.