IQ and Religion • Hacker News Board

Re: IQ and Religion

#11

Post by eps » Wed, Oct 17, 2012, 8:15 AM UTC

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.

Re: IQ and Religion

#12

Post by davidw » Wed, Oct 17, 2012, 8:21 AM UTC

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.

Re: IQ and Religion

#13

Post by yen223 » Wed, Oct 17, 2012, 8:21 AM UTC

mrspeaker wrote: post #10

tankbot wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you're joking. Anyway, for me this stokes my confirmation bias that the stupider a person is, the more likely they are to believe in ridiculous nonsense. It also shows that the U.S. is sorta smart for how religious they are.

Soooo then it goes against your confirmation bias, right?

The US is an outlier.

Re: IQ and Religion

#14

Post by westicle » Wed, Oct 17, 2012, 8:26 AM UTC

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?

Re: IQ and Religion

#15

Post by bad_user » Wed, Oct 17, 2012, 8:26 AM UTC

tankbot wrote: post #9

molf wrote: post #5

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-...

Although I agree with you, this is not evident from the graph. There are some really poor countries on there with good IQ and low religiosity.

You can't discus religiosity without also discussing the local culture.

In my country (Romania, claimed IQ average in the article being 94), because of the local culture and even though I'm sure there are plenty of atheists and agnostics around, people that are not religious do not usually admit it, because that brings with it the disapproval of society at large. And the local culture does shape the society you live in, being a powerful force against misfits.

In fact, based on my own observations, I think that religiosity is also directly linked with poverty. Due to the economic recession, the orthodox church here has never been more popular in the last 100 years, or more wealthy.

Btw, I am religious, while my IQ is well over average.

Re: IQ and Religion

#16

Post by chmod775 » Wed, Oct 17, 2012, 8:29 AM UTC

b3tta wrote: post #7

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.

You're looking at it the wrong way. Of course saying the average IQ depends on religious belief is nonsense[1], but the other way around ie. saying the likelyhood of believing in religious stuff depends on how high your IQ is might make sense to some people.

1. Religion tends to suppress and influence education, if that has any effect on the IQ of the population has yet to be proven

Re: IQ and Religion

#17

Post by javert » Wed, Oct 17, 2012, 8:29 AM UTC

eps wrote: post #11

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…

Why make the assertion that wealth is the underlying cause?

I think it's more likely that it's more religion -> less wealth -> poorer health -> lower IQ.

After all, ultimately, wealth is not a cause, but an effect. Wealth is produced; it doesn't fall from the sky.

Re: IQ and Religion

#18

Post by antihero » Wed, Oct 17, 2012, 8:36 AM UTC

westicle wrote: post #14

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 wi…

Perhaps it's because IQ has it's own fair share of problems and focuses on specific types of intelligence. It also has massive cultural bias.

Some would go as far to say it's entirely meaningless.

Re: IQ and Religion

#19

Post by echion » Wed, Oct 17, 2012, 8:38 AM UTC

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

Re: IQ and Religion

#20

Post by andyjohnson0 » Wed, Oct 17, 2012, 8:42 AM UTC

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".