this number is 93% among the members of the National Academy of Sciences. Expressions of positive disbelief rose from 52% to 72%. See also Relationship between religion and science.
Listen I AM NOT saying you are stupid, but face the FACTS, the more intelligent you are the more likely you are so see through religious nonsense. THAT is a FACT.
That wikipedia link doesn’t tell us anything at all. I know what you are trying to say, but I just don’t see any convincing stats yet to support your claim at all. I’m being dead serious too.
Here’s why:
You are claiming atheism is directly proportional to intelligence quotient. Notice that
IQ measures intellectual capacity, whereas you only found a correlation between atheism and** education level ** **(or scientific CULTURE)–**so the sampling is not only biased, but also doesn’t even have to do with I.Q. at all!
We are presumably trying to find positive correlations between one’s actual intellectual **capacity **and one’s actual beliefs (or lack thereof), not between scientific culture/education level and one’s actual beliefs. That’s the evidence that we need before you can make any plausible claims about *causal *factors. A correlation between education level and atheism in the Academy of the Sciences doesn’t tell us
jack.
First we need to find **proportional **relationships between ALL atheist’s and IQ, not just for those Atheists found in academia. We also need to find proportional relationships between ALL religious folk and IQ. Next, we need to control for various other factors such as education level, culture, income, family upbringing, personality. And we have to do this across cultural boundaries for the world at large, not just within Academic circles or onlyu within particular cultures. So I am quite certain if we do the job
correctly that all of these factors are going to throw the positive correlation you think exists between atheism and IQ way off mark from what you expected. So let’s try to construct a really fruitful test instead of speculating, shall we?
You asked me once before what reason I had for explaining why a good majority of people lack religious beliefs in Western academia. I told you I thought it was due to pride, not an intelligence-factor. And I do thoroughly believe this because I live, eat, breathe, and sh** in academia, and I see a good selection of prideful personality types that will too often miss very critical intellectual distinctions that need to be made on what appear to be trivial matters because their other non-intellectual/social concerns will cloud their judgment.
For instance,
I see more flashy shows of pompous academic culture, rather than displays of amazing feats of intelligence. I see more people siding with various schools of thought, rather than unbiasedly taking a neutral stance with regard to pressing questions. I see academics pursuing their dog-eat-dog mentality trying to trump their opponent for a little glimpse of academic recognition, instead of partaking in a thoroughly critical examination of their own biases. So I am truly convinced that most of those in academia are no “smarter” than your average person; they are just more pedantic, arrogant, and educated.
Many of them are just after a little fame, masturbation, and a means of enhancing their little intellectual egos.
First-hand experience, man. I see it both among scientists and philosophers. Don’t get me wrong. I do find many people I thoroughly respect for what they have to offer. I just don’t think academia possesses somekind of “God-like” vision everyone else outside academia lacks. This intellectual pride is precisely the weakness among intellectuals, and everyone is guilty of this, including myself.
In sum: I am convinced atheism has NO correlation with actual intelligence. I don’t have scientific evidence for this, but you don’t have evidence for the contrary position either. We need better studies. Our best option is to suspend judgment until that time.
. DEAR OH DEAR!