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Old 10-20-2007, 10:22 AM   #41
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

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Originally Posted by lord_carbo View Post
If you believe the notion that if nonbelievers receive eternal punishment while the opposite is true for believers, and that god is omnipotent and omniscient and by result is infallible, then yes, religion is very important.
No, it was a sarcastic comment that meant to compare the importance of both threads mentionned by Afrobean.
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Old 10-20-2007, 03:58 PM   #42
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

I don't think that it has anything to do with religion. I'm not religious and I have an I.Q. of 96. I look really stupid compared to geniuses with I.Q.'s of 140, honestly. Yet do I have religion? Not really. Atheists can be dumb, too. So why am I posting in CT...? >.>
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Old 10-20-2007, 06:44 PM   #43
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

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No, it was a sarcastic comment that meant to compare the importance of both threads mentionned by Afrobean.
Oh, whatever.

Anyway, thread is stupid, study has been debunked, let's move on, etc.
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Old 10-20-2007, 09:05 PM   #44
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

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Originally Posted by devonin View Post
I've heard of IQs down below 60, and I've heard of IQs up into the 190s.

140 is generally the minimum for entry in MENSA, so if you consider all MENSA members to be geniuses, then I guess that isn't a terrible bar to set, but if I were going to assign "Genius" to any subset of the population, it would have to be smaller than the top 1.0% and since MENSA ~= 140 ~= top 2%, I have to set my bar higher than that.
140 is extremely high...which is probably why he took an invalid internet IQ test >__>. He took two tests in the same day, so it's pure bs. Real tests usually take awhile, and the most common ones usually cost a few hundred dollars to administer. You can try taking 'test the nation' (Canadian) online if you want a fairly valid IQ test.

Most test batteries aren't even capable of scores over 130-140. At least for adults. If you were tested under the age of 16 then the scale can go up to infinity, technically, and it's not the same. Michael Keanary has a 'childhood' ratio IQ of 330. But anyway, 140 is 99.6th percentile for adults, and 130 is the Mensa cutoff. Tests that can go over 140 include WAIS, Binet, Ravens APM, some Catell scales and a few others, and none of them have ceilings over 160. 190 is ridiculous... one in a billion, and there are only a few people on the planet with an IQ that high. For the record, since there are currently no psychometrically valid tests capable of going over 166, any scores higher than that are extrapolations (ex Chris Langan).

I like to think of IQ as analogous to pc specs. Just because you're running a smooth ride doesn't mean you have any good hardware on it or that you utilize it.


Anyway, these results aren't surprising. The white-black gap in IQ has been known for a long time. Since the early 1900s. As an FYI, asians average higher than whites. Well educated people tend to have higher IQ's...and there are less religous people in academia than in the general public. People tend to leave these types of faith based systems when they become more knowledgable.

As for the causes of this, some people have already pointed out a couple. IQ= genes + environment. From there it's pretty obvious.
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Old 10-25-2007, 03:06 AM   #45
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

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Metaphysical numbery stuffery
Why are you so obsessed with IQ; you are intense about gauging your pattern recognition skills, man.
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Old 10-26-2007, 05:36 PM   #46
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

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Why are you so obsessed with IQ; you are intense about gauging your pattern recognition skills, man.
I'm obsessed? >__> I'm just setting the record straight.

I am taking psychometrics and statistics though. I like stats.

Anyway uh, since you mentioned it, IQ tests are more than just pattern recognition skills. You might be thinking about Ravens APM or might have been generalizing, but I'd assume you took the Wechsler battery for children when you talked about formal testing. It has a lot of crystallized intelligence (application of knowledge) testing on it, as do most tests. A few tests only test fluid intelligence (you can call it pattern recognition, it's just problem solving independent of previous knowledge), and you can kind of get away with it as fluid reasoning is highly predictive of your knowledge base and working memory (in young adults anyway).
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Old 10-27-2007, 02:06 AM   #47
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

In my opinion, I don't think it's good to go off labeling people just because they are religious or not. That sounds dumb to me. Everyone is their own individual and should be judged as just that.

Personally, I am religious I was raised religiously, but I don't follow everything by the book. I disagree with certain things. I like to study different religions on my own time. I keep an open mind about anything because everything is a possibility unless you can 100% prove it. If you can't prove that God exists or doesn't exist then I don't think it's right to label people as less intelligent. A study is a study, it is a theory but it is not proven. This test sounds a bit biased to me for the fact that right off the bat they went about labeling people as "smart". As someone mentioned previously knowledge and intelligence are different and everyone has different experiences in life which would ultimately alter your knowledge. Anyhow back to my original point, I like to study other religions and see what they have to say. I listen to what science also has to offer, BUT! the first rule of science is that no miracles are allowed. So scientists have to go about proving things with hardcore fact. I understand science has proven a lot but the one thing science has yet to prove is how we all got here and how the universe functions as a whole and what is it's purpose. With religion that gives more of an explanation of what happen and how we all got here.

One thing I really do find interesting throughout my studies is that all over the world no matter what religion, one thing is in common with people who do believe in a higher power. That thing is that all the people of the world have very similar creation stories (think: adam and eve) now ask yourself how can that be possible that in a time of no boats, airplanes, transportation, can all these people have similar ideas about how the world started? Even more so, how could everyone get the same idea about the mythological creature such as the dragon to be included into these stories? All over the world they describe this creature with wings, fire breathing and of the dark side. There is also one other thing all these stories have in common and that is the creation of the earth and universe and how that came to be. I can name over like 20+ religions that have these similar types of stories. (Remember these stories were all created before any modern day transportation, so there was no way of knowing of what someone in africa and someone in the americas was thinking) If you can explain that and how we all came to be, scientifically, you win

this site has a lot of different creation stories- they mostly talk about the creation of the earth. Check it out if you are interested http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=1&gl=us
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Old 10-27-2007, 02:11 AM   #48
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

This is just another example of the classic correlation vs. causation argument.
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Old 10-27-2007, 02:53 AM   #49
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

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Originally Posted by zadovoljna View Post
In my opinion, I don't think it's good to go off labeling people just because they are religious or not. That sounds dumb to me. Everyone is their own individual and should be judged as just that.
I think there's just as much to object to labelling everyone as belonging to categories as there is to labelling everyone as not belonging to categories.

Quote:
Personally, I am religious I was raised religiously, but I don't follow everything by the book. I disagree with certain things. I like to study different religions on my own time. I keep an open mind about anything because everything is a possibility unless you can 100% prove it. If you can't prove that God exists or doesn't exist then I don't think it's right to label people as less intelligent.
Did you actually look at the information or did you jump to a conclusion because of the thread title? The study didn't say "Religious people are stupid because they are religious" it said "We asked all kinds of people questions about all kinds of things, and the majority of people citing religious beliefs had lower IQs than the majority of people citing non-religious beliefs.

Quote:
A study is a study, it is a theory but it is not proven. This test sounds a bit biased to me for the fact that right off the bat they went about labeling people as "smart". As someone mentioned previously knowledge and intelligence are different and everyone has different experiences in life which would ultimately alter your knowledge.
They drew a correlation between the test results they recieved (which are proven to have been recieved by them) and the IQ of the people submitting those results (which they are proven to have found and used) What you -can- do is say "I don't believe that IQ equals intelligence" or "I feel they should have used a larger/different sample size" However, since they used the actual results they found, and the actual IQs of the people involved, you cannot say that the test is faulty on the grounds of "labelling people smart" or anything of the sort.

They said "Given people's answers, and IQs, this is the result" If you grant that those were the answers, and those were the IQs, then you grant the results.

Quote:
Anyhow back to my original point, I like to study other religions and see what they have to say. I listen to what science also has to offer, BUT! the first rule of science is that no miracles are allowed. So scientists have to go about proving things with hardcore fact. I understand science has proven a lot but the one thing science has yet to prove is how we all got here and how the universe functions as a whole and what is it's purpose. With religion that gives more of an explanation of what happen and how we all got here.
But you've just admitted that religion provides answers with no evidence whatsoever to back up that answer. I can tell you that the universe was sneezed into existance by a being called the Greet Blue Arklesiezure, and that I know this because I have faith, and you would be obliged to treat that as just as likely as any other "miraculous" or "faith-bsaed" conclusion about the existance of the universe.

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One thing I really do find interesting throughout my studies is that all over the world no matter what religion, one thing is in common with people who do believe in a higher power. That thing is that all the people of the world have very similar creation stories (think: adam and eve) now ask yourself how can that be possible that in a time of no boats, airplanes, transportation, can all these people have similar ideas about how the world started?
I think if you actually look into it, almost no creation stories involve a seperate and distinct higher power, with no human characteristics, creating everything in sequence ending with man as the most important and central creation, with a fixed divine plan for all such people. Mostly you find creation stories that say "Such and such created this and that" in some orientation. This is because when you are asked "How did all this come to be" it doesn't matter where you live or who you are, your answer (since no God is in visible evidence, and no means of creating the world is obvious to you) is to say that some being that we can't see created everything long ago through means beyond us.

That doesn't make religious ideas somehow more likely to be true just because many peoples have appealed to the supernatural to explain creation.

Quote:
Even more so, how could everyone get the same idea about the mythological creature such as the dragon to be included into these stories? All over the world they describe this creature with wings, fire breathing and of the dark side.
Consider the possibility that the stories stem from such things actually existing and being seen by prehistoric humans.

Quote:
There is also one other thing all these stories have in common and that is the creation of the earth and universe and how that came to be. I can name over like 20+ religions that have these similar types of stories. (Remember these stories were all created before any modern day transportation, so there was no way of knowing of what someone in africa and someone in the americas was thinking) If you can explain that and how we all came to be, scientifically, you win
How about: "The species Homo Sapiens Sapiens originated in one place ages ago, and thus sharing a common ancestor and common root experience, developed similar attitudes and stories." Does that work at all well for you?

Quote:
Originally Posted by MrRubix
This is just another example of the classic correlation vs. causation argument.
Um...I'm not aware of a "classic" correlation vs causation arguement. I'm aware of the fact that claiming correlation implies causation can be one of the informal logical fallacies, but as I pointed out above, they were making no such appeal.

They said simply "We asked these questions, got these results from this IQ of people, and here are the conclusions." I'm not sure they said "Therefore, all religious people are less intelligent than all non-religious people" or even "this implies that religious people have low IQs" Those were certainly implications you could take from the results, but the results simply said "From the sample, there was a trend towards religious thought from the less intelligent, and a trend towards non-religious thought from the more intelligent"
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Old 10-27-2007, 04:06 AM   #50
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

whatever happened to that stereotype where asians are for some reason proportionately smarter?

by the way i am not religious, nor do i deny it in full. agnostic is the way to go. i don't know why more people aren't agnostic...
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Old 10-27-2007, 04:20 AM   #51
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

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whatever happened to that stereotype where asians are for some reason proportionately smarter?

by the way i am not religious, nor do i deny it in full. agnostic is the way to go. i don't know why more people aren't agnostic...
Quote:
Are you kidding me? Race has nothing to do with IQ. It has all to do with your family's social status. The reason a lot of Asians have the "Asians are smart" stereotype is because most of their families are rich and their parents have some kind of educational background. They are the select few who were smart enough to earn enough money or go to college in America where they ended up living and because most of them are doctors, they've gone through the entire school system and have their own understanding of the values of school and they hope that their children, by succeeding in school, will one day become doctors as well rather than some high school dropout flipping hamburgers.

That being said, it's understandable when Black people have the "black people are stupid" stereotype. After the end of slavery, most black families could never make it big in jobs. They embraced their right to learn and they excelled in it, but they weren't allowed to make big bucks because no job would let them do so. The families became poor and most kids had to dropout of high school and work for money as a necessity. When they grow older, they don't really see the importance of school because it couldn't get them anywhere and even if it did, they weren't allowed to.

White people have been the dominating "race" in America and they have better jobs. There is a higher concentration of middle class white families who do have the ability to put their children through high school and college and as such, they can get better paying jobs and are seen as "smarter" because they have the education to back it up.

I didn't click the link to watch or read whatever was in it, whether this is a joke or not, I don't find it very funny. The school I go to is located in a "rich-family" area which is dominated by an Asian population. I don't think the kids do well because they are Asian, they do well because their parents taught them the mindset of "do well in school, do well in life" and everyone just follows along. It's not just the Asians, it's every other ethnic group, the small populace of Native American, Alaskan, Whites, Pacific Islanders, Blacks, you name it, will more than likely follow with this mindset because of either the parents or their peers. I have black friends who say that their parents would beat them up if they scored any lower than a 3.6 as a GPA. Do you really think that's a race issue or a social issue?

~Tsugomaru
To sum it up, race has nothing to do with your IQ. It's all in your social status and environment.

~Tsugomaru
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WHEN do you think people die...?
When their heart is pierced by a bullet from a pistol...? No.
When they succumb to an incurable disease...? No.
When they drink soup made with a poisonous mushroom...? NO!!!
IT'S WHEN A PERSON IS FORGOTTEN...!!!

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Old 10-27-2007, 09:46 AM   #52
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

Quote:
Are you kidding me? Race has nothing to do with IQ. It has all to do with your family's social status. The reason a lot of Asians have the "Asians are smart" stereotype is because most of their families are rich and their parents have some kind of educational background. They are the select few who were smart enough to earn enough money or go to college in America where they ended up living and because most of them are doctors, they've gone through the entire school system and have their own understanding of the values of school and they hope that their children, by succeeding in school, will one day become doctors as well rather than some high school dropout flipping hamburgers.

That being said, it's understandable when Black people have the "black people are stupid" stereotype. After the end of slavery, most black families could never make it big in jobs. They embraced their right to learn and they excelled in it, but they weren't allowed to make big bucks because no job would let them do so. The families became poor and most kids had to dropout of high school and work for money as a necessity. When they grow older, they don't really see the importance of school because it couldn't get them anywhere and even if it did, they weren't allowed to.

White people have been the dominating "race" in America and they have better jobs. There is a higher concentration of middle class white families who do have the ability to put their children through high school and college and as such, they can get better paying jobs and are seen as "smarter" because they have the education to back it up.

I didn't click the link to watch or read whatever was in it, whether this is a joke or not, I don't find it very funny. The school I go to is located in a "rich-family" area which is dominated by an Asian population. I don't think the kids do well because they are Asian, they do well because their parents taught them the mindset of "do well in school, do well in life" and everyone just follows along. It's not just the Asians, it's every other ethnic group, the small populace of Native American, Alaskan, Whites, Pacific Islanders, Blacks, you name it, will more than likely follow with this mindset because of either the parents or their peers. I have black friends who say that their parents would beat them up if they scored any lower than a 3.6 as a GPA. Do you really think that's a race issue or a social issue?

~Tsugomaru
To say that IQ is entirely influenced by social status is bunk. You would be able to correlate it nearly perfectly with IQ then, and that is simply not the case. Social status correlates with IQ at about r=0.5 or less according to studies, meaning it accounts for less than 25% of the variance. You can account for more of the IQ with an F MRI calculation of cortex tissue area.

On that same note, the same goes for schooling and performance there. You talk about ones intelligence quite strongly in the context of how educated you are, but more often than not higher education (college and beyond) has absolutely no effect on an individuals intelligence. IQ and school achievement are only mildly correlated (less than r=0.5). At this point you're gaining knowledge, not aptitude.

If anything you were getting closer to the point near the end. The more important thing that has shown to be strongly correlate with the child's IQ is upbringing and exposure during the first few years of life, before going to school. The key is really an optimal environment for the child to develop in, which explains the IQ gap fairly well...however, you don't need to have a high income to bring a child up properly. You just need to be a responsible, loving and willing parent...but at the same time, you can't breed geniuses. Genes and the environment interact together to make you who you are. It's never just one or the other.


I should make clear that I'm not saying race is influences IQ. It probably does, to a degree, but it shouldn't matter statistically. Assuming race differences exist (they do, but barely), they are diluted by the fact that there is often more variance between individuals of the same race than across races genetically. It's fairly evident that the IQ gap between races is caused by much more than genetics...though trying to narrow it down to a single environmental factor certainly doesn't achieve anything.
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Old 10-27-2007, 01:50 PM   #53
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

Rubix, if you don't care enough to support what you say, then you ought not to post at all.
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Old 10-27-2007, 04:04 PM   #54
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

Reach, I agree with you. The post I wrote was quoted from a different thread and my response was tailored specifically to address the issue I did.

I was trying to make a point that stereotypes aren't the auto-decider of who's "smarter"; a lot of it has to do with the environment they grew up in. I'm also not trying to say that school automatically makes you "smart", it doesn't.

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Originally Posted by Hiluluk
WHEN do you think people die...?
When their heart is pierced by a bullet from a pistol...? No.
When they succumb to an incurable disease...? No.
When they drink soup made with a poisonous mushroom...? NO!!!
IT'S WHEN A PERSON IS FORGOTTEN...!!!
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Old 10-27-2007, 11:04 PM   #55
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

Mod Edit: This has been a pretty calm and rational discussion so far, and this remark was needlessly dismissive and inflammatory.

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Old 10-29-2007, 01:14 AM   #56
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

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To sum it up, race has nothing to do with your IQ. It's all in your social status and environment.

~Tsugomaru
there's still a reason behind it all... and i'm not sure what it is. there are plenty of rich people, and paying for education means nothing when you're an idiot.

i personally think the reason there is the asian stereotype of them being smarter is because of their customs and traditions. most asian people value education tremendously, whereas some other people who hold other cultures and traditional values at a lower standard, thus resulting in education not being as important as other things in life.
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Old 11-2-2007, 01:36 AM   #57
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

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I think there's just as much to object to labelling everyone as belonging to categories as there is to labelling everyone as not belonging to categories.
Okay, that is your opinion vs. mine.

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Did you actually look at the information or did you jump to a conclusion because of the thread title? The study didn't say "Religious people are stupid because they are religious" it said "We asked all kinds of people questions about all kinds of things, and the majority of people citing religious beliefs had lower IQs than the majority of people citing non-religious beliefs.
No, I actually read the whole thread and read the stuff on the link. Just to be politically correct, I never implied that anyone said anyone was stupid Can you clarify what exactly this means- "We asked all kinds of people questions about all kinds of things, and the majority of people citing religious beliefs had lower IQs than the majority of people citing non-religious beliefs."

Would you know if these people citing religious beliefs as a response are doing it to all kinds of questions or only to the religious questions?

Quote:
They drew a correlation between the test results they recieved (which are proven to have been recieved by them) and the IQ of the people submitting those results (which they are proven to have found and used) What you -can- do is say "I don't believe that IQ equals intelligence" or "I feel they should have used a larger/different sample size" However, since they used the actual results they found, and the actual IQs of the people involved, you cannot say that the test is faulty on the grounds of "labelling people smart" or anything of the sort.

They said "Given people's answers, and IQs, this is the result" If you grant that those were the answers, and those were the IQs, then you grant the results.
Perhaps "I don't believe that IQ equals intelligence" was the words I was looking for (thanks).
I think that there are different types of intelligence levels and that simply cannot confine people to one standard of intelligence (this has long been a debate amongst what is the standard for measuring intelligence). For example there is emotional intelligence, artistic intelligence, musical intelligence, logic intelligence. There are all these different types of categories, that it isn't fair to say if one person has emotional intelligence is smarter than a person who is more musically intelligent. Maybe the test was flawed in the way that it only had a certain type of questions that applied to only one type of these categories. I don't think it is possible to have an overall method to indicate and measure intelligence because everyone is born and raised in a different environment and therefore exposed to different things that is needed for survival in their environment. If you were to take a person who graduated with a PHD in writing and compare them to a tribal person from Africa, clearly in our society the person with the PHD would be considered far more intelligent. Now take the same 2 people and put them in Africa to survive. The tribal guy is going to be intelligent in the way that he will know his botany, how to farm, build a house, how to travel using the sun and moon and different types of knowledge than this person with a PHD in writing has.
(Just for a thought what if you gave this PHD guy an intelligence, test but with the Africa tribal guys society standards) Therefore you can't compare the two and simply say that this guy with a PHD is smarter. However, I am assuming that this test was taken within people of our society, but you also have to consider that maybe some of them were immigrants from other countries and also different parts of the U.S.A have different mentalities on certain things. My parents are from a foreign country and they know things that I never could have learned in college, simply because of the different societies we were raised in. I don't think that any society is superior or inferior to one another, it's just different exposures to different things.

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But you've just admitted that religion provides answers with no evidence whatsoever to back up that answer. I can tell you that the universe was sneezed into existance by a being called the Greet Blue Arklesiezure, and that I know this because I have faith, and you would be obliged to treat that as just as likely as any other "miraculous" or "faith-bsaed" conclusion about the existance of the universe.
I didn't admit anything, I am just theorizing on what could be. If you told me that the universe was sneezed into existence what proof do I have against you to prove you are wrong? I don't, so I would hear you out until I saw a flaw in your theory. If there was no flaw then for all I know you could be correct and end up having some hardcore fans out there. My personal belief is until it is 100% proven how the universe and people came to be, I will believe in a higher power. (Personally, I hope there is something more out there) It is uncertain how we got here, why we are here, and what role the universe plays. Science has yet to go and explore other more distant planets. There could be more out there. I think science will have a difficult time proving the functions of the universe unless they can perfect the big bang theory or some other science based theory.

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I think if you actually look into it, almost no creation stories involve a seperate and distinct higher power, with no human characteristics, creating everything in sequence ending with man as the most important and central creation, with a fixed divine plan for all such people. Mostly you find creation stories that say "Such and such created this and that" in some orientation. This is because when you are asked "How did all this come to be" it doesn't matter where you live or who you are, your answer (since no God is in visible evidence, and no means of creating the world is obvious to you) is to say that some being that we can't see created everything long ago through means beyond us.That doesn't make religious ideas somehow more likely to be true just because many peoples have appealed to the supernatural to explain creation.
I did look into it which is why I proved a link to a site- http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=1&gl=us To be honest I have throughly examined this site just yet but here is some of the things I was taking about. I made it in Excel but it doesn't come out good here since I can't or don't know how to insert a table here.
Code:
Origin of creation myth  higher power    adam and eve story-    days of creation
Zulu                     Unkulunkulu          no                          yes
Bantu tribe                 Bumba           Yoko Lima                     yes
Nigeria                     Abasi         Yes- no names                    no
Southern Nigeria         Obassi Osaw      yes- no names                   yes
Ainu                       Kamui          Aoina and Ainu                  yes
Apache                    Creator              yes                        yes
Australian Aboriginal       no             Ungambikula                    yes
Aztec                    Coatlique        Coyolxauhqui                     no
Chelan                    Creator         yes- no names                    no
these places are not all right next to each other. Some are, some aren't but this was my original point in how can people who don't live near each other in a time of no transportation be able to get the same/ similar message across? The website also provides more information if you are interested. You are also right in the way that it doesn't make it more true just because supernatural appeals to more people, but with the information I provided you can't rule out this fact 100% because I just provided some proof that maybe it could be possible since everyone has a similar idea.


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Consider the possibility that the stories stem from such things actually existing and being seen by prehistoric humans.
If you believe in the evolution theory "prehistoric humans" couldn't talk because their vocal cords were not developed fully yet until they "evolved" into homo-sapiens. Therefore no prehistoric human can speak to pass on these stories. Also there are no animals now or around the time of the first homo-sapien that looked like a dragon. The only type of dragon that exists in modern day times is the Komodo Dragon but they only inhabit the island of Komodo in Indonesia so that isn't even possible that they evolved and then all moved to Indonesia.

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How about: "The species Homo Sapiens Sapiens originated in one place ages ago, and thus sharing a common ancestor and common root experience, developed similar attitudes and stories." Does that work at all well for you?
Could be, but according to science, people started to spread around the world and settling elsewhere. I'm not sure how old these stories are. You might have something there though.

In conclusion, if it's a study based on trend alone, this test is probably not the most accurate thing. This is the point I am trying to make with the information above. I am not completely disagreeing/ agreeing I am just suggesting things that could be possible.

Last edited by devonin; 11-2-2007 at 01:48 AM.. Reason: Oh god, the quote tags!
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Old 11-2-2007, 02:19 AM   #58
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

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Originally Posted by zadovoljna View Post
No, I actually read the whole thread and read the stuff on the link. Just to be politically correct, I never implied that anyone said anyone was stupid Can you clarify what exactly this means- "We asked all kinds of people questions about all kinds of things, and the majority of people citing religious beliefs had lower IQs than the majority of people citing non-religious beliefs."
It means:
A) We asked many people questions
B) We measured the IQ of those same people
C) The people who answered the questions in a way that suggested they were religious corresponded generally to the people with low IQs
D) The people who answered the questions in a way that suggested they were not religious corresponded generally to the people with high IQs
E) Therefore, we draw the inductive conclusion from this, that religious people are apt to be less intelligent than non-religious people
or
F) We draw the inductive conclusion that less intelligent people are apt to be more religious than more intelligent people

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Would you know if these people citing religious beliefs as a response are doing it to all kinds of questions or only to the religious questions?
They pointed specifically to the questions about reigion in the article. Questions about belief in a higher power, etc. The people who said "Yes I believe in such religious things" also seemed to be the people with the lower IQ.

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Perhaps "I don't believe that IQ equals intelligence" was the words I was looking for (thanks).
No problem.

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I think that there are different types of intelligence levels and that simply cannot confine people to one standard of intelligence (this has long been a debate amongst what is the standard for measuring intelligence). For example there is emotional intelligence, artistic intelligence, musical intelligence, logic intelligence. There are all these different types of categories, that it isn't fair to say if one person has emotional intelligence is smarter than a person who is more musically intelligent.
Nor did they say such a person was. They said "Based on IQ" and "Higher IQ versus lower IQ" You are allowed to criticise the study for not taking into account other measures of intelligence, but since they didn't draw conclusions outside the bounds of their study, you can't fault the conclusions. They said "We checked IQ, and found this correspondance between IQ and Religion" The correspondance is there, they proved it. It is up to you to decide whether you find the conclusions -meaningful- or -useful- not whether you find the conclusions accurate.

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My personal belief is until it is 100% proven how the universe and people came to be, I will believe in a higher power.
If your burden of proof to believe something is that it be 100% proven, how can you justify believing -anything- in the interim?


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these places are not all right next to each other. Some are, some aren't but this was my original point in how can people who don't live near each other in a time of no transportation be able to get the same/ similar message across?
The world was not always shaped the way that it is shaped now. Given the theory of the North American population emigrating from Asia via the Land bridge, clearly these pre-historic peoples got around over not a small amount of land.

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but with the information I provided you can't rule out this fact 100% because I just provided some proof that maybe it could be possible since everyone has a similar idea.
While it is the case that you can not conclude something is false simply because it hasn't been proven correct, you also cannot conclude something is true simply because it hasn't been proven wrong.

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If you believe in the evolution theory "prehistoric humans" couldn't talk because their vocal cords were not developed fully yet until they "evolved" into homo-sapiens. Therefore no prehistoric human can speak to pass on these stories.
And there are no methods besides speech to communicate anything...Also Homo Sapiens have existed theoretically for about 200,000 years So that's plenty of time to be "modern humans" to be communicating.

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In conclusion, if it's a study based on trend alone, this test is probably not the most accurate thing. This is the point I am trying to make with the information above. I am not completely disagreeing/ agreeing I am just suggesting things that could be possible.
Well like I said. It is pretty easy to take issue with the methods they used and thus find their conclusions not very useful, but they are at least valid within the parameters of the study.
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Old 11-4-2007, 09:32 PM   #59
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Cool Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

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Originally Posted by Devonin
Well like I said. It is pretty easy to take issue with the methods they used and thus find their conclusions not very useful, but they are at least valid within the parameters of the study.
Good argument, I just have the tendency to question the validity of studies such as this. Whenever I watch the news it like, oh if you eat this you might not get cancer according to our new study, if your child plays with this it will be really smart, according to our new study, ect.
After a while I just begin to sit there and be like well you have all these studies but how true can they all possibly be? Sometimes those science people are wrong, sometimes they are right. I just don't like to immediately believe everything I hear without analyzing it myself.

Last edited by devonin; 11-4-2007 at 09:42 PM.. Reason: Quote tags again
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Old 11-4-2007, 09:48 PM   #60
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Default Re: Religious people aren't as smart as Atheists

The point of these studies is that the average single person on their own simply lacks the ability to conduct that analysis themselves. You don't have the ability to go out and poll a suitable geographic and demographic cross-section of the nation yourself, and possibly lack the education and training in statistical analysis to draw the same kinds of conclusion from the data.

When you're told that a study indicates something, if the organization doing the study is worth the name, they've accounted for potential biases in results, and the margin of error should be clearly stated.

Once again, while it is up to the individual viewing the results to decide how important these results are to their life, unless there is a really major bias hidden in the parameters, I suspect very few of the studies draw outright -wrong- conclusions from the data.
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