wade-w

And what makes you think I didn�t?

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So you think there is no positive correlation between a scientific or mathematical education and higher IQ?

Where do you get that?

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Oh yes, I remember, all the morons back in high school couldn't wait to get their Ph.Ds in particle physics while the geeks were all looking forward to their careers as cleaning personnel. And I guess Mensa uses a GRE score of 1800 or so (which should not be far from average for graduate students) as entry threshhold because it has nothing to do with intelligence at all?

Nice strawman. The sample under consideration is drawn only from those with a background in science and mathematics. Thus it is biased, and says nothing about the general population. In short, you cannot use this study to conclude that atheists are more intelligent than theists in general. The only conclusions you can reasonably draw from it are about scientists and mathematicians. Or do you think that intelligent people only go into the sciences? Does this mean that all history or philosophy majors are not intelligent? What about english majors?

Where did you get this idea that only people who study science or mathematics are intelligent? Yes, most who do are intelligent. But that does not mean that those who don't aren't.

premjan

the highest consistent correlate for intelligence is language ability.
then comes math.
third comes analytical skills. that is why they structured the SAT/GRE with those sections.

Gurdur

*snicker*
I did, and roughly 6 others like it. Plus all the studies Metacrock is fond of citing which allegedly "show" that atheists are simply loonier and more inadequate than believers.
When you've finished babbling, Godbert, go back and look at the thread Wade-W and Livius cited. In that thread, I tackled several problems of the study.
Then tell me how one monocultural study/poll based on a classical Christian belief system (immortality, single God) has any relevance at all to the world population !
ROFLMAO !

Why don't you stop getting upset and actually tackle the points raised ?

Gurdur

With a bit more time, Madkins007, we'll have you doing the Detached Irony bit really well soon.

Welcome to the Club Of True Skeptics. No target left unsundered.

Gurdur

Hey, Wade-W,
this all reminds me of the attempts (by Broca and others) in the 19th century to prove that certain races were more "intelligent" than others, based on cranial size.
They ran into the same problems of defining "eminent scientists" when attempting to prove the French more intelligent than the Germans.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

premjan

The French are more intelligent than the Germans. France has produced more mathematicians (a higher type of intelligence) than Germans. Moreover German language is not as refined as French. So on two counts out of the three used by the GREs the French are better. Of course the Germans may be better physical specimens.

Gurdur

ROFL ROFL ROFLMAO !
You really should form a Church of Boundless Faith together with Consistant Thinker.

LOL. Give us all the stats and a consistant scaling system.
That is quite simply a ridiculous claim.
How can you turn a wholly subjective judgment on the comparative aesthetics of languages into an allegedly objective scaling system ?

ROFL. Yesterday and today are obviously Humor Days here.
Do you even speak German fluently ?

premjan

Few French people also know that their country is considered to be the third strongest in mathematics on the planet, behind the United States and Russia1.

This excellence is part of a long history, which began with Vi�te, in the 16th century. It then continued with Descartes (17th century), Fermat (17th century), Lagrange (18th-19th centuries), Laplace (18th-19th centuries), Galois (19th century)... and culminated with one of the greatest mathematicians of all time: Henri Poincar� (1854-1912), probably the last to have had complete knowledge of mathematics and their applications.

http://www.france.diplomatie.fr/labe...maticiens.html

Russia and the USA are much larger nations than either France or Germany.

Moreover, French mathematicians typically publish many papers in French mathematics journals. German mathematicians typically do not publish in German language mathematics journals. The French mathematics tradition is definitely stronger than the German tradition (the Germans make up for it in Physics where they have generated more big names).

Of course the Germans have produced a few big mathematical names such as Gauss. But that does not represent the body of the distribution.

And as for language, why do you sneer at the popular perception of French as higher culture than German? I think where there is smoke there is fire. The French probably are more cultured than the Germans. Now I will not make that claim vis-a-vis Italians necessarily.

premjan

France has 6 Fields medal winners to Germany's 3.
This indicates the French are better traditionally at Mathematics than Germans.

I don't want to be too literal and say the French are twice as good at mathematics than the Germans since this is obviously the tail of the distribution.

premjan

on the issue of language I don't think there is any way to prove to a person with a skeptical bias. However, it is well-known that Italian is more sophisticated language than French and French is more sophisticated than German. This sort of cultural outgrowth has occured because at some point in the historical past, there has been a population of linguistically more talented people dwelling in Italy, and some in France and less in Germany. These informal judgements are basd on historical truth unless the skeptic proves otherwise.