JustBlazed

Without throwing in any bias what-so-ever, has anybody ever done a study to compare Fundie's IQ's as a whole with that of other groups? Against Atheists? Muslims? Liberal Christians?

Now on to my own personal biases. I feel that this group as a whole has a definite lower IQ than other denominations. They often abandoned rational thought and critical thinking skills......factors that are necessary in determining human intelligence. This may not be related to IQ, but I also feel that as a group they are easily manipulated by religious and government leaders and therefore have very little independent thought when it comes to forming a basis of their own opinions. Without critical thinking skills......how intelligent can one really be?

I have no clue how this study could be conducted but was stiill curious to see if someone had ever done any comparative studies on intelligence and the religion one subscribes to. A Google search proved fruitless except for a few Christian sites proclaiming that it is impossible to prove a corrollation between intelligence and religious beliefs through scientific studies, is there something to their claim?

p.s. I'm not looking for a debate on the validity of IQ proving ANYTHING, but a lot of us here take great pride in our IQ's (I'm not one of them) and also being an Atheist. If you feel another measuring instrument of intelligence would be better suited for this discussion, like EQ......please feel free to chime in.

Starlock

A study like this could never be anything more than correlational, making its results dubious in value at best. In short, it wouldn't tell you anything about how religious beliefs actually effect a person's aptitude on an IQ test (ie, you can't make a causitive inference). Establishing causation for something like this is impossible, in prime because research ethics forbid the kind of experiment that would be neccesary and also because something like intelligence is influenced by may variables aside from religion.

While you stated you aren't wnting to debate the validity of IQ, this one will say that IQ is not the only valuable measure of human aptitude. There exist many forms of what could be considered 'intelligence' some of which are impossible to measure in any objective way (such as creativity).

I am not making a statement about the original poster personally, but when I see threads like this, the very idea strikes me as a way for a bigot to rationalize their maltreatment or looking down upon a particular group. That isn't to say such a study dosen't have value, but that's what it reeks of to this one. It would be like asking "can we correlate being hispanic with having low IQ?" or "can we correlate being homosexual with high crime rates?" I guess I'm just sensitive to these subtleties of language usage....

Barefoot Bree

I must take issue with this statement, as well.

Consider this for a second. Once an individual has accepted a Yes answer to the Big Question of: Does God exist?*, everything else within whichever religion they follow can be reasoned out rationally. Everything else flows from that. Some theists are quite logical and do employ critical thinking to their theistic construct. (Except for the tiny thing of discarding anything contrary to that single question. But really, is that all that unusual? It takes a brave person to examine the most basic question underpinning their entire world view.)

* Or Swallowed the Big Lie, depending on your point of view. :devil3:

Alydar

As Starlock points out there's a correlation/causation problem here that cannot be overcome. It's similar to the argument that Sweden, Denmark, etc. are the least fundy countries in the world that also have low divorce rates, STDs, etc. I myself have argued in the past these very same things, only to be told the results of these studies would be dubious at best.

I think one can draw his own conclusion, however dubious statistically, based on one's experience. I happen to believe that the more secular/humanistic people are the better that society will be. I also believe that the IQs of fundies are lower than that of atheists - in fact I strongly believe this, but it's only based on my experience interacting with several of both groups throughout my life. That being said, all of us have run into the obviously intellectually challenged fundies on many fora. Their "logical arguments" and spelling are atrocious. But then there are the fundies who are clearly intelligent - Dobson, Behe, et al. that are lying to the sheeple to gain power over the scientific education of our youngsters. Their motives are well known - a theocracy in the US. I know that some of the statements they make are literally laughable, but they must know this - which makes it scary. I'd like to know what their IQs are. I'd guess quite high. But for every Behe there are dozens of illiterate morons.

Oh well, that's my rambling 2 cents.