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{"id":1452,"date":"2014-06-11T21:16:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-11T21:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2014\/06\/atheism-not-linked-to-cognitive-decline-but-it-is-linked-to-intelligence.html"},"modified":"2014-11-11T20:29:00","modified_gmt":"2014-11-11T19:29:00","slug":"if-you-read-last-post-youll-know-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2014\/06\/if-you-read-last-post-youll-know-that.html","title":{"rendered":"Atheism not linked to cognitive decline (but it is linked to intelligence)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

One of the test they ran on the Lothian Cohort, when they were just 11, was an intelligence test. They didn\u2019t test intelligence again until 2000, when the cohort was 79 (they tested them a few times since, as well). For the purposes of this study, they excluded those who developed dementia \u2013 so we are looking at just regular brain ageing here.<\/p>\n

They only measured how religious they were at age 79, however. But that still provides an excellent opportunity to measure how childhood intelligence is linked to later life religiosity.<\/p>\n

Well, the answer is that there was no correlation between intelligence at age 11 and later religious involvement, well-being (e.g. \u201cI have a meaningful relationship with God\u201d). And there was no correlation between changes in intelligence and any religious factor.<\/p>\n

Now that\u2019s something of a surprise, given that research in the US has suggested that religiosity is associated with lower cognitive ability but that religious attendance protects against cognitive decline (for example, research covered on this blog<\/a> back in 2009).<\/p>\n

What they did find, similar to other studies, was that there was a negative link between current\u00a0 intelligence and religious belief. But the effect was even smaller than usually seen in these sorts of studies. And higher education was linked to more religious attendance \u2013 again, as seen in other studies.<\/p>\n

Perhaps that\u2019s because the people in this study were quite old, and so were perhaps more homogenous in their religion. Or it may be that, for people born in the early part of the 20th century, the link between religion and intelligence is weaker.<\/p>\n

Or maybe it\u2019s the generally lower levels of religion in the UK that explains the differences to previous research.<\/p>\n

The truth is that religion in the UK is a complicated fish. As other research has shown<\/a>, there doesn\u2019t seem to be a linear relationship between education (or intelligence) and religion.<\/p>\n

Rather, what happens is that intelligent and well educated people tend to have a strong stance \u2013 either decidedly religious, or (more often) decidedly atheist.<\/p>\n

People with less education are not exactly agnostic. They just don\u2019t seem to care!<\/p>\n

$\"ResearchBlogging.org\"$ <\/a><\/span>
\nRitchie, S., Gow, A., & Deary, I. (2014). Religiosity is negatively associated with later-life intelligence, but not with age-related cognitive decline Intelligence, 46<\/span>, 9-17 DOI: 10.1016\/j.intell.2014.04.005<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

$\"Creative$ <\/a><\/span> This article by Tom Rees<\/b> was first published on Epiphenom<\/a>. It is licensed under Creative Commons<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"