Religion and Intelligence

By Denyse O’Leary, at Mercator.net:

“Why should fewer academics believe in God than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ. Academics have higher IQs than the general population,” says Ulster University academic Richard Lynn. “Several Gallup poll studies of the general population have shown that those with higher IQs tend not to believe in God.”

Evidence is reviewed pointing to a negative relationship between intelligence and religious belief in the United States and Europe. It is shown that intelligence measured as psychometric g is negatively related to religious belief. We also examine whether this negative relationship between intelligence and religious belief is present between nations. We find that in a sample of 137 countries the correlation between national IQ and disbelief in God is 0.60 [a high correlation].

The highlight of the paper is the chart of 137 nations. And it looks pretty convincing until you study it carefully. Then, picturing the data is a cart for the theory, wheels start wobbling….

Good thing it’s easy to test that oe. Canada has a similar history, and features average IQ 99, with 22 percent not believing in God. So twice as many Canadians don’t believe in God but exhibit no statistically significant reward in IQ. That’s one wheel off – but it’s still a tricycle…. In 2008, the Czech republic clocked IQ 98, 61 percent disbelieving in God, and Slovakia at IQ 96, with only 17 percent disbelieving in God. The difference is obviously cultural. Second wheel gone. We now have a bicycle….The third wobbly wheel was the fact that Israel and Portugal -with very different culture and histories – both feature IQ 95. But in Israel 15 percent disbelieve and in Portugal 4 percent. So tripling or quadrupling the number of atheists did nothing for IQ when culture and history are different….In other words, the level of atheism could range from 18 percent up to 42 percent, with the average IQ at 100. Maybe it’s time to turn that unicycle into a plant stand.

There is no consistent relationship between religion and IQ.