theophiles.org - Atheism, liberalism, male sexual exclusivity linked to IQ

Atheism, liberalism, male sexual exclusivity linked to IQ

Written by lycopersicum

Saturday, 27 February 2010 10:52

At CNN:

Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds.
Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.

Comments

TheophileEscargot

|2010-02-28 10:08:06

"Evolutionary psychology" seems to me to be largely nonsense, and this article does nothing to change my mind.

This is not science. There's no testable prediction here. They just find a statistical correlation and invent a "just-so story" to give it an evolutionary explanation.

Why should "unconventional opinions" be liberal and atheistic in particular? If you want to signal unconventional opinions, you could equally well choose ultra-conservative or ultra-libertarian or ultra-religious views, or join an unusual fringe church.

emperorbma

|2010-02-28 14:06:47

There is probably a bias in the testing method or the sample. Whether it was intentional or not remains to be seen.

PineHall - Huh!

|2010-02-28 23:10:36

Quote:

Religion, the current theory goes, did not help people survive or reproduce necessarily, but goes along the lines of helping people to be paranoid, Kanazawa said. Assuming that, for example, a noise in the distance is a signal of a threat helped early humans to prepare in case of danger.

"It helps life to be paranoid, and because humans are paranoid, they become more religious, and they see the hands of God everywhere," Kanazawa said.

But I can also see religion making people think they are invincible and causing them to take risky chances. "God is with me so I need not worry about that noise in the distance." I don't see religion today making people paranoid, so how in the past did that happen. Pantheistic religious followers may be concerned about the spirits around them but I doubt that makes them more paranoid. Paranoia does not need religion.

emperorbma

|2010-03-01 03:31:35

Despite the conservative/libertarian perspectives of those conducting the study, I somehow didn't see it using "God is with me so I need not worry about that noise in the distance" as its metric of religion. I got the gist that it was working from something like a "god of the gaps" interpretation where religion is handwaved as being an attempt to appease "unexplained natural forces that are presumed to be hostile" and to resist any attempts at correction of these views by the "smarter people." (e.g. paranoia) I'm seeing a lot of the fear rhetoric and very little of the grace rhetoric, which is being attributed to those called "liberal." Presumably those conducting this study are, themselves, conservative which makes this conclusion rather odd...

SteveGus

|2010-03-01 11:48:21

Seems to me to be mostly a series of truisms.

"Atheism" is not really all that much a symptom of intelligence, as much as choosing your religion is.

Some sort of "religion" is a natural part of the human condition, and "moralistic therapeutic deism" is the vaguely monotheistic natural religion that develops when the surrounding culture embraces a nominal monotheism.

People who are more capable of introspection than most may actually analyze what they believe, and explicitly embrace a theology. Some of these may well become atheists. Others will become more committed Christians. My experience is that pastors and people active in church tend to live in houses full of books.

holmegm - re:

|2010-03-02 10:44:04

SteveGus wrote:

My experience is that pastors and people active in church tend to live in houses full of books.

Good heavens yes - the church does and always has housed some towering intellects.

Now, atheist intellectuals might acknowledge this (some do), but lament that it is wasted in the service of nothing. A curious position from those who think that they themselves are pointlessly self-replicating bags of chemicals ...

emperorbma

|2010-03-02 13:32:44

holmegm wrote:

A curious position from those who think that they themselves are pointlessly self-replicating bags of chemicals

Not the first, and not the last.

The entire premise of a "creatorless world with any real meaning" is inherently self-contradictory. "Real meaning," of course, being non-subjective and compelling. The implication that something is "better" or "worse" than something else for some reason other than personal opinion necessarily must boil down to an objective, absolute standard that defines that ethical value. For a theist, this is God. For an atheist, this must in some way boil down to "other people" or "him/herself."

Without God, even if we presume the rationale to be the personal whims of other people, since other people's whims are worth only as much to anyone as he or she chooses to allow them to be, then even "other people" is no different than "him/herself." There can be no absolute ethical standard from such a premise, it must be entirely subjective and worth only about as much as anyone chooses to respect it. In that vein, the moral indignation of an atheist is rather unsatisfactory. If they complain about something being wrong, it is only because they merely happen to dislike it for some reason or other, not because it is really wrong.

With God, on the other hand, it is a simple question of whether you choose to follow His Word or not. Of course, as Christians, we know that we could not choose Him of our own accord but only through Christ. Furthermore, the "other people" and "him/herself" are both specifically addressed by God's Word, which says we are to "love our neighbors as ourselves," so it is not in negligence to either of the above. Even so, one could argue that we Christians consider something wrong "because God doesn't like it." If that is the case, however, we believe (not without evidence) that God does back up His promises and His commands and does so with omnipotence such that justice is, consequently, non-arbitrary...

In either case, the consistent atheist has little reason to attack theism insofar as theism (as they (implictly, or explicitly) claim) is merely a different, equally valid, world view in a system that (for them) has no inherent morality. As far as we are concerned, they are simply deluded about the true nature of the universe, and evangelism is our attempt to rectify this because we believe God actually does care and desires to save. It makes me curious why some atheists like Dawkins seem to view their counter-evangelism in soteriological terms, however...

PineHall - Moral reasons

|2010-03-03 10:28:18

Quote:

It makes me curious why some atheists like Dawkins seem to view their counter-evangelism in soteriological terms, however...

It does seem odd that they so passionately want to save and world from religion that they misrepresent and condemn the God of the Bible in moral terms (more than any intellectual argument). I think they would argue that through Evolution these morals hardwired because of survivability characteristics of the moral codes and/or through the evolution of culture moral memes developed. In either case there is no absolute authority behind the morals, allowing one to chose to or not to follow the moral code. It seems to me they want to be able to chose the right and wrong and that is the reason for rejecting God. I don't think they are trying to save the world from religion as much as they are rebelling against absoluteness of the moral codes of religion. Now this is the way I see it and I am pretty certain they would deny it. But I wonder why they passionately make such a big deal, instead of ignoring us and just letting Evolution take its course.

SteveGus

|2010-03-03 14:15:23

The average fellow is naturally disposed to hate the God of Scripture.

What the average fellow doesn't do is spend enough time thinking about the God of Scripture to realize this and reach this conclusion. Instead, they take comfort from the folk religiosity of their neighbors. They figure that since they're not seriously worse than average, and view the Bible like a flag or a bumper sticker, a tribal badge whose power is purely as a symbol of folks like us, that God must be on their side. After all, God is inclined to favor folks like us.

This is why some intelligent people like Dawkins become evangelical atheists. They're actually a step ahead of the pack here. They've at least acquired a superficial understanding of the God of Scripture, and perceive quite correctly that the God of "just folks" is not the God of Scripture, and that the actual God appears somewhat menacing. They therefore berate the "just folks" that they really don't understand the God they pay lip service to, and point out that the actual God appears to be rather frightening.

emperorbma

|2010-03-03 21:38:16

Makes sense, by and large. I would note that they do (perhaps unconsciously) avoid the grace of God, though. I notice most the atheists' arguments tend to focus on particular aspects of the Law that this particular individual hates (e.g. "a man shall not lie with a man...") or upon some act that is recorded in Scripture that doesn't jive with their modern sensibilities (e.g. what happened when Elisha was called "bald" by the Ba'alite youths) or upon some act they somehow demanded that God do and that God didn't (e.g. "if God makes that car turn into green cheese")...

Then there are also some of the less sophisticated atheists who go so far to say that they hate religious folks. I find that trend especially disturbing, in fact, since they might well act to attack my fellow Christians because of it.

PineHall - Where is love

|2010-03-04 09:41:13

Perhaps you are right, but the new atheists ignore a major Biblical theme that Christians emphasize. The theme that God loves us. That seems to be absent from their picture of God.

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