Atheism Intelligence Correlations - The Strongest Argument for Atheism

[madnak]

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I don't think I'm being a nit here. Had you said "within reason", I'd probably have no qualms. But there is no reason whatsoever for a rationally minded person who is well versed in probabilities to think that any sort of a supreme being is reasonably likely. It is still many times more likely to not be the case than it is to be true.

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On what basis? There is no way to probabilistically consider a basic abstraction. Any probabilistic claim is actually just subjectivity and intuition. You can talk about probabilities of specific gods, but not of general gods.

[Subfallen]

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You don't see any impertinence in insisting David Sklansky is an atheist. You think you can judge him on his posts?
He's an individual and has his own right to claim who he is. I doubt DS has posted all his thoughts in this forum, but anyways doesn't he have an individual right to determine his own identity?

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Dearest -

Alex and I are just quibbling about semantics, we're not trying to misrepresent <font color="red">DS</font>. What's the point of having labels like "atheist" if we don't inform those labels according to the cultural zeitgeist?

Sklansky doesn't believe in the Christian God or the Muslim God or the Jewish God or the Theosophist God or the Mormon God or the Zoroastrian God. If this doesn't define "atheist" for you, then what does?

[bocablkr]

Here is one old post - looking for others.

Interesting fact - many scientific studies done on the relationship of intelligence vs. belief in God have shown that as the IQ level increases the percentage who believe in God decreases. This doesn't mean that some smart people don't believe in God or that some less intelligent ones can't be atheists. Below is an excerpt from one study.

Polling Scientists on Beliefs

According to a much-discussed survey reported in the journal Nature in 1997, 40 percent of biologists, physicists and mathematicians said they believed in God - and not just a nonspecific transcendental presence but, as the survey put it, a God to whom one may pray "in expectation of receiving an answer."


The survey, by Edward J. Larson of the University of Georgia, was intended to replicate one conducted in 1914, and the results were virtually unchanged. In both cases, participants were drawn from a directory of American scientists.


Others play down those results. They note that when Dr. Larson put part of the same survey to "leading scientists" - in this case, members of the National Academy of Sciences, perhaps the nation's most eminent scientific organization - fewer than 10 percent professed belief in a personal God or human immortality.

[RJT]

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Zee,

You are correct. I have posted several links about this in the past (disputing RJT's claim about lack of correlation) and I will try and see if I can find them again.

When you start looking at the Super IQ geniuses it is almost univeral that they are Atheists.

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I didn't say there was or was not correlation. I said I have not seen a good survey taken that addresses the actual quesion.

[Lestat]

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I don't think I'm being a nit here. Had you said "within reason", I'd probably have no qualms. But there is no reason whatsoever for a rationally minded person who is well versed in probabilities to think that any sort of a supreme being is reasonably likely. It is still many times more likely to not be the case than it is to be true.

[/ QUOTE ]

On what basis? There is no way to probabilistically consider a basic abstraction. Any probabilistic claim is actually just subjectivity and intuition. You can talk about probabilities of specific gods, but not of general gods.

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Heh, I'm not a math guy so I shouldn't be debating this, but...

There may not be a way to actually determine probabilistic abstraction, but we should be able to consider it.

Just because we do not know the answer to something, doesn't mean it's correct to promote any idea to being reasonably likely.

Of course, much of this depends on how one defines a god. If we include in the criteria to contain everything from super intelligent aliens to David's 5th dimensional kid and his chemistry set as potential gods, the probability does go up. But I'd still quibble that it becomes reasonably likely.

[bocablkr]

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Zee,

You are correct. I have posted several links about this in the past (disputing RJT's claim about lack of correlation) and I will try and see if I can find them again.

When you start looking at the Super IQ geniuses it is almost univeral that they are Atheists.

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I didn't say there was or was not correlation. I said I have not seen a good survey taken that addresses the actual quesion.

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You need to do better research. There was a Scientific America study on this IIRC. I am trying to find the link.

This is basically indisputable. What is disputable is whether the fact that the more intelligent you are the more likely it is that you are an Atheist means anything.

[bocablkr]

Here is one link with reference to the Article in the September 1999 issue of Scientic American - http://www.godless.org/sci/herosci.html

Excerpt from the Article - An even more lopsided majority of those scientists who are honored by their peers with membership in the National Academy of Science are disbelievers -- more than 90%.

[RJT]

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The article is written by a journalist I bet. I would be very surprised to find it was written by a scientist.

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"You bet." How about you actually read the damned article? It was written by Edward Larson and Larry Witham, the very people who conducted the survey. They used the model created by James Leuba in 1916. There is nothing fishy going on.

I don't think there's a free copy online, but there are plenty of reviews. I've seen this referenced before and have just run it through Google and nobody appears to have any issues with the method except that the definition of God is too narrow (see my post earlier in this thread). You are being an ass and refusing to do your own homework. The high incidence of atheism among scientists is well-documented and no amount of hand-waving is going to change that.

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My apologies for assuming the article was written by a journalist.

I didn’t read this correspondence thoroughly, I glimpse through it and it seemed to be similarly written as those I posted about a few years back.

I still contend the article and the table summarized in the survey do not accurately depict the questions asked.

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According to a much-discussed survey reported in the journal Nature in 1997, 40 percent of biologists, physicists and mathematicians said they believed in God - and not just a nonspecific transcendental presence but, as the survey put it, a God to whom one may pray "in expectation of receiving an answer."

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This for the most part was the gist of the survey. If you feel the table accurately reflects that question than I will have to concede defeat. (I doubt there are many theists who actually expect to receive answers to prayers. Does that imply they don’t believe in a personal God?)

[madnak]

The Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Gods fit that criterion. I believe that was Leuba's stated purpose in selecting it. And yes, in the real world there are few who believe in a personal God but not in answers to prayers - Christianity is really the prime target here and there's no question of it in Christianity. I already mentioned that some people thought the definition was too narrow.

At any rate the criteria have been accepted for many decades. Nobody has raised any serious objections (even though I believe the study was used in the Scopes trial), and in none of the three studies has anyone come out to protest how the results are being used. I also don't think it's credible to suggest that the scientists didn't know what was going on, particularly since so many expressed disbelief rather than simple uncertainty.

[madnak]

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There may not be a way to actually determine probabilistic abstraction, but we should be able to consider it.

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Only if we have an agreed-upon context in which to consider it.

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Just because we do not know the answer to something, doesn't mean it's correct to promote any idea to being reasonably likely.

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No, but ideas can only be evaluated relative to other ideas. There's no concrete standard. Further, it's not necessarily incorrect to promote all ideas to "reasonable." The only trouble would be applying that consistently.

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Of course, much of this depends on how one defines a god. If we include in the criteria to contain everything from super intelligent aliens to David's 5th dimensional kid and his chemistry set as potential gods, the probability does go up. But I'd still quibble that it becomes reasonably likely.

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You'd quibble on what basis?