Smart people more likely to be atheists, vegetarians

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/02/smart-beliefs.html

by grandalf • 16 years ago

23 44 16 years ago

ggchappell3• 16 years ago

An interesting article. It should be pointed out, however, that it contains an easily misunderstood statement.

> Adult intelligence predicts adult espousal of liberalism, atheism, and sexual exclusivity for men (but not for women), ....

But this is not "liberalism" in either its usual American or European usage:

> Liberalism … [is] the genuine concern for the welfare of genetically unrelated others and the willingness to contribute larger proportions of private resources for the welfare of such others.

Psyonic• 16 years ago

While I agree that the American political "liberal" says much more than that, it's still similar. Hence the phrase "bleeding heart liberal."

ggchappell3• 16 years ago

I don't agree. American liberalism is associated with allocating public funds to others. The article specifically stated private. So, for example, some Muslim societies are what we would call "ultraconservative" politically, but rank rather high on a liberalism scale by the definition in the article, due to private contributions to charities.

teuobk2• 16 years ago

In the full paper, the author makes explicit his choice to use the contemporary American sense of the word "liberal."

This, of course, differs from classical liberalism, which is similar to modern libertarianism.

ggchappell3• 16 years ago

> In the full paper, the author makes explicit his choice to use the contemporary American sense of the word "liberal."

Really? That's interesting, since the definition given in the article contradicts that. I guess the real question is how he measured "liberalism". E.g., did he ask people who they voted for, or how much they gave to charity, or what?

rmorrison2• 16 years ago

Even smarter people are more likely to be Agnostic over Atheist. Here is Bertrand Russell on the topic:

"I never know whether I should say 'Agnostic' or whether I should say 'Atheist'. It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods."

andywood2• 16 years ago

Semantics. People who do not call themselves atheist generally tend to think that you should only call yourself atheist if you mean to say you are certain there is no god. People who do call themselves atheist generally only mean by it that they do not consider the existence of gods to be a credible hypothesis, anymore than the existence of leprechauns or centaurs. I think the main difference is that agnostics seem to think it's really important to stress that the jury is still out. For atheists, it is implied that the jury is technically still out, in the same sense that the jury is still out on invisible dragons; but it simply doesn't make any difference for any practical purpose.

camccann• 16 years ago

If nothing else, a reasonable person's certainty in any hypothesis must be bounded above by their (presumably finite) degree of confidence in their own sanity. Absolute certainty is all but nonsensical.

derefr• 16 years ago

Or, to put it another way, agnosticism, plus Empiricism, equals atheism. Rationalists, meanwhile, just call themselves agnostics and see the matter as sorted.

rmorrison2• 16 years ago

"For atheists, it is implied that the jury is technically still out"

I don't think this is true. I've heard a lot of atheists express their belief in no god w/ the same confidence that a catholic would express a belief in theirs. I think it's an important distinction to make.

lotharbot• 16 years ago

The key fact presented is the correlation of IQ to atheism, liberalism (of the classical variety), and sexual exclusivity for men but not women.

It's disappointing to see serious research follow up such a clear, factual presentation with what amounts to pure speculation. Statements about how the evolutionary origin of religion MAY be such-and-such and certain behaviors MAY have created an advantage in such-and-such context, IMO, detract from an otherwise interesting bit of data.

otakucode3• 16 years ago

The situation historically also varies very greatly from anything approaching contemporary society. Belief in the supernatural is likely to have provided support for the concept that the world is knowable, predictable, and has underlying rules which can be discovered. With complete lack of a shared foundation of knowledge, these ideas are likely not intuitive. Without a relatively large body of knowledge, it would be very difficult to support such ideas. When they sought answers to "why" with regards to their questions (as the human brain has been shown to require) even when they had no language, the belief that there is something directing the world was inevitable.

This belief was limiting, however. Or, rather, it would probably be better to say that the details of the implementation of these beliefs, provided serious limitations to the expansion of rational explanations of things which had traditionally been explained as consequences of the supernatural worlds influence over the material one.

The Enlightenment and Descartes' view of a mind/body dualism (even though we now know this is an incorrect idea) made it possible to relegate religion to 'spiritual' matters and place the material world, including answers to the question 'why?', under the microscope of reason. The benefits of this wedge driven between religious beliefs and rational conclusions were tremendous to society and enabled tolerance and cooperation amongst individuals with varying sets of beliefs.

Unfortunately, the Enlightenment did not spread to all parts of the world, and many of its underpinning ideas seem to be dying out in the places where it did catch on. Even those who benefited greatly from the ideals of the Enlightenment fail to appreciate them because (paradoxically it might seem) it enabled society to develop and expand so that it provides enormous protection to everyone, whether they accept rational thought as the means to explain the world or not. This removes the primary element that made the Enlightenment possible - respect for knowledge and intellectual capabilities. Because it is mostly safe to discard rational thought entirely in modern society and accept a supernatural explanation for the state of the world, and because knowledge of the 'bad old days' is not disseminated adequately, there is no impetus for the average person to take up the arduous burden of intellectualism and subject their beliefs to rationality.

Consider medical technology and techniques, for example. Even as short as 4 generations ago, children grew up with death, disfigurement, and disease all around them. It was more common than not that upon starting a new school year, they found that some of their classmates from the prior year had died, and that some of the remaining children had acquired lifelong disabilities. Because this experience is missing, and because we do not deliver the knowledge of the conditions properly, the average person is rarely, if ever, put in a position to contemplate disease and appreciate the stunning advances that rational inspection of the subject has brought us. Belief that health is consequent to their faith in their religion is not met with any increased danger to the person (in most cases). Had someone accepted such a belief in the past, and spurned doctors or those investigating medicine rationally in favor of a faith healer, their life would be put in significant danger. Upon considering the situation, it would be very likely for them to realize that those partaking of the system based on rational thought were reaping tremendous protection from disease. Even if they did not change their faith, it would engender a belief that intellectualism had merit. It would put them in a position to accept the ideas of the Enlightenment and perhaps give over more of their beliefs about how the world works and how that is to be determined, etc. As the idea that a rational approach to the world is beneficial, and that those with rational knowledge can offer benefit to society, civilization moves forward. These ideas have been waning, however, and I fear that a violent confrontation between the parts of the world which never experienced the Enlightenment and those that did will result in the enlightened society turning back to belief in the supernatural. Such a state is far more common in human history than not. Democratic government, value of freedom, and many of the ideas we take for granted can not stand in a theocratic society because their foundations are not subscribed to by the populous. Democratic government is based, primarily, on the belief that human beings are rational, that they can garner correct ideas about the world, and that they deserve the respect of determining their own governance.

Their speculation, I believe, has just as much chance to be correct as mine in this matter. Simply because an idea is objectively false does not mean that its acceptance is necessarily a harm to society. Nor does it necessarily mean that those kinds of ideas will have the same usefulness at different points in the evolution of the shared level of knowledge and beliefs in a society.

Sorry for the long post, but this subject has been on my mind a great deal lately and is a major source of concern for me.

j_baker• 16 years ago

"less intelligent individuals have more children than more intelligent individuals, even though they do not want to do so."

... I love this study!

techiferous11• 16 years ago

I could believe in a connection between vegetarianism and intelligence. I can think of three traits that would lead to both:

Willingness to consider ideas that at first appear wrong. Without this, our knowledge would never contain the counterintuitive. If we limit ourselves to what's intuitive, then we severely limit our intelligence. The connection to vegetarianism is that our culture teaches us that animals are objects that we can use as we wish, so vegetarianism at first appears wrong to us because of our social upbringing.

A sense of duty toward the truth. Gandhi was like this: he was very driven toward the truth and very accepting of the outcome. As a result, he was always performing many "experiments" and continually learning. A sense of duty toward (and lack of fear of) the truth will expose you to many new experiences and allow you to incorporate new information, which can increase your intelligence. The link to vegetarianism is this: many meat-eaters I know are not meat-eaters because they sat down one day and made an intelligent, intentional decision to start (or continue) to eat meat, they either have not yet been exposed to different ways of thinking about animals or they have been exposed but they avoid the issue.

A desire for a consistent world view. There is an inconsistency in our culture in the way we treat some animals (pets) and other animals (factory-farmed livestock). Michael Vick's dog cruelty is punished but the same animal cruelty is condoned for the sake of food. There is a logical contradiction here which takes some intelligence to notice. This, I think, is one of the real reasons why there can be a link between intelligence and vegetarianism: there are less philosophical contradictions in a vegetarian's position. If you put a meat-eater and a vegetarian head-to-head in a philosophical debate, my money would go on the vegetarian.

otakucode3• 16 years ago

Do you think the near impossibility of a vegetarian diet for infants and young children is a weakness of an argument toward vegetarianism? It would certainly be possible for adults to convert to purely vegetarian diets, but such a diet means almost certain, and very unpleasant, death for infants and small children who need large quantities of the building blocks of bone and meat in order to form their own bones and meat. I'm not an enemy of vegetarianism or anything like that, but your mention of a consistent worldview brought this to mind.

techiferous11• 16 years ago

I do know that you have to be very careful about infants and veganism, but for adults, less so. About the consistency in worldview, that's something that I as a vegan have to struggle with. The truth is that I cannot completely eliminate animal usage from my lifestyle as long as I live in human society. It's either direct (I eat animal-based products or I buy leather) or indirect (I board a bus that has antifreeze, which is an animal-based product). So each vegetarian/vegan has to draw the line somewhere, and that's a personal choice. I choose to draw the line at avoiding eating animal products and avoiding buying animal products (leather and wool).

Edge cases like infants generate some interesting discussion, but I think the real action is in the typical case. For the typical American, it's hard to defend the eating of meat.

whyenot• 16 years ago

such a diet means almost certain, and very unpleasant, death for infants and small children

Nonsense.

1. Mother's milk is vegetarian, most nursing infants eat nothing else.

2. Jains have been practicing a very strict form of vegetarianism for thousands of years.

kls3• 16 years ago

--I could believe in a connection between vegetarianism and intelligence

That is because intelligence is measured in the eye of the beholder and the intelligence that the author was measuring was an intelligence that coincides with a cross section of people who tend to hold this belief in the social circle.

The article is so obviously subjective to the results the author wants based on the intelligence he is looking for.

For example I could argue that artistic expression is a sign of intelligence, i would be right and if i weighted my measures with that measure, I can guarantee you I could come back and correlate a high prevalence of vegetarianism to that measure.

gaius• 16 years ago

intelligence is measured in the eye of the beholder and the intelligence that the author was measuring was an intelligence that coincides with a cross section of people who tend to hold this belief in the social circle

Exactly. It's like ESR's assertion that "a good hacker is someone who is just like me".

blintson• 16 years ago

I am a meat-eater who's made an intelligent, intentional decision to eat meat. I sometimes hunt deer and turkey, and I've caught and gutted fish. I've seen slaughterhouses where cows and chickens are killed, and animal cruelty doesn't bother me at all.

Not that I'm not worried about antibiotic abuse and such breeding disease, I mean that I don't care at all about the animals' welfare.

Locke1689• 16 years ago

I'm not sure that's an intelligent or rational decision to eat meat. The statement that you don't care about animal welfare or animal cruelty is simply a statement with no rational foundation. For example, you would probably disagree with human cruelty, so why agree with animal cruelty? There's a rational argument to be made why you don't care, but simply stating that you don't care isn't really an argument at all.

brl2• 16 years ago

> animal cruelty doesn't bother me at all.

Are you perhaps, a psychopath? Do you think we should get rid of the laws that prevent people from gratuitously torturing animals?

cmars2322• 16 years ago

I disagree. I think it takes intelligence to accept and realize the ambiguity, complexity and downright contradictions that are endemic to our existence.

techiferous11• 16 years ago

I agree. Everything has edge cases, no matter what your position. The world doesn't neatly fit into our tidy little concepts of morality.

However, ignore the edge cases and there isn't so much ambiguity. Take the average American sitting down to a meal--why does he choose to eat beef? Typically it is out of habit or to please the palate. In the typical case, this act is harmful to the health of this person. This act also ends the life of a sentient being whose brain is developed enough to experience pain, emotions, and even develop social relationships. I don't see much ethical gray area here: a desire to please the palate would be trumped by another sentient being's desire to continue living and live free of pain and suffering.

Also, I doubt you would consistently hold to this position: "realize the ambiguity, complexity and downright contradictions that are endemic to our existence" if you were on the receiving end of the pain and suffering. If someone kidnapped your daughter and prostituted her out, for example, I doubt that you would find comfort in the fact that life is "ambiguous and complex".

hristov• 16 years ago

Unfortunately, the actual research paper is behind a paywall. I wonder what do intelligent people think about placing publicly funded research behind paywalls.

tokenadult• 16 years ago

You didn't miss anything by not going through the paywall. I did go through the paywall, and found the same tired "study" that PZ has already decried:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/02/stop_patting_your...

This seems to be the flavor du jour in self-congratulation, but there isn't well established research here.

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

epochwolf2• 16 years ago

While I won't pretend to be one of those intelligent people I do have an opinion about publicly funded research. I think publicly funded research should be released into the public domain (or under license similar to the Creative Commons Attribution [1]) since the public funded it.

[1] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

teuobk2• 16 years ago

Link to the paper from the author's web site:

http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/pdfs/SPQ2010OnlineFirst.p...

(Source: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/ )

Smart people more likely to be atheists, vegetarians

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