Smart Science= Atheist, Dumb Science= Religious

[stromboli]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher- ... 6826041147

SOCIAL science professors at elite institutions are more likely to be religious and politically extreme than their counterparts in the natural sciences, argues a new paper. Why? Natural scientists are just smarter.

"There is sound evidence of a negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity and between intelligence and political extremism," reads the paper in the Interdisciplinary Journal on Research and Religion which examines existing data on academic scientists' IQs by field, and on religious beliefs and political extremism among science professors in the US and Britain. "Therefore the most probable reason behind elite social scientists being more religious than are elite physical scientists is that social scientists are less intelligent."

The paper, written by Edward Dutton, adjunct professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Oulu, in Finland, and Richard Lynn, a retired professor of psychology from the University of Ulster, in Northern Ireland, who is known for his work on race and IQ, continues: "Intelligence is also a factor in interdisciplinary differences in political extremism, [with] physicists, who have high IQs, being among the least extreme and lower-IQ scholars being among the most extreme."

In an interview, Dutton said social scientists aren't stupid, or necessarily extreme in their politics or overly religious. But, statistically speaking, they have lower IQs than their colleagues in biological and physical sciences and are likelier to be extremely conservative or liberal or religious, or both.

Dutton said that there are many similarities between political extremism and religious fundamentalism; in other research, he uses the term "replacement religions" to describe the phenomenon.

"[Physical] scientists are overwhelmingly atheist," Dutton said. "This is predicted by their high IQ, which allows you to rise above emotion and see through the fallacious, emotional arguments." Arguments about God are all emotional arguments, he added.

The paper is a meta-analysis of existing data showing several things: that natural scientists have higher IQs than social scientists; that low intelligence "predicts" political extremism and religiosity; and that physical scientists at elite institutions are less likely to believe in God or be politically extreme than their counterparts in the social sciences.

The connection between all three research areas has never been made until now, Dutton said. But — in just one example of potentially problematic methodology — the logic can't be extended to academe in general. Several studies cited in the paper drawing from a wider mix of colleges and universities than simply the most elite show that life sciences professors are more likely to attend church than their peers in the social sciences, not less. The paper assumes this is because professors at elite institutions are smarter than their peers elsewhere.

The researchers also use IQ as the sole measure of intelligence (they mention Howard Gardner's multiple forms of intelligence, but argue that they could also be considered personality traits).

The researchers acknowledge some of their limitations, including that some older data in the analysis involve a very small sample size. Dutton and Lynn say that future research involving larger academic samples would be "extremely useful" in exploring these areas in greater depth.

Dutton said he knew his paper would upset some readers, but that he invited feedback from fellow scholars. The point of research, even when controversial, is to "get closer to the truth of human life," he said.

Discuss.

[Damarcus]

hmm...the original post comes from the Australian, who's quality is...mixed at best. Does seem pretty legit though, I'm a bit concerned about only using IQ as the sole measure of intelligence, more research is definitely needed here.

From the looks of things, this study discovered that the more intelligent a person is, the less likely they are to be politically extreme? I would agree, generally, intelligent people can look at themselves in a broader context than others, leading to them seeing themselves as part of society as a whole, rather than just one particular religious or political group. That's just my idea though, which may or may not be accurate.

I see an awful lot of correlation in this study, but not a lot of causation. Though the physical sciences/atheism link has come up in many studies before this one.

More research is needed!

[SGOS]

Maybe.

But just off the top of my head, it seems like social sciences don't lend themselves to the scientific method as well as the physical sciences, and are less analytical.  Sure social sciences have their tools, but they are usually things questionnaires, half of which are filled out by people who aren't great thinkers to begin with.  As a result, the social sciences almost demand a greater amount of subjectivity to draw conclusions, and many of the conclusions can't even be verified with certainty.  The field may actually be more attractive to those who are more subjective and include more of the subjectively extreme.

As for the IQ part, there may be data that finds lower IQs among social scientists, but what kinds of conclusions one draws from the data is the realm of social science, which in my opinion makes the conclusions somewhat subjective.

[Sal1981]

From that quoted article Dutton comes off as a hardass.

I think the correlation is tenuous at best.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Social sciences are all to often a matter of opinions and we all know the correlation between opinions and assholes. Everyone has one and everyone's stinks. That might explain it.  :roll:

[GSOgymrat]

The first questions I consider when presented with a research study are what question is the researcher asking and why is he asking it.

Given that "Dutton said he knew his paper would upset some readers" and "the researchers acknowledge some of their limitations, including that some older data in the analysis involve a very small sample size" I suspect they found exactly the answer they were looking for.

[stromboli]

The issue to me is hard science vs. "soft" science, which some would say isn't really science. I never thought of sociology as science. I think the comparison is flawed from the start for that reason. Hard science actually does experimentation and comparative studies, something I don't see in sociology.

[josephpalazzo]

I'm not sure that using IQ as a determining factor is the right thing to do. I do know that in my profession, logic is the ultimate tool. However, you can't do physics if you don't have a firm grasp of not only applying logic, but being able  to dig deeper in finding what are the assumptions one is making in a given statement. One example is the distance between two points is a straight line. Unknowingly for millenia, the assumption was that space is flat, an assumption only unveiled in the 19th century. Similarly, that time is absolute was assumed since humans walked on this planet. It's only until Einstein that we discovered that this assumption was no longer tenable. You can be very logical and rational but totally miss out on the assumptions you are making. Physics forces you to wake up and remove those blinders. Maybe that's why a high number of physicists are atheists. This is not meant to be a scientific study on my part, just my observations throughout my career.

[stromboli]

IQ is the default because everybody is measured by it. I agree, JP. I don't think IQ by itself is the determining factor.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

What I'm learning in my child and lifespan psychology classes might explain some of this. When you're an infant, your brain produces new neurons like crazy until you have, like, half again or twice as many as an adult. After that, your brain starts pruning the ones you don't use, until you settle at the level of an adult. You can end up with more or less neural connections depending on how actively your brain was worked as a child.

Since a more fundamentalist religious home might not encourage very much exploration or deep thinking beyond what's available at face value, maybe that would explain some of the differences they're seeing in this study.

[Jason78]

[youtube:12a51ic0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zCrtHq29KE[/youtube:12a51ic0]

[stromboli]

Writer posted a YouTube video

My degree is in English Lit, yet I applaud this.  =D>