Woot; atheists are smarter than agnostics

[Jeff Corey]

How about, "No opinion, due to total lack of any verbal behavior whatsoever"?

 

[six7s]

If you don't need intelligence/thinking to be an atheist, a rock is an atheist.

That renders the concept meaningless.

Indeed... if only there was some way to exclude rocks from the data-set

Lies, damned lies and rock-hard danish pastries

 

[rocketdodger]

"Supports the bell curve" is an odd phrase. I've never campaigned for it or donated it money.

Whatever opinions I have about race and IQ could be formed rationally even if the bell curve were never written.

Well there are two conclusions that the authors of the bell curve seem to have reached.

The first is that there is a correlation between race and average I.Q., however you define "race" and "I.Q." I don't think many educated people dispute this conclusion.

The other, however, (at least I interpreted their words as such) is that the cause of this correlation is primarily genetic rather than developmental. That conclusion is what most seem to take exception with, not only because it sort of spits in the face of our notion that all humans are created equal, but also because they seem to have reached it without any supporting scientific data.

 

[rocketdodger]

Indeed... if only there was some way to exclude rocks from the data-set

Well, you could include sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic race boxes, and allow them to self-report.

 

[EGarrett]

How about, "No opinion, due to total lack of any verbal behavior whatsoever"?

You can either count those people as atheists, and likewise when classing them by IQ...assign them some exceptionally low number of your choosing...or discount them from both being unable to take the test. Either way, the slobbering mindless don't have to skew the numbers.

 

[Anakritis]

I would never propose such a simplistic study to begin with. Compounding the questionable science of IQ with anything is a recipe for disaster, and adding the unscientific concept of human race to it just makes it worse.

AGREED!
and very insightful...

 

[Anakritis]

It would help if you went back to see what the actual argument was about instead of making this false statement based on the incorrect assumption we are arguing about "NORMALLY DISTRIBUTED POPULATION"s.

My point was EXACTLY that this was NOT a normally distributed population... but also that with a normally distributed population there is absolutely no need to throw out data as the poster was suggesting, what is more, if this were the case the population would no longer be normally distributed and the statistical analysis no longer valid for that purpose.

So here we find ourselves in agreement not in opposition.

I find it objectionable when people play fast and loose with statistical studies, wantonly or just ignorantly, don't you?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

What's wrong with that? It's a bit meaningless, but still accurate.

You could say it about rocks, "This rock does not believe in God." It would still be accurate, even if it's rather silly.

So you think it is valid to include rocks in with atheists when comparing theists' to atheists' IQs?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I stand by what I said. If you use any kind of statistical study, where several groups are used that SHOULD cover the entire population (atheists, agnostics, liberal and dogmatic religions), the numbers should average out to 100, because that is how the concept of IQ is supposed to function. If they don't, then there's something wrong with the IQ research.

Please give a category that a person could fit into that is NOT covered by atheist, agnostic, liberal or dogmatic religion.

It's like you ignored what I said. How about re-reading it and trying again.

The mean IQ numbers in the study will not be exactly the same as the mean established on a different group of people. That is true for all standardized IQ tests. They are not exact enough to match every group perfectly.

Who cares about all your categories, the study did not claim to be drawing conclusions about those groups.

And as has been discussed, you can't toss in nonverbal subjects with IQs of 30. They would not be the same as an atheist who decided which beliefs to follow.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

My point was EXACTLY that this was NOT a normally distributed population... but also that with a normally distributed population there is absolutely no need to throw out data as the poster was suggesting, what is more, if this were the case the population would no longer be normally distributed and the statistical analysis no longer valid for that purpose.

So here we find ourselves in agreement not in opposition.

I find it objectionable when people play fast and loose with statistical studies, wantonly or just ignorantly, don't you?

Yes. It's just as bad as playing fast and loose defining your subject criteria to claim that the 'atheist' group should include non-verbal feces smearing subjects because technically they are not theists so they must be atheists.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Yes. It's just as bad as playing fast and loose defining your subject criteria to claim that the 'atheist' group should include non-verbal feces smearing subjects because technically they are not theists so they must be atheists.

Wow, try reading my posts instead of imputing strawmen. You don't know what religious beliefs these people have, if any, and since religious beliefs are naive and infantile to begin with, there's no reason to say a mentally disabled person should be excluded from the survey especially if you're going to include people as many standard deviations above the norm.

 

[CFLarsen]

I suppose we also have to exclude those atheists who never had any religious beliefs in the first place.

Like me.

 

[wollery]

I suppose we also have to exclude those atheists who never had any religious beliefs in the first place.

Like me.

Yeah, and then let's also exclude all theists who were born to parents of the same religious denomination as they are now.

Because clearly, anyone who hasn't changed their religious affiliation hasn't actually thought about it!

 

[six7s]

Mama always said, life's like a box o' rocks...

 

[Jeff Corey]

Wow, try reading my posts instead of imputing strawmen. You don't know what religious beliefs these people have, if any, and since religious beliefs are naive and infantile to begin with, there's no reason to say a mentally disabled person should be excluded from the survey especially if you're going to include people as many standard deviations above the norm.

The point is that since we don't know, and can't know, what religious beliefs these people have, they cannot be placed in any category and, therefore, must be excluded from the data. The same cannot be said for people that many sds above the mean, since they are presumably able to articulate their beliefs.

 

[GreyICE]

I suppose we also have to exclude those atheists who never had any religious beliefs in the first place.

Like me.

I'll help. You're 'igneous.'

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Wow, try reading my posts instead of imputing strawmen. You don't know what religious beliefs these people have, if any, and since religious beliefs are naive and infantile to begin with, there's no reason to say a mentally disabled person should be excluded from the survey especially if you're going to include people as many standard deviations above the norm.

I continue to be amazed at the lack of familiarity some people in this thread have with persons who have extreme mental retardation. I'm not arguing specifically about your position and I'm certainly not arguing a straw man. I am saying you have a concept of severe mental retardation which is completely unrealistic and naive.


BTW, a lot of progress has been made since the days when it was believed people who could not communicate, such as those with cerebral palsy, were mentally retarded. When someone is correctly diagnosed as having an IQ around the level of 20-30, they do not have any verbal ability beyond noises. That means they also are unable to understand actual language. You cannot have a concept of god if you don't think with words. Some may understand a word or two such as, no or hot, but that does not mean they understand any language. I'm sure my dogs don't understand god concepts other than thinking I am god. Think about it.

 

[Clonk]

Fear not fence sitters

You still fare better than believers, both conservative and liberal: (...)

Everytime I have to read what complete laymen do when trying to interpret statistics, or even worse already interpreted statistics, I ultimativley come to hate "public sociology" and the internet, journalism, sensationalism and/or "opinionism" a bit more than I already do.

"Cum hoc ergo propter hoc."
Learn it and love it, at least when you want to be a self-identified skeptic braging about your intelectual superiority-by association on the internet.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

I continue to be amazed at the lack of familiarity some people in this thread have with persons who have extreme mental retardation. I'm not arguing specifically about your position and I'm certainly not arguing a straw man. I am saying you have a concept of severe mental retardation which is completely unrealistic and naive.

I'm quite aware of what constitutes severe mental retardation, and I'm also quite well aware that people with IQ's as low as 75 are often high functioning enough to have opinions on the subject of religion. 75 is two standard deviations below the norm, so if IQ's as high as 130 are accepted, than IQ's as low as 75 should be accepted.

I know what it's like when a person is essentially incoherent, non responsive, and doesn't react to the world around them. My family tacitly avoids the subject of my uncle's suicide. He was schizophrenic in the extreme, believed he was Jesus, and either killed himself in a lucid state, or to join with God - family stories differ. He was entirely out of his mind, as schizophrenics can be, and yet his religious beliefs were quite plain.

 

[Jeff Corey]

I'm quite aware of what constitutes severe mental retardation, and I'm also quite well aware that people with IQ's as low as 75 are often high functioning enough to have opinions on the subject of religion. 75 is two standard deviations below the norm, so if IQ's as high as 13 are accepted, than IQ's as low as 75 should be accepted...

I assume you mean 130 and 70, given that some frequently used tests have a sd of 15. In any case, there is no requrement that any cut off point for high IQs be tied to a failure to get any coherent answers from people with IQs below, say, 55. No requirement at all. People with IQs above 145 most certainly could be included.
I really am puzzled about where you picked up this strange notion.