Tom Rees reports on an analysis of the GSS which point to the correlation between low verbal skills and a Biblical literalist outlook. Well, I've talked about this at length. Religion & IQ, Biblical literalism or low IQ: which came first?, Pentecostals are stupid? Unitarians are smart? and Educational levels & denomination. Poking around the GSS the powerful correlates of belief in the literal truth of the Bible (variable "BIBLE") jump out at you.
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The post below where I show that belief in the literal truth of the Biblical tends to correlate well with IQ scores from the General Social Survey on a denominational scale is getting a lot of response; enough of it is of low quality that I'll close the comment thread soon enough. As I observed the…
Last month my posts Biblical literalism or low IQ: which came first? and Educational levels & denomination got a lot of play around the blogosphere. I used the US Religious Landscape Survey to get demographic data for denominations, but I had to cobble together numbers on Biblical literalism,…
Update II: Many links into this entry are labeling this a "study." It wasn't a study, I literally took 10 minutes before I went to sleep to collect the data and produce the chart. The data on literal interpretation of the Bible is from a book which you can read via Google. The IQ scores are…
A few days ago I noted that smart people believe in evolution. And stupid people do not. Inductivist looked at the IQ scores in the GSS for whites and this is what he found for various religions:
Mean IQ of whites from General Social Survey by religious affiliation
Episcopalian
109.9…
Thanks for the GSS link. I also noticed similar correlations between low education and:
* belief that politicians know more about stem cell research than scientists do
* dislike/mistrust of atheists.
* belief that strict discipline will cure behavioral problems
* belief that unions are important for job security
* belief that astrology is scientific
* disbelief of evolution/natural selection
Argh!! GSS is a spare time vortex.
# Being married at any time (although getting a divorce helps repair the damage)
# Having children
Marriage seems to depend on compromises, which might be easier to make for people who think less clearly.
Not mentioned: inarticulate geeky techie types.
@John - How does it follow that compromise is easier for those who think less clearly?