Creationism is a mental illness (Page 111)

Angry Beaver:
Intelligence, Religion January 26, 2018
Are religious people really less smart, on average, than atheists?

By Emma Young

Of course, there are examples of extremely intelligent individuals with strong religious convictions. But various studies have found that, on average, belief in God is associated with lower scores on IQ tests. “It is well established that religiosity correlates inversely with intelligence,” note Richard Daws and Adam Hampshire at Imperial College London, in a new paper published in Frontiers in Psychology, which seeks to explore why.

It’s a question with some urgency – the proportion of people with a religious belief is growing: by 2050, if current trends continue, people who say they are not religious will make up only 13 per cent of the global population. Based on the low-IQ-religiosity link, it could be argued that humanity is on course to become collectively less smart.

One suggestion is that perhaps religious people tend to rely more on intuition. So, rather than having impaired general intelligence, they might be comparatively poor only on tasks in which intuition and logic come into conflict – and this might explain the lower overall IQ test results.

To investigate, Daws and Hampshire surveyed more than 63,000 people online, and had them complete a 30-minute set of 12 cognitive tasks that measured planning, reasoning, attention and working memory. The participants also indicated whether they were religious, agnostic or atheist.

As predicted, the atheists performed better overall than the religious participants, even after controlling for demographic factors like age and education. Agnostics tended to place between atheists and believers on all tasks. In fact, strength of religious conviction correlated with poorer cognitive performance. However, while the religious respondents performed worse overall on tasks that required reasoning, there were only very small differences in working memory.

Also, some of the reasoning tasks, such as an extra-hard version of the Stroop Task known as “colour-word remapping”, had been designed to create maximum conflict between an intuitive response and a logical one, and the biggest group differences emerged on these tasks, consistent with the idea that religious people rely more on their intuition. In contrast, for a complex reasoning task – “deductive reasoning” – for which there were no obviously intuitive answers, there was much less of a group difference.

Daws and Hampshire concluded: “These findings provide evidence in support of the hypothesis that the religiosity effect relates to conflict [between reasoning and intuition] as opposed to reasoning ability or intelligence more generally.”

If, as this work suggests, religious belief predisposes people to rely more heavily on intuition in decision-making – and the stronger their belief, the more pronounced the impact – how much of a difference does this make to actual achievement in the real world? At the moment, there’s no data on this. But in theory, perhaps cognitive training could allow religious people to maintain their beliefs without over-relying on intuition when it conflicts with logic in day to day decision-making.

duncan124:

But on the other hand aren't some of these tests , well, " Evil " even to the non religious person and your peers in the Courts have repeatedly found these tests to be racist.

Lets not forget that not so long ago tests like these did repeatedly shown women to be less intelligent then men

kittybobo34: Never the less the point was made. Cognitive intelligence on average was lower with the religious fundamentalists. Not a surprise to most of us.

kittybobo34: I think one would get the same results testing against astrologists, and the superstitious in general.

AchillesSinatra: Kitty, if you think a point was made... well, your naivete was never in doubt to begin with.

at least from my perspective


Found a result that makes you feel nice and warm?

happy now?

Angry Beaver: *sigh*

kittybobo34: Achilles,, the point was made in that he got his message out, it might have bounced off of you, but I got it.

Angry Beaver: What is Creationism?
(First and foremost it is NOT science!)
John Stear


"In all of these efforts, [to promote creationism in schools] the creationists make abundant use of a simple tactic: They lie. They lie continually, they lie prodigiously, and they lie because they must."
--William J. Bennetta, from "Alabama Will Use Schoolbooks to Spread Lies and Foster Creationism"

"Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night."
--Isaac Asimov

"... creationism [is] (a religious, non-scientific, pseudoscientific preconceived dogmatic construct) ..."
--M. R. Leipzig, from "The Evolution Fact FAQ"

"Creationist so-called 'scientific' refutations are based on misconceptions, poor science, scripture, faulty logic, lies, hearsay, fear, and a need to protect their dogma. Creationism is like a wild, cornered animal that has no way out, clawing and snapping at everything it can.

But, in the end, creationism is a good and useful thing. It has provided the motivation for evolutionists to amass a great wealth of knowledge in support of evolution. In the end, creationism has in fact strengthened evolution."
--Ken Harding, from "Talk.Origins' September Feedback"

"Creationism is a wolf in sheep's clothing, biblical literalism simply (and clumsily) cloaked in the garb of science to evade constitutional injunctions that preclude religion in public-school curricula."
--Niles Eldredge from his book Time Frames

Angry Beaver:
Tom Krattenmaker / USA Today


Fundamentalists are vowing to make a last stand for God in Dayton, Tenn., on Friday (July 14) when a new statue will be installed on the courthouse lawn. Going up alongside a likeness of William Jennings Bryan is a depiction of Clarence Darrow, Bryan’s pro-evolution adversary in Dayton’s historic Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925.

The creationist organizing the protests is threatening to bring in a militia to thwart installation of the Darrow statue, which she calls an insult to God and Christians. It will take a lot more than that, though, to stop Americans’ growing acceptance of evolution and apparent shift away from the strict creationist view of the origin of the species.

New polling data show that for the first time in a long time there’s a notable decline in the percentage of Americans — including Christians — who hold to the “young Earth” creationist view that humankind was created in its present form in the past 10,000 years, evolution playing no part.

According to a Gallup Poll conducted in May, the portion of the American public taking this position now stands at 38 percent, a new low in Gallup’s periodic surveys. Fifty-seven percent accept the validity of the scientific consensus that human beings evolved from less advanced forms of life over millions of years.

Has atheism taken over so thoroughly? No, and that’s why this apparent break in the creationism-vs.-evolution stalemate is significant and even instructive to those in search of creative solutions to our other intractable public arguments.

As the new poll reveals, the biggest factor in the shift is a jump in the number of Christians who are reconciling faith and evolution. They are coming to see evolution as their God’s way of creating life on Earth and continuing to shape it today.

"Science doesn't have to drive people away from faith,” says Deborah Haarsma, president of an organization called BioLogos that promotes harmony between science and Christian faith.

It’s endlessly frustrating to secular and religious liberals, but the creationist view has held strong sway in this country in the decades since the famous Darrow-Bryan courtroom duel. Over recent decades, percentages in the upper-40s have taken the creationist position; the figure stood at 46 percent in Gallup’s 2012 survey.

Tenacious anti-evolution resistance continues to influence debates over issues including public school curricula, government support for creationist installations like the Noah’s Ark replica in Kentucky, and research access to national parks. A creationist researcher, for instance, claimed religious discrimination in his successful legal fight with the U.S. Park Service over its refusal to grant him access to collect rock samples. His purpose: marshaling evidence in support of the creationist belief that the Grand Canyon was created by a great global flood a relatively recent 4,300 years ago — the same flood that Noah and company are said to have ridden out on the ark.

Creationists will believe what they want to believe. But they should know the consequences. Continued fighting to promote creationism is hurting religion’s credibility in an age when science and technology are perceived as reliable sources of truth and positive contributors to society. Anecdotal and polling evidence implicates religion’s anti-science reputation in the drift away from church involvement — especially among younger adults, nearly 40 percent of whom have left organized religion behind.

Not surprising in view of our growing secularization, the percentage of Americans taking the strict evolution view — no divine role — has grown significantly since the 1980s, from 9 percent to 19 percent in the latest Gallup survey.

But the latest movement in public opinion shows onetime creationists taking refuge not in the “no-religion” zone but in “both/and” position. The percentage of people choosing the hybrid view — just 30 percent in 2014 — was 8 points higher in Gallup’s May poll.

These tea leaves tell us that more people are refusing the all-or-nothing choice between faith and science and opting instead for a third way: acceptance of the overwhelming scientific evidence for evolution while seeing a divine role in the process. “Divine evolution” is a term some use for it.

If we were to apply this approach to other stalemated arguments and false binaries, what other possibilities might emerge? Can’t we support Black Lives Matter and police officers who serve conscientiously? Can’t we support the legal availability of abortion and strategies that would reduce its incidence? Can’t we accept the scientific consensus on climate change and acknowledge a role for free-market business innovation as part of the solution? In the ongoing tussle over health care, can't we envision a system that combines the best private and government solutions?

For now, something to appreciate: growing public rejection of an unhelpful creationism-vs.-evolution fight that does no favors for either religion or science. As more believers are wisely accepting, you can embrace both — and both are better for it.

(Tom Krattenmaker writes on religion in public life and is communications director at Yale Divinity School. His latest book is "Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower." Follow him on Twitter: @TKrattenmaker)

kittybobo34: Interesting Beaver, there is hope for society yet.

Angry Beaver: I certainly hope so

Angry Beaver: I wouldn't mind readin that fella's book, he seems to be a very reasonable chap

ghostgeek: Society is a mental construct. All that exists is too many people with not enough to do.

Fractured fairy tale: Yeah The whole Debate is Ridicules
Does either side no good .
All it does is prove How Polarized things have become.

Where was that news paper from Again
I might Ignore anything that comes from there

Fractured fairy tale: Its Just a big Con
In god we Trust . Written on the Dollar bill
Isnt Referring to God

Look at the letters . Its the same as the FBI
CIA or any other American Government Agency

It Means (G) govemer (O) of the (D) dominion .

Whoes the Governor . Who ever controls the money .

The Reserve Bank

Angry Beaver: Sheesh

Nicotina: David Nathaniel, why do you take such glee in the perceived downfall of others?

Nicotina: Also, how is "computer scientist" anything close to propaganda?

theHating: "I am using their invented tool to speak out against them and their cohorts"

Ever read audre lorde?

Angry Beaver: Dave's a bit confused, he thinks the earth is flat lol

kittybobo34: Europe is way ahead of us on the decline of religion. Most Euorpeans I have talked to think the average American is a fundamentalist nut case.