Is Belief in God Magical Thinking?

On Huff post there is an article by Matthew Hutson, author of The Seven Laws of Magical Thinking. The article is called "All Paths Lead to Magical Thinking." (Posted: 09/19/2013 8:32 pm).

In recent years, psychologists have come to understand religion and paranormal belief as resulting, in most people, from simple errors in reasoning. You believe in God or astrology or a purpose in life because you apply ideas about people -- that they have thoughts and intentions -- to the natural world. Some display this tendency more than others, but it's there in everyone, even atheistic heathens like me. What has not been clarified is exactly how the various cognitive biases interact to produce specific ideas about the supernatural -- until now.

He presents a tour de force in the form of a bunch of studies that supposedly prove that religious belief is magical thinking. "In the November 2013 issue of Cognition, Aiyana Willard and Ara Norenzayan of the University of British Columbia report on the relative influence of three cognitive tendencies on three types of supernatural belief, as well as the role of cultural influence." This study supposedly shows that "cognitive biases explain religious belief."

 several studies show that people who think more intuitively are also more susceptible to magical thinking. One intuition that's been proposed as a foundation for religious thought is Cartesian mind-body dualism, the idea that a mind can exist independently of a body. (See chapter 5 of my book The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking, "The Soul Lives On.") This proposition allows for souls, ghosts, spirits, and gods, all made of disembodied mind-stuff. Explanations for dualism include belief in free will and the mutual inhibition of brain areas responsible for pondering feelings and physics.

Of cousre that doesn't say that any of these studies show that religious belief is magical thinking. Instead they present a possibility based upon the notion that more intuitive people are susceptible   to magical thinking. So that says "if you are not careful you  might do some magical thinking." Nor is a link provided between being more intuitive and religious belief. Although I would not doubt that believers are more intuitive, but the lack of prevision of that link is telling.

There just brings up a bait and switch that the Aiyana and Norenzayan study is pulling off. They discuss their methodology:

We used a path model to assess the extent to which several interacting cognitive tendencies, namely mentalizing, mind body dualism, teleological thinking, and anthropomorphism, as well as cultural exposure to religion, predict belief in God, paranormal beliefs and belief in life’s purpose. Our model, based on two independent samples (N = 492 and N = 920) found that the previously known relationship between mentalizing and belief is mediated by individual differences in dualism, and to a lesser extent by teleological thinking. Anthropomorphism was unrelated to religious belief, but was related to paranormal belief. Cultural exposure to religion (mostly Christianity) was negatively related to anthropomorphism, and was unrelated to any of the other cognitive tendencies. These patterns were robust for both men and women, and across at least two ethnic identifications. The data were most consistent with a path model suggesting that mentalizing comes first, which leads to dualism and teleology, which in turn lead to religious, paranormal, and life’s-purpose beliefs. Alternative theoretical models were tested but did not find empirical support.

Notice that anthropomorphism is not linked to religoius beilef but they are going to use it anyway because it's involved in belief. In fact all of these things are descriptions of various overlapping historical artifacts form religious thought because it goes back so far in human history. Most of them have not been disproved, none of them are magical thinking. What's the link bewteen teleology and magical thinking? Teleology means an end goal,  so religious thinking is teleological if and only if it assumes there's a creator who has a plan that's being fulfilled. Why is that in itself magical thinking? It's just logical if there is a creator. Has teleological thinking been proved to always be wrong? No, of course not and it's logical if there is a creator. So actually they are just begging the question. They are assuming there can't be a creator so therefore anything connected with belief must also be connected with magical thinking. This probably goes back to the biases of anti-clerical prejudice, that religion is superstition. So they start with the assumption religious beilef must be magical thinking because it's superstition, thus they just look for typical aspects of religious thought (many of which are connected to ancinet religious texts) and assume it's all magical thinking. No psychological link is provided that proves that teleological thinking is magical thinking.

When he says "several studies" he links back to his own website for the book 7 Laws of Magical Thinking (he uses the number 7 rather than writing "seven" seems infantile). So his article is just a rehash of his website. What are these studies what do they really show? Those are the ones that supposedly show that intuitive thinkers are apt to be suckers for magical thinking if they are not careful, but does it access the percentage of the time that they are not careful? Can't we still check the results by our own logic and empirical data?

One such satment in disclosing these "several studies:"

Psychologists who study the origins of religion say belief in God relies on several intuitions, including a teleological bias (the assumption that certain objects or event were designed intentionally) and Cartesian dualism (the belief that mind can exist independently of the body). So to become an atheist one must second-guess these automatic ways of thinking. And recently a number of studies have supported the idea that belief in God is influenced by cognitive style–how much of a second-guesser you are.

Why is teleology "intuitive" any more than it is logical? If God is what you believe in then is it not logical to assume God has a purpose in crating? it's not prove that necessarily intuitive. Not that they link intuitive thinking with magical thinking. His comment about Cartsteian thinking is ironic since major aspects of atheist thinking is also based upon Cartesian thinking. E.O. Wilson's world view is largley Cartesian and he produced evolutionary psychology which is important to atheist thinking.

One such  study: paper published last year in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General by Amitai Shenhav studuents took cognitive reflection test and answered questions. This is so telling he says "The number of intuitive (incorrect) responses they gave on the CRT was correlated with their belief in God and immortal souls," so in other words intuitive means "wrong." How could one possibly study the validity of intuitive thinking when one defines it as "wrong form the outset? Moreover, they are judging it wrong because it's connected to God, is that not also what makes it "intuitive?" They are just running around in circles demanding that what they believe has to be true and using their baises as the basis for proof. When we look at the actual tests on the study (see link above) we find that the real way they administer it (reported badly by Hustson) was to compare math answers arrived at intuitively with the persons individual belief in God. They compared believers answers to non believers answers. We are infer that the believers missed more. Actually that would mean that intuitive thinking does not correlate to belief in God and that the better intuitive thinking is done by non believers. Why? Because they got more math problems right by intuitive means. That would destroy their link from intuitive thinking to magical thinking. Wouldn't it also matter what one used intuitive sense for? Perhaps intuitive sense is better at God finding than at mathematics. What if that's what it was made for? Massimp Pigliucci sights research and argues that intuition is domaion specific. Some things lend themselves to it and some don't. [1]  

Moreover, both studies demonstrated that intuitive CRT responses predicted the degree to which individuals reported having strengthened their belief in God since childhood, but not their familial religiosity during childhood, suggesting a causal relationship between cognitive style and change in belief over time. Study 3 revealed such a causal relationship over the short term: Experimentally inducing a mindset that favors intuition over reflection increases self-reported belief in God. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)[2]

So in other words because they have some evidence that initiative thinking is part of the stronger religious belief that means that religious belief is produced by intuitive thinking which is mostly wrong and is magical thinking. There are a number of things wrong with that methodology. That's not the same as proving that religion itself is derived from intuitive thinking. That is not even investigating the logic that goes into it. Nor does it investigate the right answers in one's personal life that lead to believe, they don't even offer a theological measuring devices for such answers. Putting up a bunch of math problems is not valid. People don't arrive at belief by just saying "I sense that God is really there." There is a sense of God's presence that people  have and they are totally confusing that sense with 'intuitive' thinking,' they don't have it they don't know how it feels or works so they assume it's "intuitive." Moreover, the term "intuitive" can refer to different things. There's no link that the kind of intuitive thinking (guessing) about the math is the same kind done by religious thinkers.


 There's an article in N.Y. Times that illustrates scientific work depending upon and being  conformed by intuitive thinking. The article is a chapter form a book by Philip Lieberman, Eve Spoke, Human Language and Human Evolution.[3]  The book is based upon scholarly work.

Over the past thirty years my colleagues and I have studied monkeys, chimpanzees, infants, children, normal adults, dyslexic adults, elderly people, and patients suffering from Parkinson's disease and other types of brain damage. We have also examined the skulls of our fossil ancestors, comparing them with those of newborn infants and apes. The focus of these studies has been the puzzle surrounding human evolution. Why are we so different from other animals, although we are at the same time so similar?...In some deep, unconscious way we "know" that dogs, cats, chimpanzees, and other intelligent animals would be human if they could only talk. Intuitively we know that talking = thinking = being human. The studies discussed below show that this intuition is correct.

 This may upset young earth creationists, which I don't  mind doing, but it doesn't disrupt my Christian faith because I don't see evolution as a disruption. Nor does it disprove the existence of the soul because that depends upon answering the question "why is it we did evolve to talk and other animals did not? There are two points that refute Hutson's ideas: (1) not only does religious belief depend upon intuitive thinking of a kind (at certain points) but so does scinece as well. (2) this scientist thinks that the intuitive thinking is proved correct by the scinece. So intuitive thinking is not always wrong. Some studies backing this up have shown that the correct results of intuitive thinking, while not better than other forms of knowing, are not worse.[4]

 U.S. Navy reserach has yielded so much scientific data backing the notion that there is an intuitive sense that aids troops in battle that they started a program to teach troops how to be more intuitive.

 Research in human pattern recognition and decision-making suggest that there is a "sixth sense" through which humans can detect and act on unique patterns without consciously and intentionally analyzing them. Evidence is accumulating that this capability, known as intuition or intuitive decision making, enables the rapid detection of patterns in ambiguous, uncertain and time restricted information contexts, that it informs the decision making process and, most importantly, that it may not require domain expertise to be effective. These properties make intuition a strong candidate for further exploration as the basis for developing a new set of decision support training technologies.[5]

 Ivy Estabrook, program manager at the office of Naval Resarch, says, "There is a growing body of anecdotal evidence, combined with solid research efforts, that suggests intuition is a critical aspect of how we humans interact with our environment and how, ultimately, we make many of our decisions."[6]

 Published in Popular source Sarah Moore form Alberta School of Business and colleagues from Duke and Cornell have produced research that proves that the first choice one makes is often the right choice. [7] That certainly implies an intuitive choice. While Trisha Greenhalgh discusses research that shows that intution is a valuable aid in medical diagnosis and that it improves with critical thinking about the process.

Intuition is not unscientific. It is a highly creative process, fundamental to hypothesis generation in science. The experienced practitioner should generate and follow clinical hunches as well as (not instead of applying the deductive principles of evidence-based medicine. The educational research literature suggests that we can improve our intuitive powers through systematic critical reflection about intuitive judgements--for example, through creative writing and dialogue with professional colleagues. It is time to revive and celebrate clinical storytelling as a method for professional education and development.[8]

 Not only is it not unscientific, not only can it assist in medical care, but it there's a large body of literature that shows it can be improved. How can it be improved (meaning the answers are right) if it's no good and it never works and it's just magical thinking?


Summary

(1) None of the studies demonstrate a real link between intuitive thinking and religious belief. They make an unsupported assertion that teleology and other quasi religious ideas are intuitive thinking. The closest thing to a link is one study that shows that believe was strengthened apart form family tie, but that does rule out logic, empirical data, discussions with friends and individual thought.

(2) The studies that claim to link religious belief with magical thinking are doing a bait and switch whereby the substitute intuitive thinking. They don't bother to consider the venue or the domain but merely assume that if intuitive thinking is wrong for math then it must be wrong for all things. They assume intuitive = magical, probably because they think belief in God is magic or supernatural is magic. Then they assert that since intuitive thinking doesn't work in one domain it work in any domain. Since that tag that as religious thinking then religious thinking is wrong. They actually prove nothing at accept that they are biased against religion.

(3) A vast body of scientific research disproves the idea that intuition is always wrong and doesn't work. It's not only backed by science it's part of science. I give examples of scientific work that is based upon intuitive thinking. It's not more special and unique to religious thought than is logic. Nor is it always wrong. The scientific reserach shows it has it's place where it's right, that including not only some scientific work but also medicine.


sources


[1]Massimo Pigliucci, Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to A More Meaningful Life , New York: Basic books, 2012.

Massimo Pigliucci (Italian pronunciation: [ˈmassimo piʎˈʎuttʃi]; born January 16, 1964) is the chair of the Department of Philosophy at CUNY-Lehman College.^[1] He is also the editor in chief for the journal Philosophy & Theory in Biology.^[2] He is an outspoken critic of creationism and advocate of science education.

[2] Shenhav, Amitai; Rand, David G.; Greene, Joshua D. "Divine intuition: Cognitive style influences belief in God." abstract on line: Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol 141(3), (Aug 2012), 423-428 abstract on Apa Psychnet http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xge/141/3/423/  accessed 10/2/13.
[3] Philip Lieberman, "The Mice Talked at Midnight," except from Eve Spoke: Human Language and Human Evolution, New York: W.W. Norton, published in New York Times, on line http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/l/lieberman-eve.html  accessed 10/2/13
[4]AJ Giannini, ME Barringer, MC Giannini, RH Loiselle. Lack of relationship between handedness and intuitive and intellectual (rationalistic) modes of information processing. Journal of General Psychology. 111:31-37 1984.
[5] Office of naval research Basic Research Challenge: Enhancing intuitive deicsion making.

Solicitation Number: 12-SN-0007

Agency: Department of the Navy
Office: Office of Naval Research
Location: ONR

  https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=be0a1ab47e05fe0f9c2bd0ffd5e40b1a&_cview=1
 accessed 10/2/13.
[6] Ivy Estabrook, uoted in Channing Joseph, "U.S. Program to Study How Troops Use Intuition," New York Times, Wednesday (Oct 2, 2013) story filed March 27, 2012, 5:09 pm on line
 http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/navy-program-to-study-how-troops-use-intuition/?_r=0
 accessed 10/2/13.
[7]Leon Watson ."why we are right to trust out gut intincts:Scientists discover First Decision is the Right One." Mail online updated 30 (August 2011)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2031848/Why-right-trust-gut-instincts-Scientists-discover-decision-IS-right-one.html accessed 10/2/13
[8]Trisha Greenhalgh, "Intution and Evidence--Uneasy Bedfellows?" BJGP:British Journal of General Practice. 52, (478) May (2002) 395-400. On line article http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1314297/  accessed 10/2/13

Great New Website for apologetics

 

Rembrandt's paiting of the body of Christ taken
down form the Cross, the theme graphic for the
the religious a priori.




The Religous a priori in theology that refers to a special sense of religious calling that all people have, the "God part of the brain" is not derived from it but is a validation of the concept. The term is also the title of a great apologetic website, ran by yours truly, and is a great research  anyone who cares about apologetic and God talk should know about, and it needs to promoted more. This site is based upon my old apologetic site Doxa, it's called The Religous a priori

http://religiousapriori.blogspot.com/

The Religious a priori is actually three blogs linked together through on navigation bar. The main section is the Religious a priori, the other two are Religious a priori: Jesus and Bible,

 http://religiousapriorijesus-bible.blogspot.com/


Religious a priori: Bogus Atheist Social Sciences


http://bogusatheistsocialscience.blogspot.com/


On the main site, the plain old Religious a prori one finds one finds theology and philosophy articles and other aspects such as articles about he supernatural. I have published articles on Bayes and on the M scale and arguments that belief in God is rationally warranted. The basis of the site is the old resource Doxa. I have added to the Doxa matieral. In fact I have not updated Doxa in about five years, all the things that would update it have gone into this new site.

The second site, Jesus and Bible, has all the stuff about eight levels of verification for the historicity of the Gospels. It has the historical Jesus arguments, arguments against mythers, arguments supporting the resurrection, was Nazareth an inhabited town in Jesus say, and Jesus as Messiah. I just got through putting up new pages on the issue that the Suffering servant of Isaiah 53 is the Messiah.

The Bogus Atheist Social Sciences site has a lot of very important things anyone interested in apologetic should know about. The argument that Chrsitains go to prison more than atheists totally exposed and disproved, with a new pew research study showing that switching faiths in prison is quite common. Good evidence that most those calling themselves Chrsitians in prison were not Christians when they went to prison. The atheist IQ scam and scams and the work behind psychology today blog all exposed and disproved. Good new material on Zuckerman's thesis about secular nations being more socially progressive than Chrsitain nations; proving that Christians made a major contribution at the basis for Sweden's welfare state.

All three sties are strung together by the stand alone pages at the top. I have put them on blogger and arranged the format to look more like a stationary website than a blog. The reason I did this is because blogger is much easier to work in. Those page builder programs are stupid and repetitive hard to learn. Blogger is easy you almost don't have to know anything. At one time putting up a website was that easy. Doxa was put up wiht no problem, and I didn't know anything about html when I began. I began on geocities. They no longer exist but they were super cool when they did.  I learned html just by copying the cadre webiste on the code just changing the letters, observing what codes did what effects. I learned some graphics stuff form tutoritials but now I don't even need to know that.

I feel that anyone who is interested in discussing issues about belief needs to see this site. I no longer think of what I do as "apologetic." I don't think of myself as an "apologist." I'm a theologian and historian of ideas. My may concern is belief in God from the Christian perspective. This website offers the modern believer and even interested layman a great deal of information that is current and scholarly and offers places religious belief in the best light. I'm doing absolutely nothing to make money off it and I'm don't care. I don't want to make money off the Gospel. It's a resource for those who are interested in thinking about God.

I put this house ad up becuase it's friday and friday is a light day. You wont see another blog for the Metacrock world of blogs for some time.

link to the site:
http://religiousapriori.blogspot.com/

The Case Agaisnt IQ :Zuckerman IQ study part 2

 In part 1, I dealt with problems and concerned raised by the study itself and the data it used. In this section I will present ideas that counter the overall conclusions atheist draw from the study, namely that atheism must be true because it's believed by more intelligent people. The first argument that I present is about the lack of longitudinal data.

The researchers of IQ are measuring either per-college or college students. Not too many of these studies measure IQ's of middle aged adults. They are getting them at a time in their lives when they are either beginning to want to leave home or when they have left home for the first time. Francis says the shock of the "atheist professor" is not as great as it used to be:

The long discussed shock of freshmen encountering Atheistic professors at college and the transition problems from childhood beliefs to intellectually defensible beliefs have been reduced in recent years. Today the shock comes earlier and with less force than in decades past.".[1]

Nevertheless, they are still free from the parents for the first time. They are striking out in independence for the first time. Now its time to rebel and experiment and throw off the chains of parental oppression. Few if any of these studies follow them through life to determine if they became believers latter in life. This is a real possibility that they will. Studies show that people become more religious as they age. McCullough et al found that "results were consistent with the rational choice theory of religious involvement."[2] The Zuckerman study found that the negative correlation was stronger in collage age than before college.[3] So this is a good indication that perhaps its the college years when people experiment and the more intelligent are more likely to reject for a time what their parents taught them then they will come back to it latter in life when they are  more mature. The Atheist IQ studies, which are not so much done by atheists per se as used by them, are not good predictors of what intelligent people really think. They really only predict the extremes that intelligent people go to during extreme parts of their lives.

There is dissatisfaction with the conventional IQ test as a measure of intelligence.For example "Richard Nisbest psychologist from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, difference in IQ scores largely disappear when researchers control for social and economic factors."[4] David Shenk argues that the standard Stanford-Binet test only measures a variety of skills and thus is an indicator of academic progress. They are designed statistically to keep in same place in the pack but they are not indicators of intelligence.

But did this stability prove that the tests revealed innate intelligence?

Far from it. The reality is that students performing at the top of the class in 4th grade tend to be the same students performing at the top of the class in 12th grade, due to many factors that tend to remain stable in students' lives: family, lifestyle, resources, etc. 

Being branded with a low IQ at a young age, in other words, is like being born poor. Due to family circumstances and the mechanisms of society, most people born poor will remain poor throughout their lives. But that doesn't mean anyone is *innately* poor or destined to be poor; there is always potential for any poor person to become rich. 

The happy reality is that IQ scores:

A) measure developed skills, not native intelligence.

B) can change dramatically.

C) don't say anything about a person's intellectual limits. [5]

A big myth about IQ is that the scores can't change over time. IQ scores do change over time. IQ scores "can change quite dramatically as a result of changes in family environment (Clarke, 1976; Svendsen, 1982), work environment (Kohn and Schooler, 1978), historical environment (Flynn, 1987), styles of parenting (Baumrind, 1967; Dornbusch, 1987), and, most especially, shifts in level of schooling," according to Cornell University's Stephen Ceci. [6] IQ scores do not imply a fixed or inate intelligence, Shenk quotes Ceci, "There is plenty of evidence, for example, that schooling raises overall academic intelligence." [7] Shenk goes on to ask:

Don't genes limit our intelligence? Isn't intelligence "heritable?" his answer is:

No, and no. Very sloppy science and journalism has led us to believe that what scientists call "heritability" (derived from twin studies) is the same thing as what we  ordinary folk call "heredity." In fact, they are not even remotely the same thing. Genes certainly do have an impact on intelligence, and everyone has their own theoretical limits, but every indication is that most of us don't come close to our true intellectual potential.[8]

He links to another article, by himself, "The Genius in All of us."

Nesbsit sums up his study of the latest findings:

We review new findings and new theoretical developments
in the field of intelligence. New findings include the follow-
ing: (a) Heritability of IQ varies significantly by social
class. (b) Almost no genetic polymorphisms have been
discovered that are consistently associated with variation
in IQ in the normal range. (c) Much has been learned
about the biological underpinnings of intelligence. (d)
“Crystallized” and “fluid” IQ are quite different aspects of
intelligence at both the behavioral and biological levels.
(e) The importance of the environment for IQ is established
by the 12-point to 18-point increase in IQ when children
are adopted from working-class to middle-class homes. (f)
Even when improvements in IQ produced by the most
effective early childhood interventions fail to persist, there
can be very marked effects on academic achievement and
life outcomes. (g) In most developed countries studied,
gains on IQ tests have continued, and they are beginning in
the developing world. (h) Sex differences in aspects of
intelligence are due partly to identifiable biological factors
and partly to socialization factors. (i) The IQ gap between
Blacks and Whites has been reduced by 0.33 SD in recent
years. We report theorizing concerning (a) the relationship
between working memory and intelligence, (b) the appar-
ent contradiction between strong heritability effects on IQ
and strong secular effects on IQ, (c) whether a general
intelligence factor could arise from initially largely inde-
pendent cognitive skills, (d) the relation between self-reg-
ulation and cognitive skills, and (e) the effects of stress on
intelligence [9]

One of the major disproofs of the validity of IQ tests is a phenomenon known as the "Flynn effect." This is a disproof becuase it indicates that IQ not fixed, it rises with time and that what is being measured is actually not intelligence but cultural literacy.

Multiple studies have documented significant IQ gains over time, a phenomenon labeled the Flynn effect. Data from 20 industrialized nations show massive IQ gains over time, most notably in culturally reduced tests like the Raven's Progressive Matrices. To our knowledge, however, this is the first study to document the Flynn effect in a rural area of a developing country. Data for this project were collected during two large studies in Embu, Kenya, in 1984 and 1998. Results strongly support a Flynn effect over this 14-year period, with the most significant gains found in Raven's matrices. Previously hypothesized explanations (e.g., improved nutrition; increased environmental complexity; and family, parental, school, and methodological factors) for the Flynn effect are evaluated for their relevance in this community, and other potential factors are reviewed. The hypotheses that resonate best with our findings are those related to parents' literacy, family structure, and children's nutrition and health.[10]

Flynn argues that our ancestors were not dumber. He rules out better nutrition or knowing the tests better. The bias of the test is such that a kind of technological imperialism is imposed upon the masses.

Flynn cites a hypothetical, but typical, test question: “How are rabbits and dogs alike?” Answers such as “both destroy gardens,” “both are dinner in some countries and pets in others,” or “you can use dogs to hunt rabbits” are true, but the response the IQ testers want is “both are mammals.” The question tests not knowledge of the world or of functional relationships but mastery of particular abstract concepts, which the test makers have themselves internalized as trained scientific professionals and literate intellectuals.[11]

The tests reward problem solving that reflects a bias toward the technological sort of thinking.

IQ tests also reward certain problem- solving abilities—what Flynn calls “problems not solvable by mechanical application of a learned method.” He cites tests of similarities and analogies, and pattern-completion tests, such as Raven’s Progressive Matrices. In the latter, each question is a series of line drawings followed by a collection of drawings from which the test taker must pick the one that completes the sequence. When J. C. Raven developed the test in 1936, he claimed it measured the ability to discover patterns, which was for him the essence of intelligence. Raven’s test is often said (without good evidence) to suffer little or no cultural bias. Yet it is on tests of this type that the Flynn effect is strongest; gains in IQ scores of at least 5 points per decade have been seen. In the Netherlands, for decades all 18-year-old males drafted into the military were given the test, and those who took it in 1982 scored 20 points higher than those who had taken it in 1952.[12]

Some have asked "if IQ tests are not predicting intelligence, or at least not fixed, unalterably, heritable standard of intelligence, what do they predict?" The Flynn effect give us one answer, cultural literacy. Another answer is academic motivation. That is not necessarily a marker for intelligence, since a bright student can be turned off from the process of learning or trying. Angela Lee Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, and her team, conducted two studies; they did a meta analysis of 46 previous studies, the effect of monetary incentive's on IQ scores."...the effect of financial rewards on IQ scores increased dramatically the higher the reward: Thus rewards higher than $10 produced g values of more than 1.6 (roughly equivalent to more than 20 IQ points), whereas rewards of less than $1 were only one-tenth as effective."[13]

Duckworth's second study involved data from an earlier study, following 500 boys age 12, tested in the late 80s, they were video tapes and signs of boredom and lack of motivation were observed. The study was longitudinal, following the boys into early adulthood. There were no difference in IQ or other factors bewteen the boys.

Duckworth's team analyzed the results of these earlier studies to see what they said about the relationship between motivation, IQ scores, and life success. By constructing a series of computer models of the data, the team found that higher motivation accounted for a significant amount of the differences in IQ scores and also in how well IQ predicted later success in life. For example, differences in motivation levels accounted for up to 84% of the differences between the boys in how many years of school they had completed or whether they had been able to find a job. On the other hand, motivation differences accounted for about only 25% of the differences in how well they had done in school as teenagers. According to the researchers, that suggests that native intelligence does still play an important role in both IQ scores and academic achievement.
Nevertheless, the Duckworth team concludes that IQ tests are measuring much more than just raw intelligence--they also measure how badly subjects want to succeed both on the test and later in life. Yet Duckworth and her colleagues caution that motivation isn't everything: The lower role for motivation in academic achievement, they write, suggests that "earning a high IQ score requires high intelligence in addition to high motivation."[14]

This finding of course raises the question does this mean that those with high intelligence will score low on the test if they are not motivated? That test scores fluctuate at different times in your life would seem to be proof that IQ doesn't measure a fixed unalterable course. Take a book reviewed by NYT book review in 1998, published by Brookings Institue, the work shows that test scores between black and white narrow only a bit since 1970 but "the typical American black still scores below 75 percent of American whites on most standardized tests. On some tests the typical American black scores below more than 85 percent of whites?" Yet no genetic aspect has ever been discovered that would indicate that blacks are any less intelligent than whites. As a matter of fact when black children are raised in white homes their per-adolescent test scores rise dramatically (that also goes for mixed race children). Black adoptee test scores fall in adolescents. [15] I would actually predict that, since at that time the difference in racial make up of the family becomes more acute (I base that upon the experience of relatives). That could be a motivational issue. Moreover, the findings reported above by Nisbet shows the IQ gap bewteen blacks and whites has narrowed a lot more since 98. 

 --Even nonverbal IQ scores are sensitive to environmental change. Scores on nonverbal IQ tests have risen dramatically throughout the world since the 1930s. The average white scored higher on the Stanford-Binet in 1978 than 82 percent of whites who took the test in 1932. Such findings reinforce the implications of adoption studies: large environmental changes can have a large impact on test performance.
    --Black-white differences in academic achievement have also narrowed throughout the twentieth century. The best trend data come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which has been testing seventeen-year-olds since 1971 and has repeated many of the same items year after year. Figure 1-2 shows that the black-white reading gap narrowed from 1.25 standard deviations in 1971 to 0.69 standard deviations in 1996. The math gap fell from 1.33 to 0.89 standard deviations. When Min-Hsiung Huang and Robert Hauser analyzed vocabulary scores for adults born between 1909 and 1969, the black-white gap also narrowed by half.[16]
 

Some scientists attribute the difference in IQ between men and women to motivation. Males surpass females by average of 3.6 IQ pionts, but more males decide to go to college than females. William and Mary psychologist Bruce Bracken thinks this is a good argument for linking motivation to the test score. [17]

The question is if IQ is really measuring motivation, what are atheists motivated toward? Why would those who don't believe in God have a greater motivation than those who do? Let's not forget the idea that  IQ tests are also measuring sort of "cultural literacy,"  or we might call it "indoctrination." People who score higher on IQ tests are those who have more successfully indoctrinated into the ideology of scientism, since that seems to be the dominate force in the culture. That tallies with findings I've discussed on AW  [18]about atheists low self esteem. Leslie Francis produced the correlation between rejection religion in youth and low self esteem. There is a voluminous data consisting of many studies already on the issue of negative God image and the relation it bears to self esteem. It seems that negative self esteem is connected to negative God image.[19]

Persons with high levels of self esteem may find it difficult to share the same religious belief. A theology predicated upon a loving accepting God is cognitively compatible with high self esteem, but it could be a source of discomfort for a believer low in self esteem. It does not make good cognitive sense to be loved when one is unlovable. Consequently the latter person can march to a different theology, one that is more consistent with his self image. (Benson and Spilka 209-210).[20]

If we put together the two explainations, cultural indoctrination into an ideology of technique (scientism), with the idea that IQ represents motivation, what are the atheist's motivated to do but to excel at the culturally prescribed ideology as a means of bolstering self esteem? Since they reject God based upon self esteem, they connected the bolster (scoring well on tests as a mark mastery over the culturally prescribed ideology) as an alternative to belief. Thus they are initially spurred by aversion to belief based upon low self esteem (if you don't like yourself why would you like the one who created you to be the way you are?) the means of bolstering self esteem is to replace the creator with a process of accident then mastering the understanding of that process to show one's worth. If religious are more inclined to accept personal experience of life as a clue to ultimate reality and the meaning of their lives then they are not as motivated to excel in mastery of an ideology, or at least not that ideology, but to seek more truth on a personal level that can't be subjected to such tests.






 Sources:


[1] Francis, L. J. . "The relationship between intelligence and religiosity among 15-16 year olds."
 Mental Health, Religion and Culture (1998) 1,185-196. doi:10.1080/13674679808406508, 188,

[2] Michel E. Mcullough, Craig K. Enders, Sharon Brion, Andrea R. Jain, "the varieties of religious development in adult hood: A longitudinal investigation of religion and rational choice."

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.  the American Psychological Association

(2005, Vol. 89, No. 1, ) 78–8, 78.
http://www.psy.miami.edu/ehblab/Religion%20Paper/Varieties%20of%20Religoius%20Development_JPSP.pdf

[3] Zuckerman, et al, Op. Cit. (see part 1) from the study Abstract, 1.

[4] Michael Balter, "What Does IQ Really Measure?" Science Now, (4/25/11)

http://news.sciencemag.org/2011/04/what-does-iq-really-measure
accessed 8/16/13

[5] David Shenk, "the truth about IQ," The Atlantic, (July 28, 2009), http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2009/07/the-truth-about-iq/22260/
accessed 8/16/09
David Shenk is the author of six books, including Data Smog ("indispensable"—The New York Times), The Immortal Game ("superb"—The Wall Street Journal), and the bestselling The Forgetting ("a remarkable addition to the literature of the science of the mind."—The Los Angeles Times ). He has contributed to National Geographic, Slate, The New York Times, Gourmet, Harper's, The New Yorker, The American Scholar, and National Public Radio. Shenk's work inspired the Emmy-award winning PBS documentary The Forgetting and was featured in the Oscar-nominated feature Away From Her. His latest book, The Genius In All Of Us, was published in March 2010. Shenk has advised the President's Council on Bioethics

[6]  Steven Ceci,S. J., On Intelligence: A bio-ecological treatise on intellectual development. 2nd ed., Harvard University Press. 1996. quoted in Shenk, Op. Cit.

[7] Ibid.

[8]Ibid.

[9] Richard E. Nisbett,Joshua Aronson and Clancy Blair, et al  "Intelligence, New Findings and Theoretical Developments." American Psychologist, The American Psychological Association, vol. 66, no. 2 (February March 2012), 130-159, 130.
 PDF http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-67-2-130.pdf
accessed 8/16/13. Nisbet is University of Michigan, Aronson and Blair are New York Univ.
other authors include, William Dickens ofNortheastern University, James Flynn University of Otago, Diane F. HalpernClaremont McKenna College,Eric Turkheimer

University of Virginia

[10] Tamra C. Daley,et al "IQ on the Rise, the Flynn effect Rural Kenyon Children." Psychological Science: A Journal of the Association for Psychological Science. vol. 14, no. 3, (May, 2003) 215-219.on line version  http://pss.sagepub.com/content/14/3/215.short accessed 8/16/13

co authors include: Shannon E. Whaley2,Marian D. Sigman1,2,Michael P. Espinosa2 andCharlotte Neumann3

[11] Cosma Shalizi, "The Domestication of the Savage Mind," Book Rview of What is Intelligence, Beyond the Flynn Effect, by James Flynn,  in American Scientist, Vol. 97, no. 3 (May-June, 2009) 244.
on line version: http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/the-domestication-of-the-savage-mind
 accessed 8/16/13.
Cosma Shalizi is an assistant professor in the statistics department at Carnegie Mellon University and an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He is writing a book on the statistical analysis of complex systems models. His blog, Three-Toed Sloth, can be found at http://bactra.org/weblog/.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Angela Duckwork in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, quoted by Balter op.cit.


[14] Ibid.

[15] New York Times book review, The Black and White Test score Gap, edited by Christopher Jenks and Meredith Philips. Washington DC: Bookings Institution Press. 1998. New York Times online
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/j/jencks-gap.html
accessed 8/17/13.
[16] Ibid.

[17] Jeanna Bryner,"Men Smarter than Women Scientists Claim," Live Science, sept 8, 2006. On line resource or blog: http://www.livescience.com/7154-men-smarter-women-scientist-claims.html
accessed 8/17/13

 [18] Metacrock, "Rejection of Christainty and Self Esteem," Review of a Study by Leslie J. Francis, et al." Atheist Watch, blog Oct, 25, 2010. http://atheistwatch.blogspot.com/2010/10/rejection-of-christianity-and-self.html accessed 8/15/13.

 [19] Leslie J. Francis, in  Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Leiden, Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV, Ralph L. Piedmont, ed.,Volume 16, 2005, 2006, 108.

 [20] Benson, P., & Spilka, B. (1973).  quoted by Leslie J. Francis, in   Ralph L. Piedmont, op.cit.

Francis attributes the quote to pages 209-210. Benson and Spilka study original source is:
God image as a function of self-esteem and locus of control.,Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 

12,297-310,

Are Atheists Smarter?, Part 1, Zuckerman IQ Study,

A new major study on IQ and religious belief has been released, it's already caught the buzz in atheist circles. It's got a sophisticated and scientific approach to statistical methods, although that doesn't mean it is free of biases. The study, done by Miron Zuckerman and Jordon Silberman of the University of Rochester NY and Judith A. Hall, Northeaster University, Boston. The Study is major since it combined a statistical meta-analysis of a larger number of studies, the largest ever done before; its findings are overwhelmingly in favor of atheism. They used 63 studies showing a significant negative association between intelligence and religiosity."[1] (the study has been removed from the scribd source linked to)
The study for all its statistical sophistication, is beset by some basic flaws that are more or less part of the package of buying into the atheist dogma about intelligence.

Before really getting into I want to point out what atheist will do with this on the popular level. We already see it on U.S. Message board  where they are saying the study finds "Religious people are less intelligent than atheists." The study never says that. It says there's a stronger correlation between higher IQ and unbelief than between higher IQ and belief. It doesn't say why, correlation is not cause. Let's let assert that this "says" what they  want it  to say.


The 63 studies used range from 1928 to 2012. "The authors look at each study’s sample size, quality of data collection, and analysis methods and then account for biases that may have inadvertently crept into the work. This data is next refracted through the prism of statistical theory to draw an overarching conclusion of what scholars in this field find." [2] The major findings are sumarized by Rathi, "Out of 63 studies, 53 showed a negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity, while 10 showed a positive one. Significant negative correlations were seen in 35 studies, whereas only two studies showed significant positive correlations." As the abstract of the study puts it,  "The association was stronger for college students and the general population than for participants younger than college age; it was also stronger for religious beliefs than religious behavior."[4] "Stronger for beliefs than behavior," In other words the relationship between being smart and being unbelieving holds more in terms of the beliefs themselves than for just going to chruch. I would also make that assumption. People might feel expected to go to church without believing the ideas.


 
Miron Zuckerman

Before analyzing the findings there are problems with the assumptions that must be understood. The study defines intelligence as "ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly,comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience.”[5] There are other forms of intelligence but we can bracket that for the moment. No real problem there. There is a problem with the way they use religiosity:

Religiosity can be defined as the degree of involvement in some or all facets of religion. According to Atran and Norenzayan (2004), such facets include beliefs in supernatural agents, costly commitment to these agents (e.g., offeringof property), using beliefs in those agents to lower existential anxieties such as anxiety over death, and communal rituals that validate and affirm religious beliefs. Of course, some individuals may express commitment or participate in communal rituals for reasons other than religious beliefs. This issue was put into sharp relief by Allport and Ross (1967),who drew a distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientations. Intrinsic orientation is the practice of religion for its own sake; extrinsic religion is the use of religion as a means to secular ends. This distinction will be referred to in later section.[6]

We start to see some problems of bias here. The concept of "belief in supernatural agent." This would no doubt be the hi-jack version of supernatural, not mystical experience, which is the original meaning of the term.[7] Not only would they ignore the mystic but also, depending upon how closly they define "using beliefs in those agents to lower existential anxieties such as anxiety over death, and communal rituals that validate and affirm religious beliefs," they might be defining religion too conservatively.That becomes important becasue it might lead to leaving out liberal theological types form the mix of "religious." If liberal theology tends to draw more intelligent people then one would be leaving the more intelligent religious people out of the count. In other words they are biasing their take on religiosity to include only the more conservative and fundamentalist types. Supposedly the findings determined that differences in education didn't matter for the correlation,[8] but that would be distorted by the leaving out of the liberals, who might tend to have a better theological education. It might also be that literalism implies less intelligence so by letting out liberals they might be letting out the more intelligent religious thinkers.

Another indication of the way biases might play a role is found in the opening paragraphs of the study itself in recounting the history of the study of the topic. In their brief history they show that findings seem to be correlated with the times. From the Early period in the 1920's to the 1960s the findings tended to be pro-correlation, intelligent people tend not to be religious. That coincides with a lot of things in that era, including the rise of reductionism, positivism, the secularization. In the 60s-90s the finding went the other way and tended to draw more intelligent people to knowledge of and belief in  religious ideas. [9] Findings show mystical experience increased a great deal in the 60s and due to both growing interest in eastern religion and mediation and "Jesus movement," religious interest increased.[10] During the remainder of the century the tendency seemed to be toward findings that affirmed there is no valid correlation between intelligence and religious beilef or lack there of. [11] Since the advents of this century the major studies have been pro-correlation again, correlating lack of religious belief with higher intelligence. That move is associated with the rise in popularity of atheism the decline in popularity of organized religion and the rise in scientism and reductionism. This history really tells the whole story, it illustrates not only the basis as they show up in the masses, urged on by trends in society, but also the biases of the researchers.

The studies done since Francis (late 90s) are not only badly done but they are also biased toward atheism. Some of these facts in no one of them biasing the Zuckerman study in a major way. Yet there are some red flags. To undrstand this we have to look at one of the major researchers of this century: Nyborg, Hamalton, Lynn, and Kanazawa. These have attracted attention for their biases. [12] We will focus on Kanazawa because he's going to have a special relationship to the Zuckerman study. Kanazawa assumes the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis which basically implies that atheism is an evolutionary advance. That assumes there's a gene for atheism and and it's a beneficial mutation. That is not only an extreme idea but one we would be hard pressed to find much support for in the ranks of modern science (ironic that the head of the genome project was a Christian). [13] Kanazawa has been roundly attacked for making  racist assumptions, for example by PDF by Belayneh Abate who changes biased data collection.

Data Collection Problem: Kanazawa admits borrowing secondary data from different places. He borrowed the IQ data from Lynn (Northern Ireland) and Vanhanen (Finland) Table-1. According to him, IQ was directly measured only
in eleven Sub-Saharan African Countries and the rest was predicted using prediction methods Kawakawa tried to show that the IQ measurement was valid by analyzing the directly and indirectly measured data separately. It is true that no method of measurement is perfectly accurate or precise. However, one has to ask how the samples were drawn, and how the results of the sample IQ’s were translated in to national average. Whether IQ measures general intelligence
or not is another story. For the moment, let’s assume it does. Most IQ tests include both verbal and written tests. How valid will be the IQ test in Sub-Saharan countries where almost all sense organs of the people are turned dysfunctional
by dictator rulers who are supported by major powers of the world? In addition to that, IQ measurement is not entirely objective. Our daily life proves how people are prejudiced towards one another irrespective of educational status.
Therefore, to what extent should we believe the validity of the IQ measurements of Lynn and Vanhanen? What about the possibility of differential misclassification errors in the IQ measurement?[14]

Kanazawa was fired from Psychology Today for these views (and racist implications that brought charges of racism). He was also disciplined by London School of Economics for these implications.  In the oct 22, 2012 post of this blog I wrote:

Kanazawa is a reader in management at the London School of Economics, he has set him about the task of doing battle with what he calls "political correctness." He bases his theoretical orientation in evolutionary psychology. Meaning, behind his assumptions lurk the dragon of sociolo biology, so we should suspect a link to the "Bell Curve" sort of thinking. LSE has forbade him to publish in non peer reviewed sources for a year as a result of the controversy surrounding his work.(BBC News London, 16 September 2011 Last updated at 06:41 ET "LSE Lecturer Dr. Satoshi Kanazowa Tells of Race Blog Regret"). He was fired from Psychology Today for the Blog (which I criticized on Atheistwatch) "psychology today," it was Savanna principle primarily that got him the sack (Colorofchagne.org, changing the color of Democracy June 1, 211).

Unfortuntely Kanazawa plays are more important role than just having his data included as one of 63 studies. He actually performed some of the statitical analysis that went into the study. A note under "acknowledgements" states:

Acknowledgments

We thank the investigators who provided additional information about their studies at our request. We are particularly grateful to... Satoshi Kanazawafor performing a number of statistical analyses on his data, andinvariably sending us the results on the same day he received our query.

notes
1. Kanazawa conducted these analyses in response to our request(S. Kanazawa, personal communication, April 2012).2. The formula for correcting
r
for range restriction is (Sackett &Yang, 2000):
-4 scale); standard deviation

I have not reproduced the data in the example as it doesn't copy accurately. But it is listed on page 23 of the study and one can read the formula. This is one example of what they call "a number of statistical analyses." Not only does this raise a red flag in terms of their findings, but raises questions of bias and the author's own identification with the ideological commitments of Kanazawa. While we must be careful to avoid guilt by association, one can't help but wonder why they would allow him to be the one to contribute that analysis? While that is not proof off any kind of wrong doing, it must raise a caution.

Over all the argument is that the data from before the "humanistic era" of counter culture (60s-70s) and after that era are both suspect. Of course that's  a two edged sword. They might argue that the data from the 60s is biased the other way. It would seem the study methodology is better in that era since Kanazawa didn't get his data originally but used that provided by Nyborg et al. Nyborg's data is suspect (see FN 12 below). Nyborg's data is also criticized most seriously by William T. Dickens and James R. Flynn (Brookings institution). [15] Nyborg quotes Lynn and Lynn uses Hamilton and both use Knazawa and he uses them. It's a citation circle and it's all based upon genetic superiority (echoed in the Psychology today blog with Barber and Kanazawa) and it links genetic superiority to atheism. It's clearly the outlines of a massive ideology based upon some unsavory ideas that represents the basis of IQ/Religion research in the first decade of the century and the Zuckerman study is plugged right into it. It may not mean that Zuckerman is biased and I'm certainly not trying to tar him with the same brush in racist terms, but it has to effect his data not only he uses the studies but the guy who did one  of them contributed to his statical analysis.

There we have to ask do they have a way to really fail safe themselves against the possibility of dogmatic bias? They think they do becuase they say the have statistical means of overcoming bias. But can they really do that when the problem is at such a fundamental level as their very definition of religion? Many of the studies going into their analysis are seen as bad. Can they make up for that?

The most recent period of studies (this century) appear to have their biases. Above I alluded to the possibility of bias in the early period (1920's-60s). Now it's time to find examples that might indicate the probability of this bias. Zuckerman and his colleagues quote the first Argyle study (1958), For example,  the first Argyle study found that "intelligent students are much less likely to accept Orthodox beliefs and rather less likely to have pro-religious attitudes."[16] That could just as easily mean that "Orthodox includes conservative religious ideas but not theologically liberal ones." Does "rather less likely to have pre religious attitudes" equal being atheists? One could self identify as a member of a religious tradition and have some attitudes that are classified as "not pro religious." I have atheists habitually asserting that liberal theological views are not pro religious. One site on the net where an atheist has argued the IQ issue for a long time, and he makes that assumption. The Inconclusive nature of Argyles findings is born out by the fact that his second study (with Beit-Hallahmi--1997) draws no conclusion in the matter of the corrolation between intelligence and religous belief, saying "there is no great difference in intelligence between religious and non religious." [17]

How do Zucekrman et al classify that? Do they count the first study as "pro-negative" (correlation between intelligence and religion) and the second as no correlation? What of the implications of the first study in relation to a more liberal understanding of religion? Moreover the Thomas Simington Study (1935) finds that: "There is a constant positive relation in all the groups between liberal religious thinking and mental ability There is also a constant positive relation between liberal scores and intelligence." Thus establishing the link that liberal theological types are high IQ scorers. Oddly enough Zuckeman leaves out this study. Not listed on his bibliography.[18] Thus there is good reason to suspect that they are only using studies that measure the conservative end of belief thus are leaving out the IQ ranges of the more liberal theology inclined. They might also be leaving out the more deeply spiritual as their definition of belief seems to revolve around a more literalistic supernatural "agent" rather than mystical experience. I can't help but remember a statement from one of the studies on mystical experience:

 Overall then we have reason to believe that the studies finding negative correlations has anti-religious biases of the times. They didn't accept liberal theology as religious and sought to compare secular thinking to conservative forms of religion, or they supported the savannah theory of genetics and thus see atheism as an advance in human evolution (among other biases). While the 60's studies that tend to find a positive correlation (religion and intelligence) might also have the bias of its own day we would have to examine the specific data to determine its significance.

There is also a point to be made about the numbers of studies and what's being left. Rathi claims that Zuckerman found 53 out of 63 studies with negative correlation. That's overwhelming unless the 63 studies are bad and the other 10 are good. While that's probably not likely we can raise more questions about the quality of the studies used. Another striking feature is the conspicuous absence of studies known to have findings of a positive correlation. Several studies that I know are positive in correlation are not found in the Zuckerman study:no Simington, no Pratt, no Rummell, no Corey. All of these are found in the list by Steve Kangus (the atheist list) (see Note 17). Using his list (some of this were put in the wrong category) I have 6 negative (that high IQ not religious) vs. 17 either positive (High IQ are religious) or no correlation. Yet Rathi counts only 10 that dont' support Zuckerman's correlation. That means somewhere seven studies at least are being overlooked. Fancis says in his first study that the  greater number was with the negative. That doesn't mean the quality studies were negative. So even though it may be that the majority of studies find negative correlation, that doesn't prove that this is the answer. The studies left out (I know there are more than 10 that are not in line with the negative) are conspicuous by their absence.

Zuckerman et al says the reason for leaving studies out is:

Studies were included in the meta-analysis if they examined the relation between intelligence and religiosity at the individual level, and if the effect size (Pearson r) of that relation was provided directly or could be computed from other statistics. For several studies, intelligence and religiosity were measured, but the authors did not report the relation between these two variables. Authors of such studies were contacted to obtain the relevant information. If authors did not respond to our first request, two more reminders were sent. When necessary, second and/or third coauthors were also contacted. Studies that examined the relation between intelligence and religiosity indirectly (e.g., comparisons atgroup levels, comparisons between scientists and the general population) were excluded

Simington seems to report it. We can't really know more without actually getting hold of the studies but I think this is enough to raise concerns.

Summary: four arguments have been made to the effect that the Zuckerman study may have some problems that bear scrutiny.

I. Studies reflect bias of their times.
II. Direct influence from biased soruces.
III. View of religion used is too conservative
IV. Study doesn't include several known studies with counter findings.

First, that in examining the history of the topic study findings seem to move with the biases of the times. Secondly, for the latter period the studies may be tainted by the biases of a extremist view of life and even perhaps racism. Thirdly, too conservative view of religion and leaving out of liberal religious views biases the findings. Fourthly, that too many positive correlated studies are left out and this raises questions about bias. The authors claim to have used statistical methods to control for bias that can only work to the extent that one includes all the relevant studies. If the biases of the studies use for too fundamental to the assumptions and if the person doing analysis shares the bias then it's not goign to help.

There are even more devastating arguments in part 2. In that section I move form study inducement to counter arguments, that arguments that seek to disprove the relationship between intelligence and atheism or seek to disprove the conclusions atheists might draw from Zuckerman.




sources:

[1] Miron Zuckerman, Jordon Silberman, and Judith Hall, "The Relation Between Intelligence and Religiosity: A Meta Analysis and Some Proposed Explanations." Personality and Social Psychology Review. Sage Publications (August 6, 2013 online first version of record). URL:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/159718696/The-Relation-Between-Intelligence-and-Religiosity-a-Meta-Analysis-and-Some-Proposed-Explanations

accessed 8/13/13.

totally unfair the Zuckerman study has been removed. Accessed to it can be purchased here.

[2] Ashat Rathi, "New Meta Analysis Checks the Correlation Between Intelligence and Faith," ars technia: Scientific Method,Science/Exploration (April 11, 2013) on line http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/08/new-meta-analysis-checks-the-correlation-between-intelligence-and-faith/  accessed 8/13/13.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Zuckerman, et al, op. cit.

[5] Ibid, abstract. 1.

[6] Ibid. 1.

[7] Empirical Supernatural article


[8] Rathi, op. cit.

[9] Zuckerman, et al, op cit, 2.

[10] find

[11] Zuckerman, op cit, 2.

[12] "Atheist IQ Scam, Bad Science and Atheist Assumptions: Kanazawa, Nyborg, Lynn, and Hamilton.
Atheist Watch, (Jan 22, 2012) blog, http://atheistwatch.blogspot.com/2012/01/atheist-iq-scame-bad-science-and-racist.html
 accessed 8/12/13.

[13] Atheist Watch, "Atheism's Psychology Today Scam," (Oct 3, 2010) http://atheistwatch.blogspot.com/2010/10/atheisms-psychology-today-scam.html accessed 8/12/13

[14] Belayneh Abate "Poisoned with defective theories, Kanazawa Insults Others “Mentally Retarded”pdf (10/10/2006) http://addisvoice.com/article/kanazawa.pdf accessed 8/12/13

[15] Willam T. Dickens and James R. Flynn, "common Ground and Differences," pdf http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/articles/2006/10/affirmativeaction%20dickens/20060619_response.pdf  accessed 8/12/13.

see also Denyse O'Leary, "Does Religion Rot Teenager's Brains?" MercatorNet, (July, 25, 2011)

Monday, 25 July 2011

Monday, 25 July 2011

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/does_religion_rots_teenagers_brains accessed 8/12/13

 Ron Unz, "Unz on Race/IQ--Response to Lynn and Nyborg." The American Conservative
(August 4, 2012)
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/unz-on-raceiq-response-to-lynn-and-nyborg/
accessed 8/12/13
I also quote Brown in the American Guardian, just in case people want to make something out of quoting form the American Conservative.

Lynn's data was criticized: "The positive correlation between intelligence and atheism was a strong one, but the study came under criticism from Gordon Lynch of Birkbeck College, because it did not account for complex social, economical, and historical factors." See Rathi above. Lynn is important and could be considered one of the top researchers but he's also known for supporting the idea that IQ is racial.

[16] Zuckerman, Op. Cit., 2 (from first Argyle study, 96).

[17] Steve Kangus, editor, Liberalism Resurgent, http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/tenets.htm  (accessed 8/12/13) this is a page combatting the myth that religious people are more intelligent. The site apparently sees religious belief and scinece as oppossies and as opponents, mutually exclusive.

The IQ argument is found here: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-thinkingchristians.htm (accessed 8/12/13) my rebuttal is here: In "who is smarter" on Doxa: Christian Thought in the 21st century.http://www.doxa.ws/other/smarter.html  I feel I rather put the matter to rest.

[18] The Simington study was originally listed on the original website I was rebutting (see previous note). that was years ago and the site has changed its list over time. He now includes studies that show no correlation as though that proves his point. It is actually a disproof as he is trying to that atheists are smarter. No correlation means there's no link bewteen intelligence and beilef. The list still includes Simington.

Part 2 of Story of Empty Tomb Dated MId First Century

Part 1 is what was published in J.P. Holdings book on the Resurrection, this is the part that's not in the book Defending the Resurrection. It was not turned because it's bad but becuase it made the overall article too long.

Authorship and Inspiration

Skeptics tend to assume that redaction means no inspiration. They tend to have a very fundamentalist view of inspiration, the author is a robot essentially or doing automatic writing and just copying words God speaks in his head. We need to not assume this. Avery Dulles, in his fine work Models of Revelation, shows that many of the major conservative evangelical theologians who deal with inspiration have different views of what inerrancy means. Here are the examples that he uses:

*Inerrency of original autographs and divine protection of manuscripts.
Proponents of this view include Harold Lindsell.

*Inspiration of autographs with minor mistakes in transmission of an unessential kind.
Carl C.F. Henry.

*Inerrency of Textual intention without textual specifics.
Clark Pinnock.

*Inerrancy in Soteric (salvation) knowledge but not in historical or scientific matters.
Bernard Ramm

*Inerrent in major theological assertions but not in religion or morality.
Donald Blosche and Paul K. Jewett[23]

These are conservative Evangelical options remember. Anyone of these options could include the redaction process by a community, this does not rule out the process of inspiration.
Skeptics also tend to assume that if the autographs were not written by the name sakes, Matthew not written by Matthew, John not written by John, then it can’t be inspired. Many conservative evangelicals in the pew believe this as well but I am not sure any serious evangelical theologians argue it. I do not accept this idea. The names were put on latter; we only go by what the apostolic fathers told us. But we need not assume that even the Apostles were not part of the process of authorship. Modern scholars think of authorship more in terms of community now then of a single author, but as will be argued below that does not remove inspiration form the picture. While the final products as we know them (ie “Matthew,” “Mark,” “Luke,” “John”) are more the products of communities than of single authors that need not indicate that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John themselves were not the originators of that process. For one thing Mark and Luke were not Apostles, we all know this. No one ever claimed they were. In fact I really see much less reason to doubt those authorship's because why would anyone trying to lend prestige to a manuscript by ascribing it to a great authority choose Mark and Luke rather than Peter or Paul? Mark and Luke were secondary figures, they were not very well known and don’t play major roles in Acts (aside for writing it). So while authorship by a community for Mark or Luke is not the death knell of those gospels, it is not necessary to assume that they not authored by Mark and Luke.
Why would Mark and Luke use the Ur Gospel reading when they had Peter and Paul to draw from? Luke also had Andronicus and Junia (Romans 16) who were apparently in on the early days of the faith, and others? Luke tells us he consulting the many attempts already made at writing the account of Jesus life. Mark, Papias tells us, recorded the Memoirs of Peter, but not in order.[24] The lack of chronological order could be significant because it would furnish a reason why the redactors would redact it; to change the chronological order to one that was known from other witnesses to be more accurate. In fact we can assume perhaps the Ur Gospel would be that source. Mark himself could have used the Ur Gospel of the reason but the redactors after Mark could have done so. The theory of an Ur Mark, a primary core to the Gospel of Mark has been circulating since the nineteenth century. The Ur Mark could be the original core that Mark recorded.[25] We know that Matthew and Luke did not use quite the same versions of Mark, so Mark was a work in progress that started very early around a core set of data and continued to be worked out in many versions.[26] There are reasons to assume that Mark did hear from Peter and used his memoirs as the basis for the work, because the action in Mark tends to center around Galilee. Galilee is the realm of goodness in Mark, as opposed to the evil city.[27] Luke Timothy Johnson states: "Two main preoccupations characterize the study of Mark's Gospel today. The first takes seriously the ability of Mark's Gospel to reveal something of the historical setting it addressed, and seeks to find within Mark's narrative clues for the deciphering of history."[28]
Matthew need not be removed from the proceedings either. As a child it always bothered me when I learned that Mark was written first and Mat copied him, why would an Apostle who was there follow the outline of a non Apostle who was not? Latter I learned to rationalize by saying because he knew Mark followed Peter’s account. There’s a much better explanation. There is a way Mat could have bee responsible for the gospel that bears his name without having it written it. Papias says that he wrote the Gospel in his own language (presumably Hebrew or Aramaic) and “everyone copied it and translated it as best he could.”[29] The translation would be one level of removal from Mat. Moreover, Papias refers to Matthew’s works as “the Logia.” This literally means “the words.”[30] Thus is could well be that he wrote a saying source, and someone else latter worked the sayings into a narrative. Again here’s this idea of a core work looking for a narrative order. The same chronological order that Mark’s core was pumped into also could have served as the narrative framework for Mat’s saying source. Mat’s Logia could have been Q for that matter, although that is getting a bit fanciful.[31] We might also speculate that the names were applied to the community and the gospels named after the communities that produced them. Thus the “Matthew community” followed Matthew and produced the Gospel of Matthew by redacting the saying source with a narrative frame.
My feeling has been to remove John the Son of Zebedee (John the Apostle) from the process, and this has been my view for some time now. Cullman, in The Johnnie Circle, effectively argued the Apostle out of authorship.[32] Richard Buckham doesn’t buy authorship of John the Apostle and seems to think the beloved was the Elder John whom Papias mentions.[33] What seems pretty clear is that it’s doubtful the Apostle would call himself “that disciple who Jesus loved.” There are other reasons Cullman and Buckham use, for example places where the “BD” (beloved Disciple) is mentioned In addition to the son of Zebedee. It also doesn’t make sense that the author would set up anonymity by calling himself “the Beloved disciple” then blow it by naming himself as John the son of Zebedee. It may not make much sense that he would call himself “that disciple whom Jesus loved” at all, but we can understand this as an addition by redactors, the same redactors who make their appearance at the end of the book and attest to the greatness of the author “this is that one.” We have always known this group of other people stuck their say on the back of the gospel. Why assume they had no other hand in its production than this? It makes perfect sense they would redact it and call the author “the beloved disciple.” They did feel authorized to stick their say on the end of the book. In so doing they also give us the indication of communal authorship, the elders of emphasis who actually produced the book in its final form and in so doing they all attest to its eye witness nature. They are at least if nothing else eye witnesses to the teachings of this disciple who Jesus loved.


Community as Author

The idea that the whole community was the author may be confusing to some. It really does explain the facts far better than the idea that the gospels were written by their name sakes. The fact of redaction is obvious; anyone who compares the gospels in a gospel parallel has to realize this. The idea of four or two (Matthew and John) telling what they saw from their own perspectives cannot be the same because no two witnesses could match up on exact syntax and have all their sentences clearly related to one another. Yet the community authorship thing also means eye witness testimony is the basis of the documents. The idea skeptics argue for, wild rumor spreading unchecked has nothing to do with it. The community told the story in controlled and orderly fashion so that each and every member would understand it and know it by heart. It makes no sense that eye witnesses such as Matthew would copy non eye witness John. To deny that conservatives get into dyeing what the vast majority of scholars see, that Mark was written first. But the communal authorship theory explains it. The community told the stories in communal setting, the eye witnesses probably began the process and then latter as the eye witnesses died off the other members demonstrated their memorization and told the stories with those who heard them countless times checking to make sure they got it right. Eventually he church began to grow and spread beyond Jerusalem and they could not hold that sort of transmission together forever. But they only had to hold it together for about 20 years, and then began to circulate the written documents. Of course this is speculation. How do we know this is what happened? There are good reasons to believe that here was some sort of controlled telling in a communal setting.

Fist, by “controlled telling” I don’t mean too controlled. They did not have the modern concept of “court rooms” and “eye witness testimony.” They were not telling the story to prove to skeptics that they had eye witnesses. They were telling it for reasons related more to the life and health of the group. They wanted to remember the events and the teachings of Jesus, not to prove to anything to anyone, but as a devotion to their beliefs. But the expectation of literal history is a false one. The Gospel of Mark is not a biography; it doesn't provide enough information to be a biography. Nor is it an attempt at writing a history book. In fact the Church's claim for the document is that Mark wrote the memories of Peter but he did not record them in order. Rather he records units placed in order by narrow bridge passages which are often rather veg. These units are known as pericopies and they are the point of the work; they are like pearls on a string, placed in a certain order to get across a point. That point is not a literal blow by blow description of what happened in the sense of a literal history book; rather, they are there for the edification of the church. The Gospels are primarily oriented around the needs of the church community and pertain to worship rather than apologetics.[34] We should not expect to find that the material is arranged in such a manner as to form a history book. While the mistakes in geography and other aspects of Palestinian Jewish life do indicate that the author is not Jewish, there is also an indication that the "author" is really a redactor. It is not the original source of the material that is not Jewish but the redactor who put it in its present form probably in Syria around A.D. 70. But a much older layer of material stands behind this surface reading, a layer of historical material which does link the Gospel of Mark with he original events and may actually link the work with its namesake and with Peter's Testimony. Secondly, the period of “controlled telling” would not have lasted long. After just 20 years the movement has spread to other cities[35] and began to change and grow to an extent that there could not have been even one eye witness in every group. The controlled nature would have fallen apart. On the other hand it’s obvious certain facts had been set into stone even at this early period, since there are a basic set of facts common to all tellings of the Gospel story even in non canonical Gospels; he’s always crucified in Jerusalem at noon, his mother is always Mary, his side kicks are always Peter and John, and there’s always an empty tomb. That configuration only had to hold together for about 20 years before it began to circulate in writing, by that time the facts had been established.

It makes sense to think that they had controlled telling, by “controlled” I mean they conformed to known methods of oral tradition that can be found in all bardic cultures and in the Hebrew culture for oral traditions. The earliest Christian groups lived together communally. They are reputed to have shared everything, studied together and to have been of one mind.

Acts 1:12-15

12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olive Grove, which is near Jerusalem--a Sabbath day's journey away. 13 When they arrived, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying: Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. 14 All these were continually united in prayer, along with the women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brothers. 15 During these days Peter stood up among the brothers--the number of people who were together was about 120--


From the first time the community is mentioned we see the story is being formed and the attitudes toward it are being shaped.

Acts 2:42-47

42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayers. 43 Then fear came over everyone, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. 44 Now all the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 So they sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as anyone had a need. 46 And every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple complex, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added those being saved to them.

Devoted themselves to the Apostle’s teaching has to include a recitation of the events of Jesus life and his arrest, death, and resurrection. Why they devote themselves to the Apostle’s teachings but not mention what happened at the end, or discuss the great confirming miracle that grounded everything in the stamp of God’s approval? Moreover we see the communal structure that extended to ever facet from eating to studying the teachings.

Acts 4:32-37

32 Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of his possessions was his own, but instead they held everything in common. 33 And with great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was on all of them. 34 For there was not a needy person among them, because all those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, 35 and laid them at the apostles' feet. This was then distributed to each person as anyone had a need. 36 Joseph, who was named by the apostles Barnabas, which is translated Son of Encouragement, a Levite and a Cypriot by birth, 37 sold a field he owned, brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet.


In this quotation we see they were using the resurrection as testimony and they were talking about it the communal setting. In spite of the fact that we can be sure this was an idealized account, few scholars believe Luke just fabricated the events in Acts. He had some people from that era to draw upon. Paul got in on the end of it, Andronicus and Junia were there, and Pricilla and Aquialla were around. The four daughters of Philip of Hiropolis probably served major sources for Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. Even though some of this is an exaggeration, he could easily have known the basic flavor of the times and the events.
Moreover, we know that the Hebrews had an oral tradition, and as an oral culture they knew how to keep orally transmitted information straight and correct.

"No one is likely to deny that a tradition that is being handed on by word of mouth is likely to undergo modification. This is bound to happen, unless the tradition has been rigidly formulated and has been learned with careful safeguard against the intrusion of error"

This is exactly the way in which the tradition was handed on among the Jews. IT is precisely on this ground that Scandinavian scholar H. Risenfeld in an essay entitled "The Gospel Tradition and its Beginnings (1957).”[36]

Oral tradition in first-century Judaism was not uncontrolled as was/is often assumed, based on comparisons with non-Jewish models. B.D. Chilton and C.A. Evans:


"...[T]he early form criticism tied the theory of oral transmission to the conjecture that Gospel traditions were mediated like folk traditions, being freely altered and even created ad hoc by various and sundry wandering charismatic jackleg preachers. This view, however, was rooted more in the eighteenth century romanticism of J. G. Herder than in an understanding of the handling of religious tradition in first-century Judaism. As O. Cullmann, B. Gerhardsson, H. Riesenfeld and R. Riesner have demonstrated, the Judaism of the period treated such traditions very carefully, and the New Testament writers in numerous passages applied to apostolic traditions the same technical terminology found elsewhere in Judaism for 'delivering', 'receiving', 'learning', 'holding', 'keeping', and 'guarding', the traditional 'teaching'. In this way they both identified their traditions as 'holy word' and showed their concern for a careful and ordered transmission of it. The word and work of Jesus were an important albeit distinct part of these apostolic traditions.*

"Luke used one of the same technical terms, speaking of eyewitnesses who 'delivered to us' the things contained in his Gospel and about which his patron Theophilus had been instructed. Similarly, the amanuenses or co-worker-secretaries who composed the Gospel of John speak of the Evangelist, the beloved disciple, 'who is witnessing concerning these things and who wrote these things', as an eyewitness and a member of the inner circle of Jesus' disciples. In the same connection it is not insignificant that those to whom Jesus entrusted his teachings are not called 'preachers' but 'pupils' and 'apostles', semi-technical terms for those who represent and mediate the teachings and instructions of their mentor or principal..[37]



The classical skeptical argument that the Gospels were written sixty years or latter after the original events so myth developed and changed and evolved into a resurrection that never happened, is invalidated by the fact that the empty tomb was part of the early telling and circulated in writing from a period only twenty years after the events. For only two decades (at most) the infant church had to hold together the truth as passed on to them by eye witnesses, and they would have had eye witnesses among them to help keep it in check. The argument that myth takes a long time to develop is not saying that it takes a long time to make up a rumor. Skeptics have pointed this out always, myth could begin in one afternoon, but what takes time is a concrete from of story telling. A mythos is more than just a bunch of wild rumors; it’s a literary work that includes a standardized form. This standardized form is seen clearly in the canonicals. Due to this fact we know there are traces of an earlier from shared by the canonicals and latter finished works such as the Gospel of Peter. This standardized form includes the empty tomb. These facts speak clearly to presence of the empty tomb as an early historical event that was part of the earlier telling of the resurrection and existed in the life of the community from the beginning.


[23] Avery Dulles, Models of Revelation, New York: Double Day, 1985
I highly recommend Dulle’s book for anyone interested in thinking through the nature of Biblical inspiration and understanding the major schools of thought in modern theology.

[24] Richard Buckham, Jesus and The Eye Witnesses: The Gospels as Eye Witness Testimony. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing co. 2006, 203

[25] Neil, 239

[26]Koester, 289

[27] Neil, 239

[28] Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament, Philadelphia: Fortress Press p.1986, 148

[29] Papias quote on Mat’s logia, in New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, online version, URL: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11457c.htm . article on “st. Papias.” Visited 1/19/10
[30]Buckham,202

[31] Buckham remarks in fn 1 that he does not translate the term “logia” because its meaning not clear and its disputed. But he also says it would mean “something like “amounts of what Jesus did and said.” My attempt at translating as “the words” is based upon my pigeon Greek derived form three years of struggle to fulfill my undergraduate language requirement, but that is literally what the words mean. That doesn’t mean my translation is good as a finished product. As Buckham says “it means something like…”

[31[Major scholars such as Koester have speculated that Q could be the Logia because Q contains many Q sayings.

[32] Oscar Cullman, the Johanine Circle, Philadelsphia: Fortress Press, 1976

[33] Buckham, 411-420.

[34] Neil,.234, 258

[35]Johnson 117.

[36] Neil, 250

[37] B.D. Chilton and C.A. Evans* (eds.), Authenticating the Activities of Jesus (NTTS, 28.2; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998): 53-55