Brad: A report that I read recently states that Religious people are less intelligent than non-believers, according to a new review of 63 scientific studies stretching back over decades.
A team led by Miron Zuckerman of the University of Rochester found “a reliable negative relation between intelligence and religiosity” in 53 out of 63 studies
Even in extreme old age, intelligent people are less likely to believe, the researchers found – and the reasons why people with high IQs shun religion may not be as simple as previously thought.
Intelligent people are more likely to be married, and more likely to be successful in life – and this may mean they “need” religion less according to the study by Miron Zuckerman.
The studies used in Zuckerman’s paper included a life-long analysis of the beliefs of a group of 1,500 gifted children – those with IQs over 135 – in a study which began in 1921 and continues today.
A 1916 study quoted in Zuckerman’s paper (Leuba) found that, “58% of randomly selected scientists in the United States expressed disbelief in, or doubt regarding the existence of God; this proportion rose to nearly 70% for scientists.”
“Intelligent people typically spend more time in school—a form of self-regulation that may yield long-term benefits,” the researchers write. “More intelligent people get higher level jobs (and better employment (and higher salary) may lead to higher self-esteem, and encourage personal control beliefs.”
More intelligent people are more likely to get and stay married (greater attachment), though for intelligent people, that too comes later in life. We therefore suggest that as intelligent people move from young adulthood to adulthood and then to middle age, the benefits of intelligence may continue to accrue according to the study.
People possessing the functions that religion provides are likely to adopt atheism, people lacking these very functions (e.g., the poor, the helpless) are likely to adopt theism,” the researchers wrote.
So in summing up this outdated study over 70% of scientists in the USA didn’t really believe in God or raised doubt in the actual existence of Heaven and God.
Ray: I have to chuckle a little at this study.
1) First of all it was a “scientific report” about the superiority of “scientists”. Could it possibly be biased?
2) Second I suspect the scientists were indeed lacking in education when compared to religious folks. That would be less education in the study of God’s word. Do people that read their Bibles, many on a yearly basis have less education because they did not study Darwinism, or other philosophies of men? What you have is differing areas of study. There is the study of the creator (religious) verses the study of the created (science).
3) I also believe some of the facts are deliberately wrongly stated. For example marriage. I don’t believe the statistics from this report based on the early 1900’s are true today. Today it is more likely to be the secular humanist who is highly educated in science who will tend to fornicate (sex before marriage) and are also more likely to divorce if they do get married and are less likely to marry, whereas religious folks get married.
4) There is also an alignment between worldly education as opposed to religious education. People educated in the philosophy of men tend to also become more financially endowed. The article claims that poor people are ignorant and therefore subscribe to religion. I would suggest that worldly people chase the almighty dollar and substitute their need for God with material things including their desire to worship the created thing rather than the creator. It is one and the same person that is highly education that also tends to be wealthy in terms of this world. The Bible answers this with the statement that the rich find it difficult to get into heaven. (Their riches tend to stop them from finding out the truth of religion.) But in reality it is the educated in the philosophies of men that are the ones that are ignorant of God’s word and purposes. They are uneducated in the things of eternity and the things of God and they are headed for a lost eternity as a result of their spiritual impoverishment.
5) The article talks about self regulation as somehow superior to God regulation (we must assume this is what they mean). This drives to the definition of morals. Are morals dictated by God or by ourselves? Today marriage in Canada includes gay marriage whereas the Bible only supports heterosexual marriage. This type of union is an example where self regulation is leading society in a different direction than religious regulation. Such regulation is not superior to religious regulation it is different. But you cannot prove that self-regulation has proven to be superior to Gods regulation.
Educated people who are educated in the word of God know this whereas uneducated people in the word of God do not seem to know these things.
The Bible has three things to say on this subject which come to mind.
“Claiming to be wise they became fools”
“Beware of Science falsely so called”. (Beware of mans science. It will lead you to nowhere in terms of eternity.)
“It is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel to pass through the eye of a sewing needle.” (SKJV)
Truth Is What Matters 
I wasn’t too surprised by this study as it has long been known there is a negative relationship between education and religious belief, and obviously intelligence is going to be linked to academic success. What is interesting is that the same correlation between intelligence and religiosity holds true for people outside of academia. The education/religion relationship had been explained as people learning more about the world realising there is less need to invoke a God to explain it, but since religiosity also decreases with intelligence outside of academia this is not necessarily the case.
I shan’t speculate as to why the relationship does actually exist, since I think their discussion of that is the weakest part of the study. The methodology itself is sound, they gather a whole bunch of studies, examine their reliability and discount those which aren’t (even if they agree with the rest of the data) and then perform an analysis. Their discussion of the causes, however, is much more speculative.
So I wouldn’t worry about there being too much bias in the factual aspects of the study Ray, although you can disagree with their claimed causes of it all day long. I wouldn’t worry about the marriage data being out of date either. They examined studies from the past century, the most recent of which being conducted in 2009. All of them showed the same trend of intellectual people getting married later but being more likely to stay married.