Scientists V. Christians

[dairygirl4u2c]

questions, comments, words of wisdom?

[quote]IQ Studies Show Christians Intellectually Inferior To Atheists


By Thomas Keyes
Feb. 10, 2005

In September, the prestigious magazine, Sciemtific American, published figures showing that while 90% of the general American public believes in a personal God and an afterlife, only 40% of scientists who are BS-degree-only holders so believe and only 10% of scientists regarded as eminent believe in a personal God or an afterlife.

In a 1998 survey of more than 500 members of the National Academy of Scientists, it was found that 72% were atheists, 21% were agnostics and 7% believed in God. A very similar breakdown was found in relation to belief in an afterlife.

Results of a survey published in Skeptic magazine the same year showed that about 40% of scientists in general believed in God. In particular, 40% of mathematicians, 30% of biologists and 20% of physicists were believers, according to the study. These figures tend to agree with the Scientific American figures for BS-holders, while the figures for the NAS correspond more closely with the Scientific American figures for eminent scientists, as would be expected.

This is a direct quotation from Free Inquiry magazine, 1986: "Is it more logical to be a Christian? Is religion the natural choice of a smart person familiar with more of the evidence? Not according to a broad consensus of studies on IQ and religiosity. These studies have consistently found that the lower the IQ score, the more likely a person is to be religious."

A 1972 Gallup poll found that 33% of college graduates believe in creationism, while 55% of high-school-only graduates and 66% of grade- school-only graduates believe in creationism, that is, the belief that God created Adam and Eve, the mythical parents of the human race.

A 1995 Gallup poll showed that 53% of college graduates and 63% of non-graduates considered religion very important in their lives, while 48% of Americans in the $50,000-and-up income range, 56% in the $20,000--$50,000 range and 66% in the less-than-$20,000 range considered religion very important.

These figures agree with my own observations. Most of the educated people I've met, and especially those of a scientific bent, tend to have open, inquiring minds, whereas ordinary people on the street, like bus drivers, supermarket checkers, telemarketers, bakers and carpenters most often declare themselves Christians, often stubbornly and peevishly.

I've seen in a few articles on Internet and elsewhere that people like these have derided atheistic scientists as "absent-minded professors" and worse. But consider some of the things that modern science has produced: computers, television, electricity, nuclear energy, airplanes, cell phones, spaceships, audio- video equipment, automobiles, X-rays, copiers, fax machines, printing presses, plastics, petroleum refineries, power stations and modern ships.

What can religion offer? Prayer books? Rosaries? Crucifixes? Icons? Habits? Scriptures?

All of the above figures definitely correlate education and intelligence with disbelief in religion, and ignorance and lack of intelligence with religion. This correlation is also self- evident from the fact that in the Middle Ages, when educational levels were low, religion was in its heyday, whereas nowadays, when education is greatly improved, religion is beginning to decline. All and all, I think it's safe to say that Christians are intellectually inferior to atheists.[/quote]

[jeffpugh]

First of all, this article is very biased about the connection of science and Catholicism. It is the Catholic church that science came from. Due to the fact that we believe in absolutes, it sparked the idea of science because it is by definition a measurement of REPEATABLE (inferring to an absolute) experiments. As for the whole "Mythical parents", it isn't that mythical. Our original parents came out of Africa (according to our mitochondria [sp?]). Anywho, I'm sure there is more we can pick this apart on. That's just the basics though.

[kafka]

sounded quite arrogant to me.

[RezaMikhaeil]

[quote name='Sacred Music Man' post='1290456' date='Jun 7 2007, 03:08 PM']First of all, this article is very biased about the connection of science and Catholicism. It is the Catholic church that science came from. Due to the fact that we believe in absolutes, it sparked the idea of science because it is by definition a measurement of REPEATABLE (inferring to an absolute) experiments. As for the whole "Mythical parents", it isn't that mythical. Our original parents came out of Africa (according to our mitochondria [sp?]). Anywho, I'm sure there is more we can pick this apart on. That's just the basics though.[/quote]

What do you mean science began with the Roman Catholic Church? I believe generally speaking that it began with humanity and that humans have been pushing for knowledge to their questions, etc. Indians invented modern numbers, Muslims advanced it to the point of algebra and ultimately every culture embraced it to some degree. Science is the same way, most cultures embraced it in order to advance their soceity.

Reza

[SJP]

LOL
The poll results sited in the article are no big surprise. The more time you spend in atheistic "university" instituitions, the more likely you are to be an atheist. Go figure!

[Starets]

The arrogance exuded by that article is mindnumbing. Lets see, what have those cave-dwelling exians produced?

1. Well, the scientific method itself was developed initially by a bunch of franciscans at Oxford University, among them was a certain Billy of Occam. Back when I was a sadomasochist, er I mean back when I was a grad student, I remember reading a monograph about William of Occam, the "Oxford School" of franciscans, and the developement of the Scientific Method. I believe the author was A C Cawley.

2. The Scientific Revolution was largely the result of English puritanism. See, for example, Robert K Merton's [b]Science, Technology and Society in 17th Century England[/b], which made esseentially that very argument a few decades ago and the "merton thesis" as it is known is still valid.

Here are a couple of my own:

3. that the physical universe really is there. It is not just "maya" or illusion. Not only that, its governed by natural laws, and that those natural laws are discoverable. Water freezes at a certain temperature because of the operation of certain discoverable natural laws, not because God willed it to be that way and therefore its pointless to pursue the matter further.

4. Scholasticism. When arab knowledge reached Europe as a result of the Reconquista, it exploded into a renaissance of knowledge and learning in the 12th century that was much more broad based than the more famous Italian Renaissance a couple centuries later. See, for example, Charles Haskins' monograph, [b]The Renaissance of the 12th century[/b]. I wonder how much of the growth in knowledge and learning and discovery from that time and for the next several decades was spurred on because is major players were steeped in the philosophical and theoretical methods of scholasticism. After all, a french historian of science whose name has completely escaped me once wrote a book showing how Jean Buridan's "impetus theory" was behind Galileo's theories of motion.

[Aloysius]

Reza, all societies have had great advancements and discoveries; but only Christendom finally broke out of the cycle of history whereby one man would make many great discoveries, they would be recorded, and then for the next umpteen centuries that was taken as authority. Only in Christendom was a systematically progressive study that learned from its past developed, what we call today "science", that is the point. This is not to say there have not been many brilliant people and societies with many great discoveries; but the pagans were unable to produce science because they did not believe in objective universal rules governing everything, they thought it was all done at the whim of a god; even in Islamdom the partial reason for their not developing science was a focus on what happened in the world as being a result of the will of God, whereas in Christendom we saw things as following an order that God has created, an order that could be systematically studied and explained. Also: Christendom had a unique progressivist view of history which helped build up what I described already, the breaking-out from the cycle where one person's discoveries centuries ago were just taken as facts no matter what. But if anyone came close to matching Christendom's advance into science, it was Islamdom; showing that the only way science as we know it has ever even come close to coming into existence has been by two components: 1) the radical monotheistic revolution which took God out of the world and let the world's order be observable and describable in its own right without reference to personalities and 2) greco-roman civilization.

I would say that Islam fell short of creating science for two reasons, though: first, their monotheistic revolution was not totally radical; they numbered the gods down to one and saw one God as being complete perfection above all, but then that God was still a type of personality which decided this or that rather than formed the world to run according to its own order (though that exists to a small degree in Christianity too, I think it was more fundamental in Islam and Christianity was more adaptable to the model of order-in-creation because of Incarnational Theology and Sacramental Theology)

As to this study: From a sociological perspective, IQ tests test how well one is adapted to the culture of the people that make them, not objective intelligence. That's why inner-city kids tend to have lower scores on them, for example; not because they're not intelligent, but because they are not adapted to the focus of the test.

Anyway, yeah, the average theology major is probably going to score lower on an IQ test than an average science major. Go figure. IQ tests don't take into account that the theology major has devoted all of their intelligence and study not to the types of questions posed by an IQ test, but to other types of questions.

Another thing to consider is that the Universities have clear secular humanist agendas. This completely taints the study; and only shows an important sociological trend: people that go through the modern university system tend to come out as secular progressivists. This isn't something shocking, or even disproving of the intelligability of Christianity; five hundred years ago everyone who went through the university system came out as a Catholic and no one says "aha, it is clear that since the smart people were Catholic then they were right!"... statistics such as these prove nothing; one percentage of a counter-example makes sure they prove nothing; indeend, one person as a counter example makes sure they prove nothing. If there is one person living and breathing with a very high IQ who believes in God, then these statistics prove nothing more than people with degrees tend to be secular humanists.

[peach_cube]

Being a "scientist" and a Christian myself, I would like to point out that this doesn't really give any results on the persons IQ involved in the poll. Therefore, one cannot assume that just because someone has a B.S. that they have a higher IQ than some other non-polled subgroup (say theology majors)*. Of course if you have a B.S. in any science and nothing else, you either work for 20 to 30 grand a year in a lab, or are doing something unrelated to your degree. No one who would really be involved in the planning of any research would have just a B.S. unless they were working on their Masters.

*I might even argue that within a subgroup of say Bio majors (which is a rather popular major due to it's pre-med implications) the IQ results may not even be as high as Theology majors. I recall in my College Bio class on the first day of the class 70% of the people were pre-med, however by the end of class there were only 2 A's (I received one)and quite a few persons who were no longer pre-med but just bio majors instead.

[Katholikos]

Reza, recommended reading:

[b]How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization[/b], by Thomas E. Woods, available from Amazon. Woods is a historian, trained at Columbia and Harvard. He converted to the Catholic Church as a result of his study of history.

[Paladin]

Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Louis Pasteur, and Augustine of Hippo would be somewhat dubious of a "Science v. Christianity" animosity. That's a very modern notion created by extremists on both sides. I'll buy "Fundamentalism begets counter-Fundamentalism", but there's no real contradiction between science and religion, between reason and faith.

[Justified Saint]

Ironically, one of the best arguments made linking the unmistakable connection between Christianity and science was made by Nietzsche.

[quote]Reza, all societies have had great advancements and discoveries; but only Christendom finally broke out of the cycle of history whereby one man would make many great discoveries, they would be recorded, and then for the next umpteen centuries that was taken as authority. Only in Christendom was a systematically progressive study that learned from its past developed, what we call today "science", that is the point. This is not to say there have not been many brilliant people and societies with many great discoveries; but the pagans were unable to produce science because they did not believe in objective universal rules governing everything, they thought it was all done at the whim of a god; even in Islamdom the partial reason for their not developing science was a focus on what happened in the world as being a result of the will of God, whereas in Christendom we saw things as following an order that God has created, an order that could be systematically studied and explained. Also: Christendom had a unique progressivist view of history which helped build up what I described already, the breaking-out from the cycle where one person's discoveries centuries ago were just taken as facts no matter what. But if anyone came close to matching Christendom's advance into science, it was Islamdom; showing that the only way science as we know it has ever even come close to coming into existence has been by two components: 1) the radical monotheistic revolution which took God out of the world and let the world's order be observable and describable in its own right without reference to personalities and 2) greco-roman civilization.[/quote]

Aloysius, I am a little suspicious of the caricature you seem to be offering of pre-Christian societies. You appear to be suggesting that all classical antiquity was backwardly pagan and superstitious, only to later valorize "greco-roman civilization." To be sure, the greatest cultural legacy of Christendom was its very maintenance and safeguarding of classical wisdom, and yes, science as it took shape under the new Catholic mold. And for a time Islam did a much better job at it than Christianity.

Edited June 8, 2007 by Justified Saint

[jeffpugh]

It's funny how I'm taking a "yakking" role in this thread, despite the fact I'm an arts person. Go figure

[quote name='RezaLemmyng' post='1290510' date='Jun 7 2007, 06:59 PM']What do you mean science began with the Roman Catholic Church? I believe generally speaking that it began with humanity and that humans have been pushing for knowledge to their questions, etc. Indians invented modern numbers, Muslims advanced it to the point of algebra and ultimately every culture embraced it to some degree. Science is the same way, most cultures embraced it in order to advance their soceity.

Reza[/quote]

I guess I should have used "Christendom" as Aloysius did, though the West is known for the reason, while the east for mysticism (pardon me if I'm wrong about this).

[quote name='Katholikos' post='1290637' date='Jun 8 2007, 12:20 AM']Reza, recommended reading:

[b]How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization[/b], by Thomas E. Woods, available from Amazon. Woods is a historian, trained at Columbia and Harvard. He converted to the Catholic Church as a result of his study of history.[/quote]

Yes, that is pretty much where I got my first post from. Ironically, I have yet to read the book. A priest told me and a bunch of retreatants about this book over a year and a half ago. I'd better take a trip to the library this summer. This is definitely on the "to read" list.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Katholikos' post='1290637' date='Jun 7 2007, 10:20 PM']Reza, recommended reading:

[b]How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization[/b], by Thomas E. Woods, available from Amazon. Woods is a historian, trained at Columbia and Harvard. He converted to the Catholic Church as a result of his study of history.[/quote]
Another great read on the topic (I actually ordered this book the same time as the Thomas Woods book) is [url="http://www.amazon.com/Victory-Reason-Christianity-Freedom-Capitalism/dp/0812972333/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-6737882-5246561?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181352746&sr=8-1"][i]The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success.[/i][/url], by Rodney Stark.

Woods and Stark show how modern science has its roots in Medieval Christendom, specifically in the studies of the Catholic monks, who made much scientific and technological progress, and intellectually laid the foundation of what would become known as the scientific method.
Without these Catholic monks, it is unlikely modern science and technology would exist today.


The clown who wrote that article quoted proves only his own abysmal ignorance of science, religion, and history. He cites all those modern inventions of "modern science" as though they are the direct result of atheism and rejection of God. Quite a few inventors and scientific discoverers were in fact beleiving Christians. I know quite a few extremely intelligent and educated Christians/Catholics.
This is not a reasoned argument, but amounts to little more than saying "Nyah, nyah, nyah! Christians are stoopid dummy-heads!"
Unfortunately, this sort of thing seems to be what commonly passes for atheistic "thought" today. Makes one long for the days when atheists at least tried to give intellectual arguments for their non-belief.

[jeffpugh]

Some atheists who do give some thought still hide behind something. They just don't want to hear the logic. It's sad... I'm going to try and get my atheist friends on PM. See how they fare.