The Effect of Intelligence on Religious Faith
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.
To place these studies in perspective,
it is helpful to know the general religious attitudes of Americans today. According to a
February 1995 Gallup poll, 96 percent of all Americans believe in God, and 88 percent
affirm the importance of religion. However, the degree of religiosity within this group
varies considerably. Only 35 percent can be classified as "religious," using a
definition that requires them to consider religion important and attend religious services
at least once a week. And a March 1994 Gallup poll found that only 20 percent of all
Americans belong to that politically active group known as "Christian
conservatives."
The following is a review of several studies of IQ and religiosity, paraphrased and
summarized from Burnham Beckwith's article, "The Effect of Intelligence on Religious
Faith," Free Inquiry, Spring
1986: (1)
STUDIES OF STUDENTS
1. Thomas Howells, 1927
Study of 461 students showed religiously conservative students "are, in general,
relatively inferior in intellectual ability."
2. Hilding Carlsojn, 1933
Study of 215 students showed that "there is a tendency for the more intelligent
undergraduate to be sympathetic toward・ atheism."
3. Abraham Franzblau, 1934
Confirming Howells and Carlson, tested 354 Jewish children, aged 10-16. Found a
negative correlation between religiosity and IQ as measured by the Terman intelligence
test.
4. Thomas Symington, 1935
Tested 400 young people in colleges and church groups. He reported, "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・"
5. Vernon Jones, 1938
Tested 381 students, concluding "a slight tendency for intelligence and liberal
attitudes to go together."
6. A. R. Gilliland, 1940
At variance with all other studies, found "little or no relationship between
intelligence and attitude toward god."
7. Donald Gragg, 1942
Reported an inverse correlation between 100 ACE freshman test scores and Thurstone
"reality of god" scores.
8. Brown and Love, 1951
At the University of Denver, tested 613 male and female students. The mean test scores
of non-believers was 119 points, and for believers it was 100. The non-believers ranked in
the 80th percentile, and believers in the 50th. Their findings "strongly corroborate
those of Howells."
9. Michael Argyle, 1958
Concluded that "although intelligent children grasp religious concepts earlier,
they are also the first to doubt the truth of religion, and intelligent students are much
less likely to accept orthodox beliefs."
10. Jeffrey Hadden, 1963
Found no correlation between intelligence and grades. This was an anomalous finding,
since GPA corresponds closely with intelligence. Other factors may have influenced the
results at the University of Wisconsin.
11. Young, Dustin and Holtzman, 1966
Average religiosity decreased as GPA rose.
12. James Trent, 1967
Polled 1400 college seniors. Found little difference, but high-ability students in his
sample group were over-represented.
13. C. Plant and E. Minium, 1967
The more intelligent students were less religious, both before entering college and
after 2 years of college.
14. Robert Wuthnow, 1978
Of 532 students, 37 percent of Christians, 58 percent of apostates, and 53 percent of
non-religious scored above average on SATs.
15. Hastings and Hoge, 1967, 1974
Polled 200 college students and found no significant correlations.
16. Norman Poythress, 1975
Mean SATs for strongly anti-
religious (1148), moderately anti-religious (1119), slightly anti-religious (1108), and
religious (1022).
17. Wiebe and Fleck, 1980
Studied 158 male and female Canadian university students. They reported
"nonreligious S's tended to be strongly intelligent" and "more intelligent
than religious S's."
STUDENT BODY COMPARISONS
1. Rose Goldsen, 1952
Percentage of students who believe in a divine god: Harvard 30; UCLA 32; Dartmouth 35;
Yale 36; Cornell 42; Wayne 43; Weslyan 43; Michigan 45; Fisk 60; Texas 62; North Carolina
68.
2. National Review Study, 1970
Percentage of students who believe in a Spirit or Divine God: Reed 15; Brandeis 25;
Sarah Lawrence 28; Williams 36; Stanford 41; Boston U. 41; Yale 42; Howard 47; Indiana 57;
Davidson 59; S. Carolina 65; Marquette 77.
3. Caplovitz and Sherrow, 1977
Apostasy rates rose continuously from 5 percent in "low" ranked schools to
17 percent in "high" ranked schools.
4. Niemi, Ross, and Alexander, 1978
In elite schools, organized religion was judged important by only 26 percent of their
students, compared with 44 percent of all students.
STUDIES OF VERY-HIGH IQ GROUPS
1. Terman, 1959
Studied group with IQ's over 140. Of men, 10 percent held strong religious belief, of
women 18 percent. Sixty-two percent of men and 57 percent of women claimed "little
religious inclination" while 28 percent of the men and 23 percent of the women
claimed it was "not at all important."
2. Warren and Heist, 1960
Found no differences among National Merit Scholars. Results may have been effected by
the fact that NM scholars are not selected on the basis of intelligence or grades alone,
but also on "leadership" and such like.
3. Southern and Plant, 1968
Studied 42 male and 30 female members of Mensa. Mensa members were much less religious
in belief than the typical American college alumnus or adult.
STUDIES Of SCIENTISTS
1. William S. Ament, 1927
C. C. Little, president of the University of Michigan, checked persons listed in Who's
Who in America: "Unitarians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Universalists,
and Presbyterians [who are less religious] are・ far more numerous in Who's Who
than would be expected on the basis of the population which they form. Baptists,
Methodists, and Catholics are distinctly less numerous."
Ament confirmed Little's conclusion. He noted that Unitarians, the least religious, were
more than 40 times as numerous in Who's Who as in the U.S. population.
2. Lehman and Witty, 1931
Identified 1189 scientists found in both Who's Who (1927) and American Men
of Science (1927). Only 25 percent of those listed in the latter and 50 percent of
those in the former reported their religious denomination, despite the specific request to
do so, under the heading of "religious denomination (if any)." Well over 90
percent of the general population claims religious affiliation. The figure of 25 percent
suggests far less religiosity among scientists.
Unitarians were 81.4 times as numerous among eminent scientists as non-Unitarians.
3. Kelley and Fisk, 1951
Found a negative (-.39) correlation between the strength of religious values and
research competence. [How these were measured is unknown.]
4. Ann Roe, 1953
Interviewed 64 "eminent scientists, nearly all members of the prestigious
National Academy of Sciences or the American Philosophical Society. She reported that,
while nearly all of them had religious parents and had attended Sunday school, 'now only
three of these men are seriously active in church. A few others attend upon occasion, or
even give some financial support to a church which they do not attend・ All the others
have long since dismissed religion as any guide to them, and the church plays no part in
their lives・ A few are militantly atheistic, but most are just not interested.'"
5. Francis Bello, 1954
Interviewed or questionnaired 107 nonindustrial scientists under the age of 40 judged
by senior colleagues to be outstanding. Of the 87 responses, 45 percent claimed to be
"agnostic or atheistic" and an additional 22 percent claimed no religious
affiliation. For 20 most eminent, "the proportion who are now a-religious is
considerably higher than in the entire survey group."
6. Jack Chambers, 1964
Questionnaired 740 US psychologists and chemists. He reported, "The highly
creative men・ significantly more often show either no preference for a particular
religion or little or no interest in religion." Found that the most eminent
psychologists showed 40 percent no preference, 16 percent for the most eminent chemists.
7. Vaughan, Smith, and Sjoberg, 1965
Polled 850 US physicists, zoologists, chemical engineers, and geologists listed in American
Men of Science (1955) on church membership, and attendance patterns, and belief in
afterlife. Of the 642 replies, 38.5 percent did not believe in an afterlife, whereas 31.8
percent did. Belief in immortality was less common among major university staff than among
those employed by business, government, or minor universities. The Gallup poll taken about
this time showed that two-thirds of the U.S. population believed in an afterlife, so
scientists were far less religious than the typical adult.
Conclusion
The consensus here is clear: more intelligent people tend not to believe in religion.
And this observation is given added force when you consider that the above studies span a
broad range of time, subjects and methodologies, and yet arrive at the same conclusion.
This is the result even when the researchers are Christian conservatives themselves. One
such researcher is George Gallup. Here are the results of a Fall 1995 Gallup poll:
Percentage of respondents who agreed with the following statements:
Religion is Religion can
"very important "answer all or most
Respondents in their life" of today's problems"
------------------------------------------------------------
Attended college 53 percent 58 percent
No college 63 65
Income over $50,000 48 56
$30,000 - $50,000 56 62
$20,000 - $30,000 56 60
Under $20,000 66 66
Why does this correlation exist? The first answer that comes to mind is that religious
beliefs tend to be more illogical or incoherent than secular beliefs, and intelligent
people tend to recognize that more quickly. But this explanation will surely be rejected
by religious people, who will seek other explanations and rationalizations.
A possible counter-argument is that intelligent people tend to be more successful than
others. The lure of worldly success and materialism draws many of these intellectually
gifted individuals away from God. After all, who needs God when you (apparently) are
making it on your own?
However, this argument does not withstand closer scrutiny. Most of the studies outlined
above describe the religious attitudes of students, who have yet to enter the working
world, much less succeed in it. Some might then argue that the most intelligent students
are nonetheless succeeding in school. But "success" in school (for those who may
have forgotten!) is more measured in terms of popularity, sports, physical attractiveness,
personality, clothes, etc. Grades are but one of many measures of success in a young
person's life -- one that is increasingly becoming less important, as many social critics
point out.
The simplest and most parsimonious explanation is that religion is a set of logical and
factual claims, and those with the most logic and facts at their disposal are rejecting it
largely on those grounds.
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