Richard T. Hughes (whose accomplishments other than being an ATBC poster child remain unknown) writes on religiosity and intelligence in response to Dembski:
Already been done, Bill:
http://www.answers.com/topic/religiosity-and-intelligence
http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Jesus/Intelligence%20&%20religion.htm
Numerous studies and meta-studies show that theistic belief is negatively correlated with IQ. I am fascinated by the causation aspect. Thick because they’re fundies? Fundies ’cause they’re thick. Shallow end of the gene pool? Does anyone have a hypothesis?
Hey Dick (I trust you don’t mind if I call you that as long as I capitalize it), did you know that shoe size correlates with level of education? The larger your shoe size the more education you’ve likely had. Is that because big feet cause big brains? Or because big brains cause big feet? Duh.
Anyhow, the primary point I wanted to make wasn’t that mixing idiots and loose correlations result in loose idiotic conclusions. That was a tertiary point.
The main point is that people like Dick make aspersions targeted at “fundies” that are identical to those made in the past based on race and gender. So called fundies have become a politically correct minority that can be verbally abused without consequence. If you yearn for the days when you could speak and act like one race or gender was superior to another, if you are so insecure about yourself that you have to castigate others to feel better about yourself, pick on the “fundies”! There will always be some group that small boys like Richard T. Hughes can use and abuse to feel like a big man. In other words, Richard T. Hughes is a racist at heart but since that’s not politically correct he transfers his racism to a politically correct minority.
The second point I wanted to make is how religiosity might be correlated to health, happiness, and prosperity. I don’t know the answer to that. It’s a question I put up for discussion. When everything else is equal, does being religious make one happier or sadder, healthier or sicker, more or less prosperous? I suggest what we do is survey people with identical IQs, identical levels of education, employed in the same professions, but differ by being either atheist or theist. Then we measure the health, happiness, and prosperity attributes to see if there’s any correlation. I predict there’s a positive correlation between religiosity and health, happiness, and prosperity when all other factors are equal.
As a closer, I’d like to ask if anyone knows of a study between religiosity and reproductive success. Does religiosity confer a differential reproduction advantage? Are Darwinists headed towards extinction because natural selection favors religious people? How ironic if so.