Atheist and IQ's

[One Above All]

I find boasting of IQ to be vulgar

This, not to mention it's wholly irrelevant. I happen to know my own score from a professionally-administered test, but that number is hardly a proxy for... well, anything.

That sort of boastful vulgarity is precisely why I'd never want to have a goddamned thing to do with Mensa.

Yup. IQ is about as relevant to your abilities as the number of skin cells you have. Maybe even less so, since skin actually matters for your survival. The only idiots who think it matters are the ones who got a good score on some bullshit online IQ test and suddenly think they're the smartest person in human history.

[Thackerie]

I have this chart, you can get it online it says most atheist have a IQ of around 90. That is not to say there isn't some very bright people that are atheist. I guess that's why I'm not a atheist I have a IQ of nearly 140. I might put that chart up later.

So, on the one hand you're claiming you're smarter than the average person by forty points, but on the other, you're apparently not smart enough to realize how completely devoid of content your OP is?

Th only thing that most IQ tests measure is one's ability to take an IQ test.

[Tonus]

I bet if we pronounced it "Ick test" it wouldn't be so popular.

[CapnAwesome]

I have this chart, you can get it online it says most atheist have a IQ of around 90. That is not to say there isn't some very bright people that are atheist. I guess that's why I'm not a atheist I have a IQ of nearly 140. I might put that chart up later.

Sorry to break it to you, but you made up those numbers, don't know what they even mean and are an idiot.

[Jenny A]

I've just wasted a little time looking at IQ and atheism. I'd love to say atheists were more intelligent. It would be such a simple explanation, and emotionally satisfying too. But, studies concerning atheism and IQ are less than definitive. It appears that there is a slight, but very slight edge in favor of atheism. I've also discovered that the religious may have a slight mental health advantage.

Drat! How unsatisfying. I tend to score highly on IQ tests (anywhere from 130 to 160). It would be so much fun to say hey, I'm atheist because I'm intelligent. But, IQ doesn't seem to add directly to my happiness or income and I've met too many very bright but very religious people to believe it.

And the spread in my IQ scores suggests test biases rather than absolute truth in IQ scores anyway. The more logical word problems, vocab, and three dimensional shape problems on a test, the better I do. The more problems that require me to add numbers in my head the worse I do. Time constraints aren't my friend either. So if my score varies up to 30 points, what does IQ really measure? Not as much as we think it does.

I don't think IQ is the difference between atheists and theists. I don't have any studies to back it up, but I think rationality over the emotionally compelling response is what makes atheists. It's what makes me an atheist.

I do really well with the tests that require avoiding emotionally satisfying, but wrong answers. It isn't an IQ test, but the Multi-state Bar Exam is all about emotionally wrong, but legally right answers and I was really, really, good at that. And yes, I do know what the emotionally correct answer is, I just know how to go on to the correct answer despite the emotional pain.

That, I think is the real atheism versus theism divide: do you go with the emotionally satisfying, or must you look at things rationally to the bitter end?

[abaris]

I've just wasted a little time looking at IQ and atheism. I'd love to say atheists were more intelligent. It would be such a simple explanation, and emotionally satisfying too. But, studies concerning atheism and IQ are less than definitive. It appears that there is a slight, but very slight edge in favor of atheism. I've also discovered that the religious may have a slight mental health advantage.

Mere intelligence, as has been observed, says virtuall nothing. OK, if you're below 60, you probably don't perform very well in real life, but that's about all. Education is much more important and among fundamentalists of any kind of religion, education isn't highly valued. Willful ignorance seems to be the bigger problem than lacking intelligence.

I wouldn't call most christians, who visit here, without naming names, idiots. But I'm ready to call them ignorant, since the choose to ignore and to twist facts that don't correlate with their religious views.

[CapnAwesome]

Yup. IQ is about as relevant to your abilities as the number of skin cells you have. Maybe even less so, since skin actually matters for your survival. The only idiots who think it matters are the ones who got a good score on some bullshit online IQ test and suddenly think they're the smartest person in human history.

I hate to break it to you, but you are just flat out wrong. There have been a large number of studies on IQ and it's relation to your other abilities.

I'm going to make a defense of IQ that for whatever reason is not very popular amongst certain peoples. IQ is not only has a relation to a of a number of things that involve life, but in fact for some things (like the likelyhood of someone to commit crime) it is even a stronger indicator than things like economic background, race, etc. It has an extremely strong correlation with all sorts of things like Crime:

In his book The g Factor (1998), Arthur Jensen cited data which showed that, regardless of race, people with IQs between 70 and 90 have higher crime rates than people with IQs below or above this range, with the peak range being between 80 and 90.

Income:

Some studies claim that IQ only accounts for (explains) a sixth of the variation in income because many studies are based on young adults, many of whom have not yet reached their peak earning capacity, or even their education. On pg 568 of The g Factor, Arthur Jensen claims that although the correlation between IQ and income averages a moderate 0.4 (one sixth or 16% of the variance), the relationship increases with age, and peaks at middle age when people have reached their maximum career potential. In the book, A Question of Intelligence, Daniel Seligman cites an IQ income correlation of 0.5 (25% of the variance).

Educational level achieved:

In establishing a causal direction to the link between IQ and work performance, longitudinal studies by Watkins and others suggest that IQ exerts a causal influence on future academic achievement, whereas academic achievement does not substantially influence future IQ scores.[93] Treena Eileen Rohde and Lee Anne Thompson write that general cognitive ability, but not specific ability scores, predict academic achievement, with the exception that processing speed and spatial ability predict performance on the SAT math beyond the effect of general cognitive ability.[94]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligenc...d_validity

I mean you get the idea. People who casually shrug off IQ as an important thing I think have either not really looked into it's importance or are doing so for reasons of political correctness. That being said anybody who randomly pops up onto a forum and declares their IQ (never saying what test they took or the circumstances) generally are idiots who are full of shit.

[Mister Agenda]

I am claiming to have a IQ near 140, yes.

You'll forgive me if I call bullshit. 140 is nearly three standard deviations above the mean. The character of your posts here suggests otherwise.

And the interesting thing about the standard deviation is that it's noticeable. You don't have to talk to someone two standard deviations above your own IQ for very long before twigging on to them being pretty smart, at least academically speaking.

---

Does this mean I will be kicked off yet another board? Curses.

If you read the rules of the forums that you agree to abide by when you join, that might help.

An interesting feature of many trolls is the pride they take in getting banned, like it's an accomplishment.

---

I recommend I be removed from this board at once.

Why?

---

Lying about your IQ is never a smart move, because your lack of intelligence shows with every word you post.

Perhaps English is not his native language? I sound like a moron in Russian.

[One Above All]

I hate to break it to you, but you are just flat out wrong. There have been a large number of studies on IQ and it's relation to your other abilities.
<snip>
I mean you get the idea. People who casually shrug off IQ as an important thing I think have either not really looked into it's importance or are doing so for reasons of political correctness. That being said anybody who randomly pops up onto a forum and declares their IQ (never saying what test they took or the circumstances) generally are idiots who are full of shit.

Read my posts, then tell me if you can ascertain my IQ. I was not kidding when I said it was 180+.

[Alex K]

Is there such a thing as a measured IQ of 180+? Do tests capture that?
Also, if you take the gaussian distribution seriously in its tail,
this number is so rare I'd venture the probability of finding someone like that on a random internet forum is too low for me to accept the claim anyhow.