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[Aractus]

Religious people tend to be smarter

So I read this on a site a while back and was wondering if there is any validity to it.

So, let's have a look shall we at this. The first major problem in answering this question is defining "smarter". Generally we probably mean intelligence, but there's no one global measure of intelligence, that is accurate across all populations. Every measure of intelligence has limitations. When populations gain intelligence in one area, they can lose intelligence in another area. Or the population might gain or lose intelligence in an area that isn't tested for in the population data for those people.

So you see the problem. What intelligence is not is that it's not something defined by a single narrowed criteria, as is set out by contemporary testing methods. Those tests are designed to subjectively measure what indicators the researchers themselves feel are indicative of intelligence, in the subjective order that the researchers feel is important. And this itself is largely shaped by cultural values, rather than objectivity.

There is no one agreed precise objective definition of intelligence. And we don't know how to comprehensibly measure it objectively, because we don't understand how many distinct facets of intelligence there are, or how to properly categorise them.

So now we have to look at some things are indicative of a person's intelligence.

Literacy skills, numeracy skills, other academic tasks, judgement, comprehension, memory, problem-solving abilities, dexterity, musical skills, ability to function in society.

Is David Helfgott brilliant or incredibly stupid?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTQTqj6YJFk

He suffers from a debilitating mental illness (in the early 70's he was institutionalised for several years), and his hobbies include (see Wikipedia) "reading, watching television, listening to music (preferably all at the same time), cats, chess, philosophy, swimming and keeping fit". Professional pianists hate him because he "can't play properly", but that didn't stop him having a successful career and entertaining people (many of whom would probably be bored to death by the usual squares playing a piano on a stage) in sold-out concerts. And although he might not play classic music flawlessly like other pianists do, he can still memorise and play the most complicated music known to man.

Adaptability, survivability, avoiding harmful behaviours, risk management(/mitigation), financial planning/stability, identifying different species (plant/animal/fish/birds/etc), well-spokenness, understanding and relating to other people's point of view, understanding and anticipating animal behaviours, creativity, obedience, leadership, practical intelligence, memory, general knowledge, critical thinking skills, behaviour, ability to set and achieve goals, and even reproduction are also other indicators of intelligence.

What one culture values more than another will drive the cognitive functions in those areas. For example, Werner 1948 "Comparative psychology of mental development" (as cited here) said that he encountered an Eskimo that was able to draw him an accurate map of the shores of a territory that the Eskimo had only explored once in a kayak. The coastline was something like 10,000km long.

Surely this feat (or talent) clearly shows intelligence, but, the inability of somebody else to perform the same task may not necessarily be an indicator of a lack of intelligence.

It could very well be that intelligence is limited, and learning complicated skills and tasks can prevent the learning of other alternative skills and tasks.

So then: are religious people in general more intelligent than non-religious? I don't know. It's certainly plausible, and I don't think we have any idea of the more subtle determinants of intelligence. The social gradient has a proven affect on children's cognitive abilities (even within the same class at the same school), so I wouldn't rule any life factors out of having an influence on intelligence.

[Whateverist]

Very interesting. What do you think of talking about intelligences rather than monolithic intelligence. Intelligence in one area, as you say, doesn't assure intelligence in another though some may be correlated.

There is also a distinction to be made between ones "talent" and the access one has to it. The brain is so complex and does so many things at the same time. This guy on the piano, I believe, is an example of someone who doesn't get bogged down worrying about how he does what he does. He simply allows the capacity to play through him without much conscious control. Or so it appears to me. The conscious mind is a fairly narrow wave length.

[Whateverist]

Went ahead and read through the rest of the thread. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I don't tend to be very medically minded but I'm sure my wife will be coming up with some questions which I may like to pass on from her.

[bennyboy]

Yeah, I think in general the idea of IQ is at least parly busted. It is meant to represent a general intelligence, which means if you study one or two intellectual tasks, you should be able to assume that ALL intellectual tasts will correlate reasonably well-- which they do, but not enough to establish a useful measure of the mental greatness of an individual.

I think a double statistical measure, while unpopular and dickish, could at least say a little more: a combination of mean scores but also of variance among very many tasks, with low variance meaning a person is generally of that level, and a high variance pointing to savantism. Also important could be the top scores one gets or the lowest ones. If there was a skill involving catching or throwing objects, for example, I'd do poorly. If there was one involving quickly navigating mazes, I would destroy it, because I'm Rainman crazy genius at mazes.

[Aractus]

@What-
Well as I pointed out, Helfgott doesn't play the piano like other professional pianists, however he can entertain an audience when he plays and that itself is a skill (showing his creativity), and he made a successful career out of it.

Let's give another example in the real world: education. A person's education level could be said to be a determinant of their adult intelligence. That's their actual intelligence mind you, not their capacity for intelligence. The Commonwealth Government now views Certificate III as the vocational equivalent to a Year 12 certificate (see AIHW 2015 & COAG 2013).

There are different psychological models of intelligence. All of them are multi-faceted, if that makes sense. There isn't, to my knowledge anyway, serious belief that intelligence is monolithic.

Yeah, I think in general the idea of IQ is at least parly busted.  It is meant to represent a general intelligence, which means if you study one or two intellectual tasks, you should be able to assume that ALL intellectual tasts will correlate reasonably well-- which they do, but not enough to establish a useful measure of the mental greatness of an individual.

Define "general intelligence". IQ has another weakness - it compares you to other contemporary people. If you compared the IQ's of people the same age 30 or 40 years ago, on average they'd be significantly lower (from memory something like 10-20 points lower!): does that mean people 30-40 years ago had lower intelligence? Or that they learned less? How do you account for such a discrepancy?

[bennyboy]

Define "general intelligence". IQ has another weakness - it compares you to other contemporary people. If you compared the IQ's of people the same age 30 or 40 years ago, on average they'd be significantly lower (from memory something like 10-20 points lower!): does that mean people 30-40 years ago had lower intelligence? Or that they learned less? How do you account for such a discrepancy?

There's no discrepancy. IQ is a stastical measure across a population, with 100 being the average and scores being measured based on standard deviations, IIRC. And I don't find it harder that given the same test, they'd score lower-- because we have an almost infinitely greater exposure to all kinds of information and challenges, via technologyh, that they didn't have. I can easily play dozens of games of chess in one day, for example, and would probably destroy the average hobby player of 50 years ago quite easily.

"General Intelligence" is the idea that there's a single function which determines the overall intelligence of a person. This is partly true: certainly, we've all met people who are clearly dumb in almost every way, and those who almost always "get the point" even with new tasks or ideas.

Now, this isn't a measure of WORTH. It's only a measure of certain types of skills which we've arbitrarily defined as intelligence. But the same goes for everything else: what, exactly is beauty and how could you score it? How about athletic ability?

[brewer]

Iron is an interesting mineral. The body breaks down RBCs and recycles much of the iron so that 90% of a person's daily iron needs are met by the recycling of existing iron. The body really doesn't want to excrete it, thus some people end up absorbing too much iron even with a healthy diet, and the only way to thin it out is to have blood removed from the vein.

Bold mine.

You're kidding right? You need to look at the treatment for hemochromatosis and transfusion overload.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Back to nutrition: Is it better to deep-fry my Mars Bars in lard or in beef tallow?

Boru

[Athene]

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Iron is an interesting mineral. The body breaks down RBCs and recycles much of the iron so that 90% of a person's daily iron needs are met by the recycling of existing iron. The body really doesn't want to excrete it, thus some people end up absorbing too much iron even with a healthy diet, and the only way to thin it out is to have blood removed from the vein.

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Bold mine.

You're kidding right? You need to look at the treatment for hemochromatosis and transfusion overload.

I thought that therapeutic phlebotomy is the most common and effective treatment for iron overload. I understand it's not the only treatment, though. Is that what's wrong?

[brewer]

Bold mine.

You're kidding right? You need to look at the treatment for hemochromatosis and transfusion overload.

What's wrong? I thought that therapeutic phlebotomy is the most common treatment for iron overload.

Nope. Mainly in hereditary hemochromatosis and then there are complications/co-morbidity to consider. Why would you bleed someone out that you gave a blood transfusion to? Standard is chelation therapy.