Only 10% of the Nobel prize winners are atheist ?

[Mr Greene]

What do you think they mean by 'very strong evidence'?

[Now I am a Believer]

What do you think they mean by 'very strong evidence'?

Just read the article and see for yourself.

[Mr Greene]

I have and I think you either didn't read it or didn't understand it.

[Belacqua]

Daniel Wilson

What do you think they mean by 'very strong evidence'?

Just read the article and see for yourself.

Thank you. The full study seems to be available here, if we're talking about the same one.

https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/...ations.pdf

I haven't read the whole thing yet. I did look at the methods they used to define who is intelligent. 

This is always a tricky thing, I think. IQ measures certain kinds of things, which may or may not correlate to intelligence in the real world. Recently Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the Black Swan guy, has been on something of a tear against IQ tests, claiming that they don't hold up statistically. I don't know enough about statistics to say if he's right or not, but it's enough to show that intelligent people disagree on the subject. 

A popular-style summary of the study on PsyPost had this paragraph:

The researchers also found evidence that cognitive styles explained some of the relationship between religiosity and intelligence. In particular, an analytic (as opposed to intuitive) thinking style was related to both increased intelligence and reduced religiosity.

This may be a bit like begging the question. Do we assume that "analytic thinking style" is more intelligent than intuitive thinking style? I'm not sure. 

The danger is just that we define intelligence in such a way that it favors a particular outcome. I mean, if a guy with a 150 IQ and five failed marriages is automatically deemed more intelligent than a secure happy guy with a 100 IQ, then I'm skeptical. Ted Kaczynski would score high in this study's method.

Overall, though, I suspect that by most academic/scientific definitions, the study is accurate. But this doesn't necessarily tell us anything about God or religion. In fact I think that Christians have done a terrible job in presenting their religion, especially in America, and people who are smart but not particularly interested in researching Christian thought are likely to turn away young. This would be a result contingent on societal factors and popularity.

[Now I am a Believer]

Daniel Wilson

Just read the article and see for yourself.

Thank you. The full study seems to be available here, if we're talking about the same one:

https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/...ations.pdf

That's the old study from 2013, told you, search in Google for:

"Meta-analysis of 83 studies produces ‘very strong’ evidence for a negative relationship between intelligence and religiosity"

and read the new one from 2019.

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I have and I think you either didn't read it or didn't understand it.

Yes I read it, and I read also the excuses at the end.

Cheap excuses.

[Nay_Sayer]

Thank you. The full study seems to be available here, if we're talking about the same one:

https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/...ations.pdf

That's the old study from 2013, told you, search in Google for:

"Meta-analysis of 83 studies produces ‘very strong’ evidence for a negative relationship between intelligence and religiosity"

and read the new one from 2019.

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I have and I think you either didn't read it or didn't understand it.

Yes I read it, and I read also the excuses at the end.

Cheap excuses.

So is this the point where you let us know your real beliefs and why you're really here?

Thoughts and Prayers.

[Belacqua]

That's the old study from 2013, told you, search in Google for:

"Meta-analysis of 83 studies produces ‘very strong’ evidence for a negative relationship between intelligence and religiosity"

and read the new one from 2019.

The new one appears to be behind a paywall.

If you'd like to discuss this, please let us know what the study says. In particular, how it differs from the 2013 one. 

How do the researchers define intelligence? 

It looks as though the words "very strong" come from articles in more popular sites, not from the study itself. The sentence you suggest I Google seems to be copy-pasted from the popular web site PsyPost and Reddit. I'm skeptical of pop summaries and Reddit, so I think it's better to stick with the more scientifically careful (I hope) paper itself.

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Again, I don't think it's far-fetched to think that more intelligent people tend to be less interested in religion in our day and age. But I think this has more to do with the depths to which religion has fallen, rather than the heights to which smart people have risen.

The Christianity that is most available to people growing up in America is about the worst possible representation of it. People who can get past that -- including intelligent people -- are more likely to consider it.

[vulcanlogician]

I was very surprised to discover that only 10% of the Nobel prize winners are atheist:

And, at the time when this data was collected, how much of the general population was atheist?

[Nay_Sayer]

Further research shows he also spammed the same thread here:

https://www.atheistrepublic.com/forums/a...re-atheist

[Simon Moon]

Nobel prize in what?  You are aware it's more than one award right?

I had the notion/idea that people usually win a Nobel prize for scientific discoveries.

Like Albert Einstein for example, or Ada Yonath that discovered the structure of the Ribosome, or Dan Shechtman that discovered a new crystal structure.

Maybe I was wrong.

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Then you maybe should stop listening to nonsense?

No, that's not nonsense, smart people usually don't believe in God.

There are Nobels given for economics, medicine, literature, peace. Scientists tend to be atheists, those other categories, not so much.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the difference in IQ ratings between theists and atheists only are only about 3-4 points. And that from very limited studies.

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And, at the time when this data was collected, how much of the general population was atheist?

Yep.

The percentage of atheists in the sciences are higher in 2020 than they were in 1920.