Partisanship in journalism will always be an issue. Nonetheless, I am often surprised by the volume of poor quality, partisan journalism in world newspapers. Recently, an internet acquaintance posted me a link to an article by Christopher Howse, writing on Telegraph.co.uk. Howse's article, entitled Clever people are atheists. Cleverer ones aren't, takes offence at widely discredited, retired scientist Professor Richard Lynn's claims that those with higher IQs are more likely to be atheists.
Lynn's claim itself is not controversial, it aligns itself with a decent body of research showing a strong correlation between IQ and atheism/agnosticism. It is Lynn himself who is controversial, and surely Howse must know this. Lynn is infamous in scientific circles for confusing correlation with causation while studying IQ differences between gender and race. Lynn, noting that non-white people tend towards lower IQ scores, implied that genetic differences cause an inherent intellect gap between different races. Other scientists were quick to disown Lynn's work, pointing out that non-white people are over-represented in poverty-stricken demographics and generally have fewer educational opportunities. Lynn made similar claims about intellectual gaps between the genders, despite a huge body of evidence that women are not presented the same educational opportunities as men are. In short, Lynn posited race and gender as causative agents, when it appears much more likely that class issues are responsible for capping the average non-white or non-male IQ.
It is interesting that Howse deliberately chose the weakest example that he could. There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of credible scientists who could and would discuss the correlative effects between IQ and religion in an intelligent manner. Lynn is not one of them.
Howse goes on to parade his historical ignorance, claiming that Marxists 'defended Stalin and Mao and other atheistic monsters'. It is clear from this alone that Howse has never bothered to read Marx's work. He has simply taken Stalin and Mao at their word when they proclaim themselves as successors to Marx. What person today, having seen all that Stalin and Mao caused respectively, would take either of them at their word? Anyone who has read Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto knows all too clearly that Stalin and Mao were not Marxists at all, their anti-democratic and anti-worker actions conflicting clearly with almost everything that Marx and Engels outlined. Stalinists and Maoists defended Stalin and Mao, Marxists aligned themselves with Trotsky and occasionally with Lenin. Is Howse deliberately misrepresenting Marxism? I cannot see why he would do so deliberately, and can only assume that he is so confident of his own intellectual prowess he thinks that he can discuss Marx's influence on historical regimes without knowing what ideas Marx ever put forward.
Accompanying Howse's article is a picture of Charles Darwin, with the caption 'agnostic'. It is absolutely true that Darwin was agnostic. Many intelligent men have believed in a god (not necessarily the Christian one). This fact alone is interesting, and it does warrant investigation - a task that Howse never takes up at all. Howse's tract is built up in low-brow reaction to statistics that tell us very little alone, and it is centred deliberately around an infamously unscientific scientist. This is poor journalism nearly at its worse; dishonest, poorly argued, a-historical and petty. It could only fail further if the grammar was bad.
There are intelligent apologists for metaphysicality, although statistics show they are much rarer than intelligent investigators of the natural world. It is a shame that Telegraph.co.uk thinks its readership will benefit from Howse's writing. He provides no food for thought for either atheists, nor intelligent theists, he merely takes a 'side'.
[This message was edited by Fuzzies on 02-01-09 at 08:37 AM.]
Posts: 5612 | Location: Aotearoa (New Zealand) | Registered: 09-22-02
I couldn't agree more. Christopher Howse had three articles on Telegraph.co.uk about the exact same thing, and they all used the same main argument-- that because Lynn has been discredited as a scientist, all his studies and beliefs should also be discredited.
That science is as poor as Lynn's original race-IQ research.
I was also simply disappointed by the lack of thoroughness in the article. I think a convincing argument could be made that the common "atheists are smarter than religious folk" argument is misleading. But it didn't go there.
It didn't really discuss anything-- didn't debunk actual research, didn't provide a counter argument... or anything. It was so clouded with unrelated ideas and irrelevant points, that it seemed to be a deliberate attempt to confuse the issue and simply, well... take up space.
I tried to sift through his other articles and found them to be the same sort of poorly constructed thoughts.
However, I give him points for what he decided to write about-- many of the titles of his pieces caught my eye and got me thinking about the subject. I wish his articles had been able to follow up with substance.
quote: That science is as poor as Lynn's original race-IQ research.
I should point out quickly that Lynn's research is not too bad, the problem is that he draws conclusions that are not backed by his research.
Lynn is quite correct to note that, on average, women and African Americans, have a lower IQ to white males. That only describes the situation, it doesn't tell us what caused the situation. That part is fine. Where Lynn goes nuts is where he starts claiming, for no apparent reason, that female/African American genetics must be responsible for the difference. He completely neglects the fact that African American people are over-represented in lower classes, and that studies show they perform much the same as white people given similar socio-economic circumstances. IQ should not be measured against irrelevant traits like race or gender, it correlates far more closely to levels of income - to class.
Similarly, Lynn is quite right in his research on theism, atheism and IQ. Lots of credible studies back his findings. But it's worth noting that IQ is an incredibly limited measure of 'intelligence'. It only ever gives vague, analytically-focused approximations. Personally, I feel IQ tests are misleading, I've known some incredibly stupid people with high IQs, and some incredibly wise people with presumably low IQs. It's true that the higher one's IQ, the less likely one is to be religious, but that tells us so little, really.
Interestingly enough, a few studies are coming out showing that vegetarianism correlates with higher IQs too. Odd, considering I expected low/no meat consumption to correlate more strongly with low incomes (and hence low IQs).
Posts: 5612 | Location: Aotearoa (New Zealand) | Registered: 09-22-02
True, true. I thought about editing that sentence, too. I was trying to over-simplify the sentence so I could move to the next one, and ended up over-simplifying the entire thought. I hate it when that happens.
I actually just popped in to note that being a vegetarian is expensive and not really an option for a lot of people in poorer counties that can't afford imports/variety.
Also, re: IQ tests, they have a long running history of being misleading. In most cases, they're just examples of something that offers far less value than people give them credit for.
Not to mention the older Intelligence Tests as used by the USA during WWI, which was really more a collection of pop culture questions: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5293
IQ tests are interesting, but they really don't mean much more than personality tests.
quote:Originally posted by Fuzzies: Interestingly enough, a few studies are coming out showing that vegetarianism correlates with higher IQs too. Odd, considering I expected low/no meat consumption to correlate more strongly with low incomes (and hence low IQs).
Check out Daniel, chapter 1, where four young Hebrew men were culled from the captives taken from Judah, circa 586 BCE. I just read the historical account this week and was intrigued how Daniel diplomatically requested, and received permission for, a trial period in which he and his mates were limited to a vegetarian diet (as opposed to the Babylonian king's mandated meat + alcohol diet).
The king talked with them, and he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; so they entered the king's service. In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them 10x better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom. vss.19-20
------------------------------ The opposite of joy is not sorrow. It is unbelief. ~ Leslie Weatherhead Picture me with my ground teeth stalking joy--fully armed too, as it's a highly dangerous quest. ~ Flannery O'Connor
I see that no one considers "The Bell Curve" to have any legitimate standing. And who even uses WWl tests? Use the current and most applicable ones please.
Actually, people who don't believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny are much more apt to be agnostics. Just my opinion, I could be wrong.
[This message was edited by surgeon50 on 02-08-09 at 10:07 PM.]
[This message was edited by surgeon50 on 02-08-09 at 11:17 PM.]
I hate it when that happens.
