Update II: Many links into this entry are labeling this a “study.” It wasn’t a study, I literally took 10 minutes before I went to sleep to collect the data and produce the chart. The data on literal interpretation of the Bible is from a book which you can read via Google. The IQ scores are from the General Social Survey as reported by The Inductivist. I already knew that this sort of correlation existed, it’s pretty unsurprising as I noted. The same pattern shows up if you use post-graduate eduation as the dependent variable. And I spot checked SAT scores by denomination, and again the association shows up. All that being said, the title was obviously tongue-in-cheek.
Update: Follow up post….
A few months ago I posted data which showed, unsurprisingly, that Unitarian-Universalists tend to have high IQs and Pentecostals not so much. What about something like Biblical literalism and IQ? Well, I plotted the IQ values from the General Social Survey for selected denominations and plotted them against the proportion which believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible. Prepare to be greeted by a very banal reality below the fold….
Also, convert the IQ values into percentiles….
Note: Some difference due to rounding. Also, the IQ values are for whites.
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