Although, interesting there are some comments that I’m not sure should be in such a report.
“The reasoning is that sexual exclusivity in men, liberalism and atheism all go against what would be expected given humans’ evolutionary past. In other words, none of these traits would have benefited our early human ancestors, but higher intelligence may be associated with them.”
Why wouldn’t higher IQ(problem solving ability),liberalism(open to new ideas,methods),and “sexual exclusivity” or monogamy be evolutionarily advantageous?
For humans unlike cats or dogs, childhood is long and vulnerable, the father that stays around to raise the child(ren),that creates a stable home and society would be more successful at passing on genes of self(couple) and group(nation,species).
It’s odd that “strong family values"is a bad thing for “atheists” to have?
And the fact that atheists seem to have the strongest family values does that not means Christians have the weakest?
The odd thing about tying “atheism” with IQ and then “elitism” is then are they saying the mass of stupid people are Christians (and “conservatives”)?
Myself as an atheist and a vegetarian would take kind of offense to the dismissal of being a vegetarian.
“Vegetarianism, while not strongly associated with IQ in this study, has been shown to be related to intelligence in previous research, Kanazawa said. This also fits into Bailey’s idea that unconventional preferences appeal to people with higher intelligence, and can also be a means of showing superiority.”
The “can also be a means of showing superiority” seems like a sly, ad hominem dismissal of being a vegetarian. With out the obvious correlation that intelligent people, though maybe not all people would end up as “vegetarians”, would probably be more concerned/aware about health issues in general. Be that dealing with medicines,or diet/nutrition.
And then more concerned about ethical issues in general.
There’s several other things I could go on about, but I’ll end my rant there.
in Reason

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1 Corinthians 1 speaks of this article.

“Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”

“but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen”

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This article can really go both ways. While I am a liberal atheist, I don’t automatically think I’m more intelligent than any conservative in the room. Also, I would remind my fellow atheists that the greatest genius our species has yet to muster (Newton) was also deeply religious. It’s kind of like the racism link with conservatives. “Just because you are conservative, doesn’t mean your a racist. BUT, if you are a racist, your more than likely a conservative.” In addition, I’ve always hated IQ tests/scores and am quite skeptical in regards to their usefulness. People learn, think and rationalize in wide ranges. And, to try and formulate that and spit out a general “number” that is supposed to signify or relate a significant importance is counterintuitive to me?

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Please see PZ’s takedown of this apparently bogus study:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/02/stop_patting_yourselves_on_the.php

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Bryan, how is that a takedown?  He doesn’t say much of anything.  It’s basically an article in a peer-reviewed article vs. a nuh-uh.  The news article specifically states the results are statistically significant.  You’d think as a scientist he’d know what that meant so why the error bar comment?.  And then you throw in the ad hominems at the end and you lose any objectivity

I’m not saying I agree with the results of the study or that they mean anything, but PZ’s dismissal smacks of some sort of political correctness.  It reminds me of Gould’s rabid fight against sociobiology because it rubbed his Marxist tendencies the wrong way.  Oh wait, it’s PZ Myers were talking about.  It is the same thing.  Either the study is true or it’s not.  Let the science take it’s course and enough of this political bullshit.  If PZ can find some real errors with the study then publish it.

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“Liberalism, atheism, male sexual exclusivity linked to IQ”
Rather sad to see the post given house room.
Tabloid headlines for one the tribes jeer at,  “statistically significant ” = my dad eat my hamster.

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uh, moving on…

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Although very interesting, this article must be interpreted cautiously. Liberalism and IQ are constructs that cannot be measured directly. I know that the measurement of IQ comes with substantial error bars. The standard error of estimate for the most commonly used adult IQ test is somewhere around the difference between these groups. That error is compounded when drawing relative comparisons to other constructs.

I’m guessing that there are many who will love this data.  They will feel buoyed - and will employ Confirmation Bias and Spinoza’s Conjecture while integrating these “facts” it into their realities. Such is my inclination.

Others will find this data outright offensive.  A subset of these, will selectively and enthusiastically employ skepticism (and will likely find good reason to do so).

Oh my, what a mine field.  All must walk carefully through this one employing some prudent Rules of Thought

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It is a very small difference for such an unreliable method of measurement.  Definitely not something for people to, reasonably, feel smug about.

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pdskep -

I’m sensitive to the charge of political correctness taking precedence over empirical truth, and I completely agree with you that some criticisms of sociobiology were irrational and unduly influenced by political viewpoints. I will consider my words more carefully next time!

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Where do the agnostics rank? Or did they refuse to answer the yes or no question?

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If intelligent then by chance, so to speak, more likely to be atheist or liberal or monogamous,etc…
There could be examples where the female pairs with stable male, but mates with promiscuous male, obviously not to stable males genetic advantage. There is a tribe in south America that the married female after pregnant by husband sleeps with other males,they then support her and new child. This “sexual exclusivity” could also be seen in evolutionary advantages of polygamy.
I personally think it’s a good thing that we as thinking beings can over come many aspects of “evolution”,or some versions of interpreting “evolution”.
Like rape,slavery,genocide,religion,etc… these may have been evolutionarily advantageous at some time, in some way(s). But a big part of our evolution is also social,and therefore moral/ethical, it seems our ability to co-operate socially,morally/ethically, which would seem to select for intelligence, and perhaps “liberalism” and “sexual exclusivity”, would be reasons we are here today and not the neanderthals.
It would be reasons we as Americans are here now talking/communicating using computers,in a semi-stable liberal society.
John Locke is widely regarded as the Father of Liberalism for his important contributions to liberal philosophy. Locke coherently described some of the elementary principles of the nascent liberal movement, such as the right to private property and the consent of the governed.
John Locke ( 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered the first of the British empiricists, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work had a great impact upon the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the American Declaration of Independence.Locke’s theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as Hume, Rousseau and Kant. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. Contrary to pre-existing Cartesian philosophy, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception.
Locke exercised a profound influence on political philosophy, in particular on modern liberalism. Michael Zuckert has argued that Locke launched liberalism by tempering Hobbesian absolutism and clearly separating the realms of Church and State. He had a strong influence on Voltaire who called him “le sage Locke”.
His arguments concerning liberty and the social contract later influenced the written works of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers of the United States.
In fact, several passages from the Second Treatise are reproduced verbatim in the Declaration of Independence, most notably the reference to a “long train of abuses.”
Such was Locke’s influence that Thomas Jefferson wrote: “Bacon, Locke and Newton ... I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception, and as having laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical and Moral sciences”
“To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, God, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But a heresy it certainly is…” “It is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist.”  Thomas Jefferson

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Not to go too far with a tangent, but on the monogamy thing- just as quick FYI:  Sex is healthy for mind and body- there is a renewed call for the psych fields to provide a rational basis for why sex in and of itself is harmful in any context- monogamous, poly- style, missionary, and other context-related that form the basis for norm/taboo/laws.

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“Participants who said they were atheists had an average IQ of 103 in adolescence, while adults who said they were religious averaged 97, the study found.”

Comparing religious adults to atheist adolescents in grades 7-12? And finding a difference that is less than one standard deviation?

Talk about superstition!

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Averages alone are meaningless, if the standard deviation is not reported as well. Nevertheless, the underlying trend makes perfect sense to me.
However, more interesting would have been a measurement of “gut size” instead of IQ. It takes a lot of guts to live an atheist life, knowging that you are alone in the universe and nobody other than a few other fleeting, temporary collections of organic matter give a damn about your existence.

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