http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/7748/89453

"One of these facts is the negative correlation between education and religion, and also between intelligence and religion. For college graduates, 52% are religious and 25% are committed to church attendance, while the percentages are 70% and 33% for people who only completed primary school. These differences are also proven by the 1991 General Social Survey. A great number of surveys have also shown the negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity ("The Effect of Intelligence on Religious Faith", Free Inquiry, Spring 1986). Therefore, we may surmise that, as the general level of education will rise, the less theism will take hold.

Another of these facts is how our youths are raised. According to the survey, the young, middle-aged and elderly are religious at respectively 59%, 56% and 63%. More data would be necessary to analyze this trend, but if this is a generational phenomenon, then there is hope that average religiosity will decline with time.

In the final analysis, one particular comment by the ignorant writer of the report is perhaps the most revealing. She is concerned that religiosity is being considered less important than 'the impact of new technologies, scientific developments such as human cloning and economic theory that seems to assert the deification of the market'. Yet it would be shameful if we forsook all these great hopes for mankind in exchange for old superstitions."


www.secularhumanism.org/fi

Paraphrased and summarized from The Effect of Intelligence on Religious Faith, 
Burnham P. Beckwith, _Free Inquiry_, Spring 1986:

1. Thomas Howells, 1927 
Study of 461 students showed religiously conservative students "are, 
in general, relatively inferior in intellectual ability."

2. Hilding Carlsojn, 1933 
Study of 215 students showed that "there is a tendency for the more
intelligent undergraduate to be sympathetic toward ... atheism."

3. Abraham Franzblau, 1934
Confirming Howells and Carlson, tested 354 Jewish children, 10-16.
Negative correlation between religiosity and Terman intelligence test.

4. Thomas Symington, 1935
Tested 400 young people in colleges and church groups. He reported,
"there is a constant positive relation in all the groups between 
liberal religious thinking and mental ability...There is also a 
constant positive relation between liberal scores and intelligence..."

5. Vernon Jones, 1938
Tested 381 students, concluding "a slight tendency for intelligence
and liberal attitudes to go together." 

6. A. R. Gilliland, 1940
At variance with all other studies, found "little or no relationship
between intelligence and attitude toward god."

7. Donald Gragg, 1942
Reported an inverse correlation between 100 ACE freshman test scores
and Thurstone "reality of god" scores.

8. Brown and Love, 1951
At U. of Denver, tested 613 male and female students. Mean test scores
of non-believers = 119, believers = 100. Percentile NBs = 80, BBs = 50.
Their findings "strongly corroborate those of Howells."

9. Michael Argyle, 1958
Concluded that "although intelligent children grasp religious concepts
earlier, they are also the first to doubt the truth of religion, and
intelligent students are much less likely to accept orthodox beliefs."

10. Jeffrey Hadden, 1963
Found no correlation between intelligence and grades. This was an
anomalous finding, since GPA corresponds closely with intelligence.
Other factors may have influenced the results at the U. of Wisconsin.

11. Young, Dustin and Holtzman, 1966
Average religiosity decreased as GPA rose.

12. James Trent, 1967
Polled 1400 college seniors. Found little difference, but
high-ability students in his sample group were over-represented.

13. C. Plant and E. Minium, 1967
The more intelligent students were less religious, both before entering
college and after 2 years of college.

14. Robert Wuthnow, 1978
Of 532 students, 37% of christians, 58% of apostates, and 53 percent of
non-religious scored above average on SATs.

15. Hastings and Hoge, 1967, 1974
Polled 200 college students and found no significant correlations.

16. Norman Poythress, 1975
Mean SATs for strongly antireligious (114 , moderately anti-
religious (1119), slightly antireligious (110 , and religious (1022).

17. Wiebe and Fleck, 1980
Studied 158 male and female Canadian university students. The reported
"nonreligious S's tended to be strongly intelligent" and "more
intelligent than religious S's.

Student Body Comparisons-

1. Rose Goldsen, Student belief in a divine god, percentages 1952.
Harvard 30; UCLA 32; Dartmouth 35; Yale 36; Cornell 42; Wayne 43;
Weslyan 43; Michigan 45; Fisk 60; Texas 62; N. Carolina 68.

2. National Review Study, 1970 Students Belief in Spirit or Divine God.
Percentages:
Reed 15; Brandeis 25; Sarah Lawrence 28; Williams 36; Stanford 41;
Boston U. 41; Yale 42; Howard 47; Indiana 57; Davidson 59; S. Carolina 65;
Marquette 77.

3. Caplovitz and Sherrow, 1977
Apostasy rates rose continuously from 5% in "low" ranked schools to 17%
in "high" ranked schools.

Niemi, Ross, and Alexander, 1978
In elite schools, organized religion was judged important by only 26%,
compared with 44% of all students.

Studies of Very-High-IQ groups.

1. Terman, 1959
Studied group with IQ > 140. Of men, 10% held strong religious belief,
of women 18%. 62% of men and 57% if women claimed "little religious
inclination" while 28% men and 23% of women claimed it was "not at all
important."

2. Warren and Heist, 1960
Found no differences among National Merit Scholars. Results may have
been effected by the fact that NM scholars are not selected on the
basis of intelligence or grades alone, but also on "leadership"
and such like.

3. Southern and Plant, 1968
42 male and 30 female members of Mensa. Mensa members were much less
religious in belief than the typical American college alumnis or adult.

1. William S. Ament, 1927 
C. C. Little, president U. of Michigan, checked persons listed in _Who's
Who in America_: "Unitarians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, 
Universalists, and Presbyterians are ... far more numerous in _Who's 
Who_ than would be expected on the basis of the population which they 
form. Baptists, Methodists, and Catholics are distinctly less numerous."

Ament confirmed Little's conclusion. He noted that Unitarians, the 
least religious, were more than 40 times as numerous in _W'sW_ as in the 
U.S. population.

2. Lehman and Witty, 1931 
Identified 1189 scientists found in both _Who's Who_ (1927) and 
_American Men of Science_ (1927). Only 25% in _AM of S_ and 50% of 
those listed in _W'sW_ reported their religious denomination despite the
specific requests to do so, "religious denomination (if any)." Well 
over 90% of the general population claims religious affiliation. The 
figure of 25% suggest far less religiosity among scientists.

Unitarians were 81.4 times as numerous among eminent scientists as 
non-Unitarians. 

3. Kelley and Fisk, 1951
Found a negative (-.39) correlation between the strength of religious 
values and research competence. [How these were measured I have no idea.]

4. Ann Roe, 1953
Interviewed 64 "eminent scientists, nearly all members of the 
prestigious National Academy of Sciences or the American Philosophical 
Society. She reported that, while nearly all of them had religious 
parents and had attended Sunday school, 'now only three of these men are 
seriously active in church. A few others attend upon occasion, or even 
give some financial support to a church which they do not attend... All 
the others have long since dismissed religion as any guide to them, and 
the church plays no part in their lives...A few are militantly 
atheistic, but most are just not interested.'"

5. Francis Bello, 1954
Questionaired or interviewed 107 young (<= 40) nonindustrial scientists 
judged by senior colleagues to be outstanding. 87 responded. 45% 
claimed to be "agnostic or atheistic" and an additional 22% claimed no 
religious affiliation. For 20 most eminent, "the proportion who are now 
a-religious is considerably higher than in the entire survey group."

6. Jack Chambers, 1964
Questionaired 740 US psychologists and chemists. He reported, "the 
highly creative men [jft- assume no women included] ... significantly 
more often show either no preference for a particular religion or little 
or no interest in religion." Found that the most eminent psychologists 
showed 40% no preference, 16% for the most eminent chemists. 

7. Vaughan, Smith, and Sjoberg, 1965

Polled 850 US physicists, zoologists, chemical engineers, and geologists 
listed in _American Men of Science_ (1955) on church membership, 
and attendance patterns, and belief in afterlife. 642 replies.

38.5% did not believe in afterlife, 31.8% did. Belief in immortality was 
less common among major university staff than among those employed by 
business, government, or minor universities. The contemporaneous Gallup 
poll showed 2/3 of US population believed in afterlife, so scientists 
were far less religious than typical adult.

From Beckwith's concluding remarks:

Conclusions
In this essay I have reviewed: (1)sixteen studies of the 
correlation between individual measures of student intelligence and 
religiosity, all but three of which reported an inverse 
correlation. (2) five studies reporting that student bodies with high
average IQ and/or SAT scores are much less religious than inferior
student bodies;(3)three studies reporting that geniuses (IQ 150+)
are much less religious than the general public (Average IQ, 100),
and one dubious study,(4)seven studies reporting that highly 
successful persons are much less religious in belief than are others;
and (5) eight old and four new Gallup polls revealing that 
college alumni (average IQ about 115) are much less religious in 
belief than are grade-school poles.

I have also noted that many studies have shown that students 
become less religious as they proceed through college, probably in
part because average IQ rises.

All but four of the forty-three polls I have reviewed support 
the conclusion that native intelligence varies inversely with 
degree of religious faith; i.e., that, other factors being equal,
the more intelligent a person is, the less religious he is. It 
is easy to find fault with the studies I have reviewed, for all 
were imperfect. But the fact that all but four of them 
supported the general conclusion provides overwhelming evidence 
that, among American students and adults, the amount of religious
faith tends to vary inversely and appreciably with intelligence.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Changes in the educational levels of the general population in recent years
 appear to account for much of the variance in biblical beliefs over time.
 The current proportion of biblical literalists is 32%, only half of what it
 was in 1963, when 65% of Americans said they believed in the absolute truth
 of all words in the Bible and that it represented the actual word of God.
 Belief in inerrancy is most likely to be found among people who did not
 complete high school (58%), and least likely among college graduates (29%)."
           [One Nation Under God, (1993) Barry A. Kosmin
            & Seymour P. Lachman. pg. 268]

"Two recent surveys rate the United States at the top among Western nations
 in belief in God and at the bottom among six major countries in school kids'
 understanding of science and math.  This could be dismissed as chance, but it
 shouldn't be.
             [Bill Mandel, San Francisco Examiner, 12 February 1989]


One of these facts is the negative correlation between education and religion, and also between intelligence and religion. For college graduates, 52% are religious and 25% are committed to church attendance, while the percentages are 70% and 33% for people who only completed primary school. These differences are also proven by the 1991 General Social Survey. A great number of surveys have also shown the negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity ("The Effect of Intelligence on Religious Faith", Free Inquiry, Spring 1986). Therefore, we may surmise that, as the general level of education will rise, the less theism will take hold.


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