Is there a provable link between woo beliefs and low intellect?

[schlitt]

Title is fairly self explanatory.

I am just wondering if there have been any studies done, which may show a correlation between intelligence and belief?

[andyandy]

Do you want to define intelligence through IQ? Through college degrees? Through possession of knowledge?

Do you want to define woo belief as irrationality? As those beliefs you consider irrational? Where do you wish to create a dividing line?

[schlitt]

Do you want to define intelligence through IQ? Through college degrees? Through possession of knowledge?

Do you want to define woo belief as irrationality? As those beliefs you consider irrational? Where do you wish to create a dividing line?


Fair enough, I suppose in the traditional sense of how intelligence is measured... IQ

And woo, in the sense that most people on this board would use as a general term to encompass any belief that people may hold, in spite of the fact there is no evidence for it. e.g. Astrology, Spiritualism, Homeopathy

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Don't know about a "link" but I could agree that there is a strong correlation. :D

[-Fran-]

According to this thread there are :)

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=91554

I think it's to be taken with a grain of salt though. Personally I think that ignorance, a bad education, low IQ and so on, surely can be factors that plays a part in why some people are more likely to fall for wooish beliefs than others.

But the whole thing is much too complicated to just assume that woo belief = dumb. There are just too many individual cases that points to the opposite to draw such conclusions with any certainty, even if you narrow down the definition of intelligence to a standard IQ test only.

[Beady]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was hardly an idiot, yet was heavily into spiritualism. Matter of fact, if you look at some of the biggest woo believers, you're going to find some of the greater intellects: Mary Baker Eddy, Edgar Cayce... Astronaut Ed Mitchell is actively into telepathy, and Gordon Cooper was a UFOlogist. And, if you want to bring religion into it, 90% of the human race believes in woo, regardless of intellect.

[andyandy]

fair enough, I suppose in the traditional sense of how intelligence is measured... IQ

And woo, in the sense that most people on this board would use as a general term to encompass any belief that people may hold, in spite of the fact there is no evidence for it.

There are certainly IQ studies which link higher IQ with lower propensity to believe in God...but IQ tests, as is oft repeated, measure ability to take IQ tests, rather than "intelligence." Anyway, there's some very heated threads on the usefulness (or otherwise) of IQ in SMMT

a favourite of some JREFers are studies like this...

Statistically, atheists have a higher intelligence than people with a strong religious faith. The difference is 5.8 points, according to a new study by the Danish professor of developmental psychology, Helmuth Nyborg.

The study was conducted at Aarhus University using American date from more than 7000 subjects.

Of course, you can also use IQ to argue (like Nyborg in fact) that whites are more intelligent than blacks, and men are more intelligent than women....

the other oft cited study is that university academics are less likely to believe in God, though again you could use the same data to argue for liberal white man's intellectual superiority over blacks, women, and conservatives...in short people have a tendency to cherry pick that which they want reinforced, whilst finding reason to dismiss that which they do not....

with regards to more general "woo" - i haven't seen any studies, though even limiting to god, discussion of "intellect" is a minefield often avoided.

[-Fran-]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was hardly an idiot, yet was heavily into spiritualism.

But when it comes to that whole cut-out-paperdolls-Cottingly-fairy-photographs-affair... you wonder...

[schlitt]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was hardly an idiot, yet was heavily into spiritualism. Matter of fact, if you look at some of the biggest woo believers, you're going to find some of the greater intellects: Mary Baker Eddy, Edgar Cayce... Astronaut Ed Mitchell is actively into telepathy, and Gordon Cooper was a UFOlogist. And, if you want to bring religion into it, 90% of the human race believes in woo, regardless of intellect.


I guess it really comes back to what Andy asked originally;
How do you quantify intelligence?

The people you list may be considered by many to be highly intelligent, but in what sense of the word, which area, and does excelling in one area qualify their intelligence in others?

So if we lock it down to a singular provable measure, like I.Q for instance, then we can come up with some verifiable data, however meaning(ful/less) it may be.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Like Fran said, low intelligence can be a factor but its too broad of a generalization to draw.

Remember that the majority of frauds manage to delude themselves into thinking they have paranormal gifts but to be a con artist, you have to be anything but slow or dumb (and that's the most sadly ironic thing, a fraud that believes his/her own bs :shakes head: but at least they aren't sociopaths like SB.)

[articulett]

Don't know about a "link" but I could agree that there is a strong correlation. :D

Given the general incoherency in those applying to the JREF challenge and the poor spelling of theist hate mail... I'm guessing yes. Or maybe it's mostly just the ones who hang out here. I mean, T'ai? Iamme? But it could be just that the stupid are drawn to woo and the woo spawns more of the stupid...

Humans like answers... and stupid answers seem to be fine fillers for those who can't be bothered with things like education and facts.

[rjh01]

I think if you get your strong beliefs challenged in such a way as you cannot ignore the challenge then you will be less vulnerable to woo. I mean if you never question your beliefs then you can believe in all sorts of rubbish. However if someone points out that one thing you strongly believe in is rubbish and you have to accept that then you are then able to question your other beliefs.

Nothing directly to do with IQ, income or education.

[athon]

Short answer is no. There is no negative correlation between IQ and pseudoscientific or superstitious beliefs. There is also no correlation between superstitious and magical thinking and an appreciation (or lack of) of science.

The only correlations found seem to indicate for the main part that those who lack accurate judgements in probability and chance, and lack an ability to judge information on accuracy based on critical thinking. That's about it - education has little to do with it. Sex varies, but not in amount; it varies significantly between the types of superstition believed in.

I have a fair bit of research in my files on magical and superstitious thinking and education if you're interested. If you have a particular query, let me know and I might have a PDF of a paper I can send you.

Athon

[Freethinker]

My take is that belief in such things is primarily the result of poor thinking skills. Obviously intelligence is a factor in that, but education and plain persistence factor in as well.

[schlitt]

The only correlations found seem to indicate for the main part that those who lack accurate judgements in probability and chance, and lack an ability to judge information on accuracy based on critical thinking.

Athon

Interesting.
Does lacking in these areas not translate to lower IQ scores generally?

[Goshawk]

And woo, in the sense that most people on this board would use as a general term to encompass any belief that people may hold, in spite of the fact there is no evidence for it. e.g. Astrology, Spiritualism, Homeopathy



Are you including "organized religion" in that? Because there are some formidably intelligent people through the ages who have been strongly religious.

[Complexity]

How would you handle people who go back and forth between religion and agnosticism/atheism over the course of their lives?

[schlitt]

Are you including "organized religion" in that? Because there are some formidably intelligent people through the ages who have been strongly religious.

Religion would have to be considered in my brief definition i guess.

You are right, many perceived intelligent people are strongly religous.
But how do you define their intelligence?
They may have invented something, or come up with a theory, or had a profound influence on society etc. But because they have excelled in these areas, how do we know these skills indicate a competency in other areas which may matter when thinking critically?
This is why i am asking if there is any direct correlation between belief and IQ points, or something that can be verified through factual data, not just an opinion that someone is smart because they are perceived to be.
I am not stating that there is, i am merely wondering if there have been any studies done, and what the results have been. :)

[schlitt]

How would you handle people who go back and forth between religion and agnosticism/atheism over the course of their lives?

Im not sure i understand what you mean by "handle".
Im guessing you mean if there were a propsed distinction "intelligent people are atheists" and "unintelligent people are theists", or vice versa, then people who swap between which belief they adhere to, would show the theory to be flawed?
It is really such a grey area as to how people come to their conclusions and decide what they want to beleive. If intellect plays a part then by the very nature of varying intellect amoung humans, you will have people changing their viewpoints based on new evidence presented, and new conclusions drawn. New evidence may be enough to sway one person, with a certain level of critical thinking back over to one side. While it may not be convincing enough for another person with a greater capacity to understand the rammifications of the new evidence. On top of that it all depends how people go about collecting evidence, and the chance of new belief challenging evidence being presented to them.

All of this really points to the fact that an IQ test, with its limited measure of intelligence is probably not going to give an indication of how someone takes on a belief that requires logical conlusions to be drawn from unverifiable evidence.
It is our inconsistencies between our brains which really makes it impossible to come up with a measurable correlation.
A person may be amazing with quantum physics, but terrible at completing a childs puzzle.
Someone may be great with math, but terrible with communication, and these differences will translate to different conclusions being drawn by different people, not only for a concept as a whole, but different conclusions for each different step of the way during the examination of evidence.
You could say to someone "the percentage of people who live in Jordan that are islamic is 99.9%, if you were born there, you would be a muslim".
One person may say "yes, you are right"
another may say "no i wouldnt, i beleive in christianty!" - and completely miss the concept you are trying to show them. While drawing their conclusion by cross referencing the new information you gave, against their existing knowledge, they have not been able to come to a conclusion which most would consider logical. This could indictate a defficiency in critical thinking in this particular area, but would that translate to a measureable thing such as IQ?
I am stating the obvious a bit here, but what i am leading to is... Is there any indicators that those with a high IQ, also share a similar way of drawing conclusions, which result in them tending towards a certain beleif system?
And the same conversely for those with a low IQ.

[EdipisReks]

i've known some really smart people who have believed some really stupid stuff. anecdotal, sure, but it is what it is.

[athon]

Interesting.
Does lacking in these areas not translate to lower IQ scores generally?

Not at all. High IQ is generally associated with good pattern recognition skills. Superstitious belief is correlated with an overly efficient system of pattern discrimination - they simply lack the ability to critically analyse the relevance of the patterns they perceive, giving undue weight to evidence which is typically irrelevant.

Athon

[Miss Anthrope]

I would think that there may be a correlation with emotional states more than intellect. Someone who is incredibly bright can certainly pick and choose what they believe. Denial isn't about IQ, it's an emotional state.

I believed in much woo, and grew up needing that. Once I began to repair and mature emotionally, I could no longer consciously push aside doubts and ignore my rational side.

Pretty snappy IQ test results before (note: tests well...functions......rather hilariously), same type of results now.

[schlitt]

Not at all. High IQ is generally associated with good pattern recognition skills. Superstitious belief is correlated with an overly efficient system of pattern discrimination - they simply lack the ability to critically analyse the relevance of the patterns they perceive, giving undue weight to evidence which is typically irrelevant.

Athon

Are there any commonly performed tests, which can test for this defficiency in the reasoning process?

[Autolite]

I would think that there may be a correlation with emotional states more than intellect.

Based on my personal observations I would have to agree with Miss Anthrope. It frustrates me that so many seemingly intelligent people believe in such absurd concepts. An individual's emotional state seems to be the most valid reason for maintaining such belief. The smartest person I know believes that plants respond to music...

[Nucular]

Shermer's chapter 'Why Smart People Believe Weird Things' discusses this. He argues that smart people are often able to rationally argue their irrational case far better than a dumber, but correct, person. Therefore, the beliefs of smart people have extra iron cladding.

Was it in the same chapter, or was it someone on this forum, who said that when they went to a Mensa meeting they'd never been confronted with such a weird set of beliefs - because everyone there was so smart that they felt they couldn't possibly be mistaken about anything.

I think it comes down to critical thinking being a skill, not an innate ability. Like playing the guitar, it probably helps if you have some biological propensity to do so in the first place, but just being nimble-fingered doesn't mean I can automatically play the guitar.

[Niobe]

My take is that belief in such things is primarily the result of poor thinking skills. Obviously intelligence is a factor in that, but education and plain persistence factor in as well.

There are also the willfully ignorant. People who don't want to go through the effort of making up their mind based on the facts. "Higher eduction is for faggits" and all that, people with bumper stickers that read "The bible said it that settles it!".

[PBTree]

Don't we have two types.
Intelligent (Neurosurgeon, doctor, professor, physicist etc etc...) and
Smart (Someone who may not know as much as the Intelligent person but knows instictively that the chap with the oily black moustache is really trying to sell them a swamp). If this is true, then which would be the believers?

[Apology]

^^^I think that both people would be intelligent, but one person would be educated and the other would be ignorant. Both of them are "smart" or "intelligent" but one lacks education. People who are just dumb would fall into a third category.

I'm agreeing with miss anthrope on this issue. It must be one of emotional state rather than intellect. After all, emotions are not rational or reasonable. I've known people who were both intelligent and well-educated who still believed in some fairly ridiculous things. Would you call Martin Luther King Jr. a moron? He was a brilliant man with a good education, and he was also a believer. It also bears remembering that intelligent, educated people are capable of going completely insane and losing their grip on rationality and reason entirely. Clearly intelligence and education does not exclude irrationality or belief.

I also agree with Shermer that intelligent, educated people have a harder time believing that they're wrong when they are. Since they are able to avoid common pitfalls and logical fallacies with ease, when they do make a mistake it's very subtle, and therefore harder to identify.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

That's right, well-educated and intelligent people are often fooled because they think they can't be fooled. Look at all of the scientists who feel for Uri Geller's nonsense. Or all of the academics who fall for psychics, astrologers, pseudoscience and other woo.

Oddly, I've read that cold-reading tricks are more likely to work on fast-thinking people than those you'd call slow because they connect the dots for the cold-reader much faster.

[Locknar]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was hardly an idiot, yet was heavily into spiritualism. Matter of fact, if you look at some of the biggest woo believers, you're going to find some of the greater intellects: Mary Baker Eddy, Edgar Cayce... Astronaut Ed Mitchell is actively into telepathy, and Gordon Cooper was a UFOlogist. And, if you want to bring religion into it, 90% of the human race believes in woo, regardless of intellect.

Dang it! You read my mind...exactly the point I was going to make. Well said.

[Freethinker]

There are also the willfully ignorant. People who don't want to go through the effort of making up their mind based on the facts. "Higher eduction is for faggits" and all that, people with bumper stickers that read "The bible said it that settles it!".

Quite true. I lump that under the "persistence" category. People who aren't naturally quick thinkers may be able to compensate by doing a lot of thinking. Those too lazy to think have no such compensatory option other than to just believe whatever seems right.

[blutoski]

As mentioned earlier, there is a demonstrated positive correlation with education. Shermer's research focused on a set of paranormal beliefs, omitting religion in general.

There are other studies that show that there is no predictive correlation between education and religious belief, with the exception of advanced natural science degrees - PhDs, basically.

Shermer's explanation for this is - and I apologize for repeating what another poster has already said above - Shermer's explanation is that the more educated a person is, the more skills and facts they can leverage to rationalize their beliefs.

Critical thinking is not the same thing as scientific or naturalistic thinking. People need to learn critical thinking to defend their PhD in English, but they probably didn't learn much about the scientific method, &c. Consequently, their opinions about naturalistic questions are entirely logical, but uninformed, regardless of their intelligence or reasoning skills.

That's why I emphasize that proposals to blindly teach 'critical thinking' may disappoint. We may be arming a generation to rationalize their woo beliefs.

[athon]

Are there any commonly performed tests, which can test for this defficiency in the reasoning process?

There are a number of tests which are standardised for determining level of belief in the supernatural and superstitious reasoning. A quick Google will bring them up (if you're having problems, look up 'paranormal belief scale oblique five' to get yourself on the right path). As for correlating this with other forms of reasoning, there are different tests in different papers. Wierzbicki (Reasnong Errors and Belief in the Paranormal, Jo. of Soc. Psych 125) used a statement-based reasoning task and found a slight but significant correlation between the BPS and errors made in reasoning.

Susan Blackmore with Tom Troscianko did a study titled 'Belief in the Paranormal: Probability Judgements, illusory control and chance baseline shift' which correlated BPS with straight forward probability estimates, and found correlations there.

An excellent study done by Clark Chinn and William Brewer (if you don't know of them, yet are interested in this field, look them up) titled 'The Role of Anomalous Data in Knowledge Aquisition' looked at how individuals treat anomalous data. While it doesn't correlate with any BPS, it does give you a foundation in how (poorly) people reason. Also get aquainted with Deanna Kuhn and buy a copy of 'Skills of Argument'.

In short, it has less to do with how much information you have or how readily you learn (both often descriptors of intelligence), and seems to be correlated with poor critical reasoning, probability judgement, and (I'll have to hunt down this paper, which is in my collection somewhere) level of social or emotional reasoning, where undue weight is placed on evidence provided through arguments of popularity, authority and ad hom.

Athon

[athon]

That's why I emphasize that proposals to blindly teach 'critical thinking' may disappoint. We may be arming a generation to rationalize their woo beliefs.

I agree. For all of the reading I've done on the subject, it seems that the only way to definitively make a difference is to

1) Address the thinking philosophies of young children. Form good educational epistemiologies in primary school (and younger). This isn't as scary as it sounds - it requires simply a good sense of how to develop efficient thinking and reasoning skills through play. There is a lot of information out there on this topic.

2) Develop critical literacy as a tool in secondary education. Scientific thinking should be developed in relation to open discussion and use of paranormal beliefs (source: recommendation from Paul Priest, The Effectiveness of Instruction in Scientific Reasoning, 1995)

3) Maintain a supply of resources offering information combatting paranormal beliefs, creating a social atmosphere of debate which aims to colour skepticism in an appealing light. e.g. shows like Mythbusters.

Simply offering critical thinking as a course is, in my research, far inferior to having a mulistaged plan which aims to integrate critical literacy across all facets of society.

Athon

[blutoski]

Simply offering critical thinking as a course is, in my research, far inferior to having a mulistaged plan which aims to integrate critical literacy across all facets of society.

I would go so far as to say that I've never seen a plan that I believe has sufficient research behind it to justify endorsing as "pro-skeptic". There is another thread that relates to the finding that even the act of debunking myths appears to have the opposite effect: it reinforces them. Too many man-hours of skeptical effort have been wasted because we jumped over that whole 'research' step and went straight into 'we know what works' mode.

[athon]

I would go so far as to say that I've never seen a plan that I believe has sufficient research behind it to justify endorsing as "pro-skeptic". There is another thread that relates to the finding that even the act of debunking myths appears to have the opposite effect: it reinforces them. Too many man-hours of skeptical effort have been wasted because we jumped over that whole 'research' step and went straight into 'we know what works' mode.

Not wanting to derail this thread, but now that I've been given time to read the original paper this article was based on, I see it's not quite as cut and dried as that. The paper seems to indicate that a particular style of debunking is ineffective - that style is any that overtly describes the myth to be debunked next to the proper explanation, somewhat like a listed 'true/false' piece of text. Presented to myths they hadn't come across, individuals found it difficult to accurately recall whether the novel information was displayed as true or false, and tended to misremember nearly half of it.

Therefore critical literacy should be taught with a range of materials in various contexts, not as a 'debunking' scenario where material is offered up to be debunked. This is also where integrated critical thinking strategies across education systems are most effective.

Athon

[AmyWilson]

That's flat-out discrimination.

There are intelligent and dumb people in every group.

[Complexity]

Not in every group.

[-Fran-]

That's flat-out discrimination.

There are intelligent and dumb people in every group.

Umm... that's basically what all people here have been saying, you know!

[pspaddict]

Umm... that's basically what all people here have been saying, you know!

How would she know? She just read the first post and scrolled past all the follow-ups to get to the quick response box in her rage.

[-Fran-]

How would she know? She just read the first post and scrolled past all the follow-ups to get to the quick response box in her rage.

Yeah, silly me :) I should have known.

[RayG]

The only correlations found seem to indicate for the main part that those who lack accurate judgements in probability and chance, and lack an ability to judge information on accuracy based on critical thinking. That's about it - education has little to do with it.

It could be argued that people who believe in paranormal phenomenon have trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy, but that has little bearing on whether they're intelligent or not.

In one of my notebooks on skeptical/paranormal topics, I jotted this down:

One study showed anti-religious students possessed "significantly greater critical thinking skill" than pro-religious students.(1)

In another study of student believers and skeptics, with regard to the paranormal, the skeptics demonstrated "significantly better critical thinking ability" than did the believers.(2)

RayG

(1) Feather, N.T. (1964) Acceptance and Rejection of Arguments in Relation to Attitude Strength, Critical Ability, and Intolerance of Inconsistency. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 69, 127-136

(2) Alcock, J.E. and Otis, L.P. (1980) Critical Thinking and Belief in the Paranormal. Psychological Reports, 46, 479-482

[-Fran-]

Not in every group.

No, not in the troll group :D

[jimbob]

I have several colleagues with good acaedemic, science qualifications that are pretty poor at this.

One who refses to discuss evolution because it is a *heresy*.

Another who thinks there is something in homeopathy... He has a PhD and works in the semiconductor industry, weher we talk about doping levels of 1015to 1019 per cm3 and still can't see about what is wrong with a 100C solution...

In general they are highly intelligent, but I would say very narrow minded.


As has been mentioned earleir in this thread, they are great at spotting patterns, unfortunatly some of them spurious...

(I say their experimental trials sacrifice statistical robustness for covering too many variables). Poor Design of Experiments (Great link if anyone is interested (http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/) one of the best US governmental resources on the web...)

Overdeveloped pattern recognition, an ability to rationalise and tell oneself a convincing story. "The sign of a first-class intellect is the ability to hold two conflicting views simultaneously"). And a compartmentalised approach to thinking.

[blutoski]

It could be argued that people who believe in paranormal phenomenon have trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy, but that has little bearing on whether they're intelligent or not.

In one of my notebooks on skeptical/paranormal topics, I jotted this down:

One study showed anti-religious students possessed "significantly greater critical thinking skill" than pro-religious students.(1)

In another study of student believers and skeptics, with regard to the paranormal, the skeptics demonstrated "significantly better critical thinking ability" than did the believers.(2)

RayG

(1) Feather, N.T. (1964) Acceptance and Rejection of Arguments in Relation to Attitude Strength, Critical Ability, and Intolerance of Inconsistency. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 69, 127-136

(2) Alcock, J.E. and Otis, L.P. (1980) Critical Thinking and Belief in the Paranormal. Psychological Reports, 46, 479-482

These surveys are highly culture-specific, though. I'll wager that if the survey had included China, the non-believers with a tendency toward philosophical naturalism would distinguish themselves as those more easily brainwashed by pro-naturalistic government propaganda.

They also contrast and predate Shermer's work by literally decades: his is by far the most current. Would we accept old data from somebody flogging a healthfraud product?

[athon]

These surveys are highly culture-specific, though.

That's true to an extent. I'm yet to see correlating data from eastern countries, for instance. However for most post-industrial nations the data in these studies remains fairly well consistent.

I'll wager that if the survey had included China, the non-believers with a tendency toward philosophical naturalism would distinguish themselves as those more easily brainwashed by pro-naturalistic government propaganda.

Perhaps, but I'm not seeing where that argument fits considering these papers. Have you read them? I've got copies on PDF if you'd like (well, the Alcock one I do, but Feather I think is just a photocopy).

They also contrast and predate Shermer's work by literally decades: his is by far the most current. Would we accept old data from somebody flogging a healthfraud product?

That's bordering on an ad hom argument. The question you're asking is simply 'is old data acceptable'? And I say it depends on whether time is a variable in the research. It's always good to get fresh data with a new population, simply to demonstrate the reliability of the correlation. However that doesn't equate old data with being strictly unreliable.

The Feathers one is a rather tidy little paper which simply correlates the ability the population has to evaluate an argument correlated with several other markers. The Alcock paper has been referenced greatly over the past few decades and has been validated over and over by subseqent studies. Weakness in critical thinking has been shown consistently over the decades to be an indicator of high scores on the BPS.

I've got no problem with either paper. And I don't see how Shermer's work contradicts either of these.

Athon

[Miss Anthrope]

Umm... that's basically what all people here have been saying, you know!

It's true!

[-Fran-]

It's true!

:D

[stevea]

IQ: Long ago I belonged to Mensa and a bit later to the Alpha Society (a more exclusive organization along the same lines). I quickly came to the conclusion that there were two skills among those who score well on IQ tests. The "word wonks" and the "scientists"; that is people with considerable language skill and those able to reason about the natural universe or abstract topics such as mathematics. Many individuals in these groups, perhaps most, seemed to rely heavily on only one of the two skill sets. This amounts to personal observation, but I didn't see any significant skepticism among the word-wonks, however the 'scientists' did show a high degree of both deductive reasoning and skepticism. The term "scientist" here only refers to my interpretation of their skills; many were employed in non-technical non-science fields but still exhibited high levels of deductive reasoning and skepticism.

Someone here suggested physicians as an example of a category highly intelligent people, but tho' they may show well above average on formal tests, my experience is that non-research physicians are not trained in the experimental sciences and do not understand the basic concepts. Their graduate texts contain very simplistic chemistry and mounds of conclusions presented as facts. Like engineers, they are force-fed a large body of conclusions without necessarily being exposed to the evidence or reasoning behind these. Yes, well educated, but in the same sense as a trained seal. I would argue that diagnosis (medical or otherwise) involves evaluation of evidence and deductive reasoning in much the same way as the skeptical evaluation of new hypothesis. Most humans seem deficient at diagnostic skills and we see evidence of this regularly.

The contention that the belief in woo and the inability to grasp chance and statistics correlate seems like pure conjecture. Even highly intelligent and mathematically well educated individuals have very little innate sense of probability when presented with even a modest problem. I think disbelief in the supernatural is far more common than is a significant 'sense' of chance and probabilities. Also I will suggest that the argument against the supernatural is not probabilistic in nature, so skill at statistics is of no help.

The question of whether we should believe in a new hypothesis (supernatural or otherwise) has two components; 1/ Is there evidence of a phenomena explained by the hypothesis and 2/ Is this the simplest hypothesis consistent with the evidence. The failure to show reproducible evidence of ghosts or gods fails at test "1/". And test "2/" regularly pushes the supernatural explanations of common phenomena back (i.e. god of the gaps).

Note that there is no chance or probability reasoning required. The skill needed is to evaluate whether there is evidence of an unexplained phenomena and to compare the complexity or degree of suppositions required by alternative hypotheses which explain this phenomena (Occam's razor, parsimony principle).

[kellyb]

I think it's more a matter of curiosity and intellectual honesty than IQ. Arguing with woo, it "feels" like they're being "dumb"...but what's really frustrating is that they seem to be able to lie to themselves endlessly. I think it's primarily an emotional drive to defend their beliefs.