Are faith and intelligence mutually exclusive?

Egos were tickled last week when the result of a study suggesting that religious people are less intelligent than their secular counterparts emerged onto the mainstream media.

Summarised in The Independent (UK) last Monday, the statistical meta-analysis - led by Professor Miron Zuckerman for the University of Rochester, New York - found a "reliable negative correlation" between religion and intelligence in 53 of 63 studies.

The meta-analysis, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Review under the heading, 'The Relation Between Intelligence and Religiosity: A Meta-Analysis and Some Proposed Explanations', incorporated a particular survey which began in 1921 and continued until the present day.

This particular survey, which was a life-long analysis of the beliefs of 1,500 gifted children with with IQs over 135, found that the above-average intelligence subjects remained skeptical towards religion even in old age.

A binary distinction between faith and reason seems to be the overriding thrust of the findings, as the meta-analysis concludes that, 'Most extant explanations (of a negative relation) share one central theme - the premise that religious beliefs are irrational, not anchored in science, not testable and, therefore, unappealing to intelligent people who 'know better'.'

The findings - or, at least, their sound-bite-friendly condensed form, as reproduced in the British media - ignited as much discussion on local social media as it did on international online platforms, though people from both the religious and non-religious camps were keen to dissect aspects of the analysis.

Some of their criticisms may have been pre-empted by the researchers themselves.

One such 'disclaimer' suggests that any increased level of intelligence may not be directly related to religion, but to circumstances that facilitate a free and regular access to educational institutions.

'Intelligent people typically spend more time in school - a form of self-regulation that may yield long-term benefits,' the psychologists behind the study suggested.

However, the meta-analysis was not immune to criticism, with some picking on the fact that it focused solely on analytical thinking while paying no attention to other forms of intelligence, such as emotional intelligence.

On his part, Dominican friar Fr Mark Montebello was instantly suspicious of the findings, suggesting that "surveys of this kind" should be approached "with great caution".

"They consistently present themselves as neutral, objective and scientific when such terms are considered to be highly controversial and questionable," he said, adding that the main conclusions of the meta-analysis are "clearly tendentious".

"Because to say that religious people or people of faith are less intelligent than others who do not have faith or religion seems to suggest that only people with some kind of deficient mental capabilities stick to religion, faith or religious belief," Montebello added, also finding issue with the way the definition of 'intelligence' seems to be taken far too much for granted.

"A person might be more intelligent than another, and yet use one's intelligence less, and the other more. 'Lazy minds' or 'mental laziness' does exist. It can either be caused by a disorder (as in ADD or ADHD) or simply by habitual indolence," he said.

On the other hand, Ramon Casha, Vice President of the Malta Humanist Association, perhaps unsurprisingly greeted the meta-analysis with greater enthusiasm.

"Atheists are cheerfully posting the link around social network sites (we're not immune to a bit of flattery after all, especially if it seems well-researched and empirical), while theists complain about how insufferably smug atheists have suddenly become..."

However, the conclusion of the meta-analysis appears to still be ripe for sober discussion from both sides. Acknowledging that issues related to faith are inevitably "complex", Casha believes that it's unlikely that "a single cause would explain the correlation".

However, he does give credence to the logical argument behind the study's conclusion, which essentially states that a non-religious way of life requires people to be more intellectually rigorous.

"Another thing that the survey suggests is that intelligent people tend to have an analytical more than an intuitive thinking style - and this tends to undermine religious belief, which often relies on people accepting as facts things that don't always stand up to analysis (hence, "God moves in mysterious ways")," Casha said.

It's a point that Montebello doesn't necessarily disagree with at face value.

"It may be the case that people who have faith, or are religious adherents, do not feel the need to do all the thinking about the million and one things around us, at least not as much as other people who do not have the doctrines and teachings of a Church to rely on.

"The former may feel that one's religion already possesses more or less satisfactory answers to the big questions of life, whereas the latter, once this is missing, have to figure out some kind of answers themselves, thus using their mental capacities the more," Montebello said.

However, Casha is quick to emphasise that "it's important to keep in mind that this was a statistical meta-analysis," and that "there are of course highly intelligent religious people as well as atheists with limited intelligence.

"You don't gain an instant IQ boost just by becoming an atheist... but it's not a bad start either."