John_Maxwell_IV comments on Survey Results - Less Wrong

48 Post author: Yvain 12 May 2009 10:09PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (210)

Sort By: Popular

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 13 May 2009 05:01:01AM *  1 point [-]

Here is an anomalous finding I didn't expect: the higher a probability you assign to the truth of revealed religion, the less confident you are that your IQ is above average (even though no correlation between this religious belief and IQ was actually found). Significance is at the .025 level. I have two theories on this: first, that we've been telling religious people they're stupid for so long that it's finally starting to sink in :) Second, that most people here are not religious, and so the people who put a "high" probability for revealed religion may be assigning it 5% or 10%, not because they believe it but because they're just underconfident people who maybe overadjust for their biases a little much. This same underconfidence leads them to underestimate the possibility that their IQ is above average.

Christianity exalts humility. I wouldn't be surprised if other religions do as well. But your second explanation seems very plausible.