Atheism, Secularity, and Well-Being — Truth or Fiction

[hadespussercats]

Not quite so. Many fundie moms, with 3 or more kids, get educated so they can do home schooling.

That may be. I'm just saying that if parents of girls wanted to make sure they never encountered dangerous ideas, a strict homeschooling environment would facilitate that.

[Seth]

I know that. I'm just fucking incredulous at Seth's 'theory' which comes straight from the movie Idiocracy.

Actually, I thought of it long before that movie came out (which goes to show that I'm not the only one who has thought of it), but their presentation of the theory is both priceless and hilarious.

Do you see a flaw in the hypothesis? Either one?

[Animavore]

I know that. I'm just fucking incredulous at Seth's 'theory' which comes straight from the movie Idiocracy.

Actually, I thought of it long before that movie came out (which goes to show that I'm not the only one who has thought of it), but their presentation of the theory is both priceless and hilarious.

Do you see a flaw in the hypothesis? Either one?

It seems to go against reality. I'm sure I read before the IQ point average was increasing in America. Anyway the film Idiocracy is a social commentary on the dumbing down in America. I'm not quite sure he meant it to be taken seriously.
I'm not closed to the idea. I simply don't know enough about it to comment on it. There's a whole 'nature vs nurture' thing to consider and this dumbing down culture could change quite easily as cultures are wont to do. Maybe a new scientific drive like the space race will inspire America in another Golden Era?
I tend to leave long-term predictions to astronomers.

[amused]

Stupid people could never maintain the highly technical civilizations that allow large numbers of stupid people to exist

[Rum]

A thought: A propensity for suicide does not necessarily indicate either despair nor a tendency to depression. Perhaps it just reflects a more rational approach to some of life's insurmountable and most painful problems without the worry of guilt or 'sin' getting in the way.

[Seth]

A thought: A propensity for suicide does not necessarily indicate either despair nor a tendency to depression. Perhaps it just reflects a more rational approach to some of life's insurmountable and most painful problems without the worry of guilt or 'sin' getting in the way.

This is a valid theory. I for one am in favor of legalizing rational suicide for precisely that reason, and also because the right to life must inherently contain the right to end one's life free of government interference to mean anything at all. Anything else is pure, unadulterated slavery.

[Seth]

I know that. I'm just fucking incredulous at Seth's 'theory' which comes straight from the movie Idiocracy.

Actually, I thought of it long before that movie came out (which goes to show that I'm not the only one who has thought of it), but their presentation of the theory is both priceless and hilarious.

Do you see a flaw in the hypothesis? Either one?

It seems to go against reality. I'm sure I read before the IQ point average was increasing in America. Anyway the film Idiocracy is a social commentary on the dumbing down in America. I'm not quite sure he meant it to be taken seriously.

Of course not, but the root concept is still a valid scientific question: Is there a limit to intelligence beyond which the evolutionary benefits become evolutionary burdens?

I'm not closed to the idea. I simply don't know enough about it to comment on it. There's a whole 'nature vs nurture' thing to consider and this dumbing down culture could change quite easily as cultures are wont to do. Maybe a new scientific drive like the space race will inspire America in another Golden Era?
I tend to leave long-term predictions to astronomers.

Well, it's pretty obvious that evolutionary increases in brain size and complexity are universally seen by science as positive genetic adaptations. I'm merely questioning the conventional wisdom by suggesting that there is no evidence in the record yet that the graph of increase in intelligence and positive genetic adaptations is a linear or ever-upward-trending one and is not a bell-curve of some kind that will peak and then begin to decline.

I was reading the other day about some theory or other, I can't recall the name just now, that stated that given the number of planets in the universe capable of sustaining intelligent life, we ought to have detected some advanced intelligent life by now, and the hypothesis is that we haven't because those cultures ended up destroying themselves at some point in their technological and intellectual advancement.

I'd like to see some research on that proposition is all.

[Animavore]

Well cultures destroying themselves is one possibility. Simply not enough time has traversed is another. Another is that even though life might be common life as intelligent as ours might be less so meaning we could be the only life in this and even surrounding galaxies this intelligent.

But yes, it would make interesting research.


ETA: Don't forget about possible human engineering and that the future idiocracy may be averted

[Rum]

A thought: A propensity for suicide does not necessarily indicate either despair nor a tendency to depression. Perhaps it just reflects a more rational approach to some of life's insurmountable and most painful problems without the worry of guilt or 'sin' getting in the way.

This is a valid theory. I for one am in favor of legalizing rational suicide for precisely that reason, and also because the right to life must inherently contain the right to end one's life free of government interference to mean anything at all. Anything else is pure, unadulterated slavery.

I am in favour of rational suicide too, however the fact that it is not yet legal in most countries does not indicate slavery so much as moral cowardice on the part of the legislators at worst in my view. At best the desire to avoid mistakes and exploitation.

[JimC]

Why would anyone be surprised that people who believe that they don't "really" die, people who believe that they'll get the pie in the sky when they die, will bear the vicissitudes of this cruel world with greater equanimity than those who believe that there is no blissful afterlife in heaven as a reward to the deserving. Sir Thomas Browne (1605 – 1682) expressed the psychology most clearly from his personal point of view: "Were there not another life that I hope for, all the vanities of this world should not entreat a moment's breath from me: could Death work my belief to imagine I could never die, I would not outlive that very thought." That sentiment has been reflected in one of the earliest surviving writings. The dramatist Menander (ca. 342–291 BC) wrote: "Whom the gods love die young." Herodotus later on explained that the gods caused the death of good people as a favour to them. Given the state of existence on earth "it is better for a man to die than to live."

Once religions become institutional powers, they know how to exploit this phenomenon. In The Case Against God, George H. Smith argues that: "In exchange for obedience, Christianity promises salvation in an afterlife." Most other religious institutions, be they Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or whatever, do likewise. We are told by each of them that unless we do as we are told by the religious authorities, there will be no nirvana, valhalla, 72 virgins and whatnot for us.

Conversely, if the drift of my line of argument is accepted, it also won't surprise anyone that atheism tends to be more prevalent in affluent societies where people feel more comfortable and safe than in those where the incidence of suffering and mortal danger is more likely. It is also unsurprising that women tend to be more religious than men within each society; they tend to be more oppressed. And lastly, it makes sense that religiosity in affluent nations is more prevalent in those that lean towards individualism/libertarianism than those that are more community minded.

Karl Marx did sum the role and effect of religion up rather well: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." That is precisely why it works best to pacify people where conditions are the worst. Only Aldous Huxley's Soma could be more efficient, but we haven't got to that Brave New World - yet.

Very well stated, agree totally...

[apophenia]

A couple of quick notes.

First, I'd have to read the paper again and do additional research, but my impression was that the correlation was between educational levels and irreligiousity, not intelligence, which is a more expensive trait to study. Moreover, I doubt that intelligence is distributed vastly differently among the whole population in religious regions than in non-religious, but I may be wrong.

Second, many of these "theories" of the causes of these correlations seem to involve back-of-the-envelope spitballing conjecture based on folk psychological ideas. They are not evidence of anything, nor does their seeming plausibility mean they are more likely to be true. Where psychological research has attempted to track behaviors predicted by folk psychology or by those employing mere intuitive rationalizing about human behavior, the success rate is not impressive. I'll give one example without intending to support or argue for it, but only to illustrate the issue. Seth, among many, argue that there exists a large indolent class who, once they figure they can get by on indolence, make that their home ground. I think the experience tends to refute this in that people who become dependent on society feel distress and discomfort about being in that position, rather than relief and gladness. Certainly, one alternate explanation is that our culture stigmatizes dependency. Given our culture (and, without going into detail, the likely persistence of cultural stigma attached to laziness and indolence — due to "evolutionary" constraints), it's unlikely, imo, that a large sub-population that is comfortable with and embraces indolence will or even can develop. But the important thing to note here is, the first theory itself was both immune and unaware of potential other explanations, and if false, though plausible, was largely free of factual content. In another thread I discuss the spandrel theory of religion, which Seth has some difficulty getting his head around; I point this out not to malign Seth, but rather to point out that these "theories" we presuppose are most closely linked to our cultural and intellectual presuppositions than they are to anything, and tend to align with our worldviews independent of specific facts. This implies two things: a) they are arguments from ignorance, excluding explanations we don't know or understand, and, b) they are fact-free in that the primary determinant of content is beliefs, not facts. For any correlation, there are likely to be many equally viable candidates, many not intuitively obvious, and to settle on one because it appeals to you is likely to lead one astray. But, granted, theories do have to start somewhere. Just don't invest too much in plausibility == probability.

Third, the raising of large families, or high birth rates, does not inevitibly lead to an overtaking of the population. There are plenty of animals in the world which far outbreed homo sapiens. Are they more successful for that? Generally not. Humans, as a species, embrace a reproductive strategy in which fewer offspring are produced, and lots of resources are poured into the raising and development of those few. Neither this strategy, nor any other strategy in which fewer or more offspring are produced, is inherently more successful than another. And getting back to humans, those who produce the most offspring tend to have higher infant mortality rates, higher general mortality, less education, poorer health, be economically worse off, have less money to spend on each child (more children, spread farther), be less attractive to the "better" mates and so on; their faster pace at breeding is often balanced by a higher rate of fail. The long and short is, you can't simply conclude that higher birth rates equals more reproductive and evolutionary success overall. Birth rates are only one part of the picture.

Finally, regarding the theory about excess intelligence. I'm willing to grant it the possibility as a theory, and I'm sure there are species that have either under or over-developed mental capacities for their ecological niche. And perhaps homo sapiens is one. However, a couple of problems. It's not clear that suicide and depression align with either intelligence or education, and, even if they do, what the causal connections are. It's a commonly suggested plattitude that people who "think too much" end up being gloomy, but I'm not sure it has a lot going for it as a theory than that it is popularly held. In general, those who suicide, and those who present and are treated for depression — the most commonly studied groups, have serious and persistent affective disorders (what might be termed endogenous depression, or brain caused; its' worth noting that in one of the studies correlating suicide with religiosity, they note that the suicidal atheists had more repeat episodes of depression, but apparently chose not to control for this variable; far more than any other factor, the existence of chronic, endogenous depression is correlated with suicide). This leads to the question as to whether, if one postulates that endogenous depression is higher in secularists, why do their brains tend to be more susceptible to a) depression, or, b) secularism — as if there is causality there, it's not clear which way the arrow points (if at all). But the question of whether certain features of our brains have become unproductive or handicapping is an interesting one, but not one to be solved with an appeal to folk psychology. Moreover, it seems to embody some false notions about evolution. No trait is ever optimally or suboptimally evolved; the fitness of traits is always with reference to its adaptive potential in specific environments, and then only so far as it leads to reproductive success of our general alleles or genetic type. I think you'll find that the highly intelligent, even if more prone to gloom, are also likely to outcompete their less well endowed peers.

[JimC]

Very thoughtful post, Apophenia; I find myself agreeing with much of your cautionary points about jumping to conclusions based on plausibility...

That won't stop me doing just that from time...

[Seth]

I agree, very thoughtful and interesting. So much so that I'm going to do some study before responding in detail, out of respect for your scholarship.

[apophenia]

Oh, and as is clear from this paper, Asian-Americans rock.

[HomerJay]

Better to be Socrates and unhappy than a pig and happy.

You really think so?
You don't think that intelligence is a curse and a scourge and the enemy of happiness?

Definitely not, if you aren't interested in the truth then don't seek, if you are scared of the consequence then don't seek it but if you value knowing the truth you value consequences.

Are there some things, on a personal level, I'd be happier not knowing? Of course but that doesn't mean that I don't value knowing the truth.