Why Atheists Are More Intelligent than the Religious

Através de: The Scientific Fundamentalist
A Look at the Hard Truths About Human Nature

by Satoshi Kanazawa Satoshi Kanazawa is an evolutionary psychologist at LSE and the coauthor (with the late Alan S. Miller) of Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters. See full bio
 
April 11, 2010, Evolutionary Psychology


Why Atheists Are More Intelligent than the Religious

Humans are designed by evolution to believe in God

Published on April 11, 2010

It is natural to believe in God, so more intelligent individuals are more likely to be atheists.

Religion is a cultural universal, and its practice is observed in every known human society. However, as I explain in earlier posts (Why do we believe in God? Part I, Part II), recent evolutionary psychological theories suggest that religiosity may not be an adaptation in itself but may be a byproduct of other evolved psychological mechanisms variously called the “animistic bias” or the “agency-detector mechanisms.”

These theories contend that the human brain has been selected to overinfer agency – personal, animate, and intentional forces – behind otherwise natural phenomena whose exact causes cannot be known. This is because overinferring agency – and making a Type I error of false positive – makes you a bit paranoid, but being paranoid is often conducive to survival. In contrast, underinferring agency – and making a Type II error of false negative – can result in being killed and maimed by predators and enemies that were incorrectly assumed not to exist. So, evolutionarily speaking, it’s good to be a bit paranoid, because being paranoid can often save your life. Religiosity – belief in higher powers – may be a byproduct of such overinference of agency and intentional forces behind natural phenomena.