Signs of intelligence are against nature

(AFP ARTHUR SASSE)

Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the  London School of Economics and Political Science , asserts that certain beliefs and values are linked to higher intelligence and against the natural order of things.

Kanazawa's research "Why Liberals and Atheists are More Intelligent" published in the March edition of Social Psychology Quarterly, the American Sociological Association's peer-reviewed journal, and explains his theory that males "in evolutionary history" are naturally "mildly polygynous" and both males and females are naturally conservative, defined as being mainly concerned with their family and friends, and religious because "humans are evolutionarily designed to be paranoid, and they believe in God because they are paranoid."

Therefore it is unnatural to be liberal, concerned about humans without any intimate connection; an atheist, without need for paranoia; and for men, monogamous.

"General intelligence, the ability to think and reason, endowed our ancestors with advantages in solving evolutionarily novel problems for which they did not have innate solutions," says Kanazawa, "as a result, more intelligent people are more likely to recognize and understand such novel entities and situations than less intelligent people, and some of these entities and situations are preferences, values, and lifestyles."

Kanazawa continues, "more intelligent children are more likely to grow up to go against their natural evolutionary tendency to believe in God, and they become atheists."

The study was supported by data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). The data was collected twice: during ages 12-18 with a follow-up at ages 24-32. It revealed young adults self-identified as "not at all religious" had an average IQ of 103, while those who had an average IQ of 97 identified themselves as "very religious".

The study also found that levels of intelligence did not play any significant role in the value of marriage, family, children, and friends.

ADD: http://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/addhealth

Social Psychology Quarterly:  http://www.asanet.org/journals/spq/index.cfm