Below is a graph that shows the relationship between Mean IQ and strongly held religious beliefs. When you graph the data you’ll notice that it is, not surprisingly, an inverse relationship. Now, I am a big proponent of exercising restraint when it comes to inferring causality from simple correlation, so I won’t do that. That is to say, I will refrain from using this relationship to show that low IQ causes strongly held religious beliefs, or vice versa. But I found the relationship interesting nonetheless. Here’s the graph:

Click on the image for a larger view. The United States is the data point with the red circle around it, a bit askew, if you ask me.

The IQ data was taken from the book, IQ and The Wealth of Nations. The religious belief data was taken from a survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project. The question from the survey was, “How important is religion in your life—very important, somewhat important, not too important, or not at all important?” The report only gave the results for those that answered “very important”.

Take it as you will.

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