Atheists are a smug bunch

Okay, get ready to read some serious baloney: Why atheists are more intelligent than the religious.

He's got a great graph there, but I'd be very interested to see how the sample was selected, the specific ages of those tested and what the IQ rate was once the individuals reached adulthood. There is also the question of what measure of IQ they used and how it was administered. That is a pretty serious gap that needs to be accounted for.

One other thing, the author bases all of his reasoning on evolutionary psychology - you couldn't think of any other mechanism for why the gap exists? And are you really correlating "not religious at all" with atheism? Not exactly the same thing.

Evolutionary Psychology - and why I disagree with it

In this article the author is responding to a negative article about evolutionary psychology.

He makes some excellent points that may seem convincing from his perspective, and I didn't read the original article he takes issue with, however, I do take issue with his stance. He seems to think that evolutionary psychology is de-facto a settled science and the only correct viewpoint to have.

I respectfully disagree - but not for why you might think.

Evolution as a law has been shown in many different ways and in many different places. I really have no argument with the law of evolution. What I have a problem with is the current use of evolutionary theory in its multiple guises as a scientific tool. It is not a scientific tool - the theory of evolution in any form is a speculative tool that can potentially inform scientific inquiry, but it is simply not science - and please don't try and convince me that it is.

Is it a useful tool? Potentially. However, despite the author's protests the simple fact remains - when speculating on the unknowable history of development (especially where there is absolutely zero hard evidence - say, for example, fossil evidence) in psychology and neuropsychology you are doing just that: speculating. Sure, you can use the evolutionary theory of how humans developed and look at lower primates to inform your theory - but now you're on even shakier ground.

The theory of evolution as informed by the fossil record shows that humans have evolved through quite a few permutations (with various starts and stops, dead ends and possibly even cross-breeding with similar species) as a species since we left the common ancestor of our closest primate relatives millions of years back. Just think about all the variables in behavior, development, intelligence, environment (not to mention culture) that have to be bridged to be able to inform on the current state of our minds. So....really? You're trying to sell the idea that you can bridge a gap that has no record, no way to measure and no way to know how close you are getting to me as science? Not buying, thank you.

So, despite your protest, I'm not saying that evolutionary theory is wrong from a scientific viewpoint, I'm just saying that I don't find much value in it. I'd much rather pay attention to research conducted on living persons and seeing how we function today rather than speculating on how that behavior developed.