[o_the russian]

First off... read what I posted before you went on to 7-17... it could have saved you a lot of typing, I knew that there were unsuportive studies in there, that was the point, the truth is in the conclusion.

And those 1-17 studies are only the tip of the iceberg from that research study as you can see on the site theres dozens more. Whats important is that for intelectual honesty, it aknowledges studies unsupportive of itself when forming its summation and conclusion.

What should not surprise you is the conclusion itself. Yet you dont seem to be able to get that across, and might I add that you have provided NO (0) studies proving otherwise or any summation of a multitude of studies like this research study is, in support of your arguement. You're nit-picking and grabbing at straws when confronted with a lack of evidence to support your arguement is what it looks like when you choose to attack without counter-evidence.

Oh I understand the difference between correlation and causation, as I was the one who had to explain it to you. Nevertheless your "multitude" of studies has once again failed you as you have but barely 2-3 that actually argue specifically the causations, or even correlations, of religiosity on intelligence.

You explained nothing, instead of adressing the arguement on a factual basis you attacked it on structural... as in, instead of proving that it wasnt the cause, you basicaly stated that not every piece of evidence stems from the same symptom. And to sum up what I explained to you, is that you can only ignore causation for so long in the face of so many correlating conclusions.

What's sad is every search I did to find these studies listed to some forum Web site thread, not unsimiliar to this one, linked to that Web page. They'd simply copy and paste as you have done. No where did anyone try to substantiate what they were saying or even try to produce some sort of reliable source like the actual study or a reference to it other than this simple-text-based Web page. Continuously I saw people using this as a source for "proving" that atheists are smarter than their religious counterparts.

So even if you're a fool to take this Web page for its face value, why is it so important? Who is Steve Kangas (author of the page), and why is he lying to you? As Innoc pointed out quite clearly, a majority, if not all, of these studies are being done on college students (note college differed from university, way back during the earlier studies before the 1950s). Also I pointed out earlier, religiosity tends to increase after being married and atheism tends to decline after the age of 30. Seeing as how most college students aren't married and aren't over the age 30, why are all these tests being done on them? Why does the Web page's most recent study only quote a study from 27 years ago (1980)? Are we supposed to believe these 17 studies represent all the studies done between religion and cognitive ability? Are we to believe these 17 studies (which do not all support your argument) prove a causation of lower intelligence with religiosity, or even correlation. You really have to begin thinking beyond what simply being spoon-fed to you.

I dont know why you chose not to read the valid parts of the research articles... how could you miss the fact that the article on that page was published in 1985, and stemmed from the earlier version of the book I linked to that was published that year.

What you ignore about the college students is that as GPAs increase over the years, the religiosity that was tracked drops, and amongst the top 5% of the classes, religiosity is the lowest. So its concluded, as people get smarter, they get less religious.

Your over-30 estimation without ANY evidence of people becoming more religious is non-consequential to what any of us are arguing, because being 30+ doesnt make you smarter... and what you chose to ignore are the statistics of individual in higher intelligence brackets, or imminent scientists considered to be most important and how religiosity amongst them declines while intellect rises. And that was not just these studies but the modern studies I listed for you in the Wiki.

So who really is Steve Kangas? I don't know, but you can check his Web site here which is host to the article. (An extremist "liberalist" as he proclaims. Has a complete FAQ of numerable fallacies on the right wing. Etcetera.)

Edit: Apparently Steve Kangas committed suicide on Feb. 8, 1999.

Steve Kangas wrote just another website summarising the study, I have no idea who he is or what he's done, and I never linked to any of his info / site, as the original research is not from him in the first place...he had nothing to do with the research study itself... I dont see what the hell you're grabbing at here? sensationalism? How many times must I point you to the original source here and explain that its from an earlier version of this book.

You still have no studies to contradict the point, you havnt gained any credit here by stating the obvious. The authors of the academic study obviously knew that not every one of those studies supported them, as in what they said under the 15th one. Its their conclusion which is valid in the overall conglomeration.

By all means, that web page I linked to in the first place has dozens more studies in relation with other aspects of intelligence and children of intelligent individuals that you can argue against / with. The research study never claimed all the evidence was in its favour... it listed all the evidence and saw to which end the scale tipped.