Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Religiosity and intelligence (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus ... to delete with some improvements possibly expansion needed.--JForget 23:40, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religiosity and intelligence

Religiosity and intelligence (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

original research or synthesis.

There is very little verifiable, reliable research to justify the existence of this article. It's existence can only be justified to highlight the lack of such evidence, but such a use is most probably WP:SYN. It was recently reduced to an empty shell, due to removal of material considered against policies of WP:SYN, WP:NOR and WP:POV. These edits were undone by an unregistered user, but without resolved debate. It is pointless to continue to edit it, without confirming it's need to exist.WotherspoonSmith 13:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Rename (and split up) or delete. Fundimental problem: no reliable sources show there is or is not a relationship between religiosity and "intelligence" because any (strictly) reliable source will dodge the issue of defining "intelligence" and instead discuss IQ, educational achievment, or some other stand in. Sources discussing the subject directly are more casual (and opinionated) in using the term. We could have articles on "Religiousity and..." a whole bunch of things, with the downside that they would repeatedly spawn "Yes, but..." WP:OR additions on a regular basis. - Mdbrownmsw 13:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• keep, the sources cited are sufficient to establish this as a valid topic, but possibly merge pending more comprehensive and responsible treatment. --dab (��) 13:39, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

  In wikipedia terms, the article has one meta analysis, as the scattered pieces of original research cannot legitimately be synthesised into a new wikipedia article. Ansell 20:50, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. The article is seriously POV: it has a United States perspective, and it contains only a narrow definition of intelligence. The results are markedly different for other countries such as Australia, as I understand. It appears to implicitly define "intelligence" as IQ (and related concepts), however the term is not necessarily defined thus, and often includes EQ etc. Major rewrite, or delete. Colin MacLaurin 14:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
  • you need to distinguish between "pov" and "reporting a pov". I fail to see the article takes any sort of pov, it merely states such and such people have done such and such research with such and such results. expand on it, or merge it, but I really fail to see the problem. --dab (��) 15:44, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete With no barrier to future creation of an acceptable article on the topic. The present article has languished too long as an exemplar of OR and synthesis, and has nothing valuable in it to preserve. It dwells on research by an undergrad which only made it to the students's college's online site, hardly the "peer-reviewed scientific journal" we demand for the vetting of research about whether psychological traits are correlated positevely or negatively. In an academic world where scholars have long needed to publish or perish, I expect that actual peer reviewed journals must have published many studies noting correlations between IQ scores or other measures of "intelligence" such as achieving advanced degrees, and measures on various scales of religiosity. Edison 17:42, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Intelligence_test redirects to a page about IQ. IQ is the only widely recognized measure of intelligence that we have. Notable studies correlating IQ with religiosity have existed for decades -- see the original sources of the meta-study that was published in Free Inquiry. Not all correlations are transitive, but all sufficiently strong correlations are transitive, and there is a very strong link between IQ and SAT scores, so it is also valid to use SAT scores as a proxy for IQ scores, and all the reasoning behind that is explained in the original sources that use SAT scores. It isn't WP:OR to conflate intelligence with SAT scores, because the reliable sources are doing it. See the list of citations at http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-thinkingchristians.htm and try digging up some of the original studies on Google scholar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.213.168.152 (talk) 22:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Dbach and 76.213. Nominator was one of the editors and has the right to nominate article for deletion. Apologies to nominator for implying that the nomination was made for personal reasons, since it does appear that he or she had been working on trying to correct problems with the article. I feel that it can still be improved, although I'm not volunteering to do undertake that mission. Suggestions that this Editing and discussion history suggests that nominator is in an "editing war" with other contributors. No longer having fun, perhaps? Time to take the ball and go home, I guess. Mandsford 01:25, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
• delete Almost no sourcing--based on two or three minor articles and a mention in Dawkins. A strong liklihood of WP:POINT--no indication of any attempt at NPOV. As Edison says, no bar to the re-creation of a proper article. DGG (talk) 03:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
• keep While more work needs to be done on the article, it looks like a topic with a significant amount of scholarship and interest behind it. Maximusveritas 11:33, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
  • comment It is the lack of scholarship that has lead this nomination for deletion. The cited "meta analysis" may appear, at first glance, scholarly, but lacks scholarly integrity. Few of the studies referred to are about religiosity and intelligence. The Bell study is elusive- despite an extensive search, I have not been able to find a copy or reference outside of Dawkins, nor have people on Dawkins' own forums (see http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9106&p=325651 ).WotherspoonSmith 12:20, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep As above. Improve the article, its essential premise is perfectly reasonable and popular enough / cause of enough debate to justify an entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.12.28 (talk) 14:46, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete or complete rewrite, Merge and redirect to religion and science. In its current form, it implies that only scientists are intelligent... It is currently a Religion versus Science debate in disguise. And it has a bias towards measuring of intelligence using IQ as opposed to other accepted methods. On the whole this is a very shallow article in terms of references to represent an entire area. Ansell 06:16, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. One undergrad 'study' and one meta analysis (Bell), which is not unambiguous and thus prone to POV, and SYN problems, is not enough to have a notable entry. Northfox 07:14, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
• Keep and improve. The subject of the article is an area of ongoing scientific research and, as such, is surely notable.

Some of the criticism above mentions that the article is not currently based upon sufficient peer reviewed scientific research. This is not a good reason to delete the article. Improve the article. Find suitable scientific research which is applicable here. The first hit on Google when I search for Intelligence and Religion is this:

Intelligence & Religion

This link contains a listing of scientific research in this area which could be used to improve the article, including work published in Nature and Scientific American.

So, the article is about a notable subject with some good work but with significant room for improvement. We should keep it & improve it. Thebrid 23:25, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment: There have been a few calls to expand the definition/ measurement of intelligence.

Can we at least agree that studies of how many (few) top scientists are religious, belongs in an article about [| religion and science] not religiosity and intelligence? Thebrid's "scientific research published in Nature and Scientific American" is one such example.

The rest of the linked article is yet another cut and paste from Beckwith's 1986 article, as mentioned by 76.213.168.152. WotherspoonSmith 12:01, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment: A debate on which content belongs/doesn't belong in the article should probably take place on the article's talk page. This is an Articles for Deletion discussion. The link I mentioned looks at the issue of Intelligence & Religion from a number of viewpoints:

• Prevalence of religious belief among eminent scientists
• Prevalence of religious belief among scientists in general
• Religious belief and intelligence, as measured by:
  • IQ
  • Academic achievement
  • GPA
  • SAT scores
  • College students' beliefs & college ranking
  • “Research competence” — whatever that may mean

Clearly, an area of such scientific research ought to have a Wikipedia article. --Thebrid 16:07, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

One thing that worries me about the references on [1] is that they range over such a large timeframe. Does it really qualify as an area of research if it only has sporadic articles written about it, which are hard to correlate, and even harder to verify. The conclusion at the bottom of that page, which is not likely a reliable source as it seems to be self-published, states both the immediate naive conclusion, and the large degree of variation that exists in the general area. I like the idea of keeping the topic on the relationship of religion and science page, and redirecting this article to it. When the area is mature enough to have a complete article written about it then come back to it. Ansell 20:48, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

We now have a few calls to look at the individual citations in the meta- analysis. The difficulty with this is that many of the articles are not about intelligence, but may mention intelligence as a side issue. Similarly, many equate religiosity with liberalism. For anyone wanting to sift through the chaff, I have done some initial legwork at [2]. I had avoided doing this earlier, due to the quote by Beckwith himself, stating that "all were imperfect," but you may find some usable articles. I find little evidence amongst them that this is an area of good, ongoing scientific research about the topic, but your opinion may vary. WotherspoonSmith 11:50, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Many of the objections here seem to focus on the potential inaccuracy of equating IQ with intelligence. While inclusion of more peer-reviewed documentation would be worthwhile, a simple way to diminish the opposition to keeping this article would be simply changing the title to "Religiosity and IQ" since the article argues that this is the specific link. There seems to be no need to make grander claims and an attempt to do so draws needless complaints of bias. If the evidence supports a link between religiousness and lower IQ, say THAT. Nothing more. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.231.88.6 (talk) 18:50, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.