Cosmic Habitability Categories: Four Types of Universes

When we hear scientists talk about different types of universes, they are usually talking about the spatial geometry of the universe, and distinguish between a flat universe, an open universe and a closed universe. But there is another very interesting way to classify universes. We can classify universes based not on their geometry but on their habitability – how easy it is for life to develop in a universe. We can distinguish between universes that are abundantly habitable, moderately habitable, barely habitable and uninhabitable.

Before presenting such a classification, let's look at two types of things that can contribute to a universe's habitability. The first type of thing is what can be called habitability necessities – things that a universe must have in order for any life to exist in it. The second type of thing is what can be called habitability boosters. By “habitability boosters” I mean things that are not absolutely necessary for any type of life to exist in a universe, but things which will tend to make life more common and prevalent and long-lasting if they exist in a universe.

The Main Habitability Necessities

Let's look at some habitability necessities – things that absolutely must be present for any advanced life to exist in a universe.

One habitability necessity is stable atoms heavier than hydrogen, atoms such as carbon and oxygen. We take stable atoms for granted, but quite a few things have to go right in order for them to be possible. In order for you to have elements other than hydrogen, you need to have a strong nuclear force that binds protons together in the nucleus. Such a force must be very strong to overcome the electromagnetic repulsion between protons (all particles with the same charge repel each other). Another requirement of stable atoms other than hydrogen is an electromagnetic force, which keeps electrons orbiting around the nucleus of the atom. If you don't have such a force, or if electrons and protons have the same type of charge (both positive or both negative), or if the electron charge differs greatly from the proton charge, you cannot have atoms such as oxygen atoms and carbon atoms. Another requirement for stable atoms and stable molecules are certain quantum mechanical laws such as the Pauli exclusion principle. As mentioned here, if there were no Pauli exclusion principle there would be no chemistry.

Another habitability necessity is the existence of large bodies such as planets, with moderate levels of gravity on their surface. This requires a universal force such as gravitation. This force must be strong enough to hold planets together, but not so strong that organisms living on the planet have to endure a crushing force that always keeps them pinned in the same place on the ground. So a habitable universe needs not just a universal force of gravitation, but one that is neither too large nor small.

Another habitability necessity is a relatively empty vacuum. By this I simply mean a vacuum that has less mass-energy than solid steel. This is something we take for granted, but (as discussed here) there are physics considerations that imply such a thing should be incredibly unlikely. Strangely, quantum field theory predicts that there should be all kinds of quantum contributions to the vacuum that should cause it to be incredibly dense with mass-energy. This is an unresolved problem of physics known as the cosmological constant problem or the “vacuum catastrophe” problem.

Another habitability necessity is the existence of both carbon and oxygen in adequate amounts. As far as we know, life could not exist without either one. When physicists imagine universes with greatly different physics, particularly a strong nuclear force much stronger or weaker, it often means a universe with lots of carbon and no oxygen, or lots of oxygen and no carbon.

This is not a complete list of habitability necessities, but is enough to clarify the concept.

The Main Habitability Boosters

Now let's look at some habitability boosters – things that are not absolutely necessary for life to exist in a universe, but things that will tend to make life much more widespread and long-lasting if they do exist. The first habitability luxury I can think of is radiant stars – stars that produce light and heat.

It may surprise you that I have classified radiant stars as a habitability booster rather than a habitability necessity. How could life exist without stars? But the benefit that stars or suns supply is light and heat, and a planet might have light and heart without any radiant star near by. Volcanic activity, geological activity and tidal effects can produce light and heat, such as we see on Jupiter's moon Io. 

 

We can actually imagine intelligent life evolving on a small number of planets in a universe that had no radiant stars. It would require a rare type of planet which had volcanic activity or geological activity or tidal activity that consistently produced heat and light over many millions or billions of years. Even though there would be probably less than one planet in a thousand that would have such characteristics, there would still be quite a few such planets in a universe with trillions of planets.

But it could be argued that such planets could not exist, because carbon and oxygen are formed in radiant stars. However, even if there were no radiant stars there would probably be rare. freak events that would cause carbon and oxygen to be created in rare spots – events such as collisions of large astronomical bodies.

It has been estimated that the total number of stars in the observable universe is something like 10 to the twenty ninth power. Let's imagine an alternate universe in which heavy elements such as carbon and oxygen only form from freak events such as collisions of large astronomical bodies. That would still leave you with trillions of planets that might have heavy elements such as oxygen and carbon. If you then imagine no radiant stars, and life only forming on planets that gave off heat and light through geological activity, you would still have a few hundred, thousand or million such planets (possibly even billions).

So we must classify radiant stars as a habitability booster rather than a habitability necessity. There is a related thing that we can classify as a stronger and more specific habitability booster: the existence of sun-like stars. It is believed that intelligent life might evolve on planets revolving around small red stars. But it is believed that if a planet existed in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star, the planet would be so close to the star that it would keep the same side pointed towards the star, without rotation. This would probably limit life to existing in a ring-like area of the planet, between the side facing the star, and the side facing away from it. If a universe has not just red dwarf stars but also sun-like stars, it will tend to be more habitable, with more life (all other things being equal). Planets revolving around sun-like stars can have life existing all over them, not just in a narrow ring between the front and the back of the planet. 

Another thing that must be classified as a habitability booster is the presence of large amounts of both carbon and oxygen. Having lots of carbon and oxygen around may be necessary for a universe with a huge amount of life. But for a universe to be barely habitable, with only a tiny amount of life, it needs only to have a few lucky spots where there is a decent amount of carbon and oxygen.

Another thing we can list as a habitability booster is low radioactivity. In our universe radioactivity has a negligible effect on habitability, because only rare very heavy elements such as uranium are radioactive. But we can imagine a universe in which the strong nuclear force was much weaker. In that case most elements would be radioactive. The effect would probably be that creatures such as us could not live longer than about 20 or 25 years before dying of cancer caused by radioactivity.

Another thing we can list as a habitability booster is low radiation from sources such as gamma ray blasts and supernova explosions. We can easily imagine a universe a little different in which there would be a high chance of any newly evolved intelligent species being wiped out by gamma ray blasts or supernova explosions, within a few million years of when it appeared.

Another thing we can list as a habitability booster is a low static electricity. This is something that we take for granted, but which is extremely unlikely in random universes. We have low amounts of static electricity because the number of protons in the solar system is roughly equal to the number of electrons, and the charge on the proton (1836 times more massive than the electron) is the exact opposite of the charge on the electron. But if such coincidences did not exist, we might live on a planet that was teeming with local charge imbalances -- lethal concentrations of static electricity. On such a planet it might be very common for organisms to be killed when a creature simply stepped on a rock with enough excess electrons to cause a lethal shock.

Four Types of Universes

Having listed these types of habitability necessities and habitability boosters, it is now easy to categorize four types of universes. They are as follows:

Uninhabitable universe: A universe in which intelligent life cannot evolve anywhere, because it is missing one or more of the habitability necessities.

Barely habitable universe: A universe that has all of the habitability necessities, but none or only one or two of the habitability boosters.

Moderately habitable universe: A universe that has all of the habitability necessities, and roughly half of the habitability boosters.

Abundantly habitable universe: A universe that has all of the habitability necessities, and all or almost all of the habitability boosters.

Let's imagine some universes, and then classify them as belonging to these four types.

Universe 1: There are no sun-like stars, but many red dwarf stars. In almost all solar systems in which a life-bearing planet revolves around a red dwarf star, the planet keeps the same side always pointing toward the star, and life exists in a narrow band between that side and the other side of the planet. There's also a lot more gamma ray bursts than in our universe.

What type of universe is this? It seems like a moderately habitable universe.

Universe 2: There are no radiant stars at all, and the night sky always looks dark. Carbon and oxygen are rare. But in certain rare places some freak events such as astronomical collisions led to local abundances of carbon and oxygen that eventually became planets. In a small number of these planets, special geological conditions created enough light and heat for intelligent life to evolve. But the future prospects are dim for such life forms, since a change in geological conditions might deprive them of the heat and light they need.

What type of universe is this? It seems like a barely habitable universe.

Universe 3: There are radiant stars, and countless stable planets. There are not just red stars, but also stars like the sun. There are no habitability factors that should limit the universe from having trillions of planets bearing intelligent life. Planets typically enjoy low amounts of harmful radiation, low radioactivity, and low amounts of static electricity. There are trillions of planets on which nothing physical prevents intelligent life from existing for billions of years.

Which type of universe is this? It's an abundantly habitable universe.

Which type of universe do we live in? Each of the habitability boosters I previously listed are conditions of our universe. And obviously our universe has all of the habitability necessities, or we wouldn't exist. So we must classify our universe as an abundantly habitable universe.

Recent news stories bolster this conclusion. A significant fraction of the universe's galaxies are rather spherical-shaped elliptical galaxies different from our own spiral galaxy. It used to be believed that elliptical galaxies must be lifeless, because of a lack of heavy elements. But recently scientists concluded that large elliptical galaxies can produce up to 10,000 times as many Earth-like planets as our galaxy. It seems, in fact, that all of the three major types of galaxies in our universe (spiral, irregular, and elliptical) can support planets with life. The Kepler telescope has helped confirm that there are planets all over the place in our galaxy. We know of very few or no habitability shortfalls in our universe, so it must be classified as abundantly habitable.

But what type of universe should we expect our universe to be? This is a fascinating question with some interesting philosophical implications. In my next post I will discuss this question, discussing the relative probabilities of getting the types of universes I have listed. I will show that conventional assumptions like those made by most scientists lead to shockingly erroneous predictions about the type of universe our universe should be. 

As I will show in my next post, without the cheat of assuming there must be an observer, such assumptions lead to the prediction that our universe should be uninhabitable. Even if one makes such a cheat, by assuming an observer, such assumptions lead to the prediction that we should live in a barely habitable universe much, much less favorable to life than the one we live in.  

There is No Mountain of Evidence That Will Persuade a Hardcore Skeptic

Today's hardcore skeptic is far more than just a person reluctant to believe in any of a set of phenomena that skeptics have declared to be taboo and unacceptable. The hardcore skeptic is someone determined not to believe in any such phenomena, no matter what evidence is presented. The hardcore skeptic seems to be boundlessly skilled in inventing excuses for not believing in things he doesn't want to believe in.

The hardcore skeptic is not just someone who will not believe in ghosts even if he sees one. The hardcore skeptic is someone who will not believe in ghosts even if he sees no one other than transparent ghosts for the rest of his life. Rather than believing in ghosts, such a skeptic will persuade himself that there is some problem with his eye that is causing him to see people as transparent.

Of course, the hardcore skeptic will not believe in UFOs even if he sees a UFO in the sky. But it is also true that the hardcore skeptic will not believe in UFOs even if he looks up and sees the entire sky filled with a hundred big bright UFOs. He will instead make all kinds of ingenious excuses for rejecting the testimony of his senses, such as claiming that he is starting to develop cataracts that are causing him to see things in the sky, or that overhead of him is some kind of lingering dust storm that just looks like a sky full of UFOs. He will use the same type of excuse even if he sees the sky filled with UFOs for every night of the rest of his life. 

Presented with evidence that the fundamental constants of the universe are astonishing fine-tuned, and that the proton charge and the electron charge equal each other to twenty decimal places, and that the cosmological constant seems to be fine-tuned to sixty decimal places, the hardcore skeptic will insist that this is not the slightest reason for thinking there is some design or plan behind the universe. Instead he may say these facts are explained by some crazy theory that dying stars squirt out new universes.

A hardcore skeptic will completely reject decades of compelling laboratory experiments indicating that ESP exists, saying they are all due to fraud or error. Clearly a hardcore skeptic will not believe in ESP even if he has a convincing ESP experience. But he also will not believe in ESP even if he suddenly develops the ability to read the minds of every single person he meets. The hardcore skeptic will tell himself that he is merely hallucinating. If any evidence appears proving the accuracy of his telepathy, he will dismiss that as just a coincidence.

Similarly, if a hardcore skeptic throws up two fistfuls of coins in the air, and they fall to the ground very neatly spelling out the words, “Hi from God,” the hardcore skeptic will not regard this as any evidence of some divine hand. He will dismiss the incident as being a coincidence. Should the same thing happen ever single time he tries it, the hardcore skeptic would still regard it as just a coincidence.

If a hardcore skeptic sees with his eyes an angel or an extraterrestrial, he will dismiss this as just a hallucination in his mind. If he is with a group of 50 people, and every single one of them says they saw the same angel or extraterrestrial, the skeptic will dismiss the incident as just a case of mass hysteria.

Given very compelling photographic evidence of some type of paranormal phenomenon, the hardcore skeptic may dismiss it as a fake. If it happens that thousands or millions of people all over the world are producing the same type of photographs of this paranormal phenomenon, the hardcore skeptic will prefer to believe that this is a large conspiracy of people who are coordinating their faking activities with each other – or that the similarities are all just coincidences.

If a hardcore skeptic gets a bad case of cancer, and his doctor tells him his whole body is filled with cancer, and if someone prays for his health and he then recovers fully, being restored to perfect health, the hardcore skeptic will think this was merely a coincidence. If the same thing happens to millions of people across the globe, he will just call it a series of coincidences. If it is pointed out that we should not expect such a series of coincidences to occur even once in the earth's history, the hardcore skeptic will describe some hypothetical multiverse of a billion trillion universes, and claim that we would expect to see such a thing at least once in the history of all those universes.

If a hardcore skeptic has an accident while walking in the mountains, and plunges 500 feet to his death, and then finds his soul floating out of his body, and then ascending to some indescribably beautiful heaven filled with deceased humans who fly about like angels, the hardcore skeptic will convince himself that this is all just a vivid dream, and that he is actually just sleeping safely back in his tent in the mountain campsite.

A hardcore skeptic will not believe in Bigfoot if he sees an animal looking like Bigfoot right in front of him. If explorers discover a vast underground cave realm of 10,000 Bigfoot creatures, the hardcore skeptic will maintain that they are just 10,000 humans wearing Bigfoot costumes.

If a hardcore skeptic sees a message from God written in the sky, the hardcore skeptic will of course dismiss this as being merely a coincidental cloud arrangement. If the same message appears in every corner of the sky, on every cloudless night for the rest of his life, the hardcore skeptic will start speculating about multiverses and parallel universes, and convince himself that this is just what we would expect to coincidentally see in at least one universe in an infinite collection of universes, merely because of some weird feature of quantum randomness.

Some people mistakenly think that hardcore skepticism is about setting a high evidence threshold, a high level of evidence that must be presented in order to persuade. But instead hardcore skepticism is about not having any evidence threshold for anything you don't want to believe in. The hardcore skeptic is a person who has made a list of things that he has very firmly decided not to believe in, regardless of what evidence is ever presented. The hardcore skeptic does not merely have a closed mind; he has closed his mind, put a padlock on it, and thrown away the key to the padlock. There is no mountain of evidence that will ever persuade the hardcore skeptic to believe in any of those many things he has so firmly resolved that he will never ever ever believe in.

 Hardcore skeptics have lists like this in their minds

Are We All Blindfolded Lab Rats In Their Big Gene Gamble?

The book Altered Genes, Twisted Truth by Steven M. Druker is an extremely thorough look at potential hazards involved genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The book has been endorsed by more than 10 PhD's, some of which are biologists. Here is a rather terrifying passage from page 192 of the book:

Accordingly, several experts believe that these engineered microbes posed a major risk. Elaine Ingham, who, as an Oregon State professor, participated in the research that discovered those lethal effects, points out that because K. planticola are in the root system of all terrestrial plants, it is justified to think that the commercial release of the engineered strain would have endangered plants on a broad scale – and, in the most extreme outcome, could have destroyed all plant life on an entire continent, or even on the entire earth...Another scientist who thinks that a colossal threat was created is the renowned Canadian geneticist and ecologist David Suzuki. As he puts it, “The genetically engineered Klebsiella could have ended all plant life on the continent.”

For years scientists have been creating genetically modified organisms that have been introduced into our food supply. We are told that such GMO food products are safe. But there are reasons for thinking great hazards may be involved.

One reason is that there is no way to determine that a GMO is safe merely by testing it in the lab. This because such organisms are released into the environment, which has far too many variables for any scientist to keep track of. An organism that may seem safe when tested under lab conditions may turn out to be a killer or cancer-causer when introduced into an ecological system that has way too many variables and unknowns to ever be properly simulated in the lab.

A second reason for doubting the safety of GMO's is that every genetically modified organism or GMO is its own particular case, and safety successes in the past never guarantee the safety of new GMO projects. Every single new GMO is a new piece of technology that may have risks. It's rather like this: I may mix together 40 different combinations of chemicals, without any problem; but it is still perfectly possible that the forty-first combination of chemicals that I try may cause an explosion (or lethal gas) that kills me. A similar situation holds for GMO's. Claims that a “40 year-success record prove that GMO's are safe” are not valid, because every new type of GMO is a new unproven piece of technology that might blow up in our faces.

A third reason for doubting the safety of GMO's is that we don't understand enough about life to be very confident about the safety of genetic engineering. Many scientists have a bad habit of exaggerating human knowledge about biology, often advancing an unwarranted triumphalist narrative making it sound as if they have godlike insight into the inner workings of biology. The truth is very different. We do not understand at all the origin of life, and do not understand even basic issues such as morphogenesis, how a fertilized ovum is able to progress into a newborn baby. We do not even understand where the body plans of humans come from, as I discuss in my post The Gigantic Missing Link of Biological Life. Contrary to common claims that DNA is some blueprint for the human body, the “language” used by DNA seems to be a “bare bones” semantically-minimal language entirely incapable of expressing anything like a three-dimensional arrangement of parts. It's a language suitable mainly just for creating lists of chemicals. The Human Genome Project, which was supposed to offer great insight into life, has revealed a baffling sea of complexity which scientists are pondering with little insight, rather like historians who scratched their heads about Egyptian hieroglyphics before the Rosetta Stone was discovered.

In Chapter 11 of his book Druker has an excellent chapter comparing the difficulties of changing computer code you don't understand with the difficulties of genetic engineering. Pointing out “the inescapable risks of altering complex information systems,” Druker says quite correctly that DNA is information of high complexity and low comprehensibility. By messing with that code, we are rather like newly-hired programmers who start making changes in some very old legacy system with 5 million lines of code the programmers don't understand, without understanding the ramifications of their changes. A golden rule of programming is: don't screw around with legacy code you don't understand. But genetic engineering requires that scientists do just that. Also, DNA is not written in anything like readable high-level programming code written in a language such as Java. It's intelligibility level is much closer to binary code – streams of 1's and 0's that you cannot understand by reading. Most programmers know that trying to edit binary code is a “Russian roulette” type of business.

Druker argues that given such a situation, we should not even be using the term “genetic engineering,” since engineering is what goes on when you have a mastery of what you are building or changing. A more accurate term, he argues, is bio-hacking.

Druker urges a banning of all GMO's, but there's a much less drastic step we can take: the step of labeling all foods with GMO's, so that consumers can choose not to consume them if they are concerned about their safety. Labeling of GMO foods is supported by 93% of all Americans, and is required practice in many countries. With labeling of GMO's, you can choose not to be a blindfolded lab rat in the big gene gamble. 

But many scientists stand in opposition to GMO labeling. Why? In many cases this is because they have a financial interest in the spread of the genetically modified organisms. Many are employed directly by biotechnology firms that sell GMO products. Many other biologists take consulting money (directly or indirectly) from biotechnology corporations. The vested interests of biologists or biochemists may be clouded in various ways. For example, the biologist may be paid for writing on some web site that gets half of its money from biotechnology corporations, which gives the money to spread the message that GMO's are safe. Or a biochemist may work for a research unit at a university that is partially funded by contributions or contracts from biotechnology corporations.

Given the many ways in which biologists and biochemists have financial interests in GMO's, we absolutely cannot trust any “expert consensus” that GMO's are safe. We should not expect objective opinions from people who have vested interests or financial interests in the matters on which they are stating opinions.

The reasoning used by opponents of GMO labeling are often ridiculous. One common charge is that it is “anti-science” to ask for GMO labeling. That's laughable. Genetically modified food products aren't science – they are technological products that we have the option to consume or not-consume. It is no more “anti-science” to avoid consuming GMO's than it is is anti-science not to buy some particular computer product (a type of computer is not “science” any more than a GMO, although both make use of scientific knowledge).

It is also ridiculous to argue that it is “anti-science” to avoid GMO's because some small committee of the American Society for the Advancement of Science said they are safe in 2012. An opinion doesn't become science because some committee of scientists voices it. Science is the total body of facts collected by scientists. That body of facts does indeed warrant concern about the safety of GMO's.

Another argument made is that we must support GMO's because they will help feed starving people abroad. But such an argument does nothing to argue against GMO labeling. A safer way of increasing food supplies is to reduce meat consumption (the grain needed for a meat-centered meal is typically enough to make six meals that don't use meat).

A study published in 2012 found that a genetically modified crop and a herbicide it was engineered to be grown with caused severe organ damage and hormonal disruption in rats fed over a long-term period of two years. Eventual consequences for some of the rats included tumors. Published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, the study was carried out by a team led by Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini. A kind of intellectual lynch mob quickly formed, led by pro-GMO interests, which caused the paper to be retracted on the flimsy basis that it was inconclusive (using the same criteria we would have to throw out a third or a quarter of all scientific papers). The incident was a great black mark on contemporary bio-science, and seems like a very troubling attempt at a cover-up. Various ridiculous justifications were given, including untrue claims that Seralini's team had used the wrong type of rat. After a long delay another scientific journal published the study. See here for other information about the study. 

Such a study does not show that some GMO food you are eating is unsafe. But it does show GMO advocates are not telling us the truth when they claim there is no reason for thinking that genetically modified organisms may be risky.

Data-Dredging and Small-Sampling Their Way to Borderline Baloney

Yesterday the news media were discussing a PLOS-One scientific paper entitled: “Why Do You Believe in God? Relationships between Religious Belief, Analytic Thinking, Mentalizing and Moral Concern.” Most of the media uncritically regurgitated the silly press release on this study, and failed to notice any of the very large deficiencies with this study, which could have been noticed with a casual inspection of the scientific paper.

The paper in question was written by authors who make very clear near the beginning of their paper that they are in the “you have religious beliefs because you are stupid” camp. They make this clear by stating in the second paragraph of their paper “analytic thinking discourages religious and spiritual beliefs,” after giving no support for such a statement other than references to other papers with problems similar to those in their own paper. The authors then attempt to support this unwarranted and outrageously over-general claim by presenting their own little experiments. But wait a second – what happened to not reaching a conclusion until you discuss your experiments? The standard procedure in a paper is to first suggest a hypothesis (with a degree of impartiality, treating it merely as a possibility), then to discuss an experiment testing the hypothesis, and then to discuss whether the evidence supports the hypothesis. When scientists start speaking like “we believe in this doctrine, now here our some experiments we did that support our belief,” they should cause us to suspect a very clear experimental bias that calls their results into question.

What are the problems with this study? The first problem is that the scientists did experiments that used a ridiculously small sample size. Their first study involved only 236 persons, and a similar sample size was used for their other studies. It is preposterous to try to make any claims whatsoever about a relation between religious belief and analytic abilities based on such a ridiculously small sample size. The smaller the data size, the more likely that false correlations will be found. There is no excuse for such a small sample size, given the fact that the studies were merely multiple-choice surveys, and that nowadays almost any ace programmer can build a website easily capable of doing such studies in a way that might get many thousands of respondents.

The second problem with the study is the very small correlation reported. The study found a negative correlation between religious belief and analytic ability that is reported as having a P-value of “<.05” or less than .05. Sound impressive? It isn't. The P-value is quite a slippery concept. It is commonly thought of as the chance of you getting the result when there is no actual correlation. But according to an article in Nature, such an idea is mistaken. Here is an excerpt from that article:

According to one widely used calculation, a P value of 0.01 corresponds to a false-alarm probability of at least 11%, depending on the underlying probability that there is a true effect; a P value of 0.05 raises that chance to at least 29%.

So the P value of “less than 0.05” reported in the “Why Do You Believe in God” study means very little, with a chance as high as 28% that a false alarm is involved. And the chance of a false alarm could easily be more than 50%, given the experimental bias the study shows by very quickly announcing near its beginning the claim that “analytic thinking discourages religious and spiritual beliefs” before providing any data to support the claim.

The “Why Do You Believe in God” study shows strong signs of what is called p-hacking or data-dredging. This is when scientists gather data and then slice it and dice it through various tortuous statistical manipulations, data-fishing until they can finally claim to have discovered something “statistically significant” (usually ending up with some borderline result which means little). The hallmark of data-dredging is that the study veers into claiming correlations that it wasn't explicitly designed to look for, and that seems to be what is going on in this study (a study that announces no clear objectives at its beginning, unlike a typical paper announcing the study was designed to test some particular hypothesis).

The study in question, and similar studies, are misrepresented by

Professor Richard Boyatziz, who makes the following doubly-misleading statement:

A stream of research in cognitive psychology has shown and claims that people who have faith (i.e., are religious or spiritual) are not as smart as others. Our studies confirmed that statistical relationship.

Given that Boyatziz's study has a ridiculously small sample size, and a very unimpressive borderline P-value, it very clearly does not confirm anything. As for Boyatziz's claim that studies have shown that people who have faith “are not as smart as others,” it is as bogus as his claim about his own study.

Let's look at the biggest such study. It was a meta-analysis described in this 2013 Daily Mail story which has this misleading headline, one that doesn't match the actual results of the study: “Those with higher intelligence are less likely to believe in God claims new review of 63 scientific studies stretching back decades.” But when we look at the main graph in the study, we find quite a different story.

IQ (left) compared to % of population that are atheist

 The graph shows some blue dots representing countries. The graph indicates atheism is very rare among people with low intelligence. But what about people with normal intelligence or slightly higher-than-normal intelligence? Among those countries with an IQ of about 100 (between 95 and 105), the great majority (about two-thirds) show up in the graph as having atheism rates of 40% or less. Among those countries with above-average intelligence (IQ of 105 of more), 80% show up as having atheism rates of 30% or less.

This graph clearly shows that Boyatziz's claim that “people who have faith (i.e., are religious or spiritual) are not as smart as others” is a smug falsehood. Such a claim could only be justified if the chart above showed a strong predominance of atheism among groups of average or above-average intelligence. The graph shows the opposite of that. The correct way to describe the graph above is as follows: atheism is extremely uncommon among people of low intelligence, and fairly uncommon among both peoples of average intelligence and people of above-average intelligence. In fact, in the graph above the country with the highest percent of atheists has a below average IQ, and the country with the highest average intelligence has only about 12% atheists.

Boyatziz's “not as smart as others” claim has the same low credibility as claims made by people who say (based on small differences in IQ scores) that “black people are not as smart as white people.” Slight statistical differences do not warrant such sweeping generalizations, which hardly make sense when a white person has no idea whether the black person to his left or right is smarter than he is. The tactics used here are similar to those used by white supremacists: get some data-dredging tiny-sample study finding some dubious borderline result, and then shamelessly exaggerate to the hilt, saying something like that proves that “those type of people are dumber.”

It is basically a waste of time to try to justify either belief or disbelief by searching for slim correlations between belief and intelligence. Imagine someone who tried to decide how to vote in November by exhaustively analyzing the intelligence of Democrats and Republicans, trying to figure out which was smarter. This would be a gigantic waste of time, particularly so if the results were borderline. How to vote should be based on issues, not some kind of “go with the slightly smarter crowd” reasoning. Similarly, belief or non-belief in spiritual realities should be based on whether there are good reasons for such belief or non-belief. If 95% of smart people do not believe in something, you should still believe in it if you have convincing reasons for believing in it – particularly if such reasons are subtle or complicated reasons that those 95% have little knowledge of.

It is interesting to note that the Pearce-Rhine experiments on ESP had an overall p-value of 10^-22 (or .0000000000000000000001), as reported in the last column of the table in this link. Here is a result that is more than 100,000,000,000,000,000 times more compelling than the unimpressive p-value of about .05 reported by this “Why Do You Believe in God?” study. But the same people who will groundlessly reject the Pearce-Rhine study (because of ideological reasons) will warmly embrace the study with the paltry p-value of only about .05 (again, for ideological reasons). Can we imagine a stranger double standard? 

Postscript: Back in the old days, studies like this might have a thin veneer of scientific objectivity. But the press release for the study makes clear that the researchers "agree with the New Atheists," which heightens our suspicions that  we have here some agenda-driven research created mainly to be used as an ideological battering ram.