Topic: Thinking can undermine religious faith, study finds

[Jim S]

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-religion-analytical-thinking-20120427,0,5374010.story?track=lat-email-scienceandenvironment-April272012

Those who think more analytically are less inclined to be religious believers than are those who tend to follow a gut instinct, researchers conclude.

Love the headline, copied as the thread title.   

I think this is surprising:

Students were randomly assigned to look at images of Auguste Rodin's sculpture "The Thinker," or of the ancient Greek statue of a discus thrower, "Discobolus." Those who viewed "The Thinker" were prompted to think more analytically and expressed less belief in God — they scored an average of 41.42 on a 100-point scale, compared with an average of 61.55 for the group that viewed the discus thrower, according to the study.

[Neon Genesis]

So the quickest way to deconvert the religious is to put up billboards of The Thinker sculpture?

[Citizen Skeptic]

Who dreams up these studies?

[Jim S]

So the quickest way to deconvert the religious is to put up billboards of The Thinker sculpture?

No, you have to follow it immediately with another billboard that says this:

A cosmic Jewish Zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force that exists in your soul because a rib woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree. 
Really?

[ST]

To me this is like a study showing that if hungry people eat, they tend to become full.

I suspect a reason why certain people are upset with Dawkins et al is that they do not restrict themselves to academia, but bring their arguments to the public.

[David E.]

Who dreams up these studies?

That is what Paula Poundstone says all the time when one of these studies is mentioned on Wait Wait

[Zytheran]

Who dreams up these studies?

People like me, cognitive scientists and psychologists. It's called science. Even though it's a pointless task, we try to understand homo sapiens.    As opposed to listening to god or its flunkies for the explanation...
I would suggest reading the actual article in Science and not rely on the media to be better than a box full of hammers at communicating the research.
Gervais other publications can be found here http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~will/pubs.html and would be of interests to atheists. (oh, and skeptics  )

[Citizen Skeptic]

Who dreams up these studies?

People like me, cognitive scientists and psychologists. It's called science. Even though it's a pointless task, we try to understand homo sapiens.    As opposed to listening to god or its flunkies for the explanation...
I would suggest reading the actual article in Science and not rely on the media to be better than a box full of hammers at communicating the research.
Gervais other publications can be found here http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~will/pubs.html and would be of interests to atheists. (oh, and skeptics  )

When I read "Gervais" I immediately thought of Ricky. That would make a lot of sense.

[Themoralskeptic]

"Those who viewed "The Thinker" were prompted to think more analytically and expressed less belief in God — they scored an average of 41.42 on a 100-point scale, compared with an average of 61.55 for the group that viewed the discus thrower, according to the study."

That's pretty crazy, I thought that the belief in God was a much more core belief that wouldn't be that affected by priming, but I guess that's not true.  I tried to read the actual study, but I wonder what their 100 point scale was made up of.

[Zytheran]

"Those who viewed "The Thinker" were prompted to think more analytically and expressed less belief in God — they scored an average of 41.42 on a 100-point scale, compared with an average of 61.55 for the group that viewed the discus thrower, according to the study."

That's pretty crazy, I thought that the belief in God was a much more core belief that wouldn't be that affected by priming, but I guess that's not true.  I tried to read the actual study, but I wonder what their 100 point scale was made up of.

From someone who works in the area... you *really* don't want to know how susceptible humans are to biases. All of us, me included.
With every paper I read or work I do it seems more and more miraculous humans are not extinct. No seriously, the price we paid for intelligence was bat shit crazy or being utterly deluded 99% of the time.  We must be the luckiest species in the universe to still be here.

Which reminds me, latest book arrived "The 7 laws of magical thinking" arrived the other day.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Laws-Magical-Thinking-Irrational/dp/1594630879

In a talk I give called 'Rational Irrationality: How we really make decisions' I demonstrate with the audience, which has included skeptic groups, how priming affects everyone.

[Citizen Skeptic]

I think they must be hyping Dobie Gillis the Movie.

[Sordid]

This just in! Jumping in water makes you wet! 

[Jim S]

This just in! Jumping in water makes you wet! 

Depends on the temperature.

[Sordid]

Not really. Liquid water works, obviously. Steam will also make you wet, even though less so. Snow and ice you can't really jump in so much as on.

[Jim S]

Anyway...this reminds me of the  I went to mass today.. and I kind of liked it  thread.  I suspect that typical religious ceremonial practices do a good job of priming people to be less analytical.