{"id":983,"date":"2013-02-27T11:44:04","date_gmt":"2013-02-27T11:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/reasonablyfaithless\/?p=983"},"modified":"2013-02-27T11:44:04","modified_gmt":"2013-02-27T11:44:04","slug":"believers-are-bad-at-mathematics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/reasonablyfaithless\/2013\/02\/27\/believers-are-bad-at-mathematics\/","title":{"rendered":"Believers are bad at mathematics?"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

I just read an interesting article by Matthew Hutson at Huffington Post entitled\u00a0What Kind of Thinker Believes in God?<\/a>. \u00a0Hutson summarises an article in the Journal of Experimental Psychology –\u00a0Divine Intuition: Cognitive Style Influences Belief in God<\/a>\u00a0–\u00a0in which\u00a0\u00a0a team of Harvard psychologists showed that there is a correlation between belief in God and performance on the well-known\u00a0Cognitive Reflection Test<\/em> (CRT).<\/p>\n

Here are the questions from the CRT:<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> \u00a0A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. \u00a0The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. \u00a0How much does the ball cost?<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0<\/strong>If it takes five machines five minutes to make five widgets, how long does it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0<\/strong>In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. \u00a0Every day, the patch doubles in size. \u00a0If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They’re actually quite fun questions, regardless of whether you think they have anything to do with belief in God. \u00a0Why not give them some thought, and write down your answers? \u00a0Better yet, why not let me know what you got?<\/p>\n

Each question suggests an intuitive but incorrect answer. \u00a0(Do you need to check your working now?) \u00a0Most people will find that this answer has formed in their head before they even try to solve the problem. \u00a0So to actually arrive at the correct answer, you need to second guess your intuition and overcome it with your reasoning skills.<\/p>\n

The main finding of the JEP article is that “participants who gave more intuitive answers on the CRT reported stronger belief in God”.<\/p>\n

Obviously, the CRT is not a perfect predictor, as there are plenty of professional mathematicians who are deeply religious – and plenty of atheists who wouldn’t know logic if it bit them in the modus ponens. \u00a0But the predictive power of the CRT is very good, as the following figure from the article shows:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now, why might this be the case? \u00a0The HuffPost article summarises some of the conclusions from the JEP article as follows:<\/p>\n

Psychologists who study the origins of religion say belief in God relies on several intuitions, including a teleological bias (the assumption that certain objects or event were designed intentionally) and Cartesian dualism (the belief that mind can exist independently of the body). \u00a0So to become an atheist one must second-guess these automatic ways of thinking.<\/p>\n

(See the General Discussion section of the JEP article for a more thorough analysis.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I can certainly vouch for the fact that I used to think the existence of God and the independence of the mind and brain were extremely obvious. \u00a0It was not until I eventually found myself thinking critically about these things that I set out on the path that ultimately led to atheism. \u00a0In fact, being an ex-believer, I was interested that the study also showed there was no correlation between religious upbringing and performance on the CRT, “suggesting a causal relationship between cognitive style and change in belief over time”.<\/p>\n

Oh well, what did you get? \u00a0I won’t post the CRT answers here, but if you want to see them, the HuffPost article<\/a> has ’em!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shenhav, A., Rand, D. G., & Greene, J. D. (2011, September 19).
\nDivine Intuition: Cognitive\u00a0Style Influences Belief in God.
\nJournal of Experimental Psychology: General.
\nAdvance online\u00a0publication. doi: 10.1037\/a0025391<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I just read an interesting article by Matthew Hutson at Huffington Post entitled\u00a0What Kind of Thinker Believes in God?.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,52,17,102],"tags":[103,194,197,217,202,234,212],"class_list":["post-983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god","category-logic","category-mathematics","category-psychology","tag-belief","tag-faith","tag-god","tag-logic","tag-mathematics","tag-psychology","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/reasonablyfaithless\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/reasonablyfaithless\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/reasonablyfaithless\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/reasonablyfaithless\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/reasonablyfaithless\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/reasonablyfaithless\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/reasonablyfaithless\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/reasonablyfaithless\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/reasonablyfaithless\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}