Religiosity & autism

[Dr Mordrid]

Oh brother, is this one going to be controversial.

Discover Magazine article....

Atheism as mental deviance

Tyler Cowen points me to a PDF, Religious Belief Systems of Persons with High Functioning Autism, which has some fascinating results on the religiosity (or lack thereof) of people with high functioning autism. I’ve seen speculation about the peculiar psychological profile of atheists before in the cognitive science literature, and there’s a fair amount of social psychological data on the different personality profile of atheists (e.g., more disagreeable). But there hasn’t been a lot of systematic investigation of the possibility that autistic individuals are more likely to be atheist because they lack a fully fleshed “theory of mind,” which would make supernatural agents, gods, more plausible.

You can read the whole paper yourself, but these two figures are the most important bits:
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Paper (PDF).....

Religious Belief Systems of Persons with High Functioning Autism

Catherine Caldwell-Harris (charris@bu.edu)

Caitlin Fox Murphy (caitfoxmurphy@gmail.com)

Tessa Velazquez (tessav@bu.edu)
Department of Psychology, Boston University,
64 Cummington St. Boston, MA 02215 USA

Patrick McNamara (mcnamar@bu.edu)
Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine
72 E Concord St, Boston, MA 02118 USA

Abstract

The cognitive science of religion is a new field which explains religious belief as emerging from normal cognitive processes such as inferring others' mental states, agency detection and imposing patterns on noise. This paper investigates the proposal that individual differences in belief will reflect cognitive processing styles, with high functioning autism being an extreme style that will predispose towards nonbelief (atheism and agnosticism). This view was supported by content analysis of discussion forums about religion on an autism website (covering 192 unique posters), and by a survey that included 61 persons with HFA. Persons with autistic spectrum disorder were much more likely than those in our neurotypical comparison group to identify as atheist or agnostic, and, if religious, were more likely to construct their own religious belief system. Nonbelief was also higher in those who were attracted to systemizing activities, as measured by the Systemizing Quotient.
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[Brian Ellis]

I don't see anything controversial about such nonsense. To conclude anything from Internet usage, especially round selected posts from a tiny fraction (admittedly geographically limited) of users, is so ridiculous that the so-called study is not worth the time I wasted reading the PDF.

[Evildead666]

Was this funded by something like the 'Christian League for Righteous Vengeance' or something ?
Not to mention that this should be in 'Political and Religious' Forum, as it has no scientific merit, just a Religious Baitball that I am happy to feed on.

Religion was an Invention, or a misreading of ancient texts.
In any way, it hasn't really benefitted us.

I would like all the Ancient Books that were burnt as Heresy to come back please, and all the Gold that was stolen. And the rest.

[cjolley]

Was this funded by something like the 'Christian League for Righteous Vengeance' or something ?

Brian has it right, but their conclusion is nothing like the Discovery headline.
More like "Religion is made up by your brain"

[Dr Mordrid]

You need to read more - the biological differences between religious and non-religious people is a rather hot topic in neurobiology, and has been for over a decade. As such, it belongs here.

[Evildead666]

So are we coming back to a form of Eugenics where the Religious are superior to the non-religious ?
Why are we trying to find differences between Humans ?

Is religion going to become obligatory to prevent Autism ?

[Dr Mordrid]

You're assuming things not in evidence.

For the better part of a decade there has been a lot of study about various biological reasons for religiosity. In the last couple of years there have been studies about the opposite - what makes areligious people different since in most populations they are a subset.

A quite reasonable question if you want the full picture. This study looked at one aspect - high functioning autistic spectrum disorder.

[Brian Ellis]

You're assuming things not in evidence.

One has to assume: there is NO scientific evidence, just a load of nonsense for the gullible. However, I could speculate that the gullible MAY have a different brain functionality than the sceptics, in the same way as left-handed and right-handed people are wired differently. However, I would speculate that IQ and gullibility could also have a small correlation. Whether IQ and religiosity has a correlation is a different matter, as may be also retentive memory and IQ. On the whole, and as a small sample generalisation, I would say that the average IQ of various clerics of many faiths and ranks that I have met would be, say, in the 90-100 range, but they have good memories in the 100-120 range. This includes 3 or 4 profs from Westminster College, Cambridge (Presbyterian seminary) and a couple from a Catholic seminary: they are more into dogma than reason.

Think of the Bible belt!

[Brian Ellis]

Is religion going to become obligatory to prevent Autism ?

Now, there's a thought! As autism is usually diagnosed at 1-3 years, but the underlying cause probably is either innate or sets in a lot earlier, the kids would have to listen to hymns, psalms, prayers and the Hallelujah Chorus while still in the womb!

[Dr Mordrid]

Tell that to the Cognitive Science Society - the multidisciplinary group who publishes that journal; anthropology, psychology, neurology, AI sciences, sociology, linguistics etc.

[cjolley]

I really don't think this "study" is anything the religious are going to take comfort from.

Recently, the "cognitive science of
religion" has emerged as a research program in which
religion is understood as a product of cognitive aspects of
the mind, such as an exaggeration of the normal human
ability to infer agency, impose patterns on noise, and infer
others mental states (Guthrie, 1993; Barrett, 2004). We
suggest that individual differences in cognitive styles is an
important predictor of human belief systems, including
religious belief.

They even put scare quotes around the whole subject.

[KRSESQ]

Actually I don't see why this should be particularly surprising. If I may be forgiven a few broad generalizations, A considerable percentage of autism-spectrum disorder "sufferers" go into high-tech career paths. In academia, engineering, and research. In these minds the seperation between the intellectual mind and the emotional mind is greater and the intellectual mind is dominent. This is a perfect environment for the developement of an atheistic worldview, that is, a worldview in which God is unnecessary. It's all quite logical.

On the other hand, the majority is always considered sane. In this case the "religious" population forms the baseline by which the "deviation from norm" is measured (in this case ASD and possible related atheism).

If you want to suggest a biological basis for all this, I'm listening. But I want to see some PET scans, please.

[Dr Mordrid]

Functional MRI (fMRI) might tell more, but yeah. I've been hunting to see if I can find related imagery.

[VJ]

Actually I don't see why this should be particularly surprising. If I may be forgiven a few broad generalizations, A considerable percentage of autism-spectrum disorder "sufferers" go into high-tech career paths. In academia, engineering, and research. In these minds the seperation between the intellectual mind and the emotional mind is greater and the intellectual mind is dominent. This is a perfect environment for the developement of an atheistic worldview, that is, a worldview in which God is unnecessary. It's all quite logical.

On the other hand, the majority is always considered sane. In this case the "religious" population forms the baseline by which the "deviation from norm" is measured (in this case ASD and possible related atheism).

If you want to suggest a biological basis for all this, I'm listening. But I want to see some PET scans, please.

Well put. I would if go further and say that the title "Atheism as mental deviance" is confusing cause and effect.

[Dr Mordrid]

Medicalese for a variance from neurotypical, not in the collloquial negative sense. Joe's nasal septum deviates to the right, etc.