Is It a Matter of Being Less Bright?

In this week’s spotlight, I’d like to address the notion that people who believe in spiritual matters, including the so-called paranormal, are less bright than those who deny such things. A study I read this past week in Frontiers of Psychology suggests that this is due to the fact that believers rely on intuition instead of reason. Quoting for a moment, “Overall, the research found that atheists performed better overall than the religious participants even when demographic factors like age and education were taken into consideration. Agnostics mostly placed between atheists and believers on all tasks. While the strength of ...