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I recently encountered the "midwit" meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2054904-iq-bell-curve-midwit ..atheism as a symptom of middling intelligence.

as someone who spent their 20s and 30s devoutly atheist I very much appreciate the sentiment - never discount religious people. the smartest person you meet in your life will be religious, probably.



>> the smartest person you meet in your life will be religious, probably.

The fact that this would be surprising speaks volumes about the accuracy of the meme.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism

“A 1998 survey based on a self-selected sample of biological and physical scientists of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States found that 7% believed in the existence of God, 72.2% did not, and 20.8% were agnostic or had doubts.[53] Eugenie Scott argued that there are methodological issues in the study, including ambiguity in the questions. A study on leading scientists in the US, with clearer wording and allowing for a broader concept of "god", concluded that 40% of prominent scientists believe in god.”


Of course, doing these kinds of studies in the God-fearing US biases them a quite lot.

You'd get rather different results in China or Europe or South Korea or Egypt.




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