IQ and ID
| June 25, 2008 | Posted by Dave S. under Intelligent Design |
Uncommon Descent member AussieID brought up the point in my previous article that belief in God tends to fall off with increasing IQ. I countered with the point that the very highest IQs tend to come back around, not full circle to a belief in a personal God (such as the God of Abraham), but to a belief in a designed universe which is more or less categorized as “deism”. I offered examples of famous high IQ deists such as Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Voltaire, and even Antony Flew.
Curious, and uncertain how strong the correlation is between high genius and deism, I googled around a bit and stumbled upon Christopher Michael Langan who has been billed by the media, including 20/20, as the smartest man in America with a measured IQ of 195. His life is both surprising and fascinating in many ways.
However, the biggest surprise of all was that Mr. Langan is an IDist!
Langan is a fellow of the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design (ISCID), a professional society which promotes intelligent design, and has published a paper on his CTMU in the society’s online journal Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design in 2002. Later that year, he presented a lecture on his CTMU at ISCID’s Research and Progress in Intelligent Design (RAPID) conference. In 2004, Langan contributed a chapter to Uncommon Dissent, a collection of essays that question evolution and promote intelligent design, edited by ISCID cofounder and leading intelligent design proponent William Dembski.
Asked about creationism, Langan has said:
“I believe in the theory of evolution, but I believe as well in the allegorical truth of creation theory. In other words, I believe that evolution, including the principle of natural selection, is one of the tools used by God to create mankind. Mankind is then a participant in the creation of the universe itself, so that we have a closed loop. I believe that there is a level on which science and religious metaphor are mutually compatible.”
Langan has said he does not belong to any religious denomination, explaining that he “can’t afford to let [his] logical approach to theology be prejudiced by religious dogma.” He calls himself “a respecter of all faiths, among peoples everywhere.”
Interesting video interview here. Watch all three segments. I wasn’t bothered by any of it, found much of it amusing, but I suspect it will stir up a lot of animosity on both sides of the “culture war” (which likely means he’s on the right track). Try to keep in mind this guy is an ISCID fellow along with Mike Behe, Bill Dembski, Guiellermo Gonzalez, Forrest Mims, Jay Richards, Phil Skell, Rick Sternberg, and many others in the ID movement.
46 Responses to IQ and ID
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Dave,
P.S.:
Actually, I graduated as valedictorian in high school with the only perfect grade point average and played the first movement of the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto for the graduation ceremony. I was the quintessential nerd who never fit in, especially with the “in crowd.” Your presumption is precisely backwards.
It is reasonable to suppose that the College of Cardinals has a very high average IQ.
Gil
I was wondering when someone was going to watch the videos. I figured the first person who did would say something about his eugenics proposal. That was interesting and unexpected. Francis Galton is estimated by some to have had an IQ near Langan’s and Galton is like the father of the modern eugenics movement. Super geniuses tend to have problems relating to normal people and this is probably one common manifestation of it. To play well with others you have to be able to think and feel as they do or at least some close proximity to it. He’s not a kook but he seems different – not wired the same mentally OR emotionally – it could be that the part of the brain in normal people used to relate with others is conscripted instead for intellectual chores (no free lunches). Or it could be affected just to keep people from getting too close – it appears to be sociopathic either way. I like him because he makes me look like a humble well adjusted guy in comparison!
I’m pretty sure he’s a high genius though. 20/20 hired an expert to verify the claim. There’s no way to get a high score on those tests except to have the mental ability to work the problems. I’m not sure if he’s aware of how arrogant he comes off but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t care.
The theory of everything he’s got is like who cares if it’s closer to the absolute truth than anything else. That absolute truth and $3 will get a small latte at Starbucks. It’s too distant from anything practical to bother dallying with – 56 pages of wool gathering – might as well be a theory of how many angels will fit on the head of a pin. In any case I was really surprised by the association with ARN – the last place he’d find he could fit in would be with evangelical Christians.
#30 GilDodgen
I think this is enough. Langan is a kook who is suffering from delusions of grandeur, or at least from delusions of adequacy.
Thanks for the citation; I completely agree on your opinion of L. He’s precisely the living proof that men can be desperately stupid just when they think to be very smart and closer to “absolute truth”
Having put in about 20 years of hard, blue colar labor (farm, forest, factory …) and about the same in academe (linguistics), I’ve seen genius and stupidity thrive in both camps. But whereas the two worlds share the same human foibles and virtues there are differences.
In the blue colar world you can be a crack pot on the side, you can weld and still be a flying saucer buff, you can corral cattle and still believe in astrology, you can spread manure and still be a conspiracist. But if one’s politics and religion don’t matter much in the blue colar world, such is not the case in the academy.
The university is not very hospitable to a diversity of views. The reason, perhaps, is that if you’re paid for your wisdom you’d better not be a heretic. Yes, you can argue trivia (I’ve never seen folks more bitter over trivialities), but on the big stuff you’d better not speak your mind if your opinions are not the correct ones. This may have its value, but when the academy errs it threatens us all.
The village can tolerate its atheist, but when the whole village becomes atheist, woe to that village! (talking biblical here) And that’s pretty much what has happened to the academy.
And then there’s the fact that academics, experts, scientists (like celebrities) are tempted to think their expertise translates into a broader wisdom—-thus Einstein,
So I wouldn’t be too hard on Chris Langan. He’s like Einstein. Some of his ideas are pretty stupid—let’s call them what they are. They may be reasoned from false premises or reflect just plain old ignorance (you can be brilliant and ignorant). But he’s on a farm in Missouri, not in the academy and not in Congress. And he’s not wrong in everything. There’s room for him in ID’s Big Tent.
It takes all kinds to make a world.
As Thomas Sowell (wish I could find a quote) likes to ask, can one person or a small clique of experts know more than millions upon millions of people, brilliant people and ordinary people all cooperating freely to make this big world work?
Many academics seem to think so.
Rude,
Great post!
#35 Rude
So I wouldn’t be too hard on Chris Langan. He’s like Einstein. Some of his ideas are pretty stupid—let’s call them what they are. They may be reasoned from false premises or reflect just plain old ignorance (you can be brilliant and ignorant). But he’s on a farm in Missouri, not in the academy and not in Congress. And he’s not wrong in everything.
After all you’re right and:
There’s room for him in ID’s Big Tent.
Right, and after your comment I’ve realized that his involvment is quite useful for ID. After all, if more and more non-theists do agree on ID ideas this disprove more and morethe false equation ID=biblical creationism
Hmm.. Leonardo da Vinci a Deist?
I read elsewhere that he was (like many Renaissance thinkers) heavily influenced by Neoplatonism.
I don’t know what Leo was, but I will because I have a whole bunch of his personal writings. I can say this he was clearly a staunch believer in design based on the psychological implications of the exerts that I have read. But then again most of the great geniuses were very design oriented- Newton, Leibniz, Einstein, Franklin, etc- Whether or not he thought the design of life had an actual designer behind it, I am at the current moment, not sure.
As far as I can see Leo was a Catholic (and probably a better one than Ken Miller)
^I concur
“Whether or not he thought the design of life had an actual designer behind it, I am at the current moment, not sure.”
I think Professor Harvey C. Mansfield would agree with you.
Although, I believe in a real designer and I reject the Multiverse hypothesis.
Rude says,
It takes all kinds to make a world.
As Thomas Sowell (wish I could find a quote) likes to ask, can one person or a small clique of experts know more than millions upon millions of people, brilliant people and ordinary people all cooperating freely to make this big world work?
The answer is actually, yes. One person who know not to jump off a bridge knows infinitely more than those millions who do jump- for the simple reason that they are dead.
Now as for the main thrust of your post which is “can we, should we, separate the artist from the person” or can we compartmentalize the expert into his good and bad arenas?
The answer is, in a vacuum, yes (though in the real world’s social society it’s much more difficult). We can say he’s good at physics and an idiot when it comes to politics or ethics etc. But the one and single conceptual “person” still remains and it is import that we first define “the tent” before opening the flood gates.
I am a registered republican of the conservative branch and we can try and be a big tent all we want but if at the end of the day we compromise the quality of the tent for the quantity that it covers- then we have lost our reason and our way.
So its important to explicitly define parameters to the best of our abilities. Otherwise the old adage about one bad apple takes hold, permeates and destroys the whole village.
It doesn’t take a village to think, but, a village that thinks together can fail to think at all if it embraces the utter lunacy of even one single solitary ignorant idea.
Pannen said,
Well you see it was Lin Yutang the great agnostic/atheist Chinese philosopher and academic (who wrote the importance of living) that said “the true atheist is not concerned with eliminating religion or whether there actually is or is not a good. The true atheist goes though his life daily without ever even giving it a thought.”
^ or something along those line. Think a bout that quote and how a true atheist to Lin is one that isn’t hell bent on eliminating God but in fact doesn’t attach any meaning or significance to the idea of God at all. Then think about how many Americans (and people in general) would probably fall into that category of atheist by Lin’s definition.
My point here is that design is not religion and does not even imply a “designer” per se. The “er” part is secondary to the obvious truth of design.
Now my critique of what you wrote is the fact that multiverse is not the only other possibility for agnostics and atheists- or even “secular believes in a Designer” (which is also possible under a deistic modern interpretation)- but there is also the option to just not have a theory. My brother says he thinks what ever science discovers is the only truth. That is if there is not evidence of multiverses (and there isn’t) then there is no reason to believe in them. Therefore my brother concludes that there is NO explanation for the current state of things in all of their complexity and specify and this IS his explanation for life’s arrival.
That is some agnostics think there is no explanation because there isn’t one. We live in a universe that is only ineffable. That is all we can know because as far as we can tell that is all there is.
I beg to differ.
*** I should correct my post above by saying that I did not mean to imply that you Pannen were sugesting that multiverse is the only route for agnostics and atheists.
After reading you post again- I stand corrected- but my point still stands without the critical aim.
No worries Frost.
I feel that the Multiverse Theory and Darwinism are incompatable with Abrahamic Monotheism.
Personally, I am a supporter of ID. I tend to lean towards and anti common descent stance like Dr. Dembski.