Science 27 April 2012:
Vol. 336 no. 6080 pp. 493-496
DOI:10.1126/science.1215647
Vol. 336 no. 6080 pp. 493-496
DOI:10.1126/science.1215647
Report
Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief
A dual-process theory posits a competition between analytical thought and religious belief.
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Samantha Bernecker
Gervais and Norenzayan contended that their research demonstrated that induction of analytic thinking causes decreased endorsement of religiosity. However, because analytic thinking and religious belief were never measured in the same study, it cannot be determined that the manipulations reduced religiosity through increasing analytic thinking. Instead, the manipulations could have increased analytic thinking and decreased religious belief through separate mechanisms (e.g., through two different priming pathways). This seems more parsimonious than the authors’ explanation that the manipulations caused increased analytic thinking, which then caused a decrease in belief in the supernatural. The latter explanation requires that, after being exposed to the prime and seeing the question about their religiosity, participants consciously reevaluated the validity of their intuitions about teleology, mind-body dualism, and so forth, prior to responding to that question. It seems implausible that such complex cognitions were engaged during such a short period of time and that those cognitions led to conclusions that resulted in less certainty in beliefs. In order to demonstrate more convincingly that experimental manipulations can induce decreased religious beliefs through increased analytic thinking, future research should administer measures of both analytic thinking and religious belief to the same participants and should test for statistical mediation. Perhaps an even simpler and more persuasive strategy would be to interview participants after the experiment about what thought processes took place prior to responding to measures of religiosity: after all, if System 2 (i.e., analytic) processing is engaged, participants should be able to report on re-analyzing their beliefs, as System 2 processing is typically characterized as consciously accessible.
For an expanded discussion of this point, see my blog: http://nastybrutishandfivefootfour.blogspot.com/2012/06/response.html
David Anderson
The article Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief by Will M. Gervais and Ara Norenzayan Science 336, 493 (2012) is a controversial topic with a provocative title. Undoubtedly the religious will be offended for having their reasoning powers questioned. I take issue with the title itself. Using the word “promotes” implies a cause and effect relationship which I don’t think the authors have shown. They have shown that college undergraduates in the 21st century with tendencies toward scientific or analytic thinking aren’t religious but one has only to look at the history of science to see examples contradicting their thesis. Consider Isaac Newton whom many believe the greatest scientific mind of all time. He was deeply religious and quotes like this can be found in Principia; “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” J. C. Maxwell and Einstein are further examples. No one would dispute the quality of their reasoning or place Canadian undergraduates ahead of these men. If Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein (or their contemporaries) were put through the same testing of Canadian undergraduates do the authors think the results would be the same? Cultural bias is a fundamental question the authors should consider. The first question to arise is what were the subject’s pre-test biases? While it seems unlikely the authors would concede that the best science is done by believers in a god, if history is considered one might easily argue this point of view. The authors’ results and the title are inexplicable considering a historical perspective but fit well with a shift in cultural values. Its hard to imagine Newton’s belief in God was not suppressed by his superior analytical reasoning if we accept the authors’ title.
Dominik Seisser
What about the social dimension? I don't understand why a science-mag article on this topic doesn't go deeper into the social aspect of religious belief. It does not discuss the following possibility properly, and does not convince me it can be rejected: there is a social antagonism between rational, analytic thinking and religion. Is this not a plausible explanation for the results and rational thinking by itself may not do anything at all about religiousness? And that's the really interesting question here, maybe the authors are right and rational thinking really reduces religiousness by itself. But it may just be a social artifact and I fail to see how they control for it. I.e., would the results still hold, let's say in 1200 AD?
Surely, religion is very much a social interaction and I'd say inside the brain religious belief must be strongly tied to related brain functions. Why do hundreds of people scream, chant and do all sorts of shenanigans in churches? Because everybody else is doing it. Conversely, religious disbelief would presumably be tied to social interaction.
In support of this: it seems with the nationwide sample (study 4) instead of undergrads, the effect is less pronounced for a very similar treatment. One would expect undergrads to be more susceptible to social effects than the population (going to university, where science is taught and everybody knows religion is stupid ;-)
The fact that a picture of "the thinker", words like "reason", "rational" would induce people to lower "religious disbelief" is quite intuitive. To conclude that analytical thinking is the root of this, and not simply the social contrast between reason and religion, is an interesting proposition but I'm not convinced.
Eric Clay
It is one of the canons of science that for every answered question, many more unanswered ones are generated. Would the claim that "Scientific Research Enlarges Ignorance" be a very significant finding in such an environment?
The problem with the article is that the authors do not define religion or assess the religiosity of their subjects. "Religious belief" is assumed to be a function of intuitive thinking and analytical thinking disrupts that. For religious practitioners knowledge is both apprehended and comprehended, both intuitive and analytic. When complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity overwhelm analytic thought, intuitive thinking kicks in with an experience of humility or ignorance in the face of wonder and awe. When intuitive thought encounters a compelling problem—a failure, wrong or unfulfilled hope that needs addressing, analytic thought assembles evidence into patterns and attempts to make projections based on a mix of values and empirical observations.
The authors lean heavily on a belief in the "supernatural" where it may be more accurate to say that religious people, perhaps more accurately all people, believe in the likelihood of processes that are beyond human comprehension and control. This would be a corresponding "analytic" way of making the more intuitive "supernatural" claim. The use of "supernatural" is generally, historically a polemical claim in the conflict between science and religion.
Yet the finding that analytic thinking at times trumps intuitive thinking is worth noting. But both are or can be forms of religious belief and thinking. The next research should address whether or how intuition undermines rigidity in analytic religious thinking. Better still would be parallel research on the relationship of intuitive and analytic thinking in working scientists and persons of explicit spiritual or religious disciplines.
Doug Fields
Like the Tower of Babel to reach heaven and Devine wisdom, the conclusion of Gervais and Norenzayan “Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief,” collapses under the weight of flawed logic. The logic is circular. The authors state that two distinct cognitive strategies are used in problem solving: analytic and intuitive reasoning, and that each strategy has advantages in different situations. The premise for the study is that performance on critical thinking tests can be improved by various priming techniques. They verify that these techniques do improve performance on tests posing tricky questions or requiring difficult logic to solve. However, this means that if these subjects are given a series of questions immediately after the critical thinking tests, they will necessarily exhibit increased critical thinking in choosing answers. Therefore, no result is possible other than more critical responses to the questions used to gauge religious belief after the exercises increasing critical thinking; otherwise, the premise for the entire study is false. This procedure begs the question; moreover, the conclusion suffers from faulty reasoning in the absence of essential experimental controls. Regardless of what questions were asked after the critical thinking tests, if the questions relate to matters that must be decided on the basis of intuitive reasoning, the scoring will reflect more critical responses. By definition belief in religion is not available through logical analysis. The essential control would be to provide subjects a different set of test questions that relate to other matters that require intuitive reasoning to solve, in addition to those relating to religious and spiritual belief. Without such controls, the conclusion drawn with respect to religion is unfounded, and likely represents a hasty conclusion from applying a general outcome to a specific case. (The only control applied was a test of “satisfaction with life,” but this is a psychological assessment of affect—happiness, satisfaction, and emotional sense of well-being— not a test of intuitive thinking, decision making, or belief.) It is ironic that a study on critical thinking should be undermined by such failures.
Hovannes Khosdeghian
"If religious belief emerges through a converging set of intuitive processes, and analytic processing can inhibit or override intuitive processing, then analytic thinking may undermine intuitive support for religious belief." It is not "if" but "to the extent," because all religious --and non-religious-- scientific, or any set or system of human cognition emerges undeniably in similar processes (dialectic or otherwise.) It is through such healthy crosschecking that many "religions" fall far short of any scientifically satisfactory "justification" (absolute proof?) of meeting standards undefinable (because coming from denial of their very feasibility) by definition. Thus, the logical conclusion allowed by the premises can only be that analytic processing "purifies" the extremely vague -thus scientifically unsatisfactory- definition/construct of "belief" posited there. Indeed, science is not merely concerned with the empirical, and many of the "hypotheses" or "axioms" supporting its insights and breakthroughs have still to be "proved."
Robert Hunter
The "reality" of god is an epistomological question. There is no evidence for god[s], so we are left to ask the religious how they know what they know. Their answer is faith. Reason, without evidence, can only suggest that there may be a god. God-the idea-is not very plausable anyway, because if god were a self evident truth, then theolgians would not have such trouble with the problem of evil, or for that matter, any other posited properties of god like omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence.
In light of the lack of good reasonable arguments for god, and lack of evidence for god, it is only logical to have at least reasonable doubt. And where there is reasonable doubt as to the reality of god, a person of logic should withold belief. The problem with faith-based thinking is that the inherent bias makes any claim unlikely. People can and should believe what they like, but they can't claim to have a reasonable belief in god, because neither reason nor evidence supports such a notion. More seriously, belief in god can make nice people do bad things. That they often don't is due to their humanity and reason, not their belief. Atheism is a lack of belief in god [and often in other phenomena such as disembodied souls] and the most rational atheists are those that merely lack a belief in god, rather than absolutely claiming that there is no god. They are thus technically agnostic also, because noone is omniscient. Just because science does not kow everything about natural phenomena, it is a fallacy to assume that religion can fill in the gaps. Science is merely the study of natural phenomena, it is not about metaphysics and is metaphysics-free. Religion is steeped in metaphysics such as realism, truth and purpose. Science is about looking at natural phenomena, and then building descriptive models which are then tested to destruction by further observations or experiements on the emergent predictions from the model. If and only if a model passes these tests, is it temporarily and tentatively accepted as a working model. It can, and is subject always to any changes in evidence that come to light, and will be modified or rejected as the circumstances warrent. In this sense only, science is about finding "working truths", and is not about reality, truth or pupose. Humans are free to find their own purpose in life. Religion views the world in naive reality. But if science cannot find truth except as working models], what chance does blind faith have.
Ernest Davis
To continue my previous comment (within the 2500 character total). One should also test for other kinds of expressions of religiosity, particularly as the subjects (undergraduates) are habitually rewarded for sophistication. E.g. "There is a spiritual dimension of life beyond the merely material." "The evolution of life/the course of human history is directed toward some larger purpose," "Great works of art connect us to the Divine," and so on.
Ernest Davis
First, the blanket statement that "Religious belief therefore bears many hallmarks of System 1 processing" seems to ignore the immense literature of analytical argument in justification of religious belief. Right or wrong, this is certainly System 2 activity.
Second, there should obviously be a control for other kinds of belief. For all we know, looking at Rodin's Thinker or engaging in mental exercises also diminishes belief in global warming, quantum theory, and the proposition that President Obama was born in Hawaii.
Ernest Davis, Professor of Computer Science, New York University
Nicholas Beale
This study shows changes in what the subjects (mostly Canadian) say about their religious beliefs, but this is not at all the same thing as showing that it changes their beliefs or "promotes disbelief".
Many people will modify how they express their religious views in response to their cultural situation: for example in work situations where there may be a risk of lawsuits for religious discrimination, or from a desire not to offend or to fit in. I see no evidence at all that levels of belief were changed in these studies, merely levels of expression of belief.
Sloppy!