Intelligence: fast, slow, high and low

Professor Collings worries that his fellow religionists will seem to be ignorant in their refusal to accept Darwinian explanations. Are his concerns justified?
 

My routine answer to this question is YES! I believe anyone who refuses to accept the evidence of one's own eyes - what's before all of us - is a fool. Worse, to think the world is run by spirits and demons is a delusion worthy of cure by PROZAC and other modern drugs. What we have going on in the great American Bible Belt is an exercise in primitivism or insanity or both.
 

The question that comes to my mind, in view of the spread of right-wing Christianity, is why? For all practical purposes, Christianity is subject to Occam's razor: it is an unnecessary complication. The very convoluted answers given by religionists to simple questions is impressive, especially in their use of gratuitous miracles and extraneous events. Why would anyone go to such lengths? I am inclined to answer that is the result of a defect in education, which, in turn, reflects a backward culture.
 

I have no reason to suspect that Bible-thumpers are, on the average, any more or less intelligent than me or my non-believer acquaintances. But, maybe there are different sorts of intelligence. I have read, for example, the suggestion that intelligence is merely a shorthand for the speed of learning. Fast learners have high intelligence, slow learners are low in intelligence. While this has the ring of some truth about it, I don't think intelligence is just life in the fast lane. Bible readers who learn their testaments quickly are just as intelligent as astrophysicists, by this measure, even though they succumb to some giant falsehoods. So, there must be an additonal factor, some sort of judgement or discriminating ability which comes into play.
 

Perhaps it is a matter of capacity. After all, people who know a lot are considered smart, while those who know little are stupid or ignorant. I consider myself smart, because I learned a lot of things. I could have done this rapidly or slowly, on my own or under direction. How much one knows is usually a factor in intelligence, but not the only one. There is also the question of ultimate capacity, just as there are different sizes of milk containers on the grocery shelf. Someone might have a gallon size brain, but it is only half filled. Another person who has a 2 quart brain full of stuff might seem just as smart as the gallon-guy, but how would we know the difference? One way, perhaps, is to keep on trying to stuff things into skulls until no more fits. Of course, this test is clouded by those examinees who refuse any more stuffing.
 

Those who haven't taken the trouble, for whatever reason, to learn are ignorant; i.e., they are bereft of knowledge. An ignoramus is not necessarilly stupid, because stupidity is usually an involuntary state: stupid people are unable to learn, often for physical or genetic reasons. Stupidity can be a cause of ignorance, but so can many other dispositions, such as laziness and inattention. People can also become ignorant by misdirection; i.e., brainwashing. In such cases, the ignoramus has been trained to be such, even though it is disabling, limiting and even self-defeating to lack true knowledge.
 

So, how is it with Bible toters? Are they slow learners, or do they lack mental capacity for learning? Or, is it that they refuse to learn? Or, have they been brainwashed? Or, is there some other component of intelligence they lack?
 

Intelligence is not the required or "pre-destined" result of evolution. It is an accident that gives its possessors great advantage in certain circumstances, and when used to advantage. But, if the possessors refuse to use the gift, or they are incapacitated for other reasons, then their advantage matters not. What is most interesting, when intelligence is present, is that things could have been otherwise; intelligence is also the capacity for choice. In such cases, when choice is refused, the old rule, the law of the jungle (might makes right), prevails with unpredictable results. That is why going to war, or trial by combat, has always been a throw of the dice.
 

Whatever intelligence is, history shows that when Bible thumpers or people like that are in charge, the results are seldom good and never for long. It can be argued that, for example, that Christians brought down the Roman Empire. So, now that those sorts are in charge of the United States, just how long do you think the country will survive?