David Sklansky, well-known poker theorist, is challenging Christian fundamentalists to a battle of standardized-test-taking skills! (Via Unscrewing the Incrutable and Cynical-C.)
This is an open challenge to any American citizen who passes a lie detector test that I will specify in a moment.
We will both take the math SAT or GRE (aptidude test). Your choice. We will both have only half the normally allotted time to lessen the chances of a perfect score. Lower score pays higher score $50,000.
To qualify you must take a reputable polygraph that proclaims you are truthful when you state that:
1. You are at least 95% sure that Jesus Christ came back from the dead.
AND
2. You are at least 95% sure that adults who die with the specific belief that Jesus probably wasn’t ressurected will not go to heaven.
If you pass the polygraph you can bet me on the SAT or GRE. Again this is open to ANY one of the 300 million Americans.
Also, for those who think I am being disengenuous because I would make the offer to anyone at all, you are wrong. I am now so rusty that at least one in 5000 Americans are favored over me and I would pass on a bet with them. That’s 60,000 people. If the number of people who would pass that polygraph is between 10 and 30 million, which I think it is, that means that at least 2000 of these types of Christians are smart enough to be favored over me. Given such Christian’s intelligence is distributed like other American’s are.
But I’m betting fifty grand they are not. Their beliefs make them relatively stupid (or uninterested in learning). Or only relatively stupid people can come to such beliefs. One or the other. That is my contention. And this challenge might help demonstrate that.
(I’d feel better about Sklansky’s chances if he knew how to spell “resurrected” — good thing he’s sticking to the math test.)
This sounds like an interesting way to get publicity, but the theory behind it is kind of … dumb. It relies on the idea that there is some unitary thing called “intelligence” that correlates in some simple way with both test-taking skills and religious beliefs. If only it were anywhere near that simple.
Assume for the moment that belief in the literal resurrection of Jesus really does indicate a certain amount of credulity, lack of critical thinking, etc. (Obviously not an unproblematic assumption, but let’s grant that it’s true for the sake of argument.) Why in the world would that be inconsistent with being a math prodigy? The human mind is a funny, complicated thing. There are extraordinarily basic mathematical calculations — taking the square root of a fifty-digit number comes to mind — at which a pocket calculator will always do much better than any human being. Yet if you asked the calculator to invent a theory of gravity based on special relativity and the Principle of Equivalence, it wouldn’t get very far.
Some people (and physicists are among the most guilty, for obvious reasons) seem to think that the ability to do math is the quintessential expression of “intelligence,” from which all other reasoning skills flow. If that were true, scientists and mathematicians would make the best poets, statesmen, artists, and conversationalists. And faculty meetings at top-ranked physics departments would be paradigms of reasonable discussion undistorted by petty jealousies and irrational commitments. Suffice it to say, the evidence is running strongly against. (It’s true that physicists are incredibly fashionable and make the best lovers, but that’s a different matter.)
There really are different ways to be smart. Which is not some misguided hyper-egalitarian claim that everyone is equally smart; some people are very smart in lots of ways, while others aren’t especially smart in any. But it’s very common for people to be intelligent in one way and not in others. David Sklansky, for example, is a great poker player and quite mathematically talented. But his understanding of human psychology falls a bit short.
(I should add that Sklansky may in fact know exactly what he is doing, judging that hubris will be enough to lead more people he can beat to accept the challenge than people he will lose to. But from the discussion, it seems as if he really doesn’t think that anyone fitting his criteria will be able to beat him.)
Hmph, and here I thought having faith and a strong sense of morality was a good thing. At least I have people to tell me how smart they are to make me change my mind!
faith and a strong sense of morality are not the same thing. You can have one without the other.
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This belief is one of the most perplexing to me. Daniel Dennett, in Breaking the Spell, does have a discussion of “belief in belief,” but there isn’t enough research yet to say much firmly.
Not to sound dejected, and perhaps to cover up my previous terseness, but I do believe that these comments need a wider variety of voices. Skimming over the response to this post suggests a strong anti-religious slant that is alienating (and downright demeaning) to a number of worthwhile minds out there, including myself.
Which is fine, mind you. Just I’d like to hear something else added to the discussion.
How about this: couldn’t atheistic bigotry be just as bad a demon as religious bigotry? After all, with reason on their side, atheists could come up with a number of convincing arguments for very terrible societal acts. I mean, how many mad dictators have written big fat books arguing their perspective, and how many such mad dictators have made religious expressions illegal?
Hmm, that question isn’t as rhetorical as it sounds. Oh well.
Douglas,
Everything that happens is a result of gravity and the standard model. Our thoughts, actions, beliefs, etc. are all a result of the laws of physics. We don’t have free choice. There’s must matter and energy and forces.
Hope that helps in resolving the issue.
Some thoughts:
A dictionary check on “intelligence” yields definitions suitable to both camps: both “ability to reason” and “mental acuteness”. I personally use the latter definition both because it seems the popular one and it means that one can’t label clearly gifted people, such as Mozart or Shakespeare, as “dumb”. The quality at large here is, I claim, the “ability to reason”, which is the primary requisite of scientific research, and something Mozart and Shakespeare didn’t necessarily have. To clarify, numerical calculation is to me, at best, the simplest form of reasoning. The standardized tests perhaps test one’s ability to reason somewhat, but I don’t see any good way of measuring the reasoning pertinent to science, not the least because we can define it only vaguely!
I’d like to mention that a statistical fact is unchanged in the face of a relatively small sample that demonstrates the opposite. Namely, Isaac Newton’s (or other examples listed above) combination of religiosity and reasoning ability is irrelevant to the claim that these two traits are strongly negatively correlated amongst humanity, as he is just a single case. The relevant surveys do mostly support this claim, i.e. the “smartest” people tend towards atheism, so one would have to list off a number of counterexamples on the order of a typical survey sample size to matter. This correlation is what, hopefully*, Sklansky is trying to publicize, the bet just being the vehicle, not the end itself (as it won’t be statistically relevant!). Of course, the Isaac Newtons of today could make the bet interesting.
The correlation between “ability to reason” and atheism comes about as the accomplishments of science to date suggest that none of the (popular**) gods exist. Some here may think this last statement bold. Those taking issue should read Richard Dawkin’s “The God Delusion”, which contains a sufficient treatment of the reasoning. Am I saying that all those who do believe are incapable? No, since there are separate reasons favoring belief, both mental and based on one’s experiences. A good point to make is that the ABILITY to reason does not preclude strong emotions or gullibility. It’s the DISUSE of reason, not the lack of ability, that I pose as the core answer to why “some people who should disbelieve, don’t”.
*skimming another site where he posts some responses to his bet, I do lose some hope 🙂
**loosening the definition of what a god is grants leeway
Douglas,
I think most of these comments were not trying to turn the world into atheists they were mostly directed at literal religious beliefs not just religious beliefs.
Over the course of an individual’s lifetime, he or she will oftentimes revise viewpoints on both science and spirituality. If either science or religion becomes rigid dogma, the mind is not open to possibilities. It seems that the best of science and the best of spirituality both enhance humankind’s chances of living in a better world.
Derek writes “I’d like to mention that a statistical fact is unchanged in the face of a relatively small sample that demonstrates the opposite.”
Sure, but is it a statistical fact that “belief in God(s) is inconsistent with being a math prodigy” ?
Doing well on the GREs is NOT a measure of intelligence or creativity but how quickly one can solve multiple choice problems. The real world of physics (pardon me) does not operate this way. These are not even the standard type of problems one comes across as a student (e.g., determining the Green’s function for a sphere with a conical section removed in electrostatics). Any physics major can be trained to do well on the GREs and I myself have trained undergraduates to increase their scores on practise tests by huge factors…it is more `art’ than science. Some of those students are now tenured professors at well-known research universities…some have even been department chairs. I also have known students who have done well on GREs but couldn’t do REAL research to save their lives.
Without reading the ridiculous number of comments on this post, I’m willing to bet $5 that
(1) I can at least break even with David Sklansky and
(2) no one else who’s posted a comment (yet) can.
I have an active pay-pal account, so if anyone can collect on this I’ll be happy to do it.
Substantiating my #1:
If you’d like you can read my blog. I’m a fairly convi(nced)cted Christian, so the polygraph’s not a big deal.
As for the SAT/GRE, I’m a Caltech junior in physics on full scholarship, I’ve been draining 800s/perfects on the SAT/GRE math since junior year, and I do it in maybe 11 minutes per section (the section is a 30 minute section.) I’ve yet to take my GREs, but I’m fairly confident (I’ll give it 90%) that I can score a perfect on the GRE general without studying (I still am) and less confident about the physics GRE (75%) I think Caltech’s hard, but I still have a 3.8 GPA.
Substantiating my #2:
Well, that’s trivial.
Any takers?
slight correction on the comment:
“I’ve been draining 800s/perfects on the SAT/GRE math since junior year” should add junior year in high school to the end.
Other credentials: RSI 2003, USAMO, USAPhO, USAChO, USACO all finalist standing. I do this not to brag, but just to show a counterexample.
Actual comment:
Overall, I do agree with Sklansky’s overall premise that genuine Christian beliefs and intelligence share a negative to zero correlation. A confounding factor would be socioeconomic, but there may also be a slightly causative relationship in both directions. I also agree somewhat with Sklansky’s assertion that the number of Christians that can have favorable odds on him is in the low thousands or below.
However, he also strikes me as a pompous and condescending jerk whose money I, in Christian charity, would only feel a little bad about taking. I’m not saying that I’m not equally pompous or jerk-tacular – I’m perfectly OK admitting how stupid I am, as opposed to someone who derides other religious groups as stupid.
2nd correction, sorry all:
my website is http://www.xanga.com/darkveggie, not http://www.xanga.com/darkvegige. I don’t blog on nearly the same level as these great thinkers here, but every once in a while I think of something good.
Another comment (meta-comment, really):
in the little linkbar at right of the blog text, it says there are 65 comments at this posting, but i only see 63. why? is it those 2 pingbacks?
truly. the brain and the mind are complicated.
there are many many things humans would never have done, had there not been some people in the world saying, “i wonder if we could do that? and if so, what would it take?” we also know a lot more than we once did, on account of a few humans thinking expansively enough to realize the possibility that sometimes people base conclusions on a false model; for instance, the notion that one would sail into the void, off the edge of a flat earth, if one ventured to far in a single direction.
the imagination can be a double-edged sword, and imagination and reason interact differently in different people. that’s why there are almost certainly devoutly christian math whizzes. and why there are people who imagined space travel and figured out how it could happen; and why there are people who wear foil beanies; and why the word processor could come to be.
but without any imagination at all, we would come no further. so much of what we do and know sprouted out of a big ‘what if’?
I kind of want to protest the implication that imagination is responsible for belief in Christianity. Without totally diverting this thread into a religious bash, I’d like to say this.
Christianity itself is not a figment of someone’s imagination – it’s a real historical institution. Belief in Christianity is another thing – but it is not a priori intellectual swiss cheese just because it’s a religious belief. If you want to be egalitarian in your thinking and epistemology, you had better not discount supernatural knowledge just because you don’t think God is possible or because you don’t want there to be a God.
But yeah, that’s another post.
Imagination does not have to have a negative connotation–God, I hope not!…didn’t Einstein say that imagination is more important than knowledge?
The underlying assumption of the “rationalists” is: if I can not understand something, it doesn’t exist. I am sure they are bad scientists.
i don’t recall having used the word ‘figment’. guess i should re-read my own post.
what i was getting at, is that sometimes people imagine something, and it turns out to be true. “hey. imagine if we could get up there!” “oh, cool! we can!” so imagination is worthwhile and good. (unless one is a harmful entity, using one’s imagination to hatch an evil plan – in which case it is emphatically not).
visualizing is an act of the imagination. even if one is sitting in one’s backyard, visualizing the actual, real-live ford focus locked away in one’s garage.
use of the word ‘imagine’ does not automatically imply ‘fake’.
There may be other reasons for the bet, as someone already pointed out: If Sklansky is almost certain to score perfect he takes no risk, furthermore, he may count on not having to play the strongest possible opponent.
It’s also true that taking standard tests can be trained, just like playing chess, and even though Topalov can claim to be the world’s top chess player (and could probably challenge any subset of his choice to an analogous bet), that neither makes him the most intelligent, let alone wisest person on earth, nor does it say anything about people who share his faith or lack thereof.
Nevertheless, I do think the compatibility of faith and scientific thought is puzzling, if it really exists. I know this question has been raised many times before, and it certainly won’t be settled in this thread. I still think this is the issue Sklansky wants to highlight, and being both a gambler and (I assume) good at taking tests, this bet is his method of choice. We can certainly criticize the method, but the main question to me remains unanswered so far: What is it that makes scientists discard reason when it comes to faith? What makes them (you?) feel it is appropriate that the myths or miracles do not have to follow the same laws that govern everything else? Where does one make the distinction, and how far would one go, i.e. would one accept to drop causality and conservation laws, perhaps even mathematical reasoning? What Sklansky really says is that you cannot be smart, honest and religious all at the same time. I don’t think he phrases it in the most polite form, but I would still like an answer.
I think you are missing the main point. Is not that “miracles do not have to follow the same laws that govern everything else”, it is that human reason is a METHOD to investigate reality, it is not reality itself. Who knows if physics ans science can explain everything? Human reason is like a window from which we look at the whole reality…but claiming that all we can’t explain can not exist is not fair. It is not “science”, it is “scientism”, which is a kind of ideology. So there is not contraddiction in itself between science and faith: contraddiction arises if science becomes a religion itself.