Atheism and Autism

[Thoreau]

I recently came across this article and wanted to know what you guys think:

"People with 'mild' forms of autism are more likely to be atheists, according to a controversial new study - and more likely to shun organised religion in general.

The study, which looked at posts on autism forums, focused on people with high-functioning autism such as Asperger's.

The study, from University of Boston, speculates that common autistic spectrum behaviours such as 'a preference for logical beliefs' and a distrust of metaphor and figures of speech, could be responsible.

The study authors, Catherine Caldwell-Harris and Patrick MacNamara studied discussions by 192 different posters on an autism website. They also looked at a survey of 61 people with high-functioning autism, and graphed against results from the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) test.
The results appeared to show that those with high AQ scores were 'more likely' to be atheists.

In the group of high-functionining autistic individuals, 26 per cent were atheists, compared to 16 per cent of 'neurotypical' individuals.

They said this is the first 'systematic study of the religious beliefs of autistic spectrum individuals who have normal or near-normal intelligence.'

The paper, 'investigates the proposal that individual differences in belief will reflect cognitive processing styles, with high functioning autism being an extreme style that will predispose towards nonbelief.'
Caroline Hattersley, Head of Information, Advice and Advocacy at The National Autistic Society said: 'Autism affects people from every sector of society and people with autism represent the full range of religious and non-religious beliefs.

'It is important that people with autism have the freedom to make their own choices about their beliefs and receive the support they need,' says Hattersley.

Rajib Khan, writing on Discover Magazine's 'Gene Expression' blog wrote, 'I doubt this is going to surprise too many people. Additionally, we need to be careful about generalizing here.

'This doesn’t mean that a huge proportion of atheists are high functioning autistics (though there may be a larger proportion than the general population).' "

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...-Controversial-new-study-points-link-two.html

 

[birch]

well, it seems to be pretty obvious and common sense. those who think more logically would prefer atheism. however, this doesn't mean that either atheists or theists are correct on all points or that either is correct.

there is so much we don't know but i would lean more toward those who can think sanely rather than totally rely on emotions or imagination which theists are apt to do.

 

[Arioch]

I'm seeing a lot of correlative data but nothing showing a causal link. Sort of like the various studies which found an inverse correlation between religiosity of level of education(where the higher a person's religiosity the less education they're likely to have had).

 

[spidergoat]

I don't know, it seems to be a rather small sample group.

 

[Socratic Spelunker]

its interesting, but correlation does not imply causality.

 

[Anti-Flag]

Makes sense, they are smarter after all.

 

[charles brough]

I recently came across this article and wanted to know what you guys think:

As stated, no causitive link is know, but that is rather unimportant. The logical think to do is assume there is a link and deal with it as true until cause surfaces to discredit it if t ever does.


Anyway, it coincides with my long experience with people---including the autism part. That part is regarding what we tend to call a "loner." Some people are just not very social. Even so, they function very well in any societyC.

I am puzzled by the chart, however, in it showing believers in Judaism being lower than Christians. My experience would not support that; how about yours? Is it because that faith is older and hence more primitive? If so, it would be interesting to see how Hindus compare with Chinese Marxists---or with Christians. And how about Muslims? It has got to be the religions because we are all of the same race, the human race . . .