Religious belief and intelligence: Worldwide evidence

Article history: Received 23 March 2013 Received in revised form 17 May 2013 Accepted 11 June 2013 Available online xxxx Is there a positive impact of intelligence on religious disbelief after we account for the fact that both average intelligence and religious disbelief tend to be higher in more developed countries? We carry out four beta regression analyses and conclude that the answer is yes. We also compute impact curves that show how the effect of intelligence on atheism changes with average intelligence quotients. The impact is stronger at lower intelligence levels, peaks somewhere between 100 and 110, and then weakens. Bootstrap standard errors for our point estimates and bootstrap confidence intervals are also computed. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.