The smartest woman in the world disses atheists

December 10, 2005

Guest Post by Morbo

For the smartest woman in the world, Marilyn vos Savant sure says some dumb things.

In case you’re not familiar with her, vos Savant pens a regular column in “Parade,” a free magazine distributed with many Sunday papers. Because she’s a super genius — the Guinness Book of World Records says she has the highest IQ on record, which is proof right? — vos Savant takes it upon herself to answer questions people send in.

Last week, a scientist wrote in to ask if President George W. Bush was mixing church and state by refusing to allow stem-cell research. Vos Savant said no, asserting, “Americans prefer to elect Presidents whose value systems grow from their religious beliefs. (That’s why an atheist — whose values are chosen, not established — has never been elected.) We expect the President to act on his values. So this is not the same as mixing church and state.”

Vos Savant then added, “But if the President were to allow a religious text or living authority to dictate to him, then we would have a problem.”

Huh? In just two paragraphs, vos Savant managed to insult every atheist in America as well as put forth a totally incoherent answer. How much does she get paid for this?

Let’s begin with atheist values. Vos Savant’s statement implies that believers have a rock-solid, time-tested value system whereby atheists pretty much just do what they want based on momentary whims and passions. Plenty of conservative Christians claim to have an anchor for their values, the Bible, but they also cannot agree among themselves on how to interpret it, and they conveniently ignore the parts that don’t make sense or that they just don’t feel like abiding by. Leviticus condemns homosexuality, but it also warns against eating fat and blood (so no more juicy steaks) and it bans wearing clothing made of mixed fibers. Many fundamentalists are more than happy to bash gays while wearing cotton and linen shirts.

The hallmarks of fundamentalism are intolerance, hysteria and anti-intellectualism. Give me a non-believer who “chooses” inclusion, science and reason any day.

As for the meat of the question, I fail to see why it’s OK for Bush to deny funding for stem-cell research on the basis of his “values” but not a religious text or living authority. In Bush’s case, these are all the same thing. Bush appears to make decisions on social policy on the basis of a narrow interpretation of the Bible dictated to him by Religious Right leaders. So I guess we do indeed have a problem.

What vos Savant should have said is that in a secular republic whose Constitution gives no preference to any religion or religious text, all public policy must be based on non-religious rationales. Want to ban gay marriage? Give me a reason why we should that goes beyond “the Bible or the pope say it’s wrong.” So far, I haven’t heard one that is even remotely convincing.

Vos Savant might also have pointed out that the Supreme Court has endorsed a legal test for determining when a law violates the separation of church and state. It’s called the Lemon Test, springing from a 1971 case called Lemon v. Kurtzman. The test has three prongs, and if any one is violated, the law must go down. The first prong is: The law lacks a secular legislative purpose.

The Scalia/Thomas/Kennedy junta would love to scrap the Lemon Test, and, if John Roberts and Samuel Alito agree, it may soon be history. At that point, there will be nothing to protect us from laws and policies based on a president’s “values” — even when that’s just a fancy word for that old-time religion.

Being smart does not mean that one has wisdom. When she says “whose value systems grow from their religious beliefs” it always reminds me of the old question. Which came first the chicken or the egg? Before religion was invented, humans had to find a way to cooperate with each other, otherwise the species would not have survived. She gets the whole thing backwards, assuming that one needs religion to have values. Values were around a long time before religious leaders chose to politicize them.

  • vos Savant only has a modicum of fame because she showed that the answer to the monty hall problem was different from what was commonly believed, despite the arguments of actual politicians.

    speaking of which, if you want to have a laugh, check out the photos of the mensa halloween parties. these geeks sure know how to kick it up a notch. here’s an example. google mensa+halloween for more.

    http://www.oregon.us.mensa.org/pix/19981031/

  • I’ve always doubted very very much that Vos Savant is some kind of ‘genius’ (not that I read Parade very often anyway.)

    But just being smart doesn’t make you right. If you want proof, look at all of the “smart people” running the Bush presidency these days.

    Stick to science questions, Marilyn.

  • I read the same article in Parade. Given that Parade sometimes reads like a pro-GOP rag–or at least it’s consistently afraid to say anything critical of Bush when opportunities arise (and there are plenty of them)–then Vos Savant’s answer doesn’t really surprise me. What I’m saying is that Vos Savant may not necessarily be unwise; she may just lack intellectual integrity. Which, to me, is the greater sin.

    A Tom Paine, she isn’t. It’s one thing to have a high IQ, but something else to be an intellectual giant. The giants have integrity.

  • I always look through Parade to view the latest art collectibles. If I had the money to buy them (“six easy payments of $29.99!”) I’d turn my garage (which contains no car since I don’t own one) into a kitch-art gallery filled with “genuine solingen steel knives”, “master of light” paintings, “genuine zirco-light” rings, Liberace candelabras, “wings of victory” crystal plates, USMC “Gott mit uns” belt buckles, “eye catching” replicas of 1906 milk wagons, etc.

    Marilyn von Savant belongs in Parade along with all the other crap (I except “Howard Huge”). She’s the dumbest person I ever read. How she got her rep is beyond me. On top of that she’s a fraud, or at least pretty short on scholarship. The “Monty Hall” puzzle first appeared in as “Bertrand’s Box Paradox” in Joseph Bertrand’s Calcul des probabilités in 1889. In 1959 it was described as the “three prisoners problem” in Martin Garner’s “mathematical games” column in Scientific American.

    Even if she were a widely acknowledged genius in some field of endeavor – particle physics, econometric modeling, stamp collecting – what does that have to with enhancing her ability to express opinions about things like the separation of church and state or Bush’s drug-addled mental capacities (and that of the brain-dead bigots who still support him)?

  • Actually, some of our first several presidents — the founders — were arguably atheists, even if they never embraced the term. Thomas Jefferson actually re-wrote the Bible to take out all of the magical elements and wrote of the Gospels in a letter to John Adams:

    “The whole history of these books is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills. -Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814

  • Before religion was invented, humans had to find a way to cooperate with each other, otherwise the species would not have survived. She gets the whole thing backwards, assuming that one needs religion to have values. Values were around a long time before religious leaders chose to politicize them.

    LynChi nails it.

    I don’t think much of I.Q. tests, because they
    assign a scalar value to multifaceted intellectual
    capabilities. I also think they are far more
    meaningful among groups, than individuals.

    That is to say if you require 1400 combined SAT
    for admission, you’ll have a smarter class overall
    than with a 1200 limit, but to claim that a kid with
    a 1400 has a superior intellect to one with a
    1200 is reckless and unfair. Usually that’s so,
    but not always, and when dealing with individuals,
    usually isn’t good enough.

    That’s just to say that I need more than her IQ
    score to be impressed with her intellect, and
    what I’ve seen here sure doesn’t impress me.

  • #6: “some of our first several presidents — the founders — were arguably atheists”

    They were not atheists, they were THEISTS. Jefferson did not deny the existence of an almighty, but he rejected the trappings of organized religion.

  • High I.Q. and “applied intelligence” are two “different colors of the same cat” … just kidding. Seriously though that high I.Q’ ed idiot once wrote this on the subject of Truth in answering the question of a faithful reader: the question was “Is my boyfriend lying when he exagerates about everything he does? It seems the boyfriend would tell the girl that it took him 25 minutes to get to her house when in reality it took 10 minutes or that he would tell her that he could lift 200 pounds when he could only do 100 pounds etc … things and stupidities of that nature. Our genius in residence told the reader that her boyfriend was not a liar. WHOAAAAAA!!!??
    So much for high I.Q. …
    I am writing a book about Absolute Truth so you can imagine my dismay at the genius’s lack of understanding of the importance of Truth …. Even while attempting to comfort a lesser human babbling stupidities is unacceptable … specially from a supposed genius! But then again Harriet just thought that bush was the most intelligent man she’d ever met ….

  • Dear Marilyn,

    I am very puzzled by your comments about Presidents and values. Currently we have a born again Christian President who has attacked, invaded, and is occupying an almost defenseless country who hadn’t done anything to us, hadn’t threatened to do anything to us, and couldn’t have done anything to us had it wanted to. Does that represent Christian values? He has caused the death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, many of them children, while destroying the lives of thousands of our soldiers who signed up to defend our country, not participate in an aggressor military. All while favoring posting the Ten Commandments, which include “Thou shalt not kill.”

    Secular humanists value life too highly to do such things. I urge you to rethink your opinions on this.

    Sincerely, RC (name withheld to protect the guilty)(

  • I’m confused here. I can’t really see how Marilyn’s comment can be taken as insulting to atheists. On the contrary, I took it as a compliment (being an atheist, myself). Yes, my values are chosen, not established. I think for myself, following my own intrinsic moral code instead of relying on an ancient book to tell me what’s right and wrong. Can someone please tell me why I should feel insulted?

  • I don’t get why you are using the Bible to condone the belief of atheism. You are approaching it all backward, saying that Leviticus condones gay bashing. It doesn’t. Levitus is just rules to live by in order to stay clean. Gay bashing is not clean.

    And no where do you mention laws – which is what Leviticus is about, the physical worldly laws substantiated by modern day atheist physicists, that govern physical happiness.

    Boo. Bad article.

  • Ok well well. Since this lady ; Mrs. Savant is incapable of quantifying an accordingly logical answer as she is obviously afraid of loosing her job….I will. Any decision (by the president of course) being made which can be predominantly attributed to values stemming towards and from a religious algorithms; must then be seen to have influenced “the state” with religious logic…i use logic loosely in that sense. Mrs savant either could not calculate a viable answer to the question or..she simply wanted to keep her silence in a way because we all know now that like the worlds tallest man loosing his throne lately ..well so to this Savant the fear might lay with in her darkest night she might feign to think of the publicity it could bring to speak against Bush’s will–lol. Anyways this woman is a fool.

    AL

  • The only thing dumber than man believing in religion is God believing in man. Just because the woman is right, in this case, attacking her intelligence is still wrong when done by an ignorant blogger like Morbo. The fact that he has a forum or a microphone doesn’t give his opinion validity. His choice of implication to the lady’s comment is indicative of his intent to mislead his gullible readers to a PC understanding of the arguments at hand. The fact is that George Bush is president for one big reason, and that is that enough voters knew that Al Gore would be worse. The fact that those were our choices is the true tragedy. Just as the choice between what Morbo thinks about anything is worthy of comment or not is mine here.

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