They probably could have been more scientific with their study as you're pointing out. However, despite the flaws, their conclusions seem to be consistent with actual, scientific studies of the correlation between IQ and Religiosity:
Sure, it seems to agree with those studies. But let's suppose that the religion vs word length chart is a valid measure of intelligence.
Are you then prepared to defend the same conclusion about the race vs word length chart? Or will you start looking for confounding factors, eg, Latinos trend Catholic? If so, think about why you accepted the religion claim on its face, but examined the race claim more carefully.
I'm not defending anything, just pointing out as a matter of interest that there's a consistency between religion/word length, which OKCupid implies is an indication of intelligence in their article, and religion/intelligence in actual academic studies.
So, there is at least an apparent correlation between word length and intelligence for whatever that's worth.
If you're trying to draw me into a race/intelligence discussion based on possible implications of the correlation... no thanks.
Because religion is a choice based on personal beliefs and/or reason (but usually the former). Race is a state of being. I'm not quite sure what you're trying to get at.
He's saying that if you consider the race results as a control of sorts, and you operate under the assumption that there is nothing inherent in race that would create the results shown, it is obvious that the variable being measured is not well controlled, and there is plenty of noise in the results.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence#St....