SSC Journal Club: Analytical Thinking Style And Religion

A journal-club dissection of Gervais & Norenzayan's 'analytic thinking promotes religious disbelief' paper (five studies including Thinker-sculpture and word-scramble 'priming'). The Reproducibility Project's direct replication of the Thinker-priming study is flatly negative, and the font-priming effect has been falsified by 16 replications. Scott worries specifically because these studies have SIMPLE stats, ONLINE administration (little experimenter-effect room), and MULTIPLE converging sub-studies — three things that 'should' protect against failure but didn't. Then the twist: Pennycook's meta-analysis (35 studies, 15,000 subjects) shows the underlying CRT-religion correlation (r=-0.20) is probably REAL and independent of IQ, even as priming is dead. Ends with eight calibrated takeaways and the running 'stare at The Thinker' gag. Careful and instructive.

Quality 71 · Strong. Strong (71): a rigorous, honest replication/meta-analysis walkthrough with a genuine payoff (simple/online/multi-study don't guarantee replication; the real effect survives while the priming doesn't); held FIRM below Excellent as a journal-club analysis of one literature.

Claude’s paradigm shift 52 · Moderate. Moderate (52): the 'these safeguards should have worked but didn't' framing plus the real-effect-survives-priming-dies synthesis is a fresh contribution.

Real-world impact 3 · Moderate. Moderate (3): reinforces replication-skepticism norms in the rationalist-science readership; niche footprint.