When Christians Asked People to Describe God in Three Words, the Plan Backfired

[Fairgo]

30. Sampling frame

This word cloud was generated from a convenience sample of college students by a group with a built-in threat to validity given their bias towards faith over reason, and belief in a specific diety with predetermined attributes. In regards to your nod to the mean, you are correct in that it more-or-less reflects the world view of the sample, which happens to be college students. But college students are, as a group, above the population mean in terms of knowledge, intelligence, and thinking skills...especially in contrast to the surrounding milieu. You would actually expect this outcome given the sampling frame. There is an inverse correlation between reason and the fear of god. At least that is my theory. Easy to test. If your implied hypothesis is correct, if I understand it (the correlation between positive god attributes and intelligence/knowledge/critical thinking skills is positive), then we would expect to see the cloud shift in the opposite direction from my prediction, given comparisons to general population, or in an ex post facto analysis of within-group differences.

Interesting. I bet the literature is already out there.