If you haven't heard this yet, you're likely going to be hearing more of it in the coming years.  I hereby, officially predict this.  If memory serves me correctly, this is my first ever blogged prediction.  I'm sure you'll want to bookmark this and check the veracity of it in five or ten years.

In a nutshell, a psychologist is positing the theory that liberalism and atheism are attributes of more intelligent or more evolved people.  Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa postulates the idea that the ability to think up new behaviors and act upon them is an evolutionary edge, and people with such an ability were more likely to survive when faced with unusual or unexpected threats. 

Kanazawa argues that these two traits demonstrate a greater degree of intelligence, and are expressed in "adopting nontraditional social values and preferences", according to this article.  Arguing that atheism, liberalism, and a concern for people beyond your immediate family and friends group are recent changes in humanity and therefore the hallmark of more intelligent - or more evolved - people.

I think it's interesting that theological conviction is a matter of "social value" or preference.  I wonder if Kanazawa would assert that mathematics is also a "preference".  When one is convicted of truth, can it really be said to simply be a preference, as though there were multiple truths to choose from and any one of them would be equally reasonable to choose?  The assertion Kanazawa is making would seem to contradict that approach. 

The more strident of the new atheists - such as Richard Dawkins - like to assert that to believe in a deity is a sign of irrationality, of a refusal to come to grips with demonstrated and proven reality.  This sort of psychological theory would tie in nicely with this assertion.  I just imagine the brew-ha-ha that would have erupted about six years ago or so if a psychologist had suggested that being religious and conservative was a mark of higher intelligence or a more evolved state.