Hmm couldn't the fact that most academics don't beleive in God be something to do with the fact that most scientific disciplines don't fit well with many religious beliefs? So whilst academics generally have higher IQ's than the general population it might be that intelligent religious people tend not to become academics because it would cause conflict with their faith.
And the other study about how religious people are compared with how intelligent they are is based on results for a whole country. People's faith tends to be stronger in less developed countries where people tend to be uneducated. Such people may not be unintelligent, just have never had the chance of an education to maximise their intelligence. If people don't have access to media, literature and scientific research the one source of information they probably do have access to is a church, synagogue, mosque or other place of worship. For centuries in the UK the church was the main educator of people, if people can only access education through their church, which is what I reckon is the case in a lot of less developed nations, then they are far more likely to beleive in what they are taught by the church. That in itself doesn't mean people who are religious are less intelligent.
I personally don't beleive in God, but I would never dare to suggest that those who do are less intelligent than I am. I might believe they are deluded/brainwashed on a number of issues (not all religious people, but some fundamentalist fanatics generally!) but that doesn't mean I'm going to make disparaging remarks about their intellect. This research smacks of petty name-calling to me and I find it distasteful, there was uproar when research was published on people's race and their intelligence, why should it be ok to conduct research on people's religion and their IQ?
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