I would be willing to bet that the average hacker is significantly less religious than the average American, if any of the terms in that sentence could be defined and then measured.

It is well documented that the level of religious intensity is very dramatically inversely proportional to education, as well as IQ and income level.

That's true. I bet YC is much more atheist than the general population. But I know a religious YC poster who's hesitant to express that kind of idea here; I also bet YC is a bit more religious than it appears.

I think it's also interesting that, up until the past century or so, many well-educated people were also openly religious. To wit, holding religious beliefs does not prevent one from doing excellent academic work... religion does not go hand-in-hand with stupidity or ineptitude.

I think you'd have to say "did not" rather than "does not."

200 years ago many well-educated people owned slaves. That doesn't allow us to conclude much about whether slave ownership and intelligence/education are intrinsically compatible.

I think you'd have to say "does not" rather than "did not."

Don Knuth is Lutheran, and has done some of the most excellent academic work of anyone alive today. Guy Steele holds Christian beliefs of some sort, and his work has been extremely influential in the programming world. Just two examples off the top of my head, but I think enough to keep the verb in the present tense.

We would be remiss to claim that religious beliefs imply academic stupidity. We would also be remiss to claim that lack of religious beliefs imply academic stupidity.

Depends on the field. To my knowledge, no religious beliefs conflict with any work being done in computer science. (Maybe some AI or something.)

On the other hand, certain very commonly held beliefs would totally hinder work in biology or possibly physics.

Wait, are you saying that Hacker News is left leaning? I don't know, I think there's enough diversity of political opinion around here to prevent a broad characterization one way or the other.

Yes it's definitely left-leaning. Did you see the poll about who you'll vote for? Obama won by a landslide.

YC's a bit right-leaning on economic issues, but left-leaning overall.

I don't think the current election is a good barometer for ideology. War is a big deal to some people, and they'll vote for the person who is likely to cause the least amount of death regardless of ideology. Then there's the whole intolerance thing, which maps poorly to ideologies, but strongly to political platforms.

In general, lefties think Obama's less militaristic policy will save lives (because diplomacy will work).

And righties think McCain's more militaristic policy will save lives (because the question is when not if to fight).