Hmyeah Scaredgirl. I know of course what you mean.
I would even go as far as saying that making much more of oneself than one actually is, is regular behavior in online culture or in other words: People tend to know just about everything about almost anything at hand and often claim either quite dubious sources for their supposed knowledge or none at all.
On the other hand, this thread was created to ask the board-users about their opinions in the first place so what's it gonna be, having everybody just accept certain "facts" that were presented by "real" scientists, sort out those who are "real" scientists too and let them speak, not have anybody talk at all ... ?
Personally, I have a german masters-degree in social science and spent quite some time talking with people from various branches of the academic way on what they do and how they go about it. If I wanted, I could go for a doctorate now and be part of a research group that eventually presents it's findings in one way or another, hell I even have already published a couple articles.
I still don't feel like some sort of source for an ultimate and undoubtable knowledge and neither do the professors I worked with. When I say that real scientists cook with water too, I mean to say that this is really just a job like any other:
Scientists fail, scientists revise others and themselves, scientists are under pressure to come up with something presentable, if under contract by a certain agency even something "useful", scientist work disciplinary and thus can only present a small cut of the bigger picture whatever issue they are working on. Lastly scientists are also highly biased. The credo of "objectivity" has long been discarded for many real scientists since in the end every finding is really a matter of how and why you present it.
The study at hand is an excellent example for this. I don't really know anything about it's background but (not even knowing much about statistics) I already wondered about how they drew that line of best fit straight through all those dots. Also, I assumed the study would claim (and "prove") that religious people are less intelligent ... Along comes acelink, who also seems to know something about this stuff, presents a couple graphics that make the findings look totally different to me and points out just a few differences in wording that make the whole study express something much less definite.
Western science is a very useful tool but it has somehow taken the place of religion for many out there: Scientists are the high-priests of the cult, their studies are seen to reflect a higher truth and meaning, the common man is to freeze in awe and direct his whole life according to the commandments. As a knowledge-regime the scientific worldview has also come to discredit paralleling interpretations of the world and effectively functions as a dogma in many cases.
But scientists are not highpriests with an entitlement to higher truth ... really, they are just people like you and me that can make (in the truest sense of the phrase) an educated guess.
The very basis of the scientific method - the experiment - shows that pretty clearly: A bunch of try and error guesses that (hopefully) eventually result in some kind of case.
