Apr 27, 2012 -- 9:52AM, McAtheist wrote:

We often note on this board how strong YEC beliefs and solid scientific thinking are rarely found together.  Well, it turns out that our anecdotal evidence is backed by some actual scientific research, published in Science and reported online in Time:

"Intuitive thinkers are more likely to be religious; analytical types, less so ... For instance, the commonly held belief that the mind and soul are distinct from the body stems from intuition. “It is not based in logic or reason. That’s not why people find this compelling,” says Norenzayan.

There are a couple of problems with your claims:
1. A person can be religious without being a creationist
2. Science requires both intuition and analytical thinking.  Making a hypothesis in the first place is a product of imagination/intuition.
3. Most scientists thru the centuries have also been religious.  Even today most scientists believe in God.

So the study's attempt to have "analytical thinking" be "non-religious" and "intuitive thinking" be "religious" fails other testing.  I need to read the actual paper, but I suspect the methodology is flawed.  It looks to me at first reading of an atheist trying to misuse science to back his faith.

Does this explain why members of the YEC team refuse to ever dispassionately examine the alleged evidentiary basis of their "model?  Does it help explain why YECs will swallow the most nonsensical pseudo-scientific swill like Walt Brown's nonsense but ignore the overwhelming amounts of real data that contradicts their peculiar reading of Genesis?

No, it doesn't.   The best explanation I have found of why YECs behave as you outlined is given in this essay: theologytoday.ptsem.edu/oct1982/v39-3-ar...

It has to do with statements of ultimate meaning.  Creationists have tied their statements of ultimate meaning to a very testable reading of Genesis.  When testing falsifies the reading, then their statements of ultimate meaning are also threatened.

Please be sure to read the second half of the essay.  It explains why scientists sometimes respond very emotionally and "intuitively" to some creationist arguments.  It is because those particular arguments threaten our statements of ultimate meaning: in this case that science is a reliable means of getting accurate information.  I have had to train myself to suppress my emotional response when I encounter those arguments.  So the reaction of unreason and emotion is not confined to creationists.

Are YECs ashamed of the way they arrived at their conclusions?

  Sometimes, yes. You can see this in the way they project their weaknesses onto evolution.