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Retraction of “Declines in Religiosity Predict Increases in Violent Crime—but Not Among Countries With Relatively High Average IQ”

Clark and colleagues requested that this article be retracted out of concern that some of the measures used in the research were invalid. Specifically, they note that the National IQ data used in their analyses, largely based on Lynn and Vanhanen’s (2012) compilation, are plagued by lack of representativeness of the samples, questionable support for some of the measures, an excess of researcher degrees of freedom, and concern about the vulnerability of the data to bias. They also noted that the cross-national homicide data used in the research are unreliable, given that many countries included in the data set provided no actual data on homicides that had occurred. Instead, in these countries, homicide rates were estimated on the basis of other variables that may or may not be closely related to homicide rates. Importantly, some of the variables used to create the estimates were confounded with variables of interest in the research. When the authors reanalyzed the data without the imputed values, the reported effects were no longer apparent. In the conclusion of their request for retraction, the authors reflected that although articles with certain types of errors may still be helpful to have in the literature, they do not believe theirs falls into that category. They explicitly expressed concern that leaving the article in the literature could “prolong the use of Lynn & Vanhanen’s cross-national IQ measures.” As Editor of Psychological Science, I have decided to honor the authors’ request and retract this article. I hope that this action on the part of the authors and the journal will encourage all researchers to exercise extreme care in selection and use of the data sets on which they base their analyses, conclusions, and interpretations. Critiques of Lynn and Vanhanen’s (2012) National IQ data were available in the literature prior to the publication of Clark et al. (2020). It is unfortunate that these critiques were not consulted, thereby potentially avoiding publication and the necessity for retraction. —Patricia J. Bauer Editor in Chief