…and this is a 
Sinners in the hands of an angry phantasm
Category: Godlessness
Posted on: August 19, 2006 1:15 PM, by PZ Myers
Hank Fox just dropped me a line mentioning an older article he'd found, as something I might want to blog about. Yes, it was—I wrote about it sometime ago, and here it is again. The article Hank found is also worth reading, with a strong conclusion:
Despite all its fine words, religion has brought in its wake little more than violence, prejudice and sexual disease. True morality is found elsewhere. As UK Guardian columnist George Monbiot concluded in his review of Gregory Paul's study, "if you want people to behave as Christians advocate, you should tell them that God does not exist."
It's a very cool article—it had the religious up in arms, because it flat out demonstrates that belief in God does not confer any social advantages, and is actually a net detriment to a culture.
Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.
The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.
“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.
“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”
Now, to be fair, I don't think this necessarily says that being religious is bad for the individual; it's just not good for a culture. I also think it's a bit sweeping in associating these ills with religious belief in general, because the US is afflicted with particularly malignant forms of religion (and at the root, the problem may not be religion itself, but irrationality and anti-intellectualism and ignorance, something our country has in volume). On the other hand, countries with more traditional religions also seem to have some serious problems (who knew Portugal was such a mess?).
But heck yeah, it seems obvious to me that if you base national policy on pious ignorance and the low-rent tribal power fantasies of a bronze-age gang of thugs, you're not going to cope well with the real issues of a modern pluralist society.
Here's some of the data, correlating god-belief with homicide rates and mean life expectancy. That little "U" that's typically floating off by itself as an outlier (and not on the good side) is us.
C = Canada
D = Denmark
E = Great Britain
F = France
G = Germany
H = Holland
I = Ireland
J = Japan
L = Switzerland
N = Norway
P = Portugal
R = Austria
S = Spain
T = Italy
U = United States
W = Sweden
Z = New Zealand
(via Omniorthogonal)
I've noticed that a few people are freaking out over this study, and are in denial. Mostly it is because they are misinterpreting it; it does not say that if you believe in God, you will get an abortion and start murdering strangers. It says that prevalent god-belief in a culture does not discourage that sort of behavior, and that more secular societies are clearly not hotbeds of sin and corruption.
If the data showed that the U.S. enjoyed higher rates of societal health than the more secular, pro-evolution democracies, then the opinion that popular belief in a creator is strongly beneficial to national cultures would be supported. Although they are by no means utopias, the populations of secular democracies are clearly able to govern themselves and maintain societal cohesion. Indeed, the data examined in this study demonstrates that only the more secular, pro-evolution democracies have, for the first time in history, come closest to achieving practical “cultures of life” that feature low rates of lethal crime, juvenile-adult mortality, sex related dysfunction, and even abortion. The least theistic secular developing democracies such as Japan, France, and Scandinavia have been most successful in these regards. The non-religious, pro-evolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator. The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted. Contradicting these conclusions requires demonstrating a positive link between theism and societal conditions in the first world with a similarly large body of data - a doubtful possibility in view of the observable trends.
Why this should be triggering such knee-jerk antipathy is a mystery to me; is denying the efficacy of religion and the perfection of American society, and providing evidence for same, such a horrifying idea to people? Apparently, it is.
Comments
But but but... that's BLASPHEMY!!!
Posted by: Steve_C | August 19, 2006 1:25 PM
I think that the proper interpretation of the study is that religious belief is neither necessary nor sufficient for cultural well-being. The big problem with social studies like these are controls; who knows how bad (or good) the US would be without religion. It does certainly does demolish the notion of religion being a panacea for cultural ills, or in atheism leading to widespread cultural degradation.
Posted by: Shygetz | August 19, 2006 1:33 PM
"Why this should be triggering such knee-jerk antipathy is a mystery to me"
Aren't you being a bit disingenuous here, PZ? I'm sure you could hazard the same guess I would: by undercutting religionists' claims to superior ethics, this study suggests that societies are better off without religion: therefore, being a good American is in conflict with being a Christian and supporting the growth of Christian churches.
Posted by: JakeB | August 19, 2006 1:34 PM
What is with Denmark, low belief and early death....?
Also putting out murder rate on its own is a rather deceiving figure. You really need to include or compare with suicides, (not the legal ones done in old-age or with a terminal illness), as this is another form agression takes. Some societies tend to internalize their agression and commit suicide, other tend towards acting out and knock of a neighbour.
Posted by: oldhippie | August 19, 2006 1:38 PM
But John F. Kippley says people won't behave unless you threaten them with punishment after death. How could you contradict such a knowledgable authority?
Posted by: quork | August 19, 2006 1:39 PM
But suicide isn't immoral. Murder is.
Posted by: j | August 19, 2006 1:41 PM
That comment was in response to oldhippie.
Posted by: j | August 19, 2006 1:42 PM
"But suicide isn't immoral. Murder is."
That depends if you are relious or not!
Niether is living to an old age a moral issue. But suicide is a way agression in some societies shows, murder is another. They both involve taking life prematurely and are an indication of some kind of societal disfunction. Using one figure without the other is misleading. It was used a lot many years ago to paint socialist Sweden as a very undesirable place compared with America. If they had added in the murder rate it would have shown a different picture.
Posted by: oldhippie | August 19, 2006 1:53 PM
Oh, I thought the murder rate was shown in order to reflect that religiosity does not necessarily correlate with moral behavior. I agree with you that suicide is an internally directed aggression; I'm not sure whether I agree that it is indicative of societal dysfunction. But yes, it would be useful to know those statistics.
Posted by: j | August 19, 2006 1:57 PM
Suicide is often related to geography isn't it?
Countries with long winters have higher suicide rates.
I read that somewhere a long time ago. Don't quote me.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 19, 2006 2:00 PM
The original study also considers suicide, and many other things.
http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/pdf/2005-11.pdf
Posted by: oldhippie | August 19, 2006 2:03 PM
O'Brien means leave the statistics to christian statisticians. That's who did the "debunking".
Posted by: Steve_C | August 19, 2006 2:13 PM
So sorry, but as I already informed Fox that "study" has been debunked. Leave statistics to statisticians, not a "freelance paleontologist, author and illustrator."
PAY ATTENTION, PZ. O'Brien is correct. This study is a statistical nightmare.
Even the Gallup organization can't tolerate it.
First. Paul claims that regressions and multivariate analyses were not used because 'causal factors for rates of societal function are complex', and because he finds enough uniformity across the cases of 18 of the world's most powerful societies to consider them basically consistent and not in need of control variables. Can he identify a single other study published in a major social scientific journal that compared results across countries that did not employ multivariate analysis to control for differences among nations? No, because multivariate analysis is required for cross-national comparisons of this sort.
Secondly. In order for the author's bold claims against religious commitment contributing to society to hold true, he would have to refute the hundreds of volumes that have proven otherwise. From discussions on parenting and fatherhood, to mental and physical health, the weight of empirical evidence is against Paul's assertions: religious commitment has notably positive effects on the individual and collective levels of human society. (http://magicstatistics.blogspot.com/2005/10/george-gallup-vindicates-statguy.html)
As for why the Danes are dying despite their low level of belief; Can you say "Euthanasia"? I KNEW you could!!!
Posted by: hoody | August 19, 2006 2:13 PM
O'Brien means leave the statistics to christian statisticians. That's who did the "debunking".
Ad hominem argument, Mr.Steve C. Refute the argument, not the arguer. Last I heard, the Gallup organization was not Christian.
Posted by: hoody | August 19, 2006 2:16 PM
Here is the Gallup criticism:
Gallup says that to draw conclusions about the effect of religion on a society, it is vital to look beneath the surface manifestations of religion, (such as, broad belief in God and attachment to religious traditions) and examine religious and spiritual belief and practice in depth. Deep spiritual commitment (as measured by a battery of carefully-tested and penetrating questions) contributes to a far healthier nation that would likely otherwise be the case.
"A mountain of survey data (from Gallup and other survey organizations) supports this statement. Controlling for education and other variables, persons who fit the category of "highly spiritually committed" are far less likely to engage in antisocial and irresponsible behavior than those less committed, and there are lower rates of crime, drinking and using drugs among this group. They are more hopeful about the future and experience greater joy in life. They contribute more time in helping people who are burdened with physical and emotional needs. They are less likely to be prejudiced against people of other races, and are more giving and forgiving. They have bucked the trend of many in society toward narcissism and hedonism."
"Teens with deep spiritual commitment are far more likely than their counterparts to be happy, goal-oriented, hopeful about the future, to see a reason for their existence, to do better in school work, to be less likely to get into trouble, and more likely to serve others," wrote Gallup.
"The percentage of persons who are deeply spiritually committed is small according to certain measurements...perhaps only a sixth of the population, or less...but their impact on life around them is profound. Clearly, then, the challenge to churches and other faith communities is to encourage deeper spiritual and religious commitment among the US populace."
However, one get the feeling he is religious, and he does not give links to the studies he quotes (a fatal flaw in any scientific argument - I have no doubt it exists, but the methododolgy could have been questionable). I read also the statistical criticisms of the study, and this was mainly that no correlation coefficents were generated. Whether the study is statistically significant is therefore in doubt.
However, one thing it CLEARLY shows is that there is no obvious positive correlation betweeen religion, low murder rate and long life, among others.
Posted by: oldhippie | August 19, 2006 2:18 PM
Despite all the silly denials of the Christian apologists and Robert "so dumb he has a stupidity award named after him" O'Brien, no, this study hasn't been invalidated. It makes only valid conclusions from quantifiable data. It says merely that more secular/less religious societies suffer no hardship for their relative lack of godliness, and countries with high levels of piety also seem to have remarkably high levels of amoral/criminal behavior. This contradicts the hypothesis that religion has a distinct benefit to a culture.
If you want to invalidate it, you'd have to either show that the US, for instance, actually isn't steeped in public displays of religion, or that we don't have an immense prison population and high rates of such things as teen pregnancy and homicide.
Whining that the author wasn't a professional statistician or that there are other analyses that could be done to try and salvage religion's reputation don't cut it. The major valid complaint I've seen is that the US is such a freaky outlier in all measures that it tends to skew the results...but that observation is a kick in the groin to the pious patriots of America, too.
Posted by: PZ Myers![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 19, 2006 2:19 PM
His link is to a devout Christian statistician. He's used to twisting reality to fit his belief system. Haven't read the Gallup link yet.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 19, 2006 2:20 PM
"the fact remains that the "study" is bogus" No! if you read the orginal and all the criticism nowhere is the study accused of being bogus.
By the way another study was done in the USA alone comparing religious states agains less religious ones and the results were stringinly similar. Anyone got a link to that?
Posted by: oldhippie | August 19, 2006 2:26 PM
PZ:
It makes only valid conclusions from quantifiable data.
Whatever. Correlation does not prove causation. You know this. Not to mention the refusal of Paul to run basic, fundamental multi-variate analyses, so that his basic premise can be upheld.
And so you can then uphold your faith in the horrors of religion.
OldHippie is correct in saying: one thing it CLEARLY shows is that there is no obvious positive correlation betweeen religion, low murder rate and long life, among others.
Now from my viewpoint, this is no surprise. Religion ought not to making claims that it CAN result in these idyllic states. Sadly, there are evangelical types that will claim the City of God can be built on earth.
They're wrong, of course. And moreso, in that they give PZ his ammunition to fulfill his faithful belief that religion is evil.
Posted by: hoody | August 19, 2006 2:27 PM
How dare you discard the arguments of others as being ad hominems when you say things like "Yes, an award that was granted by a college drop out/failed comedian/usurer?
That's not an exclamation of outrage -- I really want to know. How do you dare?
Posted by: Caledonian | August 19, 2006 2:28 PM
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3094
If you go here and read the actual story they quote (and not even the full letter to the times by Gallup)... Gallup didn't even do the analysis he left it to a Professor at Princton.
Also, he's comparing people with a "deep spiritual commitment" only 6% of the population to the overall population and claiming their own religious studies refute Paul's assertions. He even goes as far to say that the religious should seek deeper religious commitment.
Seems like Gallup has a stake in backing up his own studies and quite possibly his own faith.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 19, 2006 2:31 PM
As for why the Danes are dying despite their low level of belief; Can you say "Euthanasia"? I KNEW you could!!!
Yet another American confuses danish and dutch. Euthanasia is not (yet) legal in Denmark. Anyway, it is insane to believe that euthanasia could cause such a difference. Obviously, it does not affect the dutch numbers.
The reason danes die early is mostly tobacco and alcohol.
Posted by: Gunnar | August 19, 2006 2:33 PM
Dr. Dino is anti-religion?
Posted by: Steve_C | August 19, 2006 2:34 PM
My apologies, Gunnar. You are of course, correct.
Posted by: hoody | August 19, 2006 2:38 PM
Right, they are euthanizing their population at such a rate to show up on these charts and no one notices. Support for this statement please?
If one considers being a Christian a negative perhaps.
How is the study bogus? It simply shows that nations with less religiosity have fewer social ills. It doesn't necessarily mean religion is the cause but it is quite clear that it certainly isn't necessary for a moral society.
And wasn't it just you who said the following:
and then said:
Hypocrite? It doesn't change the fact he smelled out your weak 'arguments' and dismantled them for the world to see. Of course if he was a professional comedian you'd probably insult him for that as well. Whats wrong with being a usurer?
Posted by: JimC | August 19, 2006 2:40 PM
Gallup didn't even do the analysis he left it to a Professor at Princton. . .Seems like Gallup has a stake in backing up his own studies and quite possibly his own faith.
First of all, so what if he left his analysis to a Princeton professor? Do you really think George Gallup does all of his own analyses?
I'd like to see some real proof that Gallup is simply backing himself up. Otherwise, it looks like you're simply grabbing the first rock you can find and throwing it as far as you can.
Posted by: hoody | August 19, 2006 2:42 PM
It was a joke.
You're not the brightest bulb on Broadway are you?
Posted by: Steve_C | August 19, 2006 2:45 PM
Actually hoody you posted claims to a contrary study. Do you have links to these studies.
I'm not sure a deep spiritual committment makes any difference at all and it is likely that these same individuals would behave in the same reserved manner with or without it. Like I said previously religion in an individual isn't likely responsible in and of itself but the study does show it's not relotely necessary to have a moral society.
Which is enough in and of itself.
Posted by: JimC | August 19, 2006 2:46 PM
oldhippie wrote: What is with Denmark, low belief and early death....?
Reputedly it's the higher consumption of fat and alcohol and more smokers compared to other Nordic countries. Incidentally, they also have the happiest people according to surveys.
a delusional person wrote: As for why the Danes are dying despite their low level of belief; Can you say "Euthanasia"? I KNEW you could!!!
OR MAYBE THEY ARE CHOKING ON THE LEGOS!!!11!!
Posted by: windy | August 19, 2006 2:47 PM
Actually hoody you posted claims to a contrary study. Do you have links to these studies.. . .I did? I don't believe so.
Like I said previously religion in an individual isn't likely responsible in and of itself but the study does show it's not relotely necessary to have a moral society.
Let us assume that the above is, functionally true. (A stretch, but we'll go with it).
Where do those moral urges originate from? Follow that answer all the way out.
Now, if one wants to make the claim; "Religion -as practiced in much of late 20th and 21st Century America does little to add to the formation of a moral society", I might be able to get behind that, once we got a thorough definition of what "Religion -as practiced in much of late 20th and 21st Century America" actually looks like.
Posted by: hoody | August 19, 2006 2:50 PM
a delusional person wrote: As for why the Danes are dying despite their low level of belief; Can you say "Euthanasia"? I KNEW you could!!!
Bugger off, Windy. I admitted my error.
Posted by: hoody | August 19, 2006 2:52 PM
"Teens with deep spiritual commitment are far more likely than their counterparts to be happy, goal-oriented, hopeful about the future, to see a reason for their existence, to do better in school work, to be less likely to get into trouble, and more likely to serve others," wrote Gallup.
"The percentage of persons who are deeply spiritually committed is small according to certain measurements...perhaps only a sixth of the population, or less...but their impact on life around them is profound. Clearly, then, the challenge to churches and other faith communities is to encourage deeper spiritual and religious commitment among the US populace."
That's from Gallup. That's what he believes. Doesn't mean he's right.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 19, 2006 2:57 PM
The same place they as in all animal species where 'moral' behaviour has been observed. They are a byproduct of our evolutionary development.
Posted by: JimC | August 19, 2006 2:58 PM
The same place they as in all animal species where 'moral' behaviour has been observed. They are a byproduct of our evolutionary development.
Nah. Doesn't wash. And I think you know this.
Posted by: hoody | August 19, 2006 3:00 PM
How does he know this?
How does he get to this point objectively?
Posted by: JImC | August 19, 2006 3:01 PM
Wow. You can deny science and logic and read someone's mind.
Amazing.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 19, 2006 3:02 PM
Doesn't wash? Why wouldn't it wash? It is essentially the only logical choice as well as the only one backed by any evidence whatsoever.
If not from our evolutionary origins where then did it come from hoody?
Posted by: JImC | August 19, 2006 3:04 PM
He doesn't. That was my point.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/18/194411/647
I think it's clear he has an agenda.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 19, 2006 3:07 PM
Oh wait a minute Robert 'I'm so stupid I have an award named after me' O'brien and hoody apparently think it's leg pulling to think our morality is tied in with our evolutionary development and instead think an invisible being created a variety of contradictory religions to help people be moral.
And of course that seems much better and consistent to them.
Good grief.
Posted by: GH | August 19, 2006 3:07 PM
This study does not say religion is a horror. It says that religiosity does not prevent horror.
There is a difference, you know. Or maybe you don't.
It's also an observation that does not require elaborate statistics. I could, for instance, look out my window once, see that the sky is blue, and report that; telling me that I need to do some multivariate statistics with samples from Mombasa, Antarctica, and Vladivostok would not change the facts. Similarly, this study refutes the religious claim that religion confers moral behavior on a population. It clearly does not, unless, of course, you try to define moral behavior as religious behavior.
Posted by: PZ Myers![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 19, 2006 3:08 PM
Can anyone list a society in past history, outside of the supposed example of the USA, as an outstanding example of one that has benefited positively by being predominately Christian or religious in relation to any other secular or other type of religious society?
Posted by: naturalist | August 19, 2006 3:12 PM
A quote from Gallup:
"I was drawn to the church and thought about being an Episcopal priest," said Mr. Gallup, whose deep bass voice would have rung appealingly from any pulpit. "But I decided Dad's field offered an opportunity to find truth, to see how people respond to God and to explore their religious lives. When I started surveying in the early 1950s, this was virgin territory."
Nah. He has no agenda.
PZ I think they'll keep holding their ears and saying "lalalalala I can't hear you lalalalala".
Posted by: Steve_C | August 19, 2006 3:15 PM
Nah. Doesn't wash. And I think you know this.
Pull the other leg.
This is seriously the best they can do? How hilarious.
Though it's probably unfair to use O'Brien and hoody as examples of the typical American religious mindset. But it's still hilarious.
Posted by: junk science | August 19, 2006 3:15 PM
Mr. O'Brien,
Where does this objective morality originate from?
Posted by: natuarlist | August 19, 2006 3:18 PM
Plato and Socrates?
Yeah, we haven't learned anything more about human behavior since then.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 19, 2006 3:20 PM
So you prefer the logical fallacy of the argument from authority. That's fine. Of course I would venture a guess had those two gentlemen known what we now know they wouldn't even agree with themselves.
But since everything for you was solved hundreds of years ago why bother?
Posted by: JImC | August 19, 2006 3:22 PM
Oh, that was painful, O'Brien. I might get a stitch in my side.
Posted by: junk science | August 19, 2006 3:23 PM
"Nah. Doesn't wash. And I think you know this."
I think you would have to back that up much better if you want anyone to think you are talking sense. I think gibbons may show family values that would put most Christians to shame for example, but I have not read enough about it to be sure. But what is clear if you study animal behaviour is that animals, just like us (after all we are related) have societies, enjoy friendships, compete and do many of the same things we do. There is even a rather touching story in Sapolsky's "a primates memoir", where a baboon puts himself in danger and faces off a lion to save two unrelated youngsters. Interestingly, in human society he would have got much accolade and status from that act, he did not in baboonville.
Posted by: oldhippie | August 19, 2006 3:25 PM
Well at least he gets to half. Answer the question Robert' award winner for stupidity' O'Brien. Where does this objective morality originate from?
Posted by: GH | August 19, 2006 3:26 PM
And where does this 'realm of ideas' come from?
Posted by: GH | August 19, 2006 3:30 PM
The Blue Fairy told him so.
Posted by: junk science | August 19, 2006 3:30 PM
And what organism or organ generates these ideas?
Posted by: naturalist | August 19, 2006 3:30 PM
PZ is not alone in maintaining that religion is evil.
And there is plenty of evidence to back it up - usually in thform of piled corpses.
Lets faceit, and I'll say it again:
All religions kill, or enslave, or torture.
To verify this, one need only read a very little history, or contemporary newspaper reports.
At this point, an excuse is always presented by the 'believers':
"They are ( or were ) not PROPER Christians / Muslims / Marxists / etc. .... We're different!"
Oh, yeah?
O.S.D. is still part of the Roman Catholic church, isn't it? Is Ian Paisley a Christian minister, or not? Are the Persian and Taliban ayatollahs clerics, or not? Were Stalin, Mao Zhedong and Pol Pot Marxists, or not?
Besides which, if these, and similar cases, are, or were not "proper believers", why do those proper believers never, ever do anything about it, except whinge?
Furthermore...
All religions are blackmail, and are based on fear and superstition.
Religion offers a supposed comfort-blanket, or carrot to the believers, and waves a stick at the unbelievers.
"Do as we say, and you'll go to heaven, don't do as we say, and you'll go to hell." What they conveniently leave out here is the unspoken threat, which is only made manifest in those societies which are theocracies: "If you don't do as we say, we can make sure you go to hell really painfully, and quickly."
Thus all "priests" are liars and/or blackmailers. They may not be deliberate liars, but nonetheless, they are telling untrue fairy-stories.
Fear of exclusion from the community, in one form or another, is a standard part of the power-structure of any religion or cult. Excommunication, anathema, banishment, exile, fatwah, etc, ... Fear of entry being refused in "the next world", or "the community of saints", or "the party". Fear of real physical punishment by the "secular arm", the NKVD, the Saudi religious police, or whomsoever the current set of spiritual thought police happen to be.
Posted by: G. Tingey | August 19, 2006 3:35 PM
How do you know that they exist outside of any organic source? Do you have experimental proof and evidence that cann be duplicated?
Posted by: naturalist | August 19, 2006 3:35 PM
Ahh I see. So even though organisms are making use of them they are kinda like floating around out there in a variety of forms.
So how do they make there way into an organism?
Posted by: GH | August 19, 2006 3:35 PM
R. O'Brien is aying that ideas exist independantly of any organic source ???
What is he using for a brain?
And where can he produce evidence for this lunacy?
Posted by: G. Tingey | August 19, 2006 3:37 PM
All ideas have an organic source.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 19, 2006 3:37 PM
They exist independently of any organic source.
May we ask what you think the source *is*?
Posted by: George Cauldron![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 19, 2006 3:40 PM
Posted by: horrobin | August 19, 2006 3:47 PM
"May we ask what you think the source *is*?"
Well of course! When you think "wow that person looks like a great mate" it is clearly cupid and his arrow,
when you think "oh my gosh I could do a drug run and get rich" it comes from satan and and when you think "let me help that little old lady" it comes from a passing angel. Doesn't everyone know that?
Posted by: oldhippie | August 19, 2006 3:47 PM
Mr. O'Brien, I am a curious also what language these non-organic ideas are written or recorded in? Are they universally translatable to every human that has lived or just for a chosen portion of humanity at a certain time?
Posted by: natuarlist | August 19, 2006 3:51 PM
Mathematics are symbols and equations that humans have developed to understand nature. How could they exist outside of the minds that formulated them and also again how would we know with certainity that mathematics exist beyond empircal evidence?
Posted by: natuarlist | August 19, 2006 3:58 PM
"A good example is Mathematics. Mathematical concepts would still exist even if there were no humans or other life forms to appreciate them."
If they are so seperate from humans, how come we are so hung up on a decimal system. For example a system based on 12 units would give a lot more flexibility (divisible in more ways) mathematically, but there again we don't have twelve fingers.
Posted by: oldhippie | August 19, 2006 4:03 PM
How do you know that they exist outside of any organic source?
A good example is Mathematics. Mathematical concepts would still exist even if there were no humans or other life forms to appreciate them.
That's changing the subject, since no one was *asking* about Mathematics. I hope you're not trying to imply that your system of moral values would still exist if there were no humans or life forms to appreciate them.
Posted by: George Cauldron![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 19, 2006 4:05 PM
Knowledge must be provisional since how can we know we have arrived at the whole truth since we are privy to only a minute fraction of the universe we live in? Ideas(as far as we know) are not some amorphous energy that floats in the 'ether" waiting for a willing receipent to appear but are concepts that have originated in the organs, our brains, that have developed them.
Posted by: naturalist | August 19, 2006 4:08 PM
anybody else notice that this is the same Greg Paul whose ideas on paleophysiology featured prominently in the comments on the post called "Dinosaur Lungs," below?
...and I thought the Candyland thing was funny.
Posted by: CCP | August 19, 2006 4:09 PM
I hope you're not trying to imply that your system of moral values would still exist if there were no humans or life forms to appreciate them.
I am.
I assume the moral values of others who disagree with you also qualify for this unique status?
If not, why not?
The concept of 10, say, is independent of a particular representation such as decimal or binary.
This was a completely irrelevant answer, BTW.
Posted by: George Cauldron![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 19, 2006 4:12 PM
"The concept of 10, say, is independent of a particular representation such as decimal or binary."
This idea you have that concepts such as mathematics or morals have existance outside those that use and practice them is bizarre. If you want us to follow your logic you will have to explain on what evidence you base this conclusion and how it can be tested.
Posted by: oldhippie | August 19, 2006 4:13 PM
I think this is O'Brien's logic:
1) concepts can exist independently of any people to think of them
2) my set of religious/moral beliefs is an idea
3) therefore, my set of religious/moral beliefs exists independently of any people to think of them
Posted by: George Cauldron![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 19, 2006 4:16 PM
I can see that natural selection through trial and error must have selected for optimal "numbers" of things to ensure survival and reproduction but that is not the same as a mathematical concept at least as we understand it. It has made me think about this question a little harder! I do not require some supernatural explanation to satisfy me though. It is something that we just don't understand yet about the depths of natural processes.
Posted by: naturalist | August 19, 2006 4:18 PM
But why should he have to explain anything, oldhippie, when you could just read The Republic yourself and learn everything there is to know about philosophy?
Posted by: junk science | August 19, 2006 4:19 PM
Were these moral precepts/ideas just "floating" around for billions of years waitnig for the "right" organism to find them?
Posted by: naturalist | August 19, 2006 4:22 PM
Poster "J" talks about "immoral" and "moral behavior", both terms which have no meaninge except to godophiles.
There are many interesting sites about violence and crime statistics. One is
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/overview.htm
"The southern regions historically have had higher homicide rates than other regions". In other words, The Bible Belt.
Secular European countries like France have about seven times fewer homicides than the U.S. and about 7 times fewer people in jail or prison.
Let's not jump to any conclusions. I am just saying.
One could ask the question though about how America manages to create so many "criminals".
Posted by: bernarda | August 19, 2006 4:22 PM
To take a classic example, when did the idea of a horse come to existence? What about the idea of a whale?
Posted by: windy | August 19, 2006 4:22 PM
Mathematical concepts are comprehensible because we have formulated ideas to make them so. Can not this idea that there is a design behind what we see also be a subjective assertion? We see design and symmetry because our minds have come to appreciate it as "designed" by what was revealed and understood to us as our minds evolved?
We have no way to prove that anything we see in the natural world had a designer no matter how much we choose to believe this. There are no manufacturers labels that we have found which suggests a designer and builder.
Posted by: naturalist | August 19, 2006 4:33 PM
So which ideas did or did not exist bobbing around out in the ether 10 billion years ago? Communism? The Dewey Decimal System? Hinduism? Scientology?
Posted by: George Cauldron![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 19, 2006 4:38 PM
Why would a God who wishes us to worship and obey "him" make it so hard to recognize that he exists? Wouldn't such a creator want himself to be easily acknowledged? Why all the obtuse and convoluted mechanisms to find this "truth"?
Posted by: naturalist | August 19, 2006 4:41 PM
I hesitate to get involved here, but I skimmed Scott Gilbreath's criticism of the actual paper to see what all the kerfuffle was about, and it seems to me that the criticism is somewhat valid.
Gilbreath makes some very interesting points regarding the style of the paper and how it was presented in the Times article. While important to consider, this is relatively trivial. Sadly, no newspaper article seems to be able to present ideas like this in any reasonable way. Reports on social or cultural studies are often the worse for logical fallacies and misdirection introduced (on purpose or not) by reporters.
This, however, is not his main arguments, which he delivers in much the same way Gould would when presented with statistical evidence. That is, he looked at the statistical methodology (or methodologies) and determined if they were correct applications for the dataset.
Gilbreath makes some very good points about how the data was chosen (there is no explanation why the countries chosen were chosen). Were countries deliberately cherry-picked for some reason? We don't know, and the paper does not make this obvious. Also, as many of us have had a (rather macabre!) laugh over, there are obvious differences when plotting otherwise "similar" country data (i.e., Denmark vs. Sweden). Paul assumes that all theses countries can be considered "equivalent" for the purposes of his discussion, but never fully explains why this might be so.
There are many, many potential differences between countries as we all know. Something as simple as a different health care system, or liquor and smoking restrictions can have a dramatic affect on something like life expectancy. While this is the most obvious, the problem is that there may be other less obvious "externalities" that skew the data, and we would not be aware of the skew.
Similarly, one of the first questions I asked when I saw the resulting graphs was, "how are they determining a level of piety"? I mean, differences in churches, religious statutes, language, education can all effect the understanding and expression of an essentially philosophical matter.
At the very least, this makes comparing the US (or even Canada) with their long history of colonial christianity and a country like Japan, which has a completely different history and resulting approach to notions of godhead and belief very difficult.
Likewise, different nations collect statistics on violent crimes in very different ways. Both Canada and the US are famous for presenting numbers on violent crime in suspect ways, some say to diminish or exaggerate such crimes as the state sees fit. If we are not sure about the numbers we are comparing for the various axes are comparable, it throws the confidence of the whole presentation into question.
This is the main reason for the argument for multi-variant techniques, which is so common when comparing cross-cultural or international data that it is conspicuous by its absence here.
So, if indeed this study shows a strong correlation between something called belief and things determined to be social ills, we want to be sure that we know what the things called "belief" and "social ills" actually represent. Only then can we compare these things in a cross-cultural (and I argue that things like "social ills" and "belief" are cultural, and will exhibit cultural differences even among a larger group of otherwise similar "fundamentals") manner.
What, exactly, this correlation actually "means" is another question altogether.
As you can tell, I'm not a big fan of these sorts of cultural research projects. I've lived long enough to see all sorts of bogus ideas promulgated by some study or another (we all remember /The Bell Curve/, right?) that appears to point out some obvious social problem. Whether the idea is that white kids are naturally smarter than their more beige brethren, or that religion makes a society more likely to kill each other, we should rightly be suspicious of any such assumptions based on running numbers through a variety of statistical models.
In my experience, these things are often way more complex than this, and that when we are trying to describe the things people do (especially those "hot button" things we all have strong emotions about) we should be very careful about how we slice through that data. At the very least it can lead to misleading Times articles.
At worst, it can devolve into simply reinforcing the same weak prejudices we are all susceptible to.
Full disclosure: I consider myself a secular humanist, and need no gods or masters to allow me to be a moral person. However, I'm no fan of weak science (or math) and I think we all owe it to ourselves to be less credulous about studies like this. If the evidence and methodologies are sound, they will prevail.
I wouldn't be surprised if piety, as expressed in some cultures, *is* responsible for many social ills. Any high-minded philosophies are dangerous in the extreme or when ill-fitted to a particular society. I just want evidence of such to be sound and presented in a responsible way.
Posted by: clvrmnky | August 19, 2006 4:47 PM
*wiping lemonade from monitor... thanks, George
Posted by: RedMolly | August 19, 2006 4:48 PM
This reeks of an appeal to another way of knowing.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp |