...if you pick a stupid prior, you can get
a stupid posterior...
Christensen, R., Johnson, W., Branscum, A., & Hanson, T. E. (2011).
Bayesian ideas and data analysis: An introduction for scientists and
statisticians.
RMJ, did a post the other day that examines one of Amanda Marcotte's pieces on Alternet-Salon, one in the atheist triumphant mode, claiming that they're about to take over, man. Only, when you look at the quite doubt worthy basis of her claims, they don't exactly conform to the evidence. I'd say that to accept Allen Downey's conclusions - and they ain't exactly what Mandy Marcotte is peddling with the blessings of Alternet-Salon - you have to take a great deal on faith. His statistical analysis as he describes it begins with the question asked by the General Social Survey and the answers given by a whopping total of 9000 people. And, as these kinds of surveys go, you can be very religious and be claimed by the atheists as one of theirs, as Downey would seem to intend, though he goes to a great deal of trouble to muddy the waters, something which I'm rather disappointed to find that is one of the more common uses of statistical analysis of the kind he engages in.
Note how modest his claims for his much touted survey analysis are buried deep in his explanatory blog post.
My results suggest that Internet use might account for about 20% of the decrease in religious affiliation between 1990 and 2010, or about 5 million out of 25 million people.
Note that this result doesn't mean that 5 million people who used to be affiliated are now disaffiliated because of the Internet. Rather, my study estimates that if the Internet had no effect on affiliation, there would be an additional 5 million affiliated people.
In other words, he's talking about 0.016 of the population of the United States, who may or may not be religious but who, at the time of the survey, don't happen to be affiliated with any particular religious group. And he even excuses himself from that line of questioning at the very bottom of the post.
More questions
There is a difference between those who are religiously affiliated (belong to or active with a church, for example) and those who consider themselves spiritual or religious. Can you clarify what you’re talking about?
Yes, good point! My paper is only about religious affiliation, or religious preference. The GSS also asks about religious faith and spirituality, but I have not had a chance to do the same analysis with those variables.
I have seen other studies that suggest that belief in God, other forms of religious faith, and spirituality are not changing as quickly as religious affiliation. But I don't have a good reference handy.
Which, I'm not hesitant to point out, blows the atheist's claims for his results out of the water.
Looking around Downey's blog, it's pretty clear that he's dedicated to the war against religion, he's done many blog posts dedicated to the proposition that America is becoming less religious, placing his faith in the obviously unnuanced questioning of the GSS and similar surveys. reported in such a way as to give atheism any possible advantage, one that it doesn't seem to warrant in so far as it claims people who specifically declined to identify themselves as atheists or agnostics even as they declared themselves unaffiliated with any particular group. Spreading the good news of atheism is a sure way to generate attention for yourself and your papers. I would guess that this is the one thing in Downey's extensive career of writing books and papers that has gotten him popular attention. It's why someone like Marcotte could go from her long archive of angry 13-year-old level screechiness to getting republished by Salon from Alternet.
In one of my comments on Salon, I finally said what I think needs to be said, Amanda Marcotte is one of the David Dukes of atheism, and I don't mean when he's cleaning it up for PR purposes. And she's not the only one. The new atheism is a full blown hate group, addicted to distortion and lying and the mainstream media that pushes their stuff is not much different from those mainstream newspapers that pushed other forms of hate in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Marcotte proves the point that the only "knowledge" widely available on the Internet is the knowledge which confirms what any particular group wants to believe is true.
ReplyDeleteThere is good information out there, just as there was in libraries before computers; but as ever, finding it is just as difficult.
And for the umpteenth time (and without looking up all the supporting data because, hey, this isn't a scholarly journal! ;-) ), church attendance/participation has been on the decline in this country since I was a child.
ReplyDeleteIt's well documented that church attendance peaked after WWII in America, and starting sliding again in the '60's. For over 50 years the imminent demise of the mainline denominations has been expected, and for over 50 years it has stubbornly refused to come true. Does this mean people in America are more religious than ever? No! It means the easy "either/or" we like to apply to these societal questions, don't fit.
It isn't a matter of being atheist or Christian, it's a matter of being a believer, a non-believer, an atheist, an agnostic, an indifferent, a church member, a regular church goer, an attendee at Xmas and Easter (where the increase has been true since I was a child, and probably for 100 years before that, if not longer).
Hell, in the medieval era people used to race from church to church trying to witness the epiclesis, the moment of transubstantiation, when they thought the'd see the presence of God. P.G. Wodehouse memorialized something of the same idea in "The Great Sermon Handicap." The point being, people have attended church for centuries purely out of social obligation, not out of profound religious feeling; and if that obligation is weaker now than it was 60 years ago, that's really the only change visible in the world covered by these United States.
Mega-churches suck up people and flame out. Lynch Road Baptist church is probably still around, but it's not the church it was when Falwell was alive. Rick Warren's church is no longer the magnet it was; even Joel Osteen doesn't command as much attention as once he did. Mars Hill is shutting down, the Crystal Cathedral went to the Catholics, the Community Church of Joy long ago decided it might need to reconsider this whole "church growth" business, and even evangelicals have started pondering the wisdom of observing "Advent" if only to give the church year a bit more shape than waiting for the next revival and having the annual "Christmas Pageant with live nativity" that echoes the mystery plays of the medieval English church (irony of ironies).
There is, in other words (and sorry for the rant; this unlocked my word hoard) more complexity and history in this story than Amanda Marcotte and company can imagine. Their tiny imaginations, and even smaller bodies of knowledge, should really shame them into silence.
But I'm not counting on it.
When I found out that Rick Warren had officiated at the atheist icon, Bill Nye's wedding (YoYo Ma played also, too) I figured it was all show biz.
ReplyDeleteI think it's going to figure more in my blogging, identifying the haters of the new atheism with their allies, the other hate groups at large and flowering like poison plants all over the internet. I'd originally planned on posting on that topic today but I've had a set back.
Regarding Bill Nye's wedding: I'm not to sure people are all that wild about atheist funerals, either. We still like the trappings, if only for cultural reasons.
ReplyDelete