Ecological fallacies and studies of religion

I've recently seen several studies that look at correlates of religiousness and various social maladies in different population areas (e.g., countries, states).

The chart below, for example, looks at levels of religiousness an poverty, crime, divorce, and health.  Lo and behold, the more religious states are the worst off on most these measures.  A naive interpretation of these might hold that religion creates social maladies.

This brings us to the concept of an ecological fallacy.  Basically, population-level correlations do not need to hold at the individual-level.  From Wikipedia:  "The term comes from a 1950 paper by William S. Robinson.^[4] For each of the 48 states in the US as of the 1930 census, he computed the literacy rate and the proportion of the population born outside the US. He showed that these two figures were associated with a positive correlation of 0.53 — in other words, the greater the proportion of immigrants in a state, the higher its average literacy. However, when individuals are considered, the correlation was −0.11 — immigrants were on average less literate than native citizens. Robinson showed that the positive correlation at the level of state populations was because immigrants tended to settle in states where the native population was more literate. He cautioned against deducing conclusions about individuals on the basis of population-level, or "ecological" data."

As such, the chart below does find correlations between religiousness and various maladies, but that is not necessarily evidence that a person who becomes religious than experiences more of these maladies.  For example, the best available individual-level evidence shows us that:

* Religiousness is correlated with significantly less crime

* Religiousness is correlated with lower divorce rates

There is certainly nothing wrong at looking at population-level correlations, we just need to realize what we can, and can not, learn from them.

Thank you Carson!

It's hard to be a rebel in mom's minivan (pic)

I love this "demotivational" poster....  I don't know how, yet, but I'm going to work it into an intro sociology lecture.

Smackdown Christianity

An article in the New York Times last week described a group of Christian ministries based on mixed martial arts.  One of these ministries has the motto: “Where Feet, Fist and Faith Collide.”  This type of ministry, according to the article, "is part of a larger and more longstanding effort on the part of some ministers who fear that their churches have become too feminized, promoting kindness and compassion at the expense of strength and responsibility."

I can see that it has a place in the church, as long as MMA are legal and has fans, but it doesn't particularly appeal to me, though that's probably because I'm too old.  Maybe I need a ministry based on mixed photographic arts?


Thanks David!

Azelea blooms on a wall (pic)

(Not) measuring religion on the U.S. Census

The U.S. Census, which is coming up this year, does not measure people's religion, but it turns out that wasn't always the case.  In the 1800s, it included some interviews of clergy about their flocks, and this provides a statistical portrait of U.S. religion at that time, and this type of information was collected through the middle of last century. (Rodney Stark and Roger Finke have made good use of these data in various publications.)

I have periodically wondered about the history of religion and the census, and so I was interested to find this summary in a Pew Foundation report.

A bright side of not having Census data about religion is that Pew and the American Religious Identification Survey have stepped in and collected regular, large-scale surveys about American's religious affiliation and beliefs, and they collect richer data (albeit from a sample) than the Census would have.

In praise of clergy

As a follow up to Monday's post, I have long thought that clergy members are consistently among the most moral, loving people that I know. I had a conversation a few weeks ago that reminded me of this.

A local church as quite a bit of woods on its property, and it's not far from the high school. I was talking to the pastor, and he told me of going out into the woods and finding some high school kids smoking dope in a clearing. What did he do? Call the cops, yell at them, tell them to get out? No, he went to strike up a conversation to start "building a relationship" with them. His goal was to be a positive influence in their lives.

Cool.

Breaking news: Priest does something wrong!

What makes a news story interesting? One thing is if it is unexpected (e.g., man bites dog rather than dog bites man.) When it comes to religion and crime, this means that its very "interesting" when people who we don't expect to do wrong actually do so.

Here's a fine example. I read in the paper recently about a Catholic priest in Illinois who shoplifted butter and a sofa cover at Walmart. He also switched pricetags on a pricier item.

According to this site, there is over 30 billion dollars of retail loss every year, probably a lot from shoplifting. So why in the world would a newspaper in Connecticut publish information about a minor shoplifting case in Illinois?

The media's proclivity for highlighting religion-crime stories skews people's perspective on the matter. In fact, studies have found that religion is associated with less criminal behavior, and I would venture that priests shoplift less than most segments of society. Still, from the media, we can incorrectly conclude that religion is associated with high rates of crime.

Dilbert on the media

This pretty much summarizes my attitude toward many media stories involving social science:

"Reporters are faced with the daily choice of painstakingly researching stories or writing whatever people tell them. Both approaches pay the same." Scott Adams (from a Dilbert cartoon)

Horse running (pic)

Dog vs. cat people

Last year we bought a dog--an adorable miniature poodle named "Attila." She's smart, personable, and just a lot of fun. So, it did not surprise me when I read about this study regarding the difference between dog and cat people. It did an on-line survey using standard psychological personality measures, and it concluded that dog and cat people are indeed different. From the article:

"In a paper to be published later this year in the journal Anthrozoös, Sam Gosling finds that those who define themselves as "dog people" are more extraverted, more agreeable and more conscientious than self-described "cat people."

Fans of felines, on the other hand, are more neurotic but also more open than their canine-loving counterparts."

This doesn't surprise me at all, but then again I like dogs a lot more than cats. (T-shirt: "I like cats, I just can't eat one all by myself.")

There is the issue of causation vs. selection here. Does having a cat make you neurotic or do neurotic people buy cats? Also, what happens to people who have both a cat and a dog. Do they get the best of both? The worst of both?

For me being around cats predicts being very anti-social, but that's just because I'm in the bathroom blowing my nose and washing my face trying to undo an allergic reaction.

BTW, as I write this, Attila is jumping on me, loving on me--giving evidence for causation.

Um, not sure this is why I blog

Google analytics and other services tell you how people find your blog. Many of the people who read the blog come across it using a Google or other search. The other day, I happened to notice that someone found my blog with the following search: "How to kill someone and get away with it."

Okay, why is this person searching for this information, and how did they end up on my blog?

(Actually, it was in reference to this previous post).

Hey, I wrote a book!

In December, 2008, I was contacted by Bethany House Publishing (an imprint of Baker Publishing) and asked if I was interested in writing about book about Christianity and statistics. I said yes, and after a gazillion hours of researching, writing, and editing, my book is coming out on July 1st.

Here's the Amazon page for it, and it's entitled: "Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...and Other Lies You've Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media."
I'm not sure that I would have chosen that title myself, especially the first part of it, for it has a more harsh tone than the book itself... but one of the things that I learned in the process is that authors don't get much say over titles.

The biggest surprise for me was how much I enjoyed the whole book-writing process as opposed to writing articles. There is something about having someone already agreeing to publish the book that makes it possible to sink a lot of time into it with a good attitude. The ambiguity of publishing an article--basically writing it on spec--has a very difficult feel.

Also, it was fun writing with a much more informal tone.

Given how much I enjoyed it, I'm very glad that I have a contract for a second book from Bethany House. This one is tentatively entitled: "Leadership Lessons from Pirates."

ee cummings quotation

To be nobody but yourself in a world that is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.

- ee cummings

Sunset on Horsebarn Hill (pic)

Religious and spiritual experiences

Here's a table from a Pew Foundation report that suggests that Americans are more frequently having religious and spiritual experiences.

Any thoughts as to why?



(thanks David)

Curing Christians' Stats Abuse by Ed Stetzer

Ed Stetzer, of Lifeway Research, has just published a great article in Christianity Today about Christianity and statistics. It's entitled "Curing Christians' Stats Abuse" but it subtitle is even more telling: "The statistics we most love to repeat may be leading us to make bad choices about the church."

Some of the best-known, most frequently-repeated stats about U.S. Christianity also happen to be factually incorrect. Stetzer focuses on those involving church growth, but there are numerous other examples.

His article is definitely worth a read.

UConn Women's Basketball

USA Today had a fun article about the UConn woman's basketball team. This is how good they are:

* They have won the last 57 games in a row, and it has won every game by 10 points or more.
* They led one game this season by 72 points
* They hasn't allowed an opponent to shoot above 50% in a game since 2004
* They have not lost two games in a row since... 1993
* They average 47 points in the first half... and give up an average of 45 points for the whole game

Also, the coach is hilariously sarcastic.

Ah yes, memberships has its benefits

How to grade papers more efficiently

Grading papers can be rather boring; in fact, take away grading and committee meetings, and being a professor might be the perfect job.

Here's an approach to grading that is both scientific and really quick. You can read about it here, but I'll post one photo that demonstrates the method.


I may have to try it.

Any other grade-quick schemes?

(Thanks Jeff!)

The practice of Christianity as a beautiful mess

Various stereotypes and images exist of Christians and their practice of faith. The image I have of Christians who take their faith deeply serious is one of a beautiful mess.... They do great things with great passion and sometimes suffer great setbacks.

For example, here are some biographical details about Christian author Brennan Manning:
- Catholic priest
- spiritual director
- campus minister
- graduate student in creative writing
- member of an order that lived an "uncloistered, contemplative life among the poor." Manual labor by day, silence and prayer at night
- water carrier to rural villages
- voluntary prisoner in a Swiss jail
- six months of contemplative seclusion in a desert cave
- founder of an intentional community in Alabama, based on the primitive life of the Franciscans
- collapse into alcoholism followed by six months of treatment
- husband (after he left the priesthood)
- speaker, writer

Wow! So much good, some real bad. This fits with my own experiences that when my faith is going well, it's two steps forward and one step back. (Reverse this for when things are going badly)


(Description taken from his book Abba's child)

Horsebarn Hill barn (pic)

Jacobsen Barn, at the entrance of UConn