Author Topic: Atheism  (Read 179620 times)

Offline thejbs

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Atheism
« on: August 10, 2017, 02:17:23 pm »
I've encountered this a lot so it's not very surprising.

Atheists believed to be less moral, says study.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40856942?utm_content=buffered12a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Quote
Atheists "are broadly perceived as potentially morally depraved and dangerous" - even in secular countries.
According to a new study, some atheists even have an in-built "anti-atheist bias" when it comes to judging a person's morality.
But anti-atheist bias was strongest where there are high numbers of believers, like the United Arab Emirates, United States and India.
Only New Zealand and Finland did not exhibit a clear bias against atheists.

The study, put together by an international team and published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, took into account the responses of more than 3,000 people across 13 countries and five continents.

Those who took part were asked whether an imagined person, who tortured animals as a child before becoming a teacher and then killing five homeless people, was more likely to be religious or atheist.

Across the study group, it was found people were twice as likely to believe the killer was an atheist.

Study co-author Will Gervais, a psychology professor at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, told news agency AFP: "It is striking that even atheists appear to hold the same intuitive anti-atheist bias.

"I suspect that this stems from the prevalence of deeply entrenched pro-religious norms. Even in places that are currently quite overtly secular, people still seem to intuitively hold on to the belief that religion is a moral safeguard."
« Last Edit: August 10, 2017, 04:11:16 pm by thejbs »

Offline Jake

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #1 on: August 10, 2017, 02:22:20 pm »
I'm atheist, and I'm immoral ;D I guess the bible-bashers have got me there!
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Offline Xabi Gerrard

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #2 on: August 10, 2017, 02:41:14 pm »
I've encountered this a lot so it's not very surprising.

Atheists believed to be less moral, says study.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40856942?utm_content=buffered12a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer


That experiment is massively flawed.

You get deranged atheists and you get deranged religious people. Religion tends to channel their deranged 'believers' into certain types of heinous crime, such as blowing up school girls outside pop concerts. The heinous act described in the experiment happens to be one that deranged religious people don't tend to do (because their psychopathic tendencies have been channeled elsewhere).

Had the experiment described a suicide bomber targeting 12 year olds and asked people whether we thought it was an atheist or religious person who did it, most people would assume it was a religious person, hence finding that religious people were less moral.


Long story short, shit experiment.

Offline classycarra

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #3 on: August 10, 2017, 02:47:23 pm »
That experiment is massively flawed.

You get deranged atheists and you get deranged religious people. Religion tends to channel their deranged 'believers' into certain types of heinous crime, such as blowing up school girls outside pop concerts. The heinous act described in the experiment happens to be one that deranged religious people don't tend to do (because their psychopathic tendencies have been channeled elsewhere).

Had the experiment described a suicide bomber targeting 12 year olds and asked people whether we thought it was an atheist or religious person who did it, most people would assume it was a religious person, hence finding that religious people were less moral.


Long story short, shit experiment.

Sorry, but I'll go with the evidenced experiment over your assertions (for now).

Where's your evidence for the bolded part?

Offline DivisiveNewSigning

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #4 on: August 10, 2017, 02:54:39 pm »
That's the most stupid fucking experiment I've ever heard of.

Offline thejbs

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #5 on: August 10, 2017, 02:59:17 pm »
That experiment is massively flawed.

You get deranged atheists and you get deranged religious people. Religion tends to channel their deranged 'believers' into certain types of heinous crime, such as blowing up school girls outside pop concerts. The heinous act described in the experiment happens to be one that deranged religious people don't tend to do (because their psychopathic tendencies have been channeled elsewhere).

Had the experiment described a suicide bomber targeting 12 year olds and asked people whether we thought it was an atheist or religious person who did it, most people would assume it was a religious person, hence finding that religious people were less moral.


Long story short, shit experiment.

It's not flawed. By asking about suicide bombers you're automatically inserting religious leaning bias as, generally speaking, most modern-day suicide bombers aren't secular.

By keeping the questions religious neutral (serial killing, animal mutilation) they're able to get a more significant answer. 

And actually, a good number of notorious serial killers are religious or claim to be driven by visions.

Offline Xabi Gerrard

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #6 on: August 10, 2017, 02:59:27 pm »
Sorry, but I'll go with the evidenced experiment over your assertions (for now).

Where's your evidence for the bolded part?

As I said, you get deranged people of all types, religious and non-religious.

I think deranged religious people tend to have their deranged tendencies channeled into certain types of deranged crime, such as suicide bombing. They therefore don't tend to need to express their deranged tendencies in the way that this experiment used as an example.

Massive generalisations on my part obviously, but that's appropriate because the experiment is trying to ascertain what generalisations people make about atheists and religious people.


Just to be clear, are you saying you actually believe that atheists are less moral than religious people on the basis of this massively flawed, terrible experiment? Not sure if you're taking the piss.

Offline thejbs

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #7 on: August 10, 2017, 03:07:02 pm »
I think you're missing the point.

The experiment is not about whether or not Atheists are more moral. It's about PERCEPTIONS of whether atheists are more or less moral.  To that purpose, I don't have much issue with how the survey was constructed.

Offline classycarra

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #8 on: August 10, 2017, 03:09:48 pm »
As I said, you get deranged people of all types, religious and non-religious.

I think deranged religious people tend to have their deranged tendencies channeled into certain types of deranged crime, such as suicide bombing. They therefore don't tend to need to express their deranged tendencies in the way that this experiment used as an example.

Massive generalisations on my part obviously, but that's appropriate because the experiment is trying to ascertain what generalisations people make about atheists and religious people.


Just to be clear, are you saying you actually believe that atheists are less moral than religious people on the basis of this massively flawed, terrible experiment? Not sure if you're taking the piss.

No of course I'm not!

I'm just pointing out that you're fervently criticising an experiment, synthesising over a thousand people's perceptions, based on no evidence over than your own personal (generalised) hunch.

That's the most stupid fucking experiment I've ever heard of.

Why? Do you not like the results?

Offline Xabi Gerrard

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #9 on: August 10, 2017, 03:19:13 pm »
I think you're missing the point.

The experiment is not about whether or not Atheists are more moral. It's about PERCEPTIONS of whether atheists are more or less moral.  To that purpose, I don't have much issue with how the survey was constructed.

It doesn't matter whether the point is about who is more moral or who is perceived is more moral - coming to a conclusion after that specific question is a terrible experiment. At best all it tells you is that people generally think that anyone who commits that very specific crime will tend to be atheists.

Take it from someone who studied physics at uni, experimentation needs to be far more rigorous than that to be taken seriously. It's a shit experiment from which you can not make the conclusion the article has made.

Offline classycarra

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #10 on: August 10, 2017, 03:27:05 pm »
It doesn't matter whether the point is about who is more moral or who is perceived is more moral - coming to a conclusion after that specific question is a terrible experiment. At best all it tells you is that people generally think that anyone who commits that very specific crime will tend to be atheists.

Take it from someone who studied physics at uni, experimentation needs to be far more rigorous than that to be taken seriously. It's a shit experiment from which you can not make the conclusion the article has made.

I think it's showing that your knowledge and analysis of experiment methodology, from a physics perspective, isn't looking particularly transferable.

Offline thejbs

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #11 on: August 10, 2017, 03:30:37 pm »
It doesn't matter whether the point is about who is more moral or who is perceived is more moral - coming to a conclusion after that specific question is a terrible experiment. At best all it tells you is that people generally think that anyone who commits that very specific crime will tend to be atheists.

Take it from someone who studied physics at uni, experimentation needs to be far more rigorous than that to be taken seriously. It's a shit experiment from which you can not make the conclusion the article has made.

Well, taken from someone with a degree in psychology, I think the findings are interesting and significant. 

The study infers, based on a significant subject size, that "People, whether religious or not, presume that serial killers are more likely to be atheists than believers in any god."  That's no great leap from what they've surveyed. It gives insight into existing bias of people around the world when it comes to the perceived morality of the non-religious

What was also significant is that non-religious people actually displayed some bias against the non-religious.  There's much to be drawn from the survey and much to provoke further study and debate.

The links between morality and relgion are not very well understood and deserve study.   

Offline Xabi Gerrard

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #12 on: August 10, 2017, 03:31:30 pm »
I think it's showing that your knowledge and analysis of experiment methodology, from a physics perspective, isn't looking particularly transferable.

Nope, the experiment is too narrow to make such a broad generalisation.

This thread might be more interesting if you actually contribute something about why you think it is a valid experiment rather than just criticising people's opinions that you disagree with?

Offline Xabi Gerrard

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #13 on: August 10, 2017, 03:32:52 pm »
Well, taken from someone with a degree in psychology, I think the findings are interesting and significant. 

The study infers, based on a significant subject size, that "People, whether religious or not, presume that serial killers are more likely to be atheists than believers in any god."  That's no great leap from what they've surveyed. It gives insight into existing bias of people around the world when it comes to the perceived morality of the non-religious

What was also significant is that non-religious people actually displayed some bias against the non-religious.  There's much to be drawn from the survey and much to provoke further study and debate.

The links between morality and relgion are not very well understood and deserve study.   

I disagree with you (for the reasons I've stated above) but thanks for explaining why you think it to be a good experiment. Classycara - take note!


EDIT: thejbs, for this experiment to conclude that people perceive atheists as less moral, you have to make the assumption that being a serial killer is the only baromoter of whether someone is moral. Because all it shows is that most people around the world believe serial killers are most likely atheist.

But it obviously isn't true that serial killing is the only immoral act out there. You have other types of immoral people such as mass murdering suicide bombers, peadophiles and rapists. For each type of immoral act, the survey would likely come up with a different conclusion to whether the perpetrator is likely to be atheist or religious.

Therefore, you can not conclude that people assuming one tiny subset of immoral behaviour (serial killing) is more likely to be carried out by atheist people means that overall atheist people are less moral. It's way too narrow an experiment to be making such a broad generalisation.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2017, 03:51:24 pm by Xabi Gerrard »

Offline classycarra

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #14 on: August 10, 2017, 03:52:21 pm »
I disagree with you (for the reasons I've stated above) but thanks for explaining why you think it to be a good experiment. Classycara - take note!


EDIT: thejbs, for this experiment to conclude that people perceive atheists as less moral, you have to make the assumption that being a serial killer is the only baromoter of whether someone is moral. Because all it shows is that most people around the world believe serial killers are most likely atheist.

But it obviously isn't true that serial killing is the only immoral act out there. You have other types of immoral people such as mass murdering suicide bombers, peadophiles and rapists. For each type of immoral act, the survey would likely come up with a different conclusion to whether the perpetrator is likely to be atheist or religious.

Therefore, you can not conclude that people assuming one tiny subset of immoral behaviour (serial killing) is more likely to be carried out by atheist people means that overall atheist people are less moral.

I think you need to take a little time to read the methodology rather than the news summary. It's in here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0151#s1

Particularly this part:

Quote
The experiment used a version of the representativeness heuristic 27 . In the classic version of this task, participants are given a description of a politically liberal single woman. When asked whether it is more likely that she is (A) a bank cashier or (B) a bank cashier who is active in the feminist movement, participants tend erroneously to pick option B. Although logically incorrect (there are necessarily at least as many bank cashiers as bank cashiers who are feminists), the description seems more representative of the double identity provided in option B, leading people intuitively to choose that option (termed ‘the conjunction fallacy’). By independently varying the contents of the description and the identities implied by option B, researchers can assess the degree to which people intuitively view a given description as representative of different identities 19 .

We generated a representativeness heuristic task to quantify the degree to which people around the world intuitively view religion as necessary for the inhibition of grossly immoral behaviour. We provided a description of an immoral person who initially tortures animals and eventually kills people for thrills (see Supplementary Information), and then asked whether it was more probable that the perpetrator was (A) a teacher or (B) a teacher who either (manipulated between subjects) does not believe in God or is a religious believer. Higher conjunction fallacy rates (picking option B) in the atheist condition indicate that people intuitively view serial murder as more representative of atheists than of religious believers 19 . This manipulation allowed us to test the relationship between intuitive distrust of atheists and personal religious belief, while adjusting for country-wide variation in this relationship, as well as demographic covariates.

And this, about the conjunction fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjunction_fallacy


Offline Xabi Gerrard

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #15 on: August 10, 2017, 03:58:03 pm »
I think you need to take a little time to read the methodology rather than the news summary. It's in here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0151#s1

Particularly this part:


Erm, there's nothing in there that challenges what I said. All it shows is that overall more people assume a serial killer to be atheist. It's incorrect to conclude that people perceive atheists as being less moral full stop.

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #16 on: August 10, 2017, 04:01:17 pm »
But Catholic priests,they are the salt of the earth..

And the NUNs can fuck off as well.
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Offline thejbs

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #17 on: August 10, 2017, 04:01:51 pm »
Quote
For each type of immoral act, the survey would likely come up with a different conclusion to whether the perpetrator is likely to be atheist or religious.

Barring the question is on suicide bombing or something tied explicitly to religion, I'm not so sure. There have been other 'morality' studies along these lines where people polled believe atheists more likely to enjoy porn, obscene language, gambling, lawlessness. 

Studies that aim to show actual differences as opposed to perception are much different. I've read a study that found nonreligious children to be more generous than religious children. Some have found little to no difference in practical altruistic behaviour and defined barometers of morality and compassion between atheists and theists. Yet, the perception (affirmed in the survey above) persists - another study showed only around 50% of people polled thought that atheists were as moral as theists.

Offline classycarra

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #18 on: August 10, 2017, 04:02:14 pm »
Erm, there's nothing in there that challenges what I said. All it shows is that overall more people assume a serial killer to be atheist. It's incorrect to conclude that people perceive atheists as being less moral full stop.

No, it shows that overall more people believe a serial killer teacher to be an atheist - in a choice between two options: the serial killer is either a teacher or an teacher who is an atheist.

Offline thejbs

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #19 on: August 10, 2017, 04:03:16 pm »
Erm, there's nothing in there that challenges what I said. All it shows is that overall more people assume a serial killer to be atheist. It's incorrect to conclude that people perceive atheists as being less moral full stop.

It's a rational assertion to draw that suggestion from the study, though.

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #20 on: August 10, 2017, 04:03:34 pm »
I'm not surprised religious people think atheists are less moral, many (not all) are quiet arrogant in their beliefs and in the more pious types really look down upon atheists (and often other religions). I am surprised that secular countries (or other atheists) feel the same way though.

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Offline thejbs

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #22 on: August 10, 2017, 04:04:23 pm »
No, it shows that overall more people believe a serial killer teacher to be an atheist - in a choice between two options: the serial killer is either a teacher or an teacher who is an atheist.

No, that's not true. The study gave 50% of the respondents that choice. The other 50% got the choice of either a teacher or a teacher who had faith.

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #23 on: August 10, 2017, 04:04:44 pm »
I'm not surprised some atheists can't spell atheism :P
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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #24 on: August 10, 2017, 04:05:23 pm »
I've encountered this a lot so it's not very surprising.

Atheists believed to be less moral, says study.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40856942?utm_content=buffered12a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer


According to a study funded by the John Templeton Foundation:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0151#s1

"The John Templeton Foundation (Templeton Foundation) is a philanthropic organization with a spiritual or religious inclination that funds inter-disciplinary research about human purpose and ultimate reality. It was established in 1987 by investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton, who had links with fundamentalist Protestantism;[1] his son John Templeton, Jr. took over the presidency until his death in 2015. Heather Templeton Dill became president in June 2015.[2]"

From Wiki.

So a study sponsored by a religious foundation finds that atheists are believed to be less moral... who'd have thought that would happen?...

I'll have a look at the study itself but the headline is a bit misleading because at first glance it suggests that the study is about actual morality rather than the perception of morality.

There are plenty of studies showing strong biases about black people and criminality - would the BBC run a headline titled: "Black people believed to be less moral, says study..."? Probably not.

What would be really interesting would be to correlate this apparent prejudice against atheists with a study comparing actual behaviour by believers and atheists. Like this study looking at the perception and the reality of race and criminality.

http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Race-and-Punishment.pdf
« Last Edit: August 10, 2017, 04:08:20 pm by Alan_X »
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Offline Xabi Gerrard

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #25 on: August 10, 2017, 04:07:09 pm »
Barring the question is on suicide bombing or something tied explicitly to religion, I'm not so sure. There have been other 'morality' studies along these lines where people polled believe atheists more likely to enjoy porn, obscene language, gambling, lawlessness. 

That may be so. In which case, from an aggregation of these studies one may be able to conclude that atheists are less moral. But from this study alone, you can't do that.

Studies that aim to show actual differences as opposed to perception are much different. I've read a study that found nonreligious children to be more generous than religious children. Some have found little to no difference in practical altruistic behaviour and defined barometers of morality and compassion between atheists and theists. Yet, the perception (affirmed in the survey above) persists - another study showed only around 50% of people polled thought that atheists were as moral as theists.

Again, this may be so. But this study in particular shouldn't even come to a conclusion about perceptions on who is more moral, because it's only judging the perceptions of one tiny subset of immoral behaviour. You can't make such a broad generalisation from such a narrow experiment.

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Offline Xabi Gerrard

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #27 on: August 10, 2017, 04:09:06 pm »
No, it shows that overall more people believe a serial killer teacher to be an atheist - in a choice between two options: the serial killer is either a teacher or an teacher who is an atheist.

Cool, either way it most certainly can not conclude that most people perceive atheists to be less moral than non-atheists. You can not draw such a generalised conclusion from such a tiny subset of what constitutes immoral behaviour.

Offline thejbs

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Re: Athiesm
« Reply #28 on: August 10, 2017, 04:11:05 pm »
I'm not surprised some atheists can't spell atheism :P

My bad, typo.

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #29 on: August 10, 2017, 04:13:42 pm »
I'm not surprised some atheists can't spell atheism :P
One for the godlessspellchecker there
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Re: Atheism
« Reply #30 on: August 10, 2017, 04:13:49 pm »
My cup, it runneth over, I'll never get my fill

Offline classycarra

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #31 on: August 10, 2017, 04:13:53 pm »
No, that's not true. The study gave 50% of the respondents that choice. The other 50% got the choice of either a teacher or a teacher who had faith.

Yep, sorry. My mistake, accidentally only referred to the atheist 50%. Thanks for correcting it.

Offline classycarra

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #32 on: August 10, 2017, 04:26:38 pm »
So a study sponsored by a religious foundation finds that atheists are believed to be less moral... who'd have thought that would happen?...
Is it really that clear cut?  I don’t see how one is better than the other, it’s just a measure of societal perceptions. I also don’t really see how they could fit this kind of bias into this study design, unless they fudged the numbers entirely.

I’m an atheist myself, but this strikes me as a bit over the top – I don’t think it is an attack on atheists, it’s just scientific research on societal perceptions.

I'll have a look at the study itself but the headline is a bit misleading because at first glance it suggests that the study is about actual morality rather than the perception of morality.

The headline is ‘Atheists believed to be less moral, says study’. I’m not sure that’s misleading. If it said 'Study suggests atheists less moral', then I'd agree.

There are plenty of studies showing strong biases about black people and criminality - would the BBC run a headline titled: "Black people believed to be less moral, says study..."? Probably not.

I’d hope so. I wouldn’t want the state broadcaster to manipulate and suppress news about science just because it might produce an unpleasant result. There’s nothing wrong with a headline like that on any perception study, provided that’s what the results say.

What would be really interesting would be to correlate this apparent prejudice against atheists with a study comparing actual behaviour by believers and atheists. Like this study looking at the perception and the reality of race and criminality.
http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Race-and-Punishment.pdf
That is interesting, ta.

Long list of contributors to that one too, though I don’t think Ford or Craigslist went into it with an aim to bias the results ;)

Offline classycarra

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #33 on: August 10, 2017, 04:29:06 pm »
Cool, either way it most certainly can not conclude that most people perceive atheists to be less moral than non-atheists. You can not draw such a generalised conclusion from such a tiny subset of what constitutes immoral behaviour.

That it's only measuring a tiny subset is a strength of the test. It allows it to follow the principles of a case-control study, which those more familiar with the hard sciences are more aware of, more comfortable with and/or respect more

Offline DivisiveNewSigning

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #34 on: August 10, 2017, 04:42:07 pm »
BREAKING NEWS

Religious people think atheists are immoral heathens.
Atheists think religious people are backwards nut-jobs.

The difference is, however, that whenever something bad happens religious people assume they must be a non-believer because, crikey, a person of faith would NEVER do anything bad. Atheists generally know c*nts are c*nts, no matter what their personal beliefs.

Did we really need a significantly flawed experiment for us to get to this conclusion?

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #35 on: August 10, 2017, 04:42:28 pm »
Is it really that clear cut?  I don’t see how one is better than the other, it’s just a measure of societal perceptions. I also don’t really see how they could fit this kind of bias into this study design, unless they fudged the numbers entirely.

I’m an atheist myself, but this strikes me as a bit over the top – I don’t think it is an attack on atheists, it’s just scientific research on societal perceptions.

The headline is ‘Atheists believed to be less moral, says study’. I’m not sure that’s misleading. If it said 'Study suggests atheists less moral', then I'd agree.

I’d hope so. I wouldn’t want the state broadcaster to manipulate and suppress news about science just because it might produce an unpleasant result. There’s nothing wrong with a headline like that on any perception study, provided that’s what the results say.
That is interesting, ta.

Long list of contributors to that one too, though I don’t think Ford or Craigslist went into it with an aim to bias the results ;)

As people are discussing the study in this way:

That may be so. In which case, from an aggregation of these studies one may be able to conclude that atheists are less moral. But from this study alone, you can't do that.

I'd say yes, it's misleading and the sponsors of the study know that. The study and the headline say its about the perception that atheists are less moral but the discussion will be whether atheists are actually less moral.

The Templeton Foundation is one of the better religious sponsors but they still have a fundamental purpose which is to promote the religion and the framing of the study is designed to produce the kind of headline in the bbc link.

This is buried deep in the study:

"Our results highlight a stark divergence between lay and scientific perceptions of the relationship between religion and morality. Although religion probably influences many moral outcomes and judgements 3,22,23 , core moral instincts appear to emerge largely independent of religion 29,30 . Additionally, highly secular societies are among the most stable and cooperative on Earth 14 ."

So the headline could have been:

Scientific studies show that morality is independent of religiion, secular societies are among the most stable and cooperative, but prejudice and bias hides the reality...
« Last Edit: August 10, 2017, 04:46:08 pm by Alan_X »
Sid Lowe (@sidlowe)
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Offline classycarra

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #36 on: August 10, 2017, 04:50:01 pm »
BREAKING NEWS

Religious people think atheists are immoral heathens.
Atheists think religious people are backwards nut-jobs.

The difference is, however, that whenever something bad happens religious people assume they must be a non-believer because, crikey, a person of faith would NEVER do anything bad. Atheists generally know c*nts are c*nts, no matter what their personal beliefs.

Did we really need a significantly flawed experiment for us to get to this conclusion?

Well given you've got the conclusion wrong, it seems a reasonable endeavour. It's far less flawed than your quick take on it

It wasn't just religious people who considered atheists to be less moral. Atheists did too.

Offline classycarra

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #37 on: August 10, 2017, 04:57:53 pm »
As people are discussing the study in this way:

I'd say yes, it's misleading and the sponsors of the study know that. The study and the headline say its about the perception that atheists are less moral but the discussion will be whether atheists are actually less moral.

The Templeton Foundation is one of the better religious sponsors but they still have a fundamental purpose which is to promote the religion and the framing of the study is designed to produce the kind of headline in the bbc link.

This is buried deep in the study:

"Our results highlight a stark divergence between lay and scientific perceptions of the relationship between religion and morality. Although religion probably influences many moral outcomes and judgements 3,22,23 , core moral instincts appear to emerge largely independent of religion 29,30 . Additionally, highly secular societies are among the most stable and cooperative on Earth 14 ."

So the headline could have been:

Scientific studies show that morality is independent of religiion, secular societies are among the most stable and cooperative, but prejudice and bias hides the reality...

We usually tend to agree on these sorts of things Alan, but it seems you've got your defences up against this paper as if it were like some of the nonsense conspiracy theory/fundamentalist shite we encounter on here, rather than a methodologically rigorous and standard scientific paper.

The sponsors of the study didn't write the headline, the BBC did. If the study authors did in fact write the headline, and it was simply lifted from the press release, the BBC was still welcome to change it to make it nicer.

I'm not sure it's quite the cynical conspiracy you make out; that it's to encourage people to discuss atheists immorality and embed that further in societal perceptions. Don't get me wrong, I'm inclined to distrust foundations like this too. I just don't think they biased it, nor that this was necessarily the finding they wanted - I just don't see how one result is more favourable that the other. It's just a nice cross sectional insight of perception.

Don't see any problem with that para from the discussion you've quoted, especially since it's from the evidence base and widely sourced. Remember it's the scientists writing it, and Nature peer reviewing it. Not the sponsors. Plus it volunteers a positive view on secularism (with evidence).

So the headline could have been:

Scientific studies show that morality is independent of religiion, secular societies are among the most stable and cooperative, but prejudice and bias hides the reality...


Don't use this example if you ever find yourself in an interview for a subeditor job! :)
« Last Edit: August 10, 2017, 05:01:56 pm by Classycara »

Offline thejbs

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #38 on: August 10, 2017, 05:00:15 pm »
Scientific studies show that morality is independent of religion, secular societies are among the most stable and cooperative, but prejudice and bias hide the reality...

In a nutshell, yes. That conclusion is the worst possible one for theists, really.

I'm actually surprised that there's no religion topic on RAWK.  Surely it could be debated civilly or am I being way to optimistic?

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Re: Atheism
« Reply #39 on: August 10, 2017, 05:00:44 pm »
BREAKING NEWS

Religious people think atheists are immoral heathens.
Atheists think religious people are backwards nut-jobs.

The difference is, however, that whenever something bad happens religious people assume they must be a non-believer because, crikey, a person of faith would NEVER do anything bad. Atheists generally know c*nts are c*nts, no matter what their personal beliefs.

Did we really need a significantly flawed experiment for us to get to this conclusion?

No, but the Templeton Foundation need headlines linking atheists and immorality to promote their religious views.

The Mesreyside Skeptics do some great work analysing news stories based on studies like this.

Let's take Avocados for example. What's the chance there's a positive study that shows Avocados are beneficial to health? Do a quick Google and bingo:

Avocado consumption is associated with better diet quality and nutrient intake, and lower metabolic syndrome risk in US adults: results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2001–2008

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3545982/

Have a look down the study and find who sponsored the study:

"This study was supported by the Hass Avocado Board."

Surprisingly, the sponsor of the study appears to be a promoter of the consumption of avocados...

https://www.hassavocadoboard.com/

and

"VLF as Senior Vice President of Nutrition Impact, LLC performs consulting and database analyses for various food and beverage companies and related entities. MD is a nutrition science consultant for various food companies and related entities including the Hass Avocado Board. AJD is an analyst for School Nutrition Programs within the Michigan Department of Education and also serves as a freelance nutrition consultant."

"Nutrition Impact is a small consulting firm that specializes in helping food & beverage companies develop and communicate aggressive, science-based claims about their products and services. "

http://www.nutritionimpact.com/

Whenever you see 'a study shows' always look at the original study and who sponsored it. It doesn't mean the study is flawed in its methodology but it will often have been designed to produce a particular headline. And the headline will be drafted by PR companies like Nutrition Impact LLC.

And if the study gives the wrong answer it won't be published.
Sid Lowe (@sidlowe)
09/03/2011 08:04
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Its all about winning shiny things.