Is religion doomed by education?

--amadeus--

There was a bit of a noise made recently about the idea that the "better" educated you were the less likely you were to have strong religious faith. I can't remember the details but it was an intellectual claiming that the intellectual elite were generaly athiest, or something along those lines.

So I thought it might be interesting to look at how average education affects religious attendance. Numbers are rankings in list, eg the US is ranked #1 for years of education and 11th for average religious attendance. Tables seem to be:

Country__________Education Ranking_____Religious Attendance Ranking
US_______________1___________________11
Norway___________2___________________47
New Zealand_______3___________________NA
Canada___________4___________________16
Sweden___________5___________________48
Australia__________6___________________21
Swiss____________7___________________30
Germany__________8___________________NA
Finland___________9___________________49
Poland___________10___________________5

Ranked the other way:

________________Religious attendance Rank__Education rank
Nigeria___________1______________________NA
Ireland___________2______________________15
Philippines________3______________________28
SA______________4______________________50
Poland___________5______________________10
Puerto Rico_______6______________________NA
Portugal__________7______________________55
Slovakia__________8______________________18
Mexico___________9______________________35
Italy_____________10_____________________36

There are exceptions but generally it seems that the higher the educational standards (years in education) the lower the average religious attendance. The opposite is even more strikingly true - the higher the average attendence at religious service the lower the average educational attainment. Original full tables here and here

Obviously the intention from everyone is to raise the standards of education, it's seen as a key to eliminating poverty. But it looks like higher educational levels will generally lead to reductions in church attendance. So will the march of education doom religion?

Note this is not implying that religious faith indicates a lack of education, just looking at data.

hivizman

Interesting at first sight, but the data need to be interpreted carefully. The "Education Rank" figures report the "average years of schooling", that is, the years of formal schooling received, on average, by adults over age 15. If the survey used a sample of all adults, then the "average years of schooling" figure reflects things like school leaving ages perhaps two or three decades ago. The figure will also be biased by population distributions in particular countries, so that a "younger" country will tend to score higher because more younger people will be in the sample and their time in education will tend to be higher than that of older people. It's certainly not a measure of current periods in education, let alone a measure of education quality or standards.

The "Religious Attendance Rank" figures claim to be measuring the percentage of adults surveyed who claimed that they attend Church services one or more times per week. There is some lack of clarity whether "Church" includes other forms of worship such as synagogues, temples and mosques - if this is just reporting attendance at Christian acts of worship, then there's an obvious bias already. Also, the figures are based on self-reporting, and some of them look rather high. For example, the attendance rate for Ireland is reported to be 89%. Maybe this was so a generation ago, but can this really be an uptodate measure?

Finally, even if there is a robust association between education rank and religious attendance rank (perhaps someone could calculate the Pearson correlation or Spearman rank correlation coefficient on the full data sets), any causation can only be from average years of schooling to church attendance, rather than the other way around, because the average years of schooling reports data about the past, but the church attendance reports current data. This is of course the point that Amadeus is making.

But could both phenomena, if indeed they are genuine, have a common cause? Perhaps as church attendance falls, the moral and social education that people used to pick up through their religious faith now needs to be passed on through schools? Though perhaps this gets the causation the wrong way round?

Zombrex

Atheist forum guys, atheist forum. Its just over there, you can make it in five minutes:pac:

--amadeus--

I wasn't sure where to put it TBH, as it applies to both. I think that a lot of the athiest folks pop in here though and putting in there might have just led to a lot of "yes, next q please" type answers.

That said if Mods want to move it to wherever they think it fits I'm happy with that

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

84% of Irish people attending religious serivces? Don't think so!

In answer to your question, though, I think that religion requires, not so much a level of ignorance/lack of education to survive, but it needs people who do not question, and this is precsiely where it comes into conflict with education.

Mark Hamill

A problem with this kind of study, is that the number of years in education doesn't necessarily correlate with the quality of education. Ireland may be 15th in eduaction rank by years, but I'm sure our education system is better than Polands, who come in at 10th

Galvasean

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

84% of Irish people attending religious serivces? Don't think so!

Agreed. Christmas mass once a year shouldn't count as attending religious services.

Asiaprod

--amadeus-- wrote: »

That said if Mods want to move it to wherever they think it fits I'm happy with that

PDN your call.

Run_to_da_hills

Galvasean wrote: »

Agreed. Christmas mass once a year shouldn't count as attending religious services.

Neither should weddings or funerals.

jaffa20

but they are religious ceremonies, in the eyes of the church.:rolleyes:

philologos

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

84% of Irish people attending religious serivces? Don't think so!

In answer to your question, though, I think that religion requires, not so much a level of ignorance/lack of education to survive, but it needs people who do not question, and this is precsiely where it comes into conflict with education.

Last figure I saw was slightly less than 50% in relation to regular religious attendance in Ireland.

I disagree with you on questioning, I question my own beliefs quite a lot, and I tend to try and look into it on a deeper level first (i.e alternative sources, archaeology etc). Yet, I am a Christian. How does religion need people who don't question, I think this isn't so factual an assertion.

hivizman

I've had a look at the question actually asked by the World Values Survey, from which the attendance data were taken:

Apart from weddings and funerals, about how often do you attend religious services these days? (Code one answer):
1 More than once a week
2 Once a week
3 Once a month
4 Only on special holy days
5 Once a year
6 Less often
7 Never, practically never
(NOTE: In Islamic societies, ask how frequently the respondent prays!)

So the 84% attendance in Ireland doesn't (or shouldn't) count special occasions.

The World Values Survey seems to be a respectable and well-conducted international survey - questions were asked through face-to-face interview mainly in subjects' homes, and the full survey involved around 250 separate questions. It's possible that the data used by the original poster came from an older version of the survey - the most recent one was in 2005/06.

--amadeus--

I think you could argue that the data may be out of date but I'm not sure that that would invalidate the corelation (if any exists).

FWIW I think that education is (or should be) about teaching open mindedness and a questioning attitude; always asking why. A good all-round education should also teach the basics of debate, evidence over assertion and rationality. In many ways these are exactly the tools that a lot of athiests (myself included) use to "dig themselves out" of religion.

In my own mind I expected to see a link between greater levels of education and greater levels of questioning leading to lower levels of belief. The data as we have it seems to support that theory - not that all who are educated will question or abandon thier faith, just that there is a greater probability of it.

Delirium

hivizman wrote: »

I've had a look at the question actually asked by the World Values Survey, from which the attendance data were taken:


So the 84% attendance in Ireland doesn't (or shouldn't) count special occasions.

The World Values Survey seems to be a respectable and well-conducted international survey - questions were asked through face-to-face interview mainly in subjects' homes, and the full survey involved around 250 separate questions. It's possible that the data used by the original poster came from an older version of the survey - the most recent one was in 2005/06.

It does count people who may attend mass once a year, which catches everyone who just goes Christmas mass. Also, attendance doesn't make you religious. I was dragged to mass during my teens but if anyone asked me I wouldn't say I was Christian.

Galvasean

hivizman wrote: »

I've had a look at the question actually asked by the World Values Survey, from which the attendance data were taken:


So the 84% attendance in Ireland doesn't (or shouldn't) count special occasions.

The World Values Survey seems to be a respectable and well-conducted international survey - questions were asked through face-to-face interview mainly in subjects' homes, and the full survey involved around 250 separate questions. It's possible that the data used by the original poster came from an older version of the survey - the most recent one was in 2005/06.

Thanks for looking upthe info. I find it hard to believe taht 84% of us Irish attend regualr religious services ie: mass.
From my experience it seems closer to 10%

--amadeus--

The small print at the bottom says:

DEFINITION: The percentage of adults surveyed who claimed that they attend Church services one or more times per week.

In rural areas attendances would be signifigantly higher than urban centres. There are parts of Donegal where my family live where attendance is still virtually universal. As you move up the age groups attendance would (I expect) also rise - just because my or your peer group doesn't attend doesn't mean that lots of people don't attend. I still doubt the figure is much above 60% though. And it's kind of a side point - longer educations in general seem to lead to lower attendances in general.

Biro

I think that survey was a waste of time. Ireland for example has a far better education system than the US. We have a much higher standard of education. Looking at it in terms of years in school is the same as the Civil Service promoting people according to years in service rather than how good they are. Based on that I'd dismiss the whole thing.

Fanny Cradock

I would think that wealth has a much bigger factor on religious belief.

philologos

Look at other statistics that state otherwise:

"In Australia, 23% of Christian church attenders have earned a university or postgraduate degree, whereas the figure for the general population is 13%"

"In the US, religious behavior also increases with education level, according to raw data from the 2004 General Social Survey, which indicates that 30.4% of those with a graduate degree attend religious services weekly or more, a statistically significant proportion, higher than any lesser educated group. Further the group with the highest percentage of “never attending” was composed by those with only a high school education or less."

Looks like they vary quite a bit.

Dave!

Based on the fact that Ireland gets 84% for religious attendance, I would be skeptical of the data...

But that aside, the notable exceptions (US, Poland) make it hard for me to accept that education is the key to religious belief. Sure the 9/11 hijackers were for the most part university educated were they not?

I don't think it comes down to education, though it may be an indicator.

philologos

Indeed, Mohammed Atta had a degree in Architecture from the University of Hamburg according to a documentary I watched. I personally don't think there is any correlation between intelligence and religious belief either.

hivizman

I've calculated the correlation between the average years of schooling data and the church attendance data. First of all, although there are 53 countries in the church attendance list and 100 in the average years of schooling list, there are only 34 countries in both lists, enabling a comparison to be made. I calculated the correlation coefficient to be -0.29, which implies that there is indeed a slight negative relationship: more years of schooling on average in a country is associated with lower church attendance in that country. However, a coefficient of -0.29 is only just significant in a statistical sense, meaning that it may not be correct to reject the null hypothesis that there is no association between schooling and church attendance. (Too many negatives in that sentence - many researchers would not be prepared to commit to a relationship on such a low correlation, given that there are only 34 countries in the sample).

On looking more closely at the data, I observed what I would describe as a "nordic" effect: the countries Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland are clustered towards the bottom of the church attendance list, with only 4 or 5% of the respondents saying that they attended church at least once a week. However, these countries are all high up in the average years of schooling list (only Iceland isn't in the top 11 countries, and Iceland is at number 21). If we exclude these countries, the correlation coefficient drops to -0.04, which basically means that there is no statistical relationship between the average years of schooling and church attendance in the remaining countries. I don't think, however, that it's really fair to omit the nordic countries.

I still think that, if there is indeed a genuine relationship between average years of schooling and church attendance at the country level, there may be some other variable that is associated with both of these. As has already been mentioned, the countries with high "education" tend to be those with high GDP per capita (a measure of economic wealth), so does church attendance fall off as countries get richer? That would certainly be the experience in Ireland.

philologos

hivizman calculated from what data? There is a lot of conflicting data to be found on the subject.

PDN

There are so many variables here that it would seem unwise to draw simplistic conclusions.

Different kinds of religion have placed different emphasis on education. At one time Islam was at the forefront of encouraging education, but now in many Islamic countries they perceive much modern learning to be a threat.

One long term trend that I can see is that increased education generally produces a society that is more tolerant. In such tolerant societies people feel more confident in expressing diverse opinions. We should expect this to be mirrored in a lack of lip service to the dominant religion.

So, for example, in the past there was great societal pressure in Ireland to practice Catholicism. Today that pressure is largely gone. Does this mean that the number of devout Catholics has fallen? Or does it simply mean that a large number of hitherto silent doubters and unbelievers now feel it is safer to be open about their lack of belief?

hivizman

Jakkass wrote: »

hivizman calculated from what data? There is a lot of conflicting data to be found on the subject.

The data are those referred to in the original post on this thread. The source of the church attendance data is here, and is attributed to "World Values Survey". The source of the average years of schooling data is here, and is sourced from UNESCO.

I agree that there is likely to be a lot of alternative data out there, but I wanted to check whether the data referred to by Amadeus in the original post actually supported the claim made there.

--amadeus--

Thanks for the number crunching. I didn't have the time for a full analysis but nice to see that my hunch of a loose correlation was correct

PDN a multitude of variables has very little to do with statistical analysis such as this. It's a simple mathematical task to analyse 2 data sets and see if there is any relationship. Here there is a clear - though weak - relationship between the average number of years schooling and the number of attendees in church (or other holy place). This is proved by data sourced from impartial and reputable surveys with neither a religious or anti-religious bias.

Corelation doesn't imply casuality - that can be argued about but rising GDP (and so in theory generally wealthier populations), better education and greater penetration of mass media all seem to be indicators of falling levels of belief.

Weither this is because of a "weeding out" of the not-really-believers or because these factors drive out religious faith I guess only time will tell, but based on what has happened in what hivizman calls the "nordic clustre" I know which way I'm betting

philologos

Explain to me what I have provided about Australia and the USA then amadeus?

--amadeus--

Jakkass wrote: »

Explain to me what I have provided about Australia and the USA then amadeus?

Happily but could you link to sources so I can see context please?

[edit]
Whatever about educational attainments in individual population samples the general pattern in both the US and Australia seems to suit the trend. Australia ranks 6th for schooling but only 21st for attendence and the US is top for education but only 11th for religion (at less than 45% attendence - despite our perception less than 1 in 2 adults there attendes church once a week). In other words they score high in one and lower in teh other. At a glance thru' the tables I can't see a pattern of countries (or even a few) where they have both high education and high attendence.

philologos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_intelligence#Studies_comparing_religious_behaviour_and_educational_attainment

See the footnotes there.

Also amadeus, the facts still are churchgoers are more highly educated in Australia than the average are. Surely that rebuts your claim that Christians are not as well educated as others in society.

There are clearly several contradicting sources on the matter, and it's not clear cut.

Fanny Cradock

--amadeus-- wrote: »

Here there is a clear - though weak - relationship between the average number of years schooling and the number of attendees in church (or other holy place).

Clear yet weak! That seems like a fairly conflicting remark to me.

Anyway, surely there are far too many variables at play to attribute lower attendance to the length of schooling. It seems like a leap.

philologos

Indeed Fanny Cradock, I would wonder if amadeus is putting this point forward because s/he wants to genuinely put this forward as the truth, or is s/he want's this to be true. There is a difference.

--amadeus--

The reason I posted this in this thead rather than Athiesm is that I actually don't have an opinion on the benifit or otherwise of a threat to religion of education. So I don't really care if it's true. Those with a religious faith though might, which is why it was posted here.

As for educated christians in Australia it doesn't invalidate the argument at all. You are looking at a sub-set of a population (church goers) whereas I am looking at population as a whole. It's a bit like my trying to study steudent drinking habits by interviewing students going into the library at 10am on a Sunday. Few of them would be big drinkers ergo students don't drink. False extrapolation because of a self selecting sample group (students at the library at that time won't be deinkers so aren't representative).

So picking groups isn't representative. Nor - I would contend - is it right to quote from studies that may have an inbuilt bias ("The national church life study").

FC - In statistics it is perfectly possible to have a clear but weak corelation. The corelation calculation generates a figure between 0 and 1. The higher the number the greater the corelation. So a figure of 0.8 is a very strong corelation, 0.6 is a strong corelation 0.4 is a weak corelation and 0.2 is a very weak corelation. It's about probability. The calculations clearly show that the figures quoted are related and independant. The "extra variables" have no bearing on the correlation (though they may have on causuality, which is a different argument)

--amadeus--

Replying to myself, sure sign of insanity!

Anyway a different way of illustrating the same point. How many of this list could be objectivley said to have a world class education system?

#1 Nigeria
#2 Ireland
#3 Philippines
#4 South Africa
#5 Poland
#6 Puerto Rico
#7 Portugal
#8 Slovakia
#9 Mexico
#10 Italy
#11 United States
#12 Belgium
#13 Peru
#14 Turkey
#15 India
#16 Canada
#17 Brazil
#18 Netherlands
#19 Uruguay
#20 Venezuela

Ireland yes. Poland / Slovakia / Belgium? Possibly, I don't know. Netherlands yes from what I know. Canada yes.

But Nigeria? The Phillipines? South Africa (rem we are talking about the entire country, not the elite)? Puerto Rico? Mexico?

In general it looks to me like the higher the level of religious attendance the higher the probability of a poorer education system.

I am NOT saying that the religious in general or christians in particular are badly educated. I am saying that as the length of average schooling increases there is a statistically measurable drop in religious attendance. Why this may be is open to question, that it exists isn't.

philologos

If Christianity thrives amongst the educated in Australia and the USA in comparison to the average, surely that proves that what you are saying which is "the more educated you are, the less religious you will be" isn't exactly true. (or if you will isn't true at all)

For me it's just a non-starter argument that people want to be true so as to bolster their argument against religion. The statistics clearly contradict eachother.

Tim Robbins

--amadeus-- wrote: »

There was a bit of a noise made recently about the idea that the "better" educated you were the less likely you were to have strong religious faith. I can't remember the details but it was an intellectual claiming that the intellectual elite were generaly athiest, or something along those lines.

So I thought it might be interesting to look at how average education affects religious attendance. Numbers are rankings in list, eg the US is ranked #1 for years of education and 11th for average religious attendance. Tables seem to be:

Country__________Education Ranking_____Religious Attendance Ranking
US_______________1___________________11
Norway___________2___________________47
New Zealand_______3___________________NA
Canada___________4___________________16
Sweden___________5___________________48
Australia__________6___________________21
Swiss____________7___________________30
Germany__________8___________________NA
Finland___________9___________________49
Poland___________10___________________5

Ranked the other way:

________________Religious attendance Rank__Education rank
Nigeria___________1______________________NA
Ireland___________2______________________15
Philippines________3______________________28
SA______________4______________________50
Poland___________5______________________10
Puerto Rico_______6______________________NA
Portugal__________7______________________55
Slovakia__________8______________________18
Mexico___________9______________________35
Italy_____________10_____________________36

There are exceptions but generally it seems that the higher the educational standards (years in education) the lower the average religious attendance. The opposite is even more strikingly true - the higher the average attendence at religious service the lower the average educational attainment. Original full tables here and here

Obviously the intention from everyone is to raise the standards of education, it's seen as a key to eliminating poverty. But it looks like higher educational levels will generally lead to reductions in church attendance. So will the march of education doom religion?

Note this is not implying that religious faith indicates a lack of education, just looking at data.

US has a better education than Sweden, that says it all. More propaganda for you.

Why not compile a table of free and intelligent media versus religion and I think the results will be more interesting.

Biro

--amadeus-- wrote: »

The reason I posted this in this thead rather than Athiesm is that I actually don't have an opinion on the benifit or otherwise of a threat to religion of education. So I don't really care if it's true. Those with a religious faith though might, which is why it was posted here.

If that's the case, then here's my stance. Education is no threat to my religion, and while Irelands education system could be better, overall I'm happy that we're well educated people.
Also, I may as well say, that this stance is about as useless as finding out if the location of your house above sea level has any direct bearing on church attendance. Statistics can be made look like how ever you want them to look, if you use the correct data. You said it yourself earlier about not taking in the many other factors, just look at mathematical calculations from these figures.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Tim Robbins wrote: »

US has a better education than Sweden, that says it all. More propaganda for you.

Why not compile a table of free and intelligent media versus religion and I think the results will be more interesting.

It's quantity rather than quality - the US came out because the average person has done a couple of months or so more education than in Sweden.

Where in the name of all that is holy are you going to find 'free and intelligent media'?!!

--amadeus--

Biro wrote: »

If that's the case, then here's my stance. Education is no threat to my religion, and while Irelands education system could be better, overall I'm happy that we're well educated people.
Also, I may as well say, that this stance is about as useless as finding out if the location of your house above sea level has any direct bearing on church attendance. Statistics can be made look like how ever you want them to look, if you use the correct data. You said it yourself earlier about not taking in the many other factors, just look at mathematical calculations from these figures.

With the greatest respect you don't seem to have the concept of data correlation. With this you take two distinct sets of numbers and feed them through a mathematical formula that generates a number between 0 and 1 (see my reply above). The higher the number the higer the relationship between teh datasets. A negative number indicates a negative relationship. I use it all the time inmy work - for example operator training versus number of reworked items would be a pair of datasets I would expect to see a correlation in. Likewise accidents and years experience I would expect to see a negative correlation (accidents go down as experience goes up). Hair colour against experience I would see no relationship, no matter what my anti-ginger prejudices might want to find...

So if we did a corelation (as you suggest) between house elevation and religion it would return a statistically invalid figure - somewhere between 0.1 and -0.1 would be my guess.

A lack of understanding of statistical analysis can lead to a lot of false claims and the art of stats is such that figures can be "spun". However when corelating data you *must* isolate variables, otherwise you can't corelate!

As for the highly educated church-goers I would say that there is no independent data that I have found to support this claim. In fact the independent data suggests exactly the opposite:

Higher levels of belief among people with no college education and lower levels of belief among those with postgraduate education (in the US)

Obviously I wouldn't quote a survey on religion conducted by an athiest organisation as it would have potential bias. Do you have any non-church numbers to validate the assertion that chuch goers are more educated?

Final point to Tim - no one is claiming that the US has a *better* education system. That is a subjective position. However UNESCO says that people stay in education longer in the US and that is the objective measure used here.

bus77

Tim Robbins wrote: »

US has a better education than Sweden, that says it all. More propaganda for you.

I think the confusing thing in this poll is that it's not actually a poll on quality of education, it's years spent in education.

If I had a penny for ever time I've heard of an American going for a degree in law or psychology ''For the craic''...

--amadeus--

If you have any other objective measure of education ranking different countries it would be interesting to see it as I'm fairly certain that the numbers would come out the same (indeed any other table ranking religious devotion would be equally interesting; I'd wager that teh same pattern of higher / better / longer education leads to lower levels of devotion would be repeated, assuming neutral data.)

PDN

--amadeus-- wrote: »

Ireland yes. Poland / Slovakia / Belgium? Possibly, I don't know. Netherlands yes from what I know. Canada yes.

But Nigeria? The Phillipines? South Africa (rem we are talking about the entire country, not the elite)? Puerto Rico? Mexico?

In general it looks to me like the higher the level of religious attendance the higher the probability of a poorer education system

Actually Puerto Rico ranks 6th in the world in terms of the percentage of high school students who continue on to third level education.

Most people look at Puerto Rico on a map and assume that it must be bacward and impoverished because it's a little Caribbean island. But when I went there to preach a few years ago I discovered that Puerto Rico is a Commonwealth, or possession of the US, and has a vibrant economy and a good educational system. It lags behind the mainland US, but is streets ahead of most other Caribbean nations. It is like a little piece of the US dropped onto an island.

If you ever get the chance go and visit. It has great people, great shopping, the only tropical rainforest in the Northern hemisphere, and great churches.

FX Meister

boring!

PDN

FX Meister wrote: »

boring!

Infracted!

--amadeus--

PDN wrote: »

Actually Puerto Rico ranks 6th in the world in terms of the percentage of high school students who continue on to third level education.

Most people look at Puerto Rico on a map and assume that it must be bacward and impoverished because it's a little Caribbean island. But when I went there to preach a few years ago I discovered that Puerto Rico is a Commonwealth, or possession of the US, and has a vibrant economy and a good educational system. It lags behind the mainland US, but is streets ahead of most other Caribbean nations. It is like a little piece of the US dropped onto an island.

If you ever get the chance go and visit. It has great people, great shopping, the only tropical rainforest in the Northern hemisphere, and great churches.

We've looked at PR as a holiday spot (they have some fantastic eco-lodges there) but haven't got round to it yet. Guilty secret confesion time I actually like the gospel music in african carribean worship. My iTunes has "Long as I got king jesus" by Vicy Winans on it for example

Fanny Cradock

--amadeus-- wrote: »

FC - In statistics it is perfectly possible to have a clear but weak corelation. The corelation calculation generates a figure between 0 and 1. The higher the number the greater the corelation. So a figure of 0.8 is a very strong corelation, 0.6 is a strong corelation 0.4 is a weak corelation and 0.2 is a very weak corelation. It's about probability. The calculations clearly show that the figures quoted are related and independant. The "extra variables" have no bearing on the correlation (though they may have on causuality, which is a different argument)

Fair enough, I assumed that terms like 'weak' and 'strong' were fairly arbitrary and varied from discipline to discipline.

Biro

--amadeus-- wrote: »

With the greatest respect you don't seem to have the concept of data correlation. With this you take two distinct sets of numbers and feed them through a mathematical formula that generates a number between 0 and 1 (see my reply above). The higher the number the higer the relationship between teh datasets. A negative number indicates a negative relationship. I use it all the time inmy work - for example operator training versus number of reworked items would be a pair of datasets I would expect to see a correlation in. Likewise accidents and years experience I would expect to see a negative correlation (accidents go down as experience goes up). Hair colour against experience I would see no relationship, no matter what my anti-ginger prejudices might want to find...

So if we did a corelation (as you suggest) between house elevation and religion it would return a statistically invalid figure - somewhere between 0.1 and -0.1 would be my guess.

A lack of understanding of statistical analysis can lead to a lot of false claims and the art of stats is such that figures can be "spun". However when corelating data you *must* isolate variables, otherwise you can't corelate!

As for the highly educated church-goers I would say that there is no independent data that I have found to support this claim. In fact the independent data suggests exactly the opposite:



Obviously I wouldn't quote a survey on religion conducted by an athiest organisation as it would have potential bias. Do you have any non-church numbers to validate the assertion that chuch goers are more educated?

Final point to Tim - no one is claiming that the US has a *better* education system. That is a subjective position. However UNESCO says that people stay in education longer in the US and that is the objective measure used here.

With the greatest respect, you seem to miss my point. If you did corelate data from people with houses above a certain level and church attendance, then you could conclude that the higher up you go the farther you are from a church, so less people attend. But if you added more info into the equation, you could see that the majority of people in the survey above a certain point are living in a region where there is no religion.
Your data where the level of training relating to the amount of failures on a line makes sense, one is directly related to the other. If you don't train someone, they can't do their job.
In your OP study, you have invented a direct link between religion and education. In some ways you may as well use hair colour to find out why you're getting rejects on a line if you're going to draw comparisons like religion and education.

--amadeus--

That's a straw man argument - you are setting up a fictional study in a fictional location and then using it's (fictional) results to demolish a real set of data and a mathematical conclusion

I would like to stress again that I am *not* "inventing a direct link betwen religion and education". I have found two tables of data, one on religious attendance and one on education. I looked at these data sets and they seemed to support a theory that the more educated a country in general the lower it's religious attendence would be on average. Correlation calculations are used to identify relationships where you suspect there may be a connection but need to verify it, it's the perfect statistical tool to test the theory. If I'm right the numbers will come out with a score of somewhere between -0.00 and -0.2 or therabouts. If I am wrong and teh data has no relationship then the result will be in the range 0.2 - -0.2. If I am really wrong and teh more educated countries are more religious teh result will be in the range 0.2 - 0.99.

hivizman then did the math and produced a correlation figure of -0.29. This indicates that there is a distinct, measurable (though weak) correlation between the data sets that is mathematically provable.

How is any of that "invented"? It's a hypthesis that is now backed by a mathematical proof.

philologos

It's hardly clear cut and shouldn't be seen to be factual given a lot of other contradicting pieces of work on the matter.

--amadeus--

Maybe not clear cut but based on the experiences of the nordic countries and the evidence we've looked at here I think that my original question of "Is religion doomed by education" is a valid one and I for one am pretty sure that ever rising education levels - especially in the developing world - will reduce religion to a minority persuit before (in a looong time) it's eventual demise....

robindch

--amadeus-- wrote: »

I think that my original question of "Is religion doomed by education" is a valid one

I think that the general rise in standards and universality of education is just one of a number of related factors which contribute to the decline of religion. Others include the increase in the standards of living and medical care, the increase in personal travel, media and the amount and quality of information available about other cultures and religions, the removal of priests and nuns from schools and the decline in the amount of compulsory attendance at classes where religion was taught as fact, an shift in the direction of increasing democratization and increasing distrust of self-appointed authorities. Amongst much else.

The wiki page on Religiosity and intelligence is probably worth a read.

Biro

--amadeus-- wrote: »

That's a straw man argument - you are setting up a fictional study in a fictional location and then using it's (fictional) results to demolish a real set of data and a mathematical conclusion

I would like to stress again that I am *not* "inventing a direct link betwen religion and education". I have found two tables of data, one on religious attendance and one on education. I looked at these data sets and they seemed to support a theory that the more educated a country in general the lower it's religious attendence would be on average. Correlation calculations are used to identify relationships where you suspect there may be a connection but need to verify it, it's the perfect statistical tool to test the theory. If I'm right the numbers will come out with a score of somewhere between -0.00 and -0.2 or therabouts. If I am wrong and teh data has no relationship then the result will be in the range 0.2 - -0.2. If I am really wrong and teh more educated countries are more religious teh result will be in the range 0.2 - 0.99.

hivizman then did the math and produced a correlation figure of -0.29. This indicates that there is a distinct, measurable (though weak) correlation between the data sets that is mathematically provable.

How is any of that "invented"? It's a hypthesis that is now backed by a mathematical proof.

You're absorbed in your equation working out though. You're saying that because the corelation equation works out, then it can be a provable fact that educated people don't practice religion. I'm saying that's nonsense, as there are many examples to the contrary. You're saying I'm full of crap and I don't understand what you're talking about because I don't have any mathematical backup to my claim.

I read a good quote in a primary school maths book, I forget who it was because I was only 9 or 10 at the time, but it said "As far as maths refer to reality, they are not certain. And as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality".