Cavalier Correlations

Translation: Religion is bad for your health.

More specifically, Mr. Paul indicates that democratic societies predominantly holding to a belief in God (read: the United States) are socially unhealthy, but democratic societies that are secular and embrace evolution (read: the majority of Western European countries) are on their way to utopia....

The first thing that bothered us was Mr. Paul’s peculiar selectivity. If the intent is to compare societies where faith is common to societies where faith is not, why were some countries included and others excluded....

So it appears to us that Mr. Paul has selected data, both in terms of countries considered and specific crimes looked at, in such a way as to paint the picture that was already on his mind. As demonstrated above, a broader look at available data presents a far more nuanced picture....

In the mind of Gregory S. Paul, nothing good can come out of Christianity and religious faith. He has believed this for many years and has done his best to make his ideas available for public consumption. In this regard, bloggers who contacted The Journal of Religion and Society where Mr. Paul’s opus was published learned that the original draft made even greater claims for the data and had to be toned down.

We can’t fault him for his desire to share his ideas, that is after all the reason we blog and the essence of the blogoshpere, but we think it’s important to point when something is a conclusion based on scientific principles and methodologies and when it is part of a campaign (he would dislike the term crusade). Mr. Paul is a gifted illustrator but he is not a sociologist.

[via Verum Serum, HT: Magic Statistics]