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September 27, 2005
On the Social Value of Religious Beliefs
Writing in the Journal for Religion and Society , Gregory S. Paul offers what he calls "a first look" at "Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies."
Let's start with his conclusion,
The United States’ deep social problems are all the more disturbing because the nation enjoys exceptional per capita wealth among the major western nations (Barro and McCleary; Kasman; PEW; UN Development Programme, 2000, 2004). Spending on health care is much higher as a portion of the GDP and per capita, by a factor of a third to two or more, than in any other developing democracy (UN Development Programme, 2000, 2004). The U.S. is therefore the least efficient western nation in terms of converting wealth into cultural and physical health. Understanding the reasons for this failure is urgent, and doing so requires considering the degree to which cause versus effect is responsible for the observed correlations between social conditions and religiosity versus secularism. It is therefore hoped that this initial look at a subject of pressing importance will inspire more extensive research on the subject. Pressing questions include the reasons, whether theistic or non-theistic, that the exceptionally wealthy U.S. is so inefficient that it is experiencing a much higher degree of societal distress than are less religious, less wealthy prosperous democracies. Conversely, how do the latter achieve superior societal health while having little in the way of the religious values or institutions? There is evidence that within the U.S. strong disparities in religious belief versus acceptance of evolution are correlated with similarly varying rates of societal dysfunction, the strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west having markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the northeast where societal conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms (Aral and Holmes; Beeghley, Doyle, 2002). It is the responsibility of the research community to address controversial issues and provide the information that the citizens of democracies need to chart their future courses. [emphasis added]
The whole study is worthy of a lot more that a few blog reflections. One chart that I found particularly poignant was Paul's figure 2,
Notices where the "U"s are. This is just a beginning but those who look to religious beliefs as a moral anchor, need to look a little more carefully.
Reflecting on the study PZ Myers, as usual, makes a very important point,
I've noticed that a few people are freaking out over this study, and are in denial. Mostly it is because they are misinterpreting it; it does not say that if you believe in God, you will get an abortion and start murdering strangers. It says that prevalent god-belief in a culture does not discourage that sort of behavior, and that more secular societies are clearly not hotbeds of sin and corruption.
We need to be careful with such preliminary studies. There is more that can go wrong statically than can go right. One problem is that the data used on religious beliefs and practices were a couple of years older than the data to which it was compared and "because of the high variability of degree of correlation, because potential causal factors for rates of societal function are complex, and because it is not the purpose of this initial study to definitively demonstrate a causal link between religion and social conditions," Paul did not do regression analysis. But this study seems very broad and well controlled. It is likely at least on the right track. On thing that seems certain is that religion does not have the positive social value often attributed to it.
Others with interesting things to say on the study include:
Times Online has a journalistic take on the study.
Posted by DuaneSmith at September 27, 2005 07:21 PM | Read more on Religion |
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