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Religious Children Are More Selfish Than Non-Religious Peers
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This doesn’t surprise me. How about you?
This doesn’t surprise me. How about you?
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Thanks for the thoughts hypo and the corrected link. I missed a space or something...
Yes, it seems to me that this study is overblown and, intriguingly, that even the authors overblow it, with talk of "robust" conclusions, if memory serves. It's interesting to note, for example, birdie's response to this one as compared with his comments on another recent paper ( http://
That may look like a huge difference but it isn't really that significant. The error associated with results tends to scale as the square root of the sample size, so that the paper in this thread has only around 5-6 times lower error than the previous one. That is obviously a useful improvement but it isn't the difference between "robust" and pseudoscience.
Indeed, given that the authors of the earlier paper couched their findings as merely "suggestive" and that further work would be needed, compared to the one above that almost seeks to close the book on the topic, it's probably the first paper that is more reliable! -- it merely reports on details of an experiment and encourages more investigation of a possible link between brain activity and religious perception.
Not to say that the paper Naomi's linked to above is rubbish -- merely that it needs to be viewed with some deal of scepticism that's oddly been lacking. Almost as if the fact that it confirms some people's inbuilt suspicions makes them accept it more readily without critical thought...
Yes, it seems to me that this study is overblown and, intriguingly, that even the authors overblow it, with talk of "robust" conclusions, if memory serves. It's interesting to note, for example, birdie's response to this one as compared with his comments on another recent paper ( http://
That may look like a huge difference but it isn't really that significant. The error associated with results tends to scale as the square root of the sample size, so that the paper in this thread has only around 5-6 times lower error than the previous one. That is obviously a useful improvement but it isn't the difference between "robust" and pseudoscience.
Indeed, given that the authors of the earlier paper couched their findings as merely "suggestive" and that further work would be needed, compared to the one above that almost seeks to close the book on the topic, it's probably the first paper that is more reliable! -- it merely reports on details of an experiment and encourages more investigation of a possible link between brain activity and religious perception.
Not to say that the paper Naomi's linked to above is rubbish -- merely that it needs to be viewed with some deal of scepticism that's oddly been lacking. Almost as if the fact that it confirms some people's inbuilt suspicions makes them accept it more readily without critical thought...
Grasscarp, //I also wonder it the link had been "Religious Children Are Less Selfish Than Non-Religious Peers" you would have started a thread about it//
Wonder no more. I would have started a thread about it. I would start a thread about anything I think might interest people and engender lively discussion.
Wonder no more. I would have started a thread about it. I would start a thread about anything I think might interest people and engender lively discussion.
"And I question the validity of the study since it does not take into account any other factors. "
On the other hand, this is the sort of criticism that you can say about virtually anything and it will be about as valid even before you bother to read the study. Life is filled with "other factors". The whole point about drawing any kind of statistical data is that you choose your sample size in a way such that any other factors can be expected to be distributed roughly equally among the sample. If the sample is picked carefully enough then other factors are likely to have minimal effect on the results.
Obviously you can't guarantee that -- hence there is always some error/ uncertainty associated with the results. But it's an entirely known problem and doesn't automatically invalidate any results based on survey data. It may have an effect on the conclusions, if there is genuinely some overlooked hidden variable that directly correlates to something you are measuring. Here I don't see that is all that likely, as religious beliefs tend to come from all sections of the population in roughly equal measure.
On the other hand, this is the sort of criticism that you can say about virtually anything and it will be about as valid even before you bother to read the study. Life is filled with "other factors". The whole point about drawing any kind of statistical data is that you choose your sample size in a way such that any other factors can be expected to be distributed roughly equally among the sample. If the sample is picked carefully enough then other factors are likely to have minimal effect on the results.
Obviously you can't guarantee that -- hence there is always some error/ uncertainty associated with the results. But it's an entirely known problem and doesn't automatically invalidate any results based on survey data. It may have an effect on the conclusions, if there is genuinely some overlooked hidden variable that directly correlates to something you are measuring. Here I don't see that is all that likely, as religious beliefs tend to come from all sections of the population in roughly equal measure.
@thread
Perhaps what this study is trying to say is "because it's codified in their faith(s), one would expect kids from religious families to be *noticeably* more forgiving about and generous with highly desirable small artefacts. Instead, we found the difference was weak, if not slightly negative".
The 3D chart did not feature an "expectation" dataset. If it had, it would have been too cluttered to read, imho but that's besides the point.
As jim has pointed out, "other factors" are what causes scatter and variation in the data points, which probably shoots down my line of thinking which was as follows:-
Poverty tends to increase acquisitiveness, selfishness
Poverty correlates with larger family size, hence inreased competition with siblings for scarce resources and more development of wiles and strategies, which easily outwit the richer but more naïve contemporaries.
Poverty leads to despair which leads to religiosity.
Thus, whilst religion is not causative, not driving the selfishness per se, it is, ineffectual in inhibiting behaviour of that sort.
At least, as far as that age range. Maybe collecting and swapping is a phase all kids have to go through, to learn society's mutually accepted rules of fair exchange, of property ownership, how scarcity affects value and so on.
Perhaps what this study is trying to say is "because it's codified in their faith(s), one would expect kids from religious families to be *noticeably* more forgiving about and generous with highly desirable small artefacts. Instead, we found the difference was weak, if not slightly negative".
The 3D chart did not feature an "expectation" dataset. If it had, it would have been too cluttered to read, imho but that's besides the point.
As jim has pointed out, "other factors" are what causes scatter and variation in the data points, which probably shoots down my line of thinking which was as follows:-
Poverty tends to increase acquisitiveness, selfishness
Poverty correlates with larger family size, hence inreased competition with siblings for scarce resources and more development of wiles and strategies, which easily outwit the richer but more naïve contemporaries.
Poverty leads to despair which leads to religiosity.
Thus, whilst religion is not causative, not driving the selfishness per se, it is, ineffectual in inhibiting behaviour of that sort.
At least, as far as that age range. Maybe collecting and swapping is a phase all kids have to go through, to learn society's mutually accepted rules of fair exchange, of property ownership, how scarcity affects value and so on.
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