Philosophy
When Hans Rosling speaks, I listen. The nice thing about him is that he much prefers to base his beliefs and opinions on data and evidence than on ideology. So, when I saw the title of this talk about the relationship between religion and babies, I was sure he'd have something mind-blowing to say, something that few of us, if any, would have imagined based on prior presuppositions.
And the relationships he shows really are impressive and somewhat surprising, but it seems to me that he screwed the pooch on this one. I say this, and am fully aware that I'm no statistician, but I'm seeing methodological flaws everywhere in this study that a first-year student should easily be able to pick up on. See if you can spot those problems:
Even if I didn't dispute the conclusions he draws from the data he uses, I would definitely question the validity and reliability of said data. Many people, for instance, and especially in developed nations, claim membership in particular religions only nominally. In such cases, religion almost certainly does not play any kind of causal role in their family planning decisions. But when you include these people with those for whom religion actually is an important motivating factor, you wash away the actual impact of the latter's religious beliefs and the causal influence on those choices. If there were some reliable way to distinguish religious believers from religious nominalists, I would not be surprised if the results of Rosling's studies changed quite dramatically.
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Before a meeting yesterday, I was glancing around the room at some of the older books in our religion department's library. One that caught my eye was called The World's Great Religions. I proposed other volumes for the series. For those that...
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Philosophy
Hans Rosling - Religion and Babies
And the relationships he shows really are impressive and somewhat surprising, but it seems to me that he screwed the pooch on this one. I say this, and am fully aware that I'm no statistician, but I'm seeing methodological flaws everywhere in this study that a first-year student should easily be able to pick up on. See if you can spot those problems:
Even if I didn't dispute the conclusions he draws from the data he uses, I would definitely question the validity and reliability of said data. Many people, for instance, and especially in developed nations, claim membership in particular religions only nominally. In such cases, religion almost certainly does not play any kind of causal role in their family planning decisions. But when you include these people with those for whom religion actually is an important motivating factor, you wash away the actual impact of the latter's religious beliefs and the causal influence on those choices. If there were some reliable way to distinguish religious believers from religious nominalists, I would not be surprised if the results of Rosling's studies changed quite dramatically.
- Can There Be A Fake Religion?
Before a meeting yesterday, I was glancing around the room at some of the older books in our religion department's library. One that caught my eye was called The World's Great Religions. I proposed other volumes for the series. For those that...
- Richard Dawkins - Sex, Death And The Meaning Of Life (1)
Dostoevsky's dictum "without God, anything is permitted" is often used by religious believers to make the point that, quite aside from the issue of its truth, religion plays an important role, perhaps even a necessary one, in fomenting moral behavior...
- The History Of The Two-party Vote
If you happen to enjoy demographic data being animated, like when Hans Rosling does it (here or here), or when a map shows you the march of democracy across human history, or even when a map shows you what Presidents were in office during different wars,...
- 200 Countries, 200 Years, All In 4 Minutes
If you've seen Hans Rosling's TEDTalk presentation before, I think you'd agree with me that if his training weren't in health and demographics, his alternate career would have been as a sports announcer. I don't know what he knows...
- Einstein, Religion, Science
"The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science." --Albert Einstein Abstract: In recent centuries the world has become increasingly dominated by empirical evidence...