Yes, StatGuy has struck again and dealt another portion of his Magic Statistic potion.
Adonais made us aware of Ruth Gledhill’s Times of London article, Societies worse off “when they have God on their side”, which serves as a summary of a study in the Journal of Religion and Society.
The original study Journal of Religion and Society article by Gregory S. Paul who is a “freelance paleontologist, author and illustrator” whom the Council for Secular Humanism recommends for debates with young-earth creationists, can be found here HTML, or here PDF.
StatGuy’s critique proceeded forth From our bulging How not to do statistics file in which he writes, in part,
“_the [Journal] article does not say what Ms Gledhill reports_Ruth Gledhill’s news report in the Times misrepresents the content of Mr Paul’s study.”
However, StatsGuy also identified various flaws in the actual study itself:
“The plan of the study is to gather and compare data for countries he refers to variously as ‘prosperous developed democracies’ and ‘developing democracies’. The definition of these terms is never discussed_Eighteen countries are included for data comparison; among those omitted without clear explanation are: Italy, Greece, Finland, Luxembourg, and Belgium. Why are these left out? He mentions in passing that ‘[t]he especially low rates [of homicide] in the more Catholic European states are statistical noise due to yearly fluctuations incidental to this sample’, but no statistical evidence corroborating this assertion is provided_Mr Paul’s sample frame appears arbitrary. Obviously, in a sample of eighteen observations, inclusion or exclusion of only one or two observations can make a big difference in the results_At best, this is very sloppy statistical practice. If one were suspicious, one might point out that this makes cooking the results child’s play.”
Furthermore, our intrepid protagonist takes on the Mystery man.
Furthermore, the StatMeister and George Gallup team up to fight the forces of misinformation as George Gallup vindicates StatGuy.
George Gallup notes:
“In order for the author’s bold claims against religious commitment contributing to society to hold true, he would have to refute the hundreds of volumes that have proven otherwise. From discussions on parenting and fatherhood, to mental and physical health, the weight of empirical evidence is against Paul’s assertions: religious commitment has notably positive effects on the individual and collective levels of human society.”
Julia Limb (in Study says belief in God may contribute to society’s dysfunctions) notes that Gary Bouma, Professor of Sociology at Monash University in Melbourne, stated that Gregory S. Paul,
“doesn’t stick to his field of palaeontology, he goes into the field of what I would call sociology without preparation or evidence or discipline and make some assertions about it.”
Also of interest may be David W. Virtue’s Gallup Organization Refutes Story Saying “Societies Worse Off ‘When They Have God On Their Side’”
All are fascinating reads to be sure.