One of the problems with excerpting a juicy selection of material from a post on the Conservative Cat Blog is that the whole post is usually brilliant, and everything it contains is pertinent. I’m going to excerpt some, but please go there for the rest.. (By the way, the computer Dictionary says, “enthymeme” means “an argument that assumes the truth of one or more premises and therefore omits them from the logical sequence.”) In The Conservative Cat’s The Cat’s Meow, “Outrage Politics”, we read:
Cynicism is not a substitute for evidence.One of the most common fallacies in political discussion is something Bruce calls the cynical enthymeme. It usually goes something like this.
* Premise 1: If A is greedy and immoral, then A would do B.
* Premise 2: A did B.
* Conclusion: Therefore A is greedy and immoral.[. . . ]Now, as presented above, the logic is clearly faulty. If X implies Y and Y is true, it doesn't tell you anything about X. For example, if it rains, then the sidewalk gets wet; however, if you see a wet sidewalk, it could have been caused by an overzealous lawn sprinkler instead of inclement weather.
This is so important. Faulty logic means you’ve demonstrated nothing. And since often this fallacy appears when people are judging other people, it is essential to recognize that when it comes to the actions of people, then you have even more problem with this kind of false “logic” pattern, because a person might hose the sidewalk at any time, and for any reason. Sprinklers and rain are pretty much modular, and they wet sidewalks by happenstance. Human beings are not modular, and they might wet the sidewalk just to irritate you, or worse. (Actually, since human beings can lie, bluff, behave irrationally, and even give you the middle finger, even properly used logic needs more evidence to provide a valid basis for judgment.) The Conservative Cat goes on:
What enables people to use the cynical enthymeme and get away with it is a third premise hidden so deep in the human brain that most people don't even know it exists.* Premise 3: People who disagree with me are bad.
Yes! The moment I read this, I remembered a significant instance of Premise 3 in operation, and to discuss it I want to add an obvious (and equally faulty logic) corollary to Premise 3: Corollary 3: People who disagree with me are the ones doing the bad things that are being done.
In a way the following example is a group misuse of reasoning powers, and all because of the lurking Premise 3 and its Corollary 3, or P3/C3. (Okay, It sounds like a small mobile robot, but really, it’s a useful shorthand.)
In 2005, I read a study saying that the more religion there was in a Western industrialized country, the more dysfunctional the society was, and that the United States was the most religious and the most dysfunctional. Since I wasn’t yet a warrior in the Culture War, I sighed and ignored it. Then, In last December’s Scientific American I saw an article that mentioned the study positively. I was upset, because there are major problems involved in taking multiple census studies and polls done by other people and using the data to make judgments. (You know the type: The United States has more tornadoes than any other country; the United States has more MacDonalds than any other country. There must be a causal relationship between tornadoes and MacDonalds.) And this doesn’t even begin to deal with the status of the data sources. Like the wet sidewalk and the rain, I believe that this study isn’t science, and shouldn’t be mentioned in Scientific American. But once again, I shrugged my shoulders and ignored it.
I shouldn’t have ignored it, We’re in a Culture War, and when someone launches a P3/C3 at us we have to take appropriate defensive measures. If a work claims to be scientific, we can’t just say, “They’re at it again,” and shrug and go on with our life. Policies, laws, regulations, penalties, curricula for schools, other studies, politically correct speech determinations, grades and degrees at education facilities, and many more aspects of our lives, even aspects that are life-threatening and life-destroying, are often created from data and “findings” in P3/C3 studies. Where people may be looking for something to bolster their own prejudices, this kind of P3/C3 study can spread, carrying the false imprimatur of “Truth” as it goes, often becoming the basis for other P3/C3 work.
If what propagates a belief is really science, the motivation doesn’t matter. But if the belief is fallaciously reached to provide comfort and impetus to an emotional need, and then propagated because the emotional need is shared by others, it is not science or fact and it must be courageously fought, no matter what the belief is, or who is comforted by it. It is imperative that we examine information that is written first in important journals and press releases from labs and universities and colleges, and then is also quoted by radio, television, and other Main Stream Media outlets. If it furthers an anti-American, or Progressive or Leftist cause, or if it tries to destroy a pro-American, or Conservative belief or value, be wary. This is true of even the “hardest” science or mathematics whenever it becomes enmeshed with medicine, biology, or a soft science, such as a social science, statistics, probability, polling, and so forth. Normal criticisms rarely reach the level where they carry any weight with the MSM or are even mentioned. The criticism has to be on many sites to reach the critical mass necessary to get the word out. Had the criticisms of the Paul study carried weight in the Fall of 2005, I wouldn’t have found the positive article about it in the December 2006 Scientific American.
In 2005, Gregory S. Paul study, “Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies”, appeared in the Journal of Religion and Society. (I recommend reading the whole thing.) Paul writes that, because in the 20th Century prosperous Western nations (other than the U.S.) became basically secular, and also because religious people believe that a belief in benevolent God is necessary for a healthy society, then [My emphasis]:
A quantitative cross-national analysis is feasible because a large body of survey and census data on rates of religiosity, secularization, and societal indicators has become available in the prosperous developed democracies including the United States. [. . . ]The primary intent is to present basic correlations of the elemental data. Some conclusions that can be gleaned from the plots are outlined. This is not an attempt to present a definitive study that establishes cause versus effect between religiosity, secularism and societal health.
Nonetheless, G.S. Paul then proceeds to write as though he was establishing a causal relationship through correlation. And what is his data base? [My emphasis.]
The approximately 800 million mostly middle class adults and children act as a massive epidemiological experiment that allows hypotheses that faith in a creator or disbelief in evolution improves or degrades societal conditions to be tested on an international scale.
Paul acts as though the 800 million people in the prosperous developed democracies were in a controlled experiment and he is making correlations and conclusions from it. But when he cites some of the statistical studies and polls he is taking his data from, they turn out to be an collection of polls, census data, etc,, many of them surveys where participants are asked opinions on a spread of choices, along with other data. He then writes [My emphasis]:
In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies. The most theistic prosperous democracy, [. . .] [t]he United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost always scores poorly. The view of the U.S. as a “shining city on the hill” to the rest of the world is falsified when it comes to basic measures of societal health. […] Although they are by no means utopias, the populations of secular democracies are clearly able to govern themselves and maintain societal cohesion. Indeed, the data examined in this study demonstrates that only the more secular, pro-evolution democracies have, for the first time in history, come closest to achieving practical “cultures of life” that feature low rates of lethal crime, juvenile-adult mortality, sex related dysfunction, and even abortion. [. . .] The U.S. is therefore the least efficient western nation in terms of converting wealth into cultural and physical health.
And I’m not the only one who thinks this study is not scientific. As one example, I came across “So That's the Reason: A scientist blames America's problems on religion,” by Theodore Dalrymple, (a contributing editor of the Manhattan Institute's City Journal) October 14, 2005. He describes the study and then cites numerous details of conflicting data, but my interest in this, other than as another criticism of Paul’s study, is confirmation that the information has spread to MSM outlets:
Mr. Paul's study has been covered in newspapers from Australia to England and lauded smugly in academic circles. As one University of Southern California student wrote in the Daily Trojan: "The last thing we [Americans] need is any more blind faith."
And, Dalrymple believes that there’s a motivation of hatred behind Paul’s flawed study:
The crudity and selectivity of Mr. Paul's thinking betrays an animus not only toward religion but toward the U.S., or at least toward American society. [. . .] To present America, even by implication, as an intellectual and cultural wasteland is an inaccuracy that can derive only from a visceral hostility that is not conducive to honesty. [. . . ] Mr. Paul's paper strikes me as an attitude masquerading as a search after truth. And perhaps I should end by declaring an interest: I have no religious belief.
This is a case of P3/C3, a fallacious report that meets the emotional needs of the one doing the study. How can I say this for certain? In a brief segment of a radio show in Australia, “The World Today”, (which to its credit had a professor on who opposed Paul), a reporter, Julia Lamb, asks Paul why he wrote the study [My emphasis]:
GREGORY PAUL: Being a palaeontologist, I've for many years had to deal with the issue of creationism versus evolutionary science in this country. The United States is pretty much the only prosperous democracy where religion is still highly popular, with about two-thirds of the population absolutely believing in God, and creationism being very popular in among half of society. In all the other prosperous democracies religion is much less popular now and evolution is highly accepted. So it's an issue, it's a problem I had to deal with. JULIA LIMB: Mr Paul says there was plenty of data available which allowed him to compare the level of dysfunction in prosperous democracies, based on the popularity of religion.[. . . ]
JULIA LIMB: Mr Paul concedes the problems faced in the US cannot be blamed on religious beliefs alone, but he says there's no denying that there are serious dysfunctions in the American society of the 21st century.
GREGORY PAUL: Well I don't say it's just religion. I mean I never would say that, and this is an initial study, but there are reasons to be very concerned. For example, in the United States, guns are unusually popular. There's very high private ownership. The people who advocate gun ownership the most in this country is the religious right. The phrase, "God, gun and the Bible". The way to put it is the United States is the only first world nation that retains rights to religiosity and scepticism for evolution that otherwise are found only in the second and third world.
I think that this is the perfect glimpse into Paul’s mind. This is a prime example of the Conservative Cat’s Premise 3: People who disagree with me are bad, and my Corollary 3: People who disagree with me are doing the bad things that are being done.
It is a clear and present danger when an example of fallacious reasoning moves from a prestigious journal to be acclaimed in the common media and at universities and colleges. Like a weed, it spreads and propagates, and ends up being orthodoxy, or, “truth”.
Consider the journal called Skeptic, seriously devoted to debunking things like bad science, the paranormal, superstitions, religion, belief in God, and the like, usually in experiments about ESP or bending spoons or bleeding statues, etc. Yet here we find an article based on the Paul study, using it as accepted accurate and true knowledge. In the Introduction, Michael Shermer, the Publisher and Editor of Skeptic, writes [My emphasis]:
In this article, we report the results of a study examining the relationship between a nation’s religiosity and its “moral health.” The received wisdom would lead one to predict a positive correlation [. . .] In fact, that appears not to be the case, and the example of the United States is most striking; Americans are among the most religious people in the Western world, and yet we have among the highest rates of homicide, abortion, and teen pregnancies. To the extent that these measures are related to something that might be called “national moral health,” the intuitive thesis that links religiosity to morality would seem to be gainsaid. For details, read on … and pass along these articles to your friends and colleagues and encourage them to subscribe to Skeptic and eSkeptic.
The article itself, “Religious Belief & Societal Health: New Study Reveals that Religion Does Not Lead to a Healthier Society”, by Matthew Provonsha, echoes these beliefs [my emphasis]:
It is commonly held that religion makes people more just, compassionate, and moral, but a new study suggests that the data belie that assumption. In fact, at first glance it would seem, religion has the opposite effect.[. . .] [The study] reveals clear correlations between various indicators of social strife and religiosity, showing that whether religion causes social strife or not, it certainly does not prevent it.The author of the study, Gregory S. Paul, writes that it is [. . .] not an attempt to present a definitive study that establishes cause versus effect between religiosity, secularism and societal health.” However, the study does show a direct correlation between religiosity and dysfunctionality, which if nothing else, disproves the widespread belief that religiosity is beneficial, that secularism is detrimental, and that widespread acceptance of evolution is harmful.
[. . .] Surveys show that many Americans agree “their church-going nation is an exceptional, God blessed, ‘shining city on the hill’ that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly skeptical world.” This assumption flies in the face of the actual statistical evidence that Paul examined.
[. . .] With a database of 800 million people, this study is far more reliable than results based on smaller sample sizes used in other such studies. The data are also current and extensive, collected in the middle and latter half of the 1990s and early 2000s from the International Social Survey Programme, the UN Development Programme, the World Health Organization, Gallup, and other well-documented sources.
The article is long, and repeats the “conclusions” found in the study, including the “data base of 800 million people”. When the author admits “there is no clear answer” in the last paragraph, it itself is an excellent example of P3/C3, he is still skewing the “conclusions” against America and against religious belief [Again, emphasis mine]:
The question is one of causation, and there is no clear answer. Whether religion leads directly to dysfunctionality, or religions merely flourish in dysfunctional societies, neither conclusion from this study flatters religion. The first tells us that religion is a hindrance to the development of moral character, and the second that religion hinders progress by distracting us from our troubles (with imaginary solutions to real problems). This study is complicated enough that I do not think that we can draw definitive negative conclusions about religion. But we can at least conclude, contrary to popular belief in this country, that it is not a given that religious societies are better, healthier, or more moral. What we can be clear about from this study is that highly religious societies can be dysfunctional, whereas by comparison secular societies in which evolution is largely accepted display real social cohesion and societal well-being. As is always the case in science, more data and additional research will help clarify our conclusions.
Despite there being “no clear answer”, the Paul study is not far here from anointed truth, with 800 million participants. Michael Shermer, also writes a column for the journal Scientific American, not-surprisingly called “Skeptic”. In the December 2006 Scientific American issue is: “Bowling for God: Is religion good for society? Science's definitive answer: it depends” by Michael Shermer. Thus, the Paul study moves on, falsely gaining the imprimatur of Scientific Truth, even if Shermer starts his article with the words: “Is religion a necessary component of social health? The data are conflicting”. [Once again, my emphasis]:
On the one hand, in a 2005 study [. . .] independent scholar Gregory S. Paul found an inverse correlation between religiosity [. . .] and societal health [. . . .] in 18 developed democracies. [. . .]
“On the one hand,” actually sounds promising. But if you expect the next paragraph to start: “On the other hand, Paul may be wrong,” you’ll be disappointed. Shermer goes on [my emphasis.]:
On the other hand, Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks argues in Who Really Cares (Basic Books, 2006) that when it comes to charitable giving and volunteering, numerous quantitative measures debunk the myth of "bleeding heart liberals" and "heartless conservatives." Conservatives donate 30 percent more money than liberals (even when controlled for income), give more blood and log more volunteer hours. [ . . . ] In terms of societal health, charitable givers are 43 percent more likely to say they are "very happy" than nongivers and 25 percent more likely than nongivers to say their health is excellent or very good.
This is the “other hand”? Suddenly we are discussing Conservatives and Liberals, and societal health is measured by people saying whether they are happy or in good health on a poll? More from Shermer [my emphasis.]:
The theory of "social capital" may help resolve these disparate findings. [. . .]
Note now the Paul study is “findings”. Anyway, at the last moment, Shermer mentions that there may be other possibilities, but I believe it is worded in a way more to “cover all bases”. You must judge for yourself. Note that at the end, he can’t help but throw in a pet theory of his own. [My emphasis]:
Religious social capital leads to charitable generosity and group membership but does comparatively worse than secular social capital for such ills as homicides, STDs, abortions and teen pregnancies. Three reasons suggest themselves: first, these problems have other causes entirely; second, secular social capital works better for such problems; third, these problems are related to what I call moral capital, or the connections within an individual between morality and behavior that are best fostered within families [. . .] secular or sacred.
Remember that I am writing about the idea that, as with Paul’s study, P3/C3 “science” is pushing out good science because of an agenda shared by the Left, the Leftist Universities, and the Main Stream Media. I believe we can’t afford any longer to merely grimace and shrug and then go on to other things.
We have to find examples and point them out, so that we learn to recognize their impact and work against their propagation as truth.
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