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[Shinotsa]

Psychology tests things differently than other sciences. In order to test something subjective, you first come up with a scale and define it. In order to get approval and funding (at least in the U. S. A. though I'm sure Canada has a similar system) you have to submit what you are going to be doing and how it is going to be measured for approval to an impartial board, which then approves or disapproves of the study. They certainly aren't perfect, but they are designed to at the very least have some degree of accuracy when testing the variables they were designed to test.

It seems that chance could have had an impact on the study however, as I mentioned previously, the study must be pre-approved. Thus the sample sizes would have to be large enough to eliminate a good deal of randomness. The last study I saw by this guy had 200 or so people tested; the one I'm involved in right now is shooting for 375. In addition to this, all three studies pointed to the same conclusion. So assuming the number 200 is close to right, that would be 600 people tested in three studies verifying a basic concept. Not absolute by any means, but with the vast array of statistical analyses available to the scientific community, it is likely they processed the data in such a way as to minimize chance. At this point it seems that the best argument to take is that the variables being used were not accurately measuring faith or belief.

Finally, in the statue case the subjects could not guess the "right" answer. Two separate groups were exposed to only one condition each. Thus people who were exposed to the Thinker and then asked to rate their belief on a scale were not then exposed to the other statue and then asked to rate their belief. That would be silly, as people would expect that they were supposed to change their answer.

The cornerstone of the experimental method is that it is reinforced by repetition. People will repeat these studies to test the reliability of the variables and they will tweak variables and see if they were relevant to the topic of faith. Keep an eye out for new developments and new studies, though it may be quite a while since few people like taking up such a controversial subject.

It certainly wouldn't be the first time a journal has posted a poor article in much the same way it wouldn't be the first time a plane has been hijacked the next time one of us flies. The prominence of an event in our minds has little correlation with how likely it is to actually occur.

[bitesh]

I'm religious, and I perfectly understand that 100 machines could never take 100 minutes to make 100 widgets, assuming it's the same machines. I call bull.

[Leafsnail]

and these analytical types tend to score lower on the researchers' tests of religious belief.

As opposed to "are always areligious".

[ChairmanPoo]

For the record, I'm not religious. I just find the experiment and it's drawn conclusions (at least as outlined in SciAm) to be weak

[bitesh]

Furthermore, I think, religious or not, most people have not really thought out what they call their beliefs, and because of this are influenceable by this sort of shenanigans (like the font-type, mentioned in the article).

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Wait, how do you test belief in God and angels? Do you just straight-up ask them?

I assume that they have probably circumvented the direct question by asking questions which rely on a belief in such entities if you want to get certain results. However, as Bauglir quite fittingly stressed, by going indirectly, you also open yourself to false leads.

Personally, the only really certain way to figure out whether a person believes in God(s) I can think of would be to successfully and completely make them believe that they have a fatal disease like rabies (99% mortality) in an uncurable state and thus only a few hours to live. Anyone who uses that time for something religious (praying, confessing, appealing to higher forces, ...) believes in God(s) and anyone who does none of the sort does not believe in such entities. Given that death is such a major event, I think that just about any kind of faith will probably express itself in some way if the person is about to meet that great divide. However, there remains the problem of silent prayers and the like which are not really observable - not to mention that deliberately making people fear imminent death is a form of torture so this method is not really recommendable for your average study (^_^;;

If so, it's a hoax that managed to get printed as a four-page article in Science. (spoilers: it's not).

Wouldn't be the first time an otherwise good journal publishes a lousy article.

Names in the academia are not worth half as much as people think. In preparation for an exam, I read a book with seemingly a good reputation (I think it was The Articulate Mammal). Had it not been a book belonging to the library, I think I would have tossed it in the trash bin considering the smug anthropocentrism mingled with seemingly religiously motivated innate singularity of humanity. Most of the arguments and proofs were of such a poor quality that I would have gotten any paper rejected if I used methods even similar... just recalling this thing makes me feel sick.

So, yes, bringing a critical mind to academic publications is always a very good idea, I think.

Yours,
Deathworks

EDIT: Shinotsa: You posted while I was typing my reply, so in order to avoid further delay/lagging, I want to give a brief response to a certain aspect. When I referred to a "right" answer, I did not suggest that both images were shown. I referred to the statue setting a certain mood, as in "Ah, the people testing me have shown me a statue glorifying rational thinking, so I assume that they consider rational thinking to be important". This works without any other image counter-imposed. "The Thinker" himself already contains all the information for this.

[ChairmanPoo]

Personally, the only really certain way to figure out whether a person believes in God(s) I can think of would be to successfully and completely make them believe that they have a fatal disease like rabies (99% mortality) in an uncurable state and thus only a few hours to live. Anyone who uses that time for something religious (praying, confessing, appealing to higher forces, ...) believes in God(s) and anyone who does none of the sort does not believe in such entities. Given that death is such a major event, I think that just about any kind of faith will probably express itself in some way if the person is about to meet that great divide. However, there remains the problem of silent prayers and the like which are not really observable - not to mention that deliberately making people fear imminent death is a form of torture so this method is not really recommendable for your average study (^_^;;

This wouldn't really prove anything. That someone in extremis believed or disbelieved in a god has no bearing on that someone's beliefs beforehand, or in other circumstances.

[Shinotsa]

I think I am missing something here. As posted by Deathworks and bitesh, a variable meant to induce rational thinking caused a drop in reported belief. The religious people I know do not correlate increased belief with decreased rational thinking, and thus would have accurately reported any change in belief without anticipating the expected response. Perhaps the assumption of how secular vs religous people think is causing us to come at it from different sides. As I understand it the point was to glorify rational thinking, because those who are religious should not have their faith shaken by thinking rationally. As I slightly mentioned before, the problem with this study might be that the variables being tested do not fit with the actual conclusions that are being drawn from it.

Criticising academic works is vital, especially new findings. However it is awful to assume that something that sounds fishy is completely wrong and a hoax. It is much more likely to find that the study was actually measuring something other than it intended. While researchers always bring their own biases to the table, they work with peers and are reviewed to remove that bias as much as possible.

Note: As I am going into psychiatry and am currently doing research, I am biased to argue for these guys. As an atheist, I am also biased to argue for them. I can honestly say it is more of the former than the latter that is affecting my response, though I am trying to keep both from coloring my judgement at all.

[EveryZig]

I'm religious, and I perfectly understand that 100 machines could never take 100 minutes to make 100 widgets, assuming it's the same machines. I call bull.

Specific examples generally only disprove absolute rules rather than tendencies.
(So your example would disprove a statement that believers never answer the question correctly, but has a fairly small impact on a statement that believers answer the question correctly less often.)

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Shinotsa: The basic problem we all agree on is identifying whether really what is measured is what the people doing the study wanted to measure. Since we do not have the specifics of that "belief test" itself, we can't really comment on where its potential pitfalls may lie.

However, assuming that the test depends on some form of communication of the test subject with the testers, aspects of complying with the other and diverse communicative strategies which interfere with our honest self-representation directly come to mind. By presenting the "Thinker", the testers may have created an image of themselves triggering such behaviors. Or let me make a comparison: Let's assume we wanted to test the racism in a sample of white American people. Half of the people are tested by a colored person, the other half them is tested by a white person. Regardless of how you try to find the racist tendencies, I would assume that most of the ones tested by the colored person would accomodate their communicative partner, so that they would score for less racism than they actually harbor in their inner thoughts. And I am not talking about direct asking "Are you a racist?". I am talking about answers/behavior potentially offending the communicative partner. Of course, extremists may not be influenced, but there is a lot of space between the extremes.

The strong reaction I and probably some other people have shown is also due to the claim implied by the article. With all the prestige surrounding analytical thinking and all the (in my opinion useless) feuds between religious people and atheists, the yellow press type statement about that correlation just feels wrong.

ChairmanPoo: I think our disagreement stems from another problem of this study: How do you define religious belief. For me, genuine religious belief is something fundamental which reaches down to the subconscious level. Thus, it makes sense for me to extract it via the in extremis method as I am interested in getting at the bare bones of the person, nothing less. But I can see that you can consider religious belief to be somewhat different from this extreme view, in which case my method may indeed be inadequate.

Yours,
Deathworks

[bitesh]

All this is making me want to find and take those tests myself.

[kaijyuu]

Re: The article.

Only the first experiment seems to have any real bearing on "analytical thinking," I think. It's the one that separates people who take more than .5 seconds to answer a question from those who don't. The other two test the effects of certain stimuli on people's answers, which isn't the same.


The Thinking Man conjures up more than just the concept of thought and reflection in my mind. It conjures up philosophy, science, and notably skepticism. For fence sitters who don't care/haven't thought much, they will probably want to give the "right" answer rather than the one they personally lean toward, and the Thinking Man is going to influence what they think is "right" at the moment.

As for the type face one, any graphic design student can tell you that type face does A LOT. It's not just a matter of how much time it takes to read it or how much time you have to think about it. You give a difficult to read type face, and you're almost certainly going to give the reader the thought of "pretentiousness," which is obviously going to affect their answer toward the negative side.



Long story short, these experiments (barring the first one) don't really prove much anything about analytical thinking's effect on belief. They prove a certain visual stimuli and a type face's effect on how someone answers questions about belief.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

All this is making me want to find and take those tests myself.

Unfortunately, knowing what is being tested in such specific details probably interferes even more with your results...

Yours,
Deathworks

Shinotsa: Allow me to clarify that I am not opposed to psychiatry or research in that field. There has been quite good work both in the clinical field as well as related to society in general. However, I am skeptical about such "big announcements" as the probability of some interference is very high in my opinion.

EDIT: Something I forgot to mention beforehand and which also helps with my skepticism: It seems to be common knowledge that a lot of physicists and the like are also very religious, which makes the alleged results of the study somewhat counter-intuitive.

[Fenrir]

All this is making me want to find and take those tests myself.

We are talking about science. Revenge is not a part of science. What you are proposing is ‼science‼.

[bitesh]

All this is making me want to find and take those tests myself.

We are talking about science. Revenge is not a part of science. What you are proposing is ‼science‼.

I really didn't mean it like that.

Furthermore, I think, religious or not, most people have not really thought out what they call their beliefs, and because of this are influenceable by this sort of shenanigans (like the font-type, mentioned in the article).

I was thinking more in the terms of seeing if I was full of shit, myself. Because I'd rather not.