Originally posted by Omega Vision
It seems like we disagree on an issue of degree, not content. I do think that education (in proper fields) should cut down on belief in prophecies. It's just that I've known too many smart people who still have strong religious faith despite their level of education (DDD for instance. What's up with that? sneer) to think that education will inoculate someone against irrational beliefs.
This is a good point, but I think you're misunderstanding the difference between a majority and a statistically significant difference. I actually think you do know this, and I don't want to insult your intelligence, but just to make my point...
Let's say 80% of the general population is religious (not an unreasonable estimate). And to make it simpler, high school graduate, college BA, college masters, and doctorate are, respectively, 85% religious, 80%, 75%, and 70%. At 70%, you're still talking about a healthy majority, but you're also dealing with a large statistical swing from the 85% high school grad demographic.
So I think that's what you're seeing. We're in a religion-saturated world. An intuitive glance at any range of education would tend to inform us that anyone can be anything. And that's true. But there's still a much higher chance you won't be religious (or believe the Mayans, or {insert numerous beliefs}).
As it is, I don't know what the exact percentages are, but there is a demonstrable link between level of education and lack of religion, and iirc it's considerably bigger than my example above. The margin gets even bigger when you only look at scientists. Theist scientists can still be found in droves, but the percentages are far lower than the general population. It's almost impossible to bring this up without injuring the sensibilities of theists in the audience, because it's often stated with a sense of superiority (which I try to avoid). But the fact of it remains.
Interestingly, the correlation between education and lack of paranormal beliefs (not gods, per se, but other phenomenon) is much less strong, almost to the point of nonexistence. So there my case loses some ground, and yours gains a bit. But the data is still there for organized religion and belief in God.
Originally posted by Digi
This is a good point, but I think you're misunderstanding the difference between a majority and a statistically significant difference. I actually think you do know this, and I don't want to insult your intelligence, but just to make my point...Let's say 80% of the general population is religious (not an unreasonable estimate). And to make it simpler, high school graduate, college BA, college masters, and doctorate are, respectively, 85% religious, 80%, 75%, and 70%. At 70%, you're still talking about a healthy majority, but you're also dealing with a large statistical swing from the 85% high school grad demographic.
just because we are being pedantic:
you actually confused statistical significance with effect size.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
He's the guy who wrote Cane, duh, totes love that book.
Originally posted by Digi
This is a good point, but I think you're misunderstanding the difference between a majority and a statistically significant difference. I actually think you do know this, and I don't want to insult your intelligence, but just to make my point...Let's say 80% of the general population is religious (not an unreasonable estimate). And to make it simpler, high school graduate, college BA, college masters, and doctorate are, respectively, 85% religious, 80%, 75%, and 70%. At 70%, you're still talking about a healthy majority, but you're also dealing with a large statistical swing from the 85% high school grad demographic.
So I think that's what you're seeing. We're in a religion-saturated world. An intuitive glance at any range of education would tend to inform us that anyone can be anything. And that's true. But there's still a much higher chance you won't be religious (or believe the Mayans, or {insert numerous beliefs}).
As it is, I don't know what the exact percentages are, but there is a demonstrable link between level of education and lack of religion, and iirc it's considerably bigger than my example above. The margin gets even bigger when you only look at scientists. Theist scientists can still be found in droves, but the percentages are far lower than the general population. It's almost impossible to bring this up without injuring the sensibilities of theists in the audience, because it's often stated with a sense of superiority (which I try to avoid). But the fact of it remains.
Interestingly, the correlation between education and lack of paranormal beliefs (not gods, per se, but other phenomenon) is much less strong, almost to the point of nonexistence. So there my case loses some ground, and yours gains a bit. But the data is still there for organized religion and belief in God.
Originally posted by Oliver North
just because we are being pedantic:you actually confused statistical significance with effect size.
No, it's cool. I'll avoid this mistake with some pedantic academic in the future now.
👆
Originally posted by Omega Vision
Seeing as I've admitted that there is a negative correlation between education and irrational beliefs and you've admitted that high education doesn't preclude irrational beliefs, this seems like quibbling, you quibbler. uhuh
Not quibbling. It's the difference between education being a contributing factor in lack of these beliefs, and it not being a factor. I think, especially in this particular instance where we have one of the Mayan polls directly stating it, we can conclude that education is a big factor.
I'll have to dig up the "paranormal belief to education" studies I read, because I may actually be underselling my point by misremembering that data as showing little-to-no correlation. I pronounced it was less pronounced than religion and belief in God, but I don't remember the details of it.
Originally posted by Digi
No, it's cool. I'll avoid this mistake with some pedantic academic in the future now.👆
to be fair, at the number of people you are talking about (your "N", I'm not sure how much stats you know) your power (the likelihood of a significant result) would be so high, a 15% difference almost couldn't be significant. Just saying is all 😉
lol, I'm doing a lab for intro stats at the moment, its a really common mistake [like, one of the criticisms of null hypothesis testing is that academics make it all the time]. Its weird to think that huge effects might not be significant or vice versa.
1) I wont have patients, I have subjects.
2) omg do you know how dangerous that would be? I'd have so many faulty scripts for tranquilizers I'd probably never get out of bed... not to be melodramatic...
lol, as a real answer to a joke question, I'm never going to have a medical degree. I don't care if my research helps people, I just want to know how we work. I wouldn't stop it if someone uses what I do to help people, but I'm way more interested in understanding the "normal" population rather than helping the "clinical" one [admitting that distinction is entirely problematic]
Originally posted by Omega Vision
(You're planning to go into counseling, right?)
omfg no
EDIT: just to throw it out there, I use the term "counselor" to refer to someone who got a psychology degree but doesn't care at all about the science and just wants a crappy job after university. I use "human resources dept." in the same, literally exact, way
Originally posted by Oliver North
1) I wont have patients, I have subjects.2) omg do you know how dangerous that would be? I'd have so many faulty scripts for tranquilizers I'd probably never get out of bed... not to be melodramatic...
lol, as a real answer to a joke question, I'm never going to have a medical degree. I don't care if my research helps people, I just want to know how we work. I wouldn't stop it if someone uses what I do to help people, but I'm way more interested in understanding the "normal" population rather than helping the "clinical" one [admitting that distinction is entirely problematic]
omfg no
My Epistemology professor actually knew a handful of psych and philosophy majors who got their names in one of Fermilab's latest papers as consultants.
Originally posted by Omega Vision
Well, as I understand it, the cool thing about research psychology today is that due to the massive complexity of modern studies of almost any science, psychologists are brought into things like particle physics labs so as to test the testers, so to speak.
to some degree, yes. I would say, as a science, we are far more aware of things like experimenter bias and self-selective results (however, social psych seems to have a continuing problem, largely in Europe, of falsified data).
Ultimately, I'd wish stuff like that just became part of science, but ya, I'm with you. I'm not sure how much you know about James Randi or the "Alpha Project", but even he says that, if the experimenters had been psychologists rather than physicists, they would have been much more prepared for trickery or lying on the part of the subjects, something which people who focus on the "fundamental forces" [I'm sorry, but [sic], my biases against physicists are well documented at this point] of the universe aren't too familiar with.
Originally posted by Omega Vision
My Epistemology professor actually knew a handful of psych and philosophy majors who got their names in one of Fermilab's latest papers as consultants.
damn, I've never heard of anything like that, actually... that would be really cool, but again, personally, I'd way rather be figuring out human behaviour than checking the results of another person's research
Originally posted by Oliver Northdamn, I've never heard of anything like that, actually... that would be really cool, but again, personally, I'd way rather be figuring out human behaviour than checking the results of another person's research
You can think of it this way: you'd be figuring out the behavior of the scientist subgroup of humans.
Originally posted by Omega Vision
I'm sure it's cutthroat competition to get that kind of job.
Seems like the kind of thing that requires a variety of skill sets. Just trying to imagine it I see a need for psychology, philosophy of science, really really deep stats knowledge, and good interpersonal skills.
Originally posted by Mindship
Psychology. 🙂
and still, most people think about Freud and Dr. Phil when you bring up the term...
Originally posted by Omega Vision
You can think of it this way: you'd be figuring out the behavior of the scientist subgroup of humans.
😉 sure, but I'm still not into looking at clinical populations
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Seems like the kind of thing that requires a variety of skill sets. Just trying to imagine it I see a need for psychology, philosophy of science, really really deep stats knowledge, and good interpersonal skills.
oh for sure...
to double check that a quantum physcist wasn't falling victim to some type of bias, you would nearly have to be able to run their experiments yourself.
It would be a very rarified set of skills
Originally posted by Oliver North
to be fair, at the number of people you are talking about (your "N", I'm not sure how much stats you know) your power (the likelihood of a significant result) would be so high, a 15% difference almost couldn't be significant. Just saying is all 😉
oh god....
insignificant, at the number of people you are talking about the difference almost couldn't be insignificant...
dammit...
Originally posted by Oliver NorthUnfortunately (*sigh* / *facepalm*, respectively), though occasionally one hears a Skinner comment --which often includes a confusion of negative reinforcement with punishment; hell, even Big Bang Theory failed on that one...but then again, physicists.
and still, most people think about Freud and Dr. Phil when you bring up the term...
Originally posted by Omega Vision
Seeing as I've admitted that there is a negative correlation between education and irrational beliefs
to be fair, if you control for education, belief in ghosts goes up
only a crazy small minority of degrees given each year are in STEM or related fields. There are more people getting drama or art history degrees.