Atheists Shouldnt Get That Excited About That New Study About Atheism

[rug]

May 20, 2017
by Andrew Hall

I’m sure if there was a national poll of the Russian populace before Lenin and his crew of Bolsheviks took over that country asking if a free society was desirable, the results would be a resounding YES!

The devil, of course, would be in how you asked the questions. If you phrased the queries like “Would you like your standard of living to rise due to the liberalization of the economy that comes with a free society?” then only the most ardent fans of authoritarianism would say no. However, if you were going to gauge the sentiment of the people by asking, “Are you against the Czar and all of the earthly powers God gave him?” then you’d get another totally different answer.

The newest thing you have to read on the internet is the piece on FiveThirtyEight Way More Americans May Be Atheists Than We Thought. The researchers came up with some creative ways of asking people how they thought about God as against to simply asking “Are you an atheist?”

"The authors of the study, published earlier this year, adopted a novel way to measure atheist identity. Instead of asking about belief in God directly, they provided a list of seemingly innocuous statements and then asked: “How many of these statements are true of you?” Respondents in a control group were given a list of nine statements, such as “I own a dog” and “I am a vegetarian.” The test group received all the same statements plus one that read, “I do not believe in God.” The totals from the test group were then compared to those from the control group, allowing researchers to estimate the number of people who identify as atheists without requiring any of the respondents to directly state that they don’t believe in God.1 The study concludes that roughly one-quarter (26 percent) of Americans likely do not believe in God.2"

Wow, that’s cause for some celebration, right?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/2017/05/shouldnt-excited-new-study-atheism/

[Orrex]

1. That's some goofy methodology

Maybe they could test again, but this time with using "Do you own a dog" as the "zinger" question. Presumably, they should be able to estimate how many are dogless by whether or not they're vegetarian atheists.

[rug]

2. Yeah, it's very indirect.

It also assumes a reluctance to honestly answer an anonymous poll on atheism. That's a debatable premise on which to base a survey.

[Volstagg]

7. Do you think there is no stigma to atheism is our society?

Because there is. I get why people wouldn't be willing to answer. Even on something that purports to be anonymous.

[rug]

10. Nothing to warrent hiding one's atheism on an anoymous poll.

That was the comment. Not the desperate plight of atheists in the United States of America.

[Volstagg]

11. Never said it was a "desperate plight." You can build that straw man elsewhere.

But if you think even there aren't places in the US where you would want to hide your disbelief, you'd be wrong. That lack of tendency to identify as atheist would likely transfer to even an anonymous poll. Seems like those that design polls realize that is a thing, too, and developed a method to overcome that tendancy.

[rug]

12. I'll put it next to yours: "no stigma to atheism".

Pay attention to what I wrote and do not reshape it to suit you.

Your speculation about what "would likely transfer" is ludicrous.

If you want to play the persecuted victim, do it on your own time.

[Volstagg]

13. Why do you think a methodology was developed for this type of question?

You're right, it's a glorious country to be an atheist.

I have no thoughts that it is anything like being beheaded for being an atheist in some countries, but it's not an atheist lovefest, either.

[rug]

15. I don't know. I think a more productive test would delve into the reticence.

Clearly there are social circumstances that dictate it. But anonymous polls? Strikes me that something else is going on. Peer pressure can be measured if done right.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. Far from being 'ludricous', the survey results back up the idea of a stigma transferring

to how people answer anonymous polls. You may have been surprised by the result, but there it is. It's just as well they didn't assume what the results would be, the way you have done.

It may not be logical for someone to feel a stigma about directly saying they don't being in God in an anonymous survey, but the results show people do. That's an aspect of psychology. Society can instill illogical shame in people, that affects how they think as well as how they express themselves publicly.

[rug]

16. Not this survey. That's a hypothesis to explain the anamolus results.

There are certainly more direct means to measure and distinguish stigma or shame or persecution. Theis experiment explains none of it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. Yes, this survey. A quote from the survey:

"The unmatched count technique indirectly infers underlying base rates for socially undesirable or unacceptable outcomes "

The purpose of this form of survey is to see if stigma is affecting direct responses.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. It's a technique that has been used before

From the paper:

"For both samples, we indirectly inferred atheism rates using the unmatched count technique(e.g., Dalton, Wimbush, & Daily, 1994; Raghavarao & Federer, 1979), a tool for inferring base rates of socially sensitive outcomes. The unmatched count technique indirectly infers underlying base rates for socially undesirable or unacceptable outcomes by randomly assigning participants to one of two versions of a count task.
...
In using this task to indirectly measure atheist prevalence, our approach mirrors recent working using the unmatched count technique to indirectly estimate the size of the LGBT community as well as antigay sentiment (Coffman, Coffman, & Ericson, 2016). Crucially, this work includes extensive validation of the task’s utility in estimating the size of stigmatized groups, finding that the UCT does not appear to be driven by inattentive or random responding, and only generally diverges from self-reports of socially undesirable attributes (but not generic foil attributes). The task appears robust as well to participant inattentiveness and random responding (Coffman et al., 2016)."

[Orrex]

4. I suppose that it's kind of like what social media does

Targeting ads based on word use and on "liked" stories.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. No, I can't see any connection to that at all

I think you haven't understood it. Read the paper, or the Five Thrirty Eight article.

[Orrex]

6. That's also possible, and I'll give it a more thorough review

My point, though, was that ads for certain products can famously be targeted to people even if those people haven't specifically expressed an interest in the particular product, in much the same way that political ads can be targeted with great precision based on demographic factors not directly connected with politics.

How are these not examples of "indirect measuring?"

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. That may be one form of indirect measuring, but this is another

It's not about trying to match answers to other questions to a likelihood that they don't believe in gods, it's comparing the spread of "X of these are true for me" responses with and without the atheism question. The other questions are completely random (eg "I've been to the South Pole", "I have visited New York City&quot ; all the respondents give is their total of statements that apply to them.

[Orrex]

9. Ah. Ok.

Definitely worth another look.