interesting data about literacy and religion

[lazarus]

http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-real-stuff-white-people-like/
On edit, from the link:

We selected 526,000 OkCupid users at random and divided them into groups by their (self-stated) race. We then took all these people's profile essays (280 million words in total!) and isolated the words and phrases that made each racial group's essays statistically distinct from the others'.

For instance, it turns out that all kinds of people list sushi as one of their favorite foods. But Asians are the only group who also list sashimi; it's a racial outlier. Similarly, as we shall see, black people are 20 times more likely than everyone else to mention soul food, whereas no foods are distinct for white people, unless you count diet coke.

That link has been posted all over the web as the "real stuff white people like" dissection of data from a dating site. But nobody yet has scrolled down to find some very interesting data on religion.

Note that for each of the faith-based belief systems I've listed, the people who are the least serious about them write at the highest level. On the other hand, the people who are most serious about not having faith (i.e. the "very serious" agnostics and atheists) score higher than any religious groups.

The lite Buddhists did well, too.

[laconicsax]

1. Does anyone else cringe at the y-axis?

[realisticphish]

2. yeaaaaaah

that makes me weep for our educational system, seriously

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Perhaps, but should internet profiles be graded by school essay standards?

When you're describing yourself for casual purposes, you may well not want to use language as precise as you would for a 12th grade history essay. If the grading is just checking the grammar and spelling, then it would indicate a problem; if it's looking for breadth of vocabulary, then it may just show a preference for a simpler writing style in that situation.

[realisticphish]

8. true nt

[lazarus]

3. something I just noticed

for every religion, the less serious, the higher the ranking, but for agnostic/atheist, it's the other way around.

[awoke_in_2003]

12. I know the catholics...

rank better than the protestants because catholic schools tend to be very good.

[charlie]

4. Yeah, it's pretty dismaying

Hopefully, the demographic for an online dating service self-selects for low literacy, the same way Yahoo Answers, YouTube, and 4chan draws imbeciles.

Hopefully. But who can be sure anymore? Yikes.

[Kolesar]

6. What else would you expect from "Yay-hoo Answers"? ... eom

[ZombieHorde]

10. Because the y-axis starts with 7, but the increments are 1? nt

[laconicsax]

13. That's a lesser reason. n/t

[awoke_in_2003]

11. I cringe...

even though I am surrounding by stupid down here, and should be used to it.

[Kolesar]

7. The limit condition is Afghanistan where 85% can't read in a country of religious extremist morons

They get their information from the street or from some nefarious, egotistical cleric. Hence, they hate America even more than we deserve to be hated.

[Odin2005]

9. Even the average for Buddhists and Atheists doesn't reach 9th Grade?

We are SOOOO fucked as a society...