O sociologists of fractal iterations of unmeasurable categories and of clever designs of dubious methodologies, you have inspired post #2 today. Apparently it takes a "scientist" to turn the obvious on its ear and use a "study" to show that up is down. This is easily accomplished when a gaggle of atheist PhDs put their heads together to design a way to disprove God. Wait, that's not actually a scientific question, and they'd be flouting the fundamental boundaries of their own discipline to do so, making their credentials fairly worthless, so I guess they'll have to disprove the benefits of religiosity then--that's quantifiable, right? Yes, religiosity! It's something people have or they don't. It's something that motivates some people, and not others. It's something we can test--doesn't matter that some religious beliefs are more founded than others, that some religious beliefs produce behaviors that others don't, that some religious beliefs demand sacrifices, conclusions, hierarchies, and/or altruistic deeds to more of a degree of compulsion than others. It doesn't even matter than some religious beliefs start from a baseline assumption of equality of human potential that others don't. It doesn't matter what direction the faith is pointing, we'll just measure magnitude, call it "religiosity", and claim its effect is nefarious, no matter the results of the experiment--in fact, we'll design an "experiment" so it comes out that way.
Haha. I actually just mis-typed AXperiment. Pretty apt, though: an experiment designed as a hatchet job, rather than as a means to reveal a truth.
But apparently, a 7-author study just "proved" that religiosity doesn't produce more altruistic children, but rather actually dampens the natural altruism to which children with no religious influence are predisposed--if you believe these "scientists", religions make kids behave immorally. Here's the report on the study, and here's the study itself.
And here's what's wrong with it:
1. Religiosity is not a thing. It's not a category with any kind of rigor whatsoever. It presupposes a relativistic equality between religions that doesn't exist in the real world, uses that as a basis to presume that all religions produce the same result, and therefore measures nothing. Look, religions are systems of belief, no? Yeah, there's a social component to them, and they have varying institutions, but they only affect behavior insofar as they are the source of beliefs which people act upon. Beliefs aren't all equal. They have a magnitude and a direction. I can believe strongly in a Flying Spaghetti Monster, but since the FSM religion doesn't compel me to believe anything about how I should behave to earn his favor, that religion isn't equal to the one that compels me to treat my neighbor as myself, and to do good deeds to the least of my brethren, among other things. I may have a weak faith in Christian ethics, but since the baseline requires I believe in the brotherhood of man, and the saveability and infinite worth of all humanity, my likelihood of causing gratuitous pain and suffering is minimal, since I'd have to go against my own beliefs to produce such an act. On the other hand, there exist religious beliefs which compel categorization of humans into groups with differing rights and worth. And don't start with the tripe that "Christians used the Bible to justify slavery", that justification was always only and ever a distortion to forestall guilt over an abuse, both of power and of doctrine. The Bible produced the belief system that overthrew slavery wherever Christians lived. But then again, even that proves my point: if you're going to study the effect of religion on behavior, you have to begin with some kind of rigor about what beliefs lead to what behaviors--otherwise you're melting into a meaningless morass of a rather baseless and ignorant relativism.
2. Why study kids? I suppose we can expect that children who are taught to go to church/mosque regularly would gain some insight and socialization into the particular religious morality of their parents, and that since all of them ostensibly claim altruism as a value, the children would produce more altruism than the child with a neutral non-religious baseline, right? But aren't children, by definition, still learning, and immature in their development, even of "religiosity"? And doesn't this "study" obviate the most salient questions then? What are the processes by which children learn altruism? How do they internalize the beliefs of their religion? At what age can we safely say they're behaving on their own as their religion taught them, as opposed to behaving as their parents teach that their religion teaches them? In other words, finding that non-religious children behave more altruistically tells us nothing about whether religion fails or whether it's the institutions of religion, or religious parents that are to blame for the results. And I actually question the results, even, because the study flattens into a single average, not only all religions, but all developmental stages between age 5 and 12. We know, for example, that a cognitive shift occurs around age 8 at which children begin to develop a sense of right and wrong at all. Isn't it skewing the results to include ages 5-7? We also know that pre-adolescents develop identity crises that younger children do not--is it fair to include the 11-12 year olds who may be more prone to questioning who they are, if we're out to "measure" those who identify as "religious"
3. The "test" for altruism consisted of an elaborate sort of "musical chairs" where kids got to choose a number of stickers, and were told specifically to go ahead and choose their favorite ones (such permission predisposed them to choose selfishly), but that there were not going to be enough for others in their school. That's it. Some came up with the idea to not pick their allotted number so others could have some on their own, others didn't. In other words, the test cued up selfishness as "ok", then penalized kids for not, of their own initiative, coming up with the idea of sharing that wasn't part of the game as explained to them. Furthermore, since there wasn't an actual person in need, or even a real non-anonymous person at all to whom to be altruistic, the limits of applicability of this test should be obvious. Maybe the scale of the study gives a broad enough average that it's harder to explain how non-religious kids could consistently share, while religious kids consistently didn't. But the data don't show a causative, significant link. The study claims the difference is significant, but the "significance" barely qualifies as such statistically.
There are other questions to entertain: do non-religious parents not teach their kids to be altruistic? Are the kids more altruistic because they aren't taught, and therefore haven't had some natural altruism cooked out of them? Or are they taught, but the method and beliefs are more successful at inculcating a sense of altruism at an earlier age? Do religious kids approach altruism differently. The "study" also claimed to find the religious upbringing increased the rate of judgmentalism (judging more harshly) in kids of this age. Are the two connected in such a way that one naturally develops before the other?
In all cases, bias in the question, lack of rigor in the categories under study, and flawed methodology are often what sinks "scientific" studies, and this one fails on all three. How do I know? I've tested it! I have 5 little experiments at home, all in the same age range as this "study", all of whom attend church weekly, read scriptures and pray daily, and receive frequent teachings on their parents' chosen system of morality. They are imperfect, as are their parents, but are also quite generous with what little they have, and delight in doing nice things for others when they get the chance. Ask the retired neighbor down the street with the invalid wife if he's in any doubt what belief system motivated them to clear his driveway of snow last winter. When kids learn that service comes with its own reward, play, fun, and altruism are all synonymous. Because Jesus told them, and showed them.
As a final note, this "study" seems to give weight to the idea that teaching religion to children is counterproductive at best, dangerous indoctrination at worst. But it requires a complete misunderstanding of faith at all to come to that conclusion. It's true that adults can use their minds, hearts, and spirits, to learn things and acquire a religious faith that children don't have the mature brain to process on the level of conscious choice that adults can. But if you take that truth to mean that it's worthless, or damaging to teach a child before maturity, you're missing how much faith is not merely about a conscious identifiably punctual choice to believe, but is also about a million tiny experiments in behaving as if something is true, and maintaining a--dare I say it--scientific openness to the evidence confirming the spiritual growth that happens after the experiment is made. Truth confirms itself. Empirical truth and spiritual truth. And depriving a child of a life of early and often experiments to reinforce, with experimentation, the things the parents already know to be true, leaves a later choice without its proper preparation. What balance is there in an experiment in which you ask an adult to make a choice whether or not to believe in something s/he can't see, but you haven't allowed them to develop the skills and habits of prayer, meditation, altruism, ritual, etc. that it takes to make a truly informed choice as to whether that's all worthwhile or it's all hooey? Faith is hard. It takes so much effort to maintain. The child whose parents didn't want her/him to be biased all childhood long, and then make a choice as a mature adult, have actually biased their child so greatly against faith that the conclusion seems almost foregone--in truth, the choice was made for the child long before.
I guess that's what I'm really after. Some choices are made in an instant. Others are of a nature so subtle and durative that it's hard to know when the decision was actually made. Religious faith, and the altruism it most certainly produces, are not like choosing which pizza you want, and more like choosing whether you'll be a sportsmanlike athlete--only hundreds of losses will tell.
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