Category Archives: data

Knowing My Religion

Posted on October 2, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

An entertaining Pew survey showing that atheists and agnostics are better informed about religion than their theistic counterparts has raised a few eyebrows. I’m not convinced it’s such a big deal. As Daniel Larison records, there’s this detail: Data from … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, data | Tagged | 12 Comments

The priorities of Pakistan

Posted on September 8, 2010 by David Hume

OK. You know that there have been floods in Pakistan which have displaced ~20 million. No worries, there’s still time to for suicide bombings aimed at killing Pakistani Shia (the Shia believe that the the descendants of Ali are the … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, data | Tagged | 2 Comments

Are conservative whites more racist?

Posted on September 7, 2010 by David Hume

I analyzed some GSS data over at Discover. The commenters were only cursorily engaging the data, and I don’t have much patience for long rhetorical back and forths which are already predetermined as to the nature of the conclusions of … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, data | Tagged , | 15 Comments

There is no prophecy

Posted on August 22, 2010 by David Hume
Posted in data, politics | Tagged | 4 Comments

The Rise of The Religious Left

Posted on July 4, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

The piece of data that lies at the heart of Charles Blow’s Saturday New York Times piece is obvious when you come to think about it, but it’ll still come in handy as an argument for questioning certain stereotypes about … Continue reading →

Posted in data, politics | Tagged | 11 Comments

Must atheists also be liberals?

Posted on July 3, 2010 by David Hume

That’s the topic of this week’s Point of Inquiry, hosted by Chris Mooney. Obviously the answer is no from my perspective, though some Leftist atheists and Rightists religionists would disagree strongly. That being said, from poking around American social science … Continue reading →

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Obama As Antichrist & Other Modern Myths

Posted on April 10, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

Fond as I am of The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby and other such devil movies, I can’t claim any great expertise on the question of who may—or may not—be a likely antichrist. On the whole, I don’t think that Obama is … Continue reading →

Posted in data, politics | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Who Will Inherit The Earth?

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

The idea that fecund religious fundamentalists will (eventually) take over the world is not a new one, but it gets a fresh airing in a new book by Eric Kaufmann discussed in this interesting (if vaguely leftish) piece from the … Continue reading →

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Numbers in lieu of wisdom

Posted on March 21, 2010 by David Hume

I’m a big critic of the reliance on impressionistic data often peddled by the media. In classic high school essay form generally it’s rather clear that there’s a hypothesis, and that the journalist just goes looking for individuals who will … Continue reading →

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Hostility to anti-religion by demographic

Posted on March 5, 2010 by David Hume

A question: do you have polling data that examines distrust of atheists in public office according to gender/race/religion (e.g. exploring whether men or women are more likely to trust an atheist president)? I couldn’t find cross-tabs, but pollster.com does have … Continue reading →

Posted in data | Tagged | 14 Comments