{"id":298,"date":"2008-12-01T08:45:27","date_gmt":"2008-12-01T16:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=298"},"modified":"2008-12-05T17:49:46","modified_gmt":"2008-12-06T01:49:46","slug":"who-is-scientistically-inclined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/who-is-scientistically-inclined\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is scientistically inclined?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A comment<\/a> below states:<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think that your ranking of appropriate degrees of skepticism really has much to do with conservative politics, however. In fact, the one object of faith that is most common among those skeptical of religion is a quasi-religious faith in the metaphysical validity of modern natural science which betrays a lack of familiarity with both the history and philosophy of science….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a generalization. Generalizations are necessary, and often true (and often not).<\/strong> But I’m the type who likes to inquire as to how true the generalization is. In other words, the shape of the variance<\/a> around the central tendency<\/a>. If humans were universally philosophically coherent and operated from the same initial premises this would be a marginal activity, but as humans are not, and do not, there is often great variation which might surprise. This is why I explained to one reader the importance of being careful when extrapolating from your own introspection. \u00a0It is irrelevant to me if something should not <\/em>be theoretically if it is <\/em>empirically.<\/p>\n

So I decided to look at the HARMGOOD variable in the GSS, which asks:<\/p>\n

How much do you agree or disagree with each of these statements? Overall, modern science does more harm than good.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is a very weak test of whether one is <\/a>scientistically<\/a> inclined, but I am looking for trends, and assume that the rank order would hold if one queried more stringently (there are other questions which are related to this one, but in the interests of time I’ll leave it to the reader to perform those queries). \u00a0I cross-referenced HARMGOOD with POLVIEWS (political ideology) and GOD (confidence in the existence of god).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nExt Liberal<\/td>\nLiberal<\/td>\nSlightly Lib<\/td>\nModerate<\/td>\nSlightly Con<\/td>\nConservative<\/td>\nExt Cons<\/td>\nN<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Strongly Agree<\/td>\n6.2<\/td>\n3.8<\/td>\n2.1<\/td>\n2.8<\/td>\n4.3<\/td>\n4.3<\/td>\n7.2<\/td>\n177<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Agree<\/td>\n21.8<\/td>\n10.4<\/td>\n13.5<\/td>\n13.5<\/td>\n12<\/td>\n12.3<\/td>\n16.7<\/td>\n650<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Neither Agree Nor Disagree<\/td>\n20.7<\/td>\n15.9<\/td>\n21.2<\/td>\n28<\/td>\n19.4<\/td>\n24<\/td>\n21.5<\/td>\n1159<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Disagree<\/td>\n32.9<\/td>\n48.9<\/td>\n44.7<\/td>\n42.9<\/td>\n48.6<\/td>\n41<\/td>\n40.4<\/td>\n2205<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Strongly disagree<\/td>\n18.4<\/td>\n21.1<\/td>\n18.4<\/td>\n12.8<\/td>\n15.7<\/td>\n17.7<\/td>\n14.3<\/td>\n794<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
N <\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n134<\/strong><\/td>\n575<\/strong><\/td>\n649<\/strong><\/td>\n1852<\/strong><\/td>\n822<\/strong><\/td>\n787<\/strong><\/td>\n166<\/strong><\/td>\n4985<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Confidence in existence of God <\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nDon’t Believe<\/td>\nNo Way To Find Out<\/td>\nHigher Power<\/td>\nBelieve Sometimes<\/td>\nDoubts<\/td>\nKnow God Exists<\/td>\nN<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Strongly Agree<\/td>\n7.4<\/td>\n5.6<\/td>\n3.8<\/td>\n3.7<\/td>\n1.8<\/td>\n3.8<\/td>\n179<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Agree<\/td>\n10<\/td>\n8.2<\/td>\n10.3<\/td>\n19.2<\/td>\n10.8<\/td>\n14.3<\/td>\n652<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Neither Agree Nor Disagree<\/td>\n18.7<\/td>\n15.1<\/td>\n15.1<\/td>\n20<\/td>\n18.9<\/td>\n26.8<\/td>\n1163<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Disagree<\/td>\n28.5<\/td>\n38.4<\/td>\n44<\/td>\n44.8<\/td>\n47.9<\/td>\n44.5<\/td>\n2190<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Strongly disagree<\/td>\n35.4<\/td>\n32.6<\/td>\n26.8<\/td>\n12.3<\/td>\n20.6<\/td>\n10.7<\/td>\n762<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
N <\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n140<\/strong><\/td>\n212<\/strong><\/td>\n445<\/strong><\/td>\n192<\/strong><\/td>\n778<\/strong><\/td>\n3179<\/strong><\/td>\n4945<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A comment below states: I don\u2019t think that your ranking of appropriate degrees of skepticism really has much to do with conservative politics, however. In fact, the one object of faith that is most common among those skeptical of religion … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[54,62],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":558,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions\/558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}