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This already hit the front page twice yesterday and wound up dead both times. But while it's not dead, I'll make the point I was planning on making yesterday:
by hugh3 16y ago
This already hit the front page twice yesterday and wound up dead both times.
But while it's not dead, I'll make the point I was planning on making yesterday: people with the minority non-default position on an issue will often know more about an issue than the people with the default position... but this isn't always a good thing.
If you did a survey of 9/11 truthers, I'm sure you'd find they were way better at answering questions about the trivial minutiae of the event ("Which tower was hit first? When did WTC 7 collapse?") than the general public. Holocaust deniers probably know more about the precise location of Auschwitz and the chemistry of Zyklon B than the general public, too.
I'm not saying atheists are wrong (in fact I'm almost certain they're right), I'm just saying they shouldn't get too self-congratulatory about this survey.
- JoachimSchipper 16y agoThat analogy doesn't work all that well, though - a better one might be if scientists were less aware of basic questions of the scientific method than the general public. (After all, they are "practicing the idea of science" in some sense, as opposed to merely "supporting the idea of science".)
- mquander 16y agoNot really. The analogy would be if physicists know less about psychology. I'm sure that religious people tend to have more knowledge about their religion than atheists. When the questions span all religions and include several questions about history, not practice (e.g. Martin Luther), it turns into more or less just a test of general knowledge, which I would just expect better-educated people to win. I got thirteen out of fifteen (above average) and I couldn't give a hoot about religion one way or the other -- I sure as hell haven't done a "deep exploration of my faith" or whatever else.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Unseelie 16y agoThe article actually outright states that people know less about their own religion. For instance, most protestants didn't know who Martin Luther was.
- hugh3 16y agoI'm not sure how your analogy works. Are "scientists" supposed to be analogous to "religious people"? Because religious people are the majority and hold the default position in current American society, whereas scientists are a small minority, the elite of those who "support the idea of science" whatever that means, perhaps more analogous to priests and ministers.