For today's sermon on critical thinking, everyone please direct their browsers to http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-08/asa-lea081511.php. Here we encounter a finding advertised as:
Less-educated Americans turning their backs on religion
Wow. The less educated? I have seen evidence of an inverse correlation between more education and religion. So this was surprising. But wait. Maybe we shouldn't assume what the words in the title mean. As for less-educated, we find this operational definition in the article: "those without college degrees." Okay, I guess that is clear and fair enough. But what about religion? How was that defined and measured? In the answer we discover an illustration of the big problem that comes with treating "religion" as a single variable. The study authors defined religion this way: "religious service attendance."
Hmm. Should the title instead read, "Non college-educated Americans turning their backs on church attendance?"
Some more speculative thoughts of the lead researcher, Bradford Wilcox of the University of Virginia, were paraphrased this way:
Wilcox views this disengagement among the less educated as troubling because religious institutions typically provide their members with benefits—such as improved physical and psychological health, social networks, and civic skills—that may be particularly important for the less educated, who often lack the degree of access to social networks and civic skills that the college-educated have.
Interesting. But I wonder, are there no other social opportunities/services available that might fill the void? Is religion alone capable of answering the call? What about sports leagues? What about hobbie groups? What about . . . ?
Hmm.
Tags: critical thinking, language, religion
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