Thoughts of God Make Us Slackers, Study Suggests
- Thread starter ironsides
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Ah. Now I understand why you seem to hate this study. Since it did not have a predetermined outcome.
Of course not, but why would you assume that words like that are the most important aspects rather than the actual evidence leading to the tentative conclusions?
What you seem to propose is that people should reach a conclusion and then find evidence to back it up rather than assessing the evidence to find the conclusion.
Evidence suggest things. A tentaive result is not a conclusion either BTW. The paper does say tthe evidence suggests something rathet than just proclaiming a definitive conclusion. Did you read the paper to see what the evidence was?
The study authors stated what they expected the study to show. In other words they did NOT go in with an open mind but instead already had determined what the results would be. To me, this suggest the possibility of slanting the study towards a predetermined result.
Expectation is not necessarily causal to bias. I can expect a glass of water to be wet, too. Is that a biased expectation?
If I do a simple experiment on the effect of gravity and friction on a ball bearing and place the ball bearing on an inclined plane, would it be a biased expectation that the ball roll down the slope?
If I acknowledge that caffeine could cause liver damage, which is why I do a certain study, that is not presupposing that it does. All studies are done because a possibility of an effect exists. The authors state what may happen and then propose an experiment designed to negate said hypothesis, that is how science works.
For your particular argument, you are basically going in the direction of saying that "A double blind experiment is superior to a direct trial," but you need to keep in mind that observer bias, while a distinct possibility, isn't necessarily a given.
If all the paper is, is a "suggestion", then it is not worth the paper it was written on and in fact was a complete waste of money. It, in fact, isn't proof of anything. The OP title of "Thoughts of God make us slackers" is very definitive in it's statement.
Then the suggestion that once said that the planet revolved in orbit around the sun was worthless as well.
If the "suggestion" that there is a God is worthless, why would any other "suggestion" not be also?
I wouldn't actually call the suggestion about gods existences as worthless. I think faith actually helps some people.
But if you are thinking that I adopt an either/or, all-or-nothing POV, you'll be disappointed.
I'n not suggesting you adopt anything. You already have the all or nothing POV when it comes to the existence of God.
That's standard procedure in statistical studies, backed up by well understood sampling theory and tests of statistical significance. In this case, for instance, they start out with the expectation that there's a positive relationship between thoughts of god and being a slacker. Then they form what's called the null hypothesis, that there is no relationship. Then they choose their sample, gather and analyze the data, and ask themselves the question, what is the probability that we'd see these results in a sample this size if the null hypothesis is in fact correct? If that analysis passes the tests of statistical significance, the null hypothesis is rejected, and the results are deemed to support the original expectation. The study wouldn't have been written in precisely those terms, most such studies don't explicitly talk about the null hypothesis because the target audience understands how it's done, but if they did it correctly that's certainly how they proceeded.
Perhaps somebody should do a study on the ones who study/think about people who study/think about God and see how productive their lives really are. Just sayin ....
Interesting study done on Scientists and Religion:
Scientists and Belief - Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
The one I found interesting is the percentage of evangelicals among scientists. Very telling stats.
Scientists and Belief - Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
The one I found interesting is the percentage of evangelicals among scientists. Very telling stats.
I like this disclaimer
Discussion of the beliefs of scientists is based on a survey of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which partnered with the Pew Research Center on the survey. AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society and includes members representing all scientific fields. However, the survey of AAAS members may not be representative of all scientists in the U.S.
Discussion of the beliefs of scientists is based on a survey of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which partnered with the Pew Research Center on the survey. AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society and includes members representing all scientific fields. However, the survey of AAAS members may not be representative of all scientists in the U.S.
"In the new study, the researchers primed more than 350 engineering students with the idea of God or faith, for example, by having participants write a sentence using a list of words with spiritual connotations. Students then completed skill tests in which they had to make as many words as possible from a group of letters. When prompted with religious imagery or language beforehand, the students came up with fewer words, regardless of their religious background, than those who hadn't been primed with such imagery.
The researchers think the lack of effort in the "religious-primed" group could be dictated by a belief that fate is in God's hands"
There are a couple things that I find interesting about this study.
One, is that it would appear that the "slackers" (is it slacking to not be able to solve a puzzle? Really?), were the only ones primed along a specific track before the word challenge began. I know perhaps being a spiritual person makes me a bit dense about these things according to the findings, but, am I the only person in the world whose brain tends to stick to a track and look for certain themes? I would suspect if someone made me sit and write out sentences about colours prior to a test like this, I'd end up stuck for words once the skills section began because my brain was busy looking for words that related to colours.
The second is that humanity has evolved, has it not? And we've evolved, very strongly, with a sense of spirituality. If it were a cause of slacking, I suspect we'd be able to see evidence of that in the overall hierarchy of personal success. But, I don't see atheists or theists landing at the bottom of the cultural pile.
I suspect her research findings as they pertain to slacking have much more to do with the habit of our brains to get stuck on one track thinking, than they do with thoughts of god turning us into slackers.
The researchers think the lack of effort in the "religious-primed" group could be dictated by a belief that fate is in God's hands"
There are a couple things that I find interesting about this study.
One, is that it would appear that the "slackers" (is it slacking to not be able to solve a puzzle? Really?), were the only ones primed along a specific track before the word challenge began. I know perhaps being a spiritual person makes me a bit dense about these things according to the findings, but, am I the only person in the world whose brain tends to stick to a track and look for certain themes? I would suspect if someone made me sit and write out sentences about colours prior to a test like this, I'd end up stuck for words once the skills section began because my brain was busy looking for words that related to colours.
The second is that humanity has evolved, has it not? And we've evolved, very strongly, with a sense of spirituality. If it were a cause of slacking, I suspect we'd be able to see evidence of that in the overall hierarchy of personal success. But, I don't see atheists or theists landing at the bottom of the cultural pile.
I suspect her research findings as they pertain to slacking have much more to do with the habit of our brains to get stuck on one track thinking, than they do with thoughts of god turning us into slackers.