Interlude - Night Owl

Marcia Angell on psychiatry

Marcia Angell has a good two-part article at the New York Review of Books that, usefully enough, covers the books by Whitaker and Kirsch discussed here (and a third which I haven't read):

Part 1: "The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why?"

Part 2: "The Illusions of Psychiatry"

RIP, Peter Falk

I was just complaining a few days ago that I never see old Columbo episodes on television anymore.

Monckton hangs with creationists, calls climate advisor Nazi

Could he sink any lower?


Graham Readfearn:

The conference was organised by the American Freedom Alliance, a think-tank which is currently involved in a long-running legal battle with a California science education centre. The AFA wanted to screen a documentary which featured scientists attacking Darwin's theory of evolution in favour of intelligent design, but the education centre cancelled the screening.

One of Lord Monckton's fellow speakers at the Los Angeles conference was Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute – a think-tank and major promoter of the theory of intelligent design. One of the Discovery Institute's projects aims to support research "developing the scientific theory known as intelligent design" (Lord Monckton even shared transport with Mr Smith during the conference).

As Guardian journalist Leo Hickman pointed out, it appears that Lord Monckton and other climate change "sceptics" at the conference were happy to rub shoulders with proponents of intelligent design and Islamophobia.

Marcha de las Putas (Slut Walk) in Tegucigalpa!

This is awesome. From Real News Network:



Please watch the whole thing. Two aspects are especially important to note: First is that, while it may appear that people are protesting a perennial problem, which of course they are in large part, the situation, as previous posts here have discussed, has of course drastically worsened since the coup. Politics is about these issues, and those active in fighting for women's, reproductive, and LGBT rights have been among the most active in the resistance and persecuted by the oligarchs. These rights are inseparable from others. Second, the march ended with people writing messages on the side of the main cathedral. In the words of one of the organizers:

The Church is one of the institutions that has repressed women's rights the most, especially in a Catholic country like ours. Abortion is illegal in Honduras, not only for the women 'cause it's criminalized, it's from 3 to 6 years in jail, and the doctor is also penalized and its license is restricted.

...We should have the right to decide how we want to plan our life. Without that, we have no reproductive health and rights, which are human rights.

The Catholic Church continues to be an opponent of basic human rights around the world, and the hierarchy in Honduras (though not all of the priests on the ground) have been coup enthusiasts.

Physicians: "a priceless audience at a price you can afford"

Harriet Washington's* new piece in The American Scholar - "Flacking for Big Pharma."

My last post mentioned that Rushkoff's remarks related to this, my next post. Just as we're the thing that's being sold on Facebook, doctors are to an extent the thing that's being sold in medical journals.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) bills itself in advertising as “a priceless audience at a price you can afford,” while the Annals boasts: “With an audience of more than 90,000 internists (93 percent of whom are actively practicing physicians), Annals has always been a smart buy.”

Washington goes beyond discussing (extensive) advertising influence to talk about editorial content and the manipulation of research itself, overlapping to some extent with Ben Goldacre and others I've discussed here.

Coincidentally, I came across her piece at the same time I was reading reports from Europe about drug companies pulling out of psychopharmaceutical research. The framing of the articles, including the titles ("Psychopharmacology in crisis," "GSK, Others Pull EU Brain Research Funds; Leaves Science Black Hole,", "'Funding crisis' in brain research," "Research into brain disorders under threat as drug firms pull out"), reflects the extent to which the drug companies' have succeeded in establishing their narrative of effective and necessary drugs similar to those for AIDS in the public consciousness. (Even Rebelión seems to take this line!) The crisis, if the report is correct, is that public funding for basic neuroscience has been sorely lacking in Europe, and this is not developing but ongoing. Virtually every article I've read quotes David Nutt's pro-pharma line (extended patents to make drug development more profitable - of course), with little acknowledgement of his close ties to these companies.**

Sadly but expectedly, out of the woodwork in the comments on the Washington piece have come the opportunists claiming it as antiscience, both those suggesting corporations do pure science and so in criticizing their influence she's attacking science itself and the antivaccine kooks from AoA claiming her article supports their nonsense. Alas, this is the reality into which critical writing about medicine in a vastly unequal and corporate-driven world enters.

*Her Medical Apartheid was excellent:



**This site describes Nutt's industry relations:

Consultancies - Pfizer (W-L), GSK (SKB), MSD, Esteve, Novartis, Asahi, Organon, Cypress, Lilly, Janssen, Takeda, Phamacia, Therasci, Passion for Life, Hythiam, Servier, Roche, Sanofi Aventis, Actelion, Lundbeck, Wyeth.

Speaking honoraria (in addition to above) Reckitt-Benkiser, Cephalon.

Grants or clinical trial payments: MSD, GSK, Novartis, Servier, Janssen, Yamanouchi, Lundbeck, Pfizer, Wyeth, Organon, AZ, Cephalon, P1vital, MoDefence, NHS - Dr Nutt holds shares in GSK (ex-Wellcome)

It looks like information originally gleaned from Nutt's or his center's page that's since been removed, but I don't have confirmation of anything other than the GSK relationship and don't know enough about the site to accept it fully.

Quote of the weekend: We're the thing that's being sold

I doubt this is shocking to anyone reading this blog, but we're not always as aware of it as maybe we should be. I'm watching Douglas Rushkoff and Micah Sifry on BookTV* (haven't finished, but it's not bad so far), and some remarks from Rushkoff stood out in light of my last post and my next one. He's talking about developing and using communications technologies for democracy and social change...:

That’s where I get excited is people understanding the value they’re creating through these technologies, rather than just surrendering all the value they create to YouTube to get some hits or to Facebook so they can get more friends and be part of that very internal economy where, really, the people, the users, are the product. Alright, there are so many environments in which we think we’re the users, but when someone else is paying, usually they’re the customer, not you, right? We’re not the customers of Facebook. We're the thing that’s being sold on Facebook. And a lot of these environments that seem so free, are free ‘cause we’re not paying with our money, but someone else is paying for us, right?

*It actually says "Program not Embeddable." I like "embeddable," and hope to find new uses for it in the future.

Industry spin: salt edition

A friend showed me an article the other day from the health section of a local paper, "Iodized salt has health benefits, but studies suggest looming crisis." She was understandably concerned:

[A]n alarming new medical study shows 70 percent of teenage girls in Great Britain are iodine deficient, and as many as 100,000 British babies are born every year with brain damage that could have been prevented if their mothers used iodized salt.

In light of this and other studies, the Salt Institute has expressed concern that sodium-restricted diets may reduce consumption of iodized table salt, increasing the risk of an entirely preventable major health problem -- iodine deficiency. The benefits of iodized salt are sometimes missed because it is one of the most overlooked brain foods ever developed.

"It may be a stretch to say iodized table salt put man on the moon, but it has helped provide the intellectual development needed for so many of our technological breakthroughs," says Mort Satin, vice president of science and research at the Salt Institute, an authoritative source on salt. "Fortifying table salt with iodine was one of the greatest public health triumphs of the 20th century."

The British study, published June 2 in the journal Lancet, has prompted some health experts to call for mandatory iodization of salt in Great Britain. At the same time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other federal agencies continue to push for dramatic reductions of salt consumption.

..."Thousands of babies are born with brain damage that could have been avoided with just a few pinches of iodized salt," said Satin. "In light of this tragedy, it's nothing short of reckless for governments to be removing salt shakers from school lunchrooms. But that's exactly what we're seeing."

...Health experts estimate that even a moderate deficiency of iodine can lower intelligence by 10 to 15 IQ points. Fortunately, a powerful protector of brainpower is within easy reach.

That's why Martin tells her friends: "Make sure your children use iodized salt. It doesn't take a lot to help their brains."

I plugged a sentence from the article into the googlematic and turned up pages and pages of local papers across the country. I thought I remembered the Salt Institute from this debate on Colbert

The Colbert Report
Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

and my recollection didn't fail me: the "authoritative source on salt" cited in the article is the salt industry trade association, active in promoting salt use and discouraging efforts to reduce consumption.

I looked to see who the author of the article was and found "(ARA)." What is ARA?

ARAcontent provides free, high-quality feature or special section content to editors, ad directors and publishers (print and online). All articles are copyright free and in a variety of categories coordinated to fit the editorial calendar of a typical newspaper.

Whether you are creating a special section or have a regular space to fill, our content is available online and is updated daily. All articles are written or edited by professional journalists and include high-resolution photos.

Free, high-quality content? That's so nice of them! However do they stay in business providing their services so selflessly? Their real clients, of course:

Since 1996, ARAnet has embraced changing technologies to provide our clients with industry-leading distribution to print and online markets. ARAnet partners with publishers in both markets to build relationships that deliver results.

These relationships form the backbone of our print distribution to daily and weekly newspapers in markets large and small throughout the United States. ARAnet’s branded articles educate consumers on a growing range of topics, while subtly incorporating information about our clients’ products and services.

ARA - "Building Brands - Educating Consumers - Driving Sales" by placing industry spin in your local paper. To be taken with a grain of...or in this case maybe not.

UN Human Rights Council passes resolution on sexual orientation...and gender identity!

HRW reports:

Affirming the fundamental principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the council passed a resolution expressing "grave concern" at the discrimination and violence experienced by people all over the world because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

"The Human Rights Council has taken a first bold step into territory previously considered off-limits," said Graeme Reid, LGBT rights director at Human Rights Watch. "We hope this groundbreaking step will spur greater efforts to address the horrible abuses and discrimination against people on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity."

The resolution also calls for the UN high commissioner for human rights to commission a global study on human rights violations on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. When completed at the end of 2011, this report should provide important guidance on how existing human rights law can be used to end violations on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, Human Rights Watch said. The council will discuss the report at its session in March 2012.

The resolution was introduced by South Africa and co-sponsored by 42 countries from all regions of the world. It was passed 23 to 19, with 3 abstentions.

This report lists the votes and abstentions by country. It quotes Kim Vance of ARC International as saying "Now, our work is just beginning," the truth of which hits home when you consider the state of affairs in some of the countries that supported the resolution.

It's Hard Being Loved by Jerks

"We can blaspheme and, look at you, you're laughing, too."


How had I missed this film until now? HIGHLY recommended.

Not a map but a list: Greta Christina on the 10 scariest states to be an atheist

For shame, Rhode Island.

So the point here isn't to show that some states suck for atheists worse than others. The point is to show that anti-atheist bigotry is real. The point is to show that it has real-world consequences. And the point is to let you know what some of those consequences are.

My "favorite":

In Arkansas, the Central Arkansas Transit Authority (CATA) has flatly rejected an atheist ad that the Central Arkansas Coalition of Reason wanted to put up on 18 buses... solely and entirely because the content of the ads -- "Are you good without God? Millions are" -- is atheist.

I am not kidding. Even the public excuses being given for rejecting the ads -- possible vandalism and even "terrorism" due to the "controversial" nature of the ad -- are based on the fact that these ads have atheist content, expressing the "controversial" view that atheists, you know, exist, and are good people.

Remember: Never give in to imaginary terrorists...unless they're probably Christian.

Four maps: disturbing, useful, political, and stupid

I’ve happened upon a number of interesting maps recently.

First is the CDC’s US measles map for the first half of this year, from an informative post at the History of Vaccines Blog:


Next is the megacities map created by the IGU’s Megacity Task Force:


If you go to the page and click on the cities, you find information about the history and present of urbanization there.

Third is a Cold War era East German Berlin rail map from Strange Maps:


Finally, also political, and stupid, is “Exit Plan: Where do exiled leaders flee?” (a map of “where former exiled leaders slip away to after being exiled”):


It includes Manuel Zelaya (who, incidentally, has been back in Honduras since a couple of weeks after the map was posted) among brutal dictators. As the first comment there points out, Zelaya was completing his term as the democratically elected president of Honduras, and he didn’t flee or slip away. He was kidnapped and taken from the country as part of a military-oligarchic coup in 2009. He doesn’t belong in this map, and his inclusion sends a political message, intentionally or not. (It’s possible that it was unintentional, given that Lenin is included despite the fact that his periods of exile were when he was a revolutionary and not an “ousted leader.”) Bah.

More Templetonian spin: Scheitle

Over the past few years, I’ve learned to read Templeton-funded sociology articles very closely. This has come in handy in several recent cases, including a new paper by Christopher Scheitle, “U.S. College Students’ Perception of Religion and Science: Conflict, Collaboration, or Independence? A Research Note.”* The paper suffers from an incorrect framing of the question, a misleading presentation of the data, and – not surprising given the first two – unsupported and incorrect conclusions.**

I’m going to quote the full introduction as it illustrates so many of the problems with the current foundation-flush sociology of religion:

The public and scholars alike have long been interested in the relationship between religion and science. The primary question has centered on whether these two institutions are waged in a conflict over their respective claims to truth and sociopolitical authority, or are they independent from or even in collaboration with each other (Evans and Evans 2008)? A popular strategy among social scientists to evaluate this question has been to assess whether scientists are less religious than nonscientists (Ecklund 2008, 2010; Ecklund and Scheitle 2007; Gross and Simmons 2009; Larson and Whitman 1999; Leuba 1916, 1934; Stark 1963). The assumption is that, because they are the most knowledgeable about scientific matters, scientists will be most likely to demonstrate some conflict with religion if such a conflict exists (Wuthnow 1989:143). If scientists are less religious that nonscientists, then the inference has been that there is an inherent conflict between scientific knowledge and religious belief.

As Ecklund and Park (2009:280) point out, such inferences do not tell us much about whether individuals actually view the relationship between religion and science as one of conflict. Such perceptions may be more important than any association between scientific knowledge and religious belief, as it is individuals’ opinions about the relationship that will play a significant role in public debates. Regardless of individuals’ personal religiosity or scientific knowledge, how they approach the relationship between religion and science could have important consequences in schoolrooms, courthouses, and legislatures. Presented here is research on how undergraduates, some of whom will serve as leaders within those forums, perceive the relationship between religion and science. Utilizing longitudinal data from the Spirituality in Higher Education Project (SHEP), a nationally representative survey of undergraduates, I examine the association between students’ religiosity and field of study and their view of the religion and science relationship.

The conflict narrative of understanding religion and science has often been the driving force in scholarly and popular discussions (Evans and Evans 2008; Russell 1997:7–18). The assumption is that religion and science each make claims about reality or truth and, because their respective claims often differ, they must be in conflict with each other. This conflict has both personal consequences as individuals are forced to choose one version of the truth (Russell 1997:7–18), as well as social and political consequences, of which the trial of Galileo, the Scopes Monkey Trial, or the more recent Dover School Board Intelligent Design Trial (Slack 2008) are often offered as examples.

While the conflict framework often receives the most attention, others have claimed that religion and science are not in conflict because they address fundamentally different types of truth. Quoting Cardinal Baronius, Galileo argued for this independence perspective when he said that “the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes” (Barbour 1997:14).1 One of the most famous and eloquent explanations of this independence position was provided by Stephen Jay Gould in his writing on “nonoverlapping magisteria” (Gould 1998). Gould argues that the lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise—science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives (1998:271).

This introduction is a giant, hulking strawman that confuses several distinct questions - epistemic, institutional, and individual.

First, there is the question of an epistemic conflict. Accommodationists use a variety of means to evade this fundamental issue, and one is to attempt to reframe the question in psychological or sociological terms: if people can be good scientists and religious, if they don’t recognize a conflict, or if religious people or organizations can coexist with science, then the epistemic conflict doesn’t exist. Another twist comes when they then claim, as here, that the noncompatibilist argument the reverse of this: if it can be shown that scientists at some place or time are more likely to be irreligious (or that the majority are), that people recognize this conflict, or that it plays out in the form of religious people or organizations interfering with science, this is evidence of the epistemic conflict. (Scheitle here uses “assumption” and “inference” liberally to imply that this is the gist of the incompatibilist case.)

But this is a misrepresentation. The epistemic conflict exists. That’s what we’re saying, and there’s no question about it. We’ve spelled out the nature of this epistemic incompatibility many times, and its substance continues to be ignored or evaded by accommodationists at every turn. The evidence for the conflict is the nature of science and faith themselves; its existence is entirely independent of the level of its recognition, including among scientists. It wouldn’t make sense to argue that scientific acceptance of the conflict is the evidence for it, as this varies in line with a number of social factors.

Sociology and psychology can never answer the question of whether an epistemic incompatibility exists. This would be fundamentally fallacious: an argument from popularity or authority. However, based on what science and religion are and the existence of this fundamental incompatibility, we would expect there to be observable effects at the individual and institutional levels. Because this epistemic conflict exists in reality, the prediction is that greater scientific understanding and knowledge will result in decreased religiosity and a greater likelihood of recognizing the conflict (of course falling on the side of science). This is similar to the acceptance of anything in science with the weight of the evidence behind it: heliocentrism, the germ theory of disease, AGW,…

Of course, there are differences across social contexts in terms of contravening social factors and opposing campaigns, levels of ignorance, and so on that will affect levels of recognition amongst the general population and scientists. But in general, because the epistemic conflict is real, those with more scientific knowledge and understanding would be expected to be more likely to recognize the incompatibility, reflected in both reduced religious belief and explicit recognition, and the level of increase should advance along with the advance of knowledge (at both the individual and the social level). As far as I know, this is supported by research about scientists, including that which Scheitle cites in his paper.

In terms of institutional conflict in the US, some conflict is obviously in evidence, both historically and in the contemporary era, as Scheitle recognizes. Its causes and variation over time and space can be investigated, but the fact is that there is conflict between religion and science (and science education) in the US. You don’t need a survey of college students’ perceptions to see this.

So, contrary to his framing in the introduction (which, oddly enough for a sociology paper, does not present the research as responding to a sociological question or sociological literature), the research reported in the article says essentially nothing about the existence of the epistemic (or institutional) conflict between science and religion. The only “conflict narrative” or “conflict framework” relevant to a survey-based sociology article concerns people’s perceptions of a conflict: a claim or findings from previous research showing that people in the sciences are more likely to recognize the incompatibility of science and religion, or research on these perceptions in general.

So the questions Scheitle’s article does respond to that are at all relevant are: Are freshman science students in the US more likely to be more secular in general and to hold a conflict-science perspective? By their junior year, are they more or less likely to do so? Do college students in STEM or other politically relevant fields tend to move in a more secular direction, and particularly does the percentage of those with more religious-dominating views threatening to secular governance or education decrease?

I’ll leave aside the less relevant aspects of the research (including criticisms about the combining of the two “nonconflict” views and the ignoring of the apparent significant correlation with SAT scores) and discuss the data Scheitle presents concerning these questions. As he doesn’t present it in a form that allows us to see the important patterns, I’ve had to work with it a bit. [I have the tables, but don’t know how to reproduce them here. :/]

The data show, unsurprisingly, that students – including STEM students - holding the conflict-science view in the US are not a majority. Also clear is that, as predicted from the fact of epistemic incompatibility (again, the evidence of conflict is not sociological, but, duh, epistemic), STEM students, even at this early stage, are the most likely to hold a conflict-science perspective, and the least likely to hold conflict-religion views. As Scheitle acknowledges:

Overall, natural science students are relatively low in holding a conflict perspective, but they are among the highest in holding a pro-science conflict perspective. A little over 20 percent of natural science students “side” with science. Only engineering and mathematics students report a higher allegiance to science in a perceived conflict with religion. (179-80)

So what changes between freshman and junior years? Scheitle:

…27.4 percent of students who held a pro-religion conflict perspective in their freshman year still held this perspective in their junior year. A little over 70 percent of these students now said that they view the religion and science relationship as one of independence or collaboration. Looking at the pro-science conflict column, we see that students holding this stance in their freshman year are more stable in their view than the pro-religion students, as 53.2 percent did not change their opinion between the two surveys. However, of the 46.8 percent that did have a change of opinion, 45.9 percent moved to the independence or collaboration perspective and only 0.9 percent moved to the pro-religion side. Students with the most stable opinion are those who held an independence or collaboration perspective in their freshman year, as 87.0 percent of these students held the same opinion in their junior year. Those who moved away from this opinion were fairly evenly split between the pro-religion and pro-science groups, with 5.2 percent and 7.8 percent moving to these groups, respectively.

To summarize these changes, we can say that few students move from viewing the relationship between religion and science as one of independence or collaboration to viewing it as one of conflict. The more common change is from a conflict perspective to an independence or collaboration one. College and/or aging seems to temper the views of those who held a conflict perspective. It is also worth noting that pro-science conflict views tend to be more entrenched than pro-religion conflict views. (182)

STATISTICS ABUSE! The discussion has now collapsed the conflict-science and conflict-religion perspectives, which is telling and confounding. But this business of talking about the percentages of the percentages that changed is extremely obfuscating.*** What we want to see is the net change overall across groups and across disciplines. Scheitle does not provide this, but it can be constructed from the data presented in Tables 2 and 6.

If we ignore the trivial percentages switching from conflict-science to conflict-religion and vice versa, we see conflict-science and I/C percentages remaining quite stable in STEM fields. Overall, we’re looking at a net loss from conflict-science of a handful of percentage points (4.9%) in the natural sciences and a mere 1.3% in M&E. In the social sciences, we see a tiny increase (1.5%) in the conflict-science view. (A similar increase, of 2.5%, can be observed in the Arts & Humanities.) Now, I doubt these small net changes have any real significance in one direction or another. If a series of surveys showed such small percentages of decline over an extended period, it would be different, but what this suggests is stability over time.

The key lines to look at in Table 6 in evaluating Scheitle’s claim that “few students move from viewing the relationship between religion and science as one of independence or collaboration to viewing it as one of conflict. The more common change is from a conflict perspective to an independence or collaboration one. College and/or aging seems to temper the views of those who held a conflict perspective” are: “started pro-science and switched to I/C” and “started I/C and switched to pro-science.” Again, the picture is one of stability, with small net losses of conflict-science to I/C in STEM fields (-4.6% in the natural sciences, -1.2% in M&E). (There are gains of 1.8% from I/C in the social sciences and 2.5% in Arts & Humanities.) Thus, this “tempering” notion is incorrect with regard to conflict-science views, at least among students in sociologically relevant fields. (I haven’t the time or energy to look at every field, but you can simply compare these “switched to” lines to get a sense of the broader patterns and variation.)

Things are slightly different when we look at movement between conflict-religion and I/C perceptions. In the natural sciences (again ignoring the tiny percentage that switched from conflict-science), the percentage that begins conflict-religion is 9.5%, but by junior year is down to a miniscule 1.7%. The conflict-religion view loses a net 6.4% to I/C in the natural sciences and 3% to I/C in M&E (of course, it was only 7.5% in M&E to begin with), and 8.4% to I/C in the social sciences and 12.1% to I/C in the Arts & Humanities. In education, conflict-religion loses a whopping 22% to I/C (compared to a 1.8% net loss for conflict-science). The drops in STEM and even the social sciences could be simple variation, but the double-digit losses in A&H and education are substantial.

In his conclusion, Scheitle argues:

The predominant narrative surrounding the religion and science relationship has been driven by the assumption that these institutions are engaged in an unavoidable conflict resulting from their contradictory claims to truth (Evans and Evans 2008). However, the analysis conducted above found that most undergraduates, regardless of their area of study or even their religiosity, do not hold a conflict perspective. Furthermore, many more students move away from a conflict perspective to an independence/collaboration perspective than vice versa. This finding might be especially surprising since many people, especially religious families, assume that higher education has a secularizing influence on students (Smith and Snell 2009:248), which might be expected to increase perceptions of a conflict. Despite its seeming predominance, the conflict model of understanding religion and science issues does not seem to have much support within the undergraduate population. Ecklund and Park (2009) made a similar conclusion in their analysis of the views of academic scientists.

Still, some of the patterns seen in the analysis above might be disconcerting for those looking to move beyond the public battles for power between religion and science. The finding that scientists and engineers are among the most likely to have a pro-science conflict perspective could mean that some of the most influential voices in these public debates might be more likely to fuel the debates than attenuate them. Similarly, future educators are among the most likely to hold a pro-religion conflict perspective. Given that classrooms and school boards have been one of the central forums for the struggle over religion and science, this does not bode well for a reduction of those struggles. (185)

But this is ridiculous. First, a survey of college students can tell us essentially nothing about epistemic or current institutional conflicts. The first isn’t a sociological question, and the second involves a completely different sort of analysis. The idea of a “predominant conflict narrative” that comprises all of these and can be investigated via surveys is silly. Second, who is arguing that the majority of US college students in any field currently recognize the incompatibility of religion and science? This is what he appears to be arguing against, but I don’t know that anyone has made this claim or suggested that it would be evidence of anything.

The claim that follows “Furthermore,…” is misleading and basically wrong. As we’ve seen, when the two conflict views are separated, Scheitle’s own evidence supports a general view of secularization. While conflict-science views hold steady, conflict-religion views – in the most relevant fields – decline. This broadly supports the secularization argument, as secularization is consistent with any movement away from the conflict-religion view (including, probably, that from collaboration to independence, though since Scheitle collapses these we don’t have that data).

As should be clear from what I’ve argued above, “Despite its seeming predominance, the conflict model of understanding religion and science issues does not seem to have much support within the undergraduate population” is silly and wrong. If “the conflict model” means epistemic conflict, a study of college students’ views has no bearing on its truth (though their views and changes therein generally conform to incompatibilist expectations). If it means institutional conflict, this study doesn’t speak to it. If it means individual perceptions of conflict, it depends on what you mean by “support.” More STEM students perceive a conflict, and this percentage holds pretty steady from freshman to junior years. At the other end, it looks like some larger percentages of people with conflict-religion views have moved in recent years in a secular direction. The percentages going directly from the conflict-religion to conflict-science are (as expected) miniscule, but the percentages moving in a secular direction are rather larger, and in some cases (e.g., education) substantial. It’s a direction. Will percentages keep shifting in the conflict-science direction or will they be “stuck” in independence or collaboration? I think the former is more likely, but depends on a number of sociological factors. Again, this is sociological data. The fact of an epistemic conflict is independent of it.

With regard to “public battles,” how I loathe this insinuation that pro-science incompatibilist views are damaging. There is a real worry in the US about secular education and politics and the practice of science, and this concerns religious interference in these institutions. The views compatible with secular politics and education are science-conflict and independence. Collaboration is a bit iffy, depending on how it plays out in action. The view that’s obviously the clear threat to education, politics, and science free of religious interference is conflict-religion. It’s quite strange that Scheitle points to the higher percentage of STEM students with conflict-science views as being in any way unfortunate in that they “might be more likely to fuel the debates than attenuate them.” Tough darts, Scheitle. The conflict-science perspective is not only correct but no threat to the constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state or to secularism in general. (To the extent that those promoting it reduce the level of religious belief, it is a great boon to this cause.) If you want to argue against secularism in the sense of no religious interference in these spheres, be my guest.

Scheitle’s conclusions about education students are even more bizarre. Again, the threat to secular education in general and good science education in particular is people, especially teachers and educational administrators, acting in accordance with the conflict-religion view. He suggests that “future educators are among the most likely to hold a pro-religion conflict perspective. Given that classrooms and school boards have been one of the central forums for the struggle over religion and science, this does not bode well for a reduction of those struggles.” But as his research demonstrates, between freshman and junior years, education students show a 22% drop in the percentage of people holding religion-conflict views, reducing the percentage who hold this view to single digits. This is very strong evidence of secularization, and bodes quite well, in fact.

*Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (2011) 50(1):175–186.

**It’s interesting that this is a bit of research in the sociology of religion that might not appear as “pro-religion” to anyone unfamiliar with the debates in which it intervenes.

*** To offer an extreme example, let’s say they surveyed 100 people, and two had science-conflict views while 98 had no-conflict views. Then they surveyed them a second time a few years later and one from each group had changed her mind. They could say that 50% of the first group and less than 1% of the second had changed their minds. Would this support Scheitle’s interpretation? Sigh.

Vaccines bad, diseases good: Anti-vaccine activists in all their Orwellian glory

Via Orac. Should come with a blood pressure warning.

You know who else liked animals?

Hitler.

I've been reading and posting a bit lately about our relationships with other animals, but I've come across few arguments as powerful as this one, from the ironically surnamed Daniel Lapin:

Look, it’s not an accident that some of the most brutal and cruel, demonic tyrants of history loved animals. It’s not an accident. It’s not an accident that Adolf Hitler was almost never seen without his dog, who he was petting constantly. Loved his dog! Well, what we understand is that there is a potential, it’s not going to happen to everybody, but there is a potential within a large society that if we obliterate the distinction between people and animals it’s not that people will start treating animals better, they’ll start treating people worse…

(an interesting essay on the Bible and the treatment of animals)