Religion
Related: About this forumHumanity Is Becoming Increasingly Less Violent, with One Exception -- Religious Violence
Dr. Steven Pinker, Pulitzer prize-winning author and Harvard psychology professor, writes, Today we may be living in the most peaceful era in our species existence. He acknowledges: In a century that began with 9/11, Iraq, and Darfur, the claim that we are living in an unusually peaceful time may strike you as somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene. Pinker points out, wars make headlines, but there are fewer conflicts today, and wars dont kill as many people as they did in the Middle Ages, for instance. Also, global rates of violent crime have plummeted in the last few decades. Pinker notes that the reason for these advances are complex but certainly the rise of education, and a growing willingness to put ourselves in the shoes of others has played its part.
Religiosity, however, continues to play its part in promoting in-group out-group thinking, which casts the difference between people in terms of eternal rewards and punishments. Sam Harris, author of Letter to a Christian Nation, observes, Faith inspires violence in two ways. First, people often kill other human beings because they believe the creator of the universe wants them to do it Second, far greater numbers of people fall into conflict with one another because they define their moral community on the basis of their religious affiliation: Muslims side with Muslims, Protestants with Protestants, Catholics with Catholics.
According to the Pew Research Center, a third (33%) of the 198 countries and territories included in the study had high religious hostilities in 2012, up from 29% in 2011 and 20% as of mid-2007. Notably, religious hostilities increased in every major region of the world except the Americas, with the most dramatic increases felt in areas still reeling from the effects of the 2010-11 political uprisings known as the Arab Spring.
http://www.alternet.org/belief/humanity-becoming-increasingly-less-violent-one-exception-religious-violence?page=0%2C0
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)I'd like to see the studies he is citing that show this.
The PEW findings are really interesting and there has been some previous discussion of them here, but I haven't seen any claims like this author is making before.
His quote from Pinker is 3 years old and doesn't seem to be backed up either.
Anyway, the PEW data could be interpreted many ways. This is one of them.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)I've linked that exact video to you in the past, actually.
I think he's done a good job showing how the data supports his claim.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)His case is that violence has diminished over the last several thousand years.
The PEW data covers the last 6 years.
The article's headline is disingenuous at best. You can't compare those two things and come to that conclusion.
Oh, I forgot. He's writing for internet readers who 1) generally don't look far beyond the headline, 2) will then quote the headline as if it is fact, 3) are increasingly unable to actually look to see whether what someone is saying has anything to substantiate it, and 4) lap up bogus articles like this if it suits their agenda.
Beware of articles that start out with a false premise or make a bold statement without any citations. Alternet is famous for posting this kind of stuff.
The PEW data is legitimate. Comparing it to rates of overall human violence is over the last several thousand years is bogus.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)within a certain social demographic. That's all.
Not all of Pinkers' data going back thousands of years can show anything at all WRT religion, as some of his data is older than the earliest known human religious records.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)with data that covers 6.
You could compare it with overall rates of violence over the last 6 years. You might even be able to stretch it to 10.
But not thousands.
The spin the author of this article has put on this is completely without merit.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)His data covers decadal, which the PEW data nearly fills one decade.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Again, do you have any data to support the author's contention that rates of violence have diminished in recent history?
And in particular during the time the PEW study covers?
Let's do this as a theoretical example (I'm not claiming these things as facts, by the way):
Over the last several thousand years, people have been living longer and longer.
Over the last 6 years, black women have been dying of AIDS in increasingly higher numbers.
Then I write a headline that says this:
Humanity is increasingly living longer lives, with one exemption - black women.
This is patently untrue. Do you see how ridiculous it is?
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)The author's claim may or may not be true.
Pinker's work has held up well under scrutiny thus far.
http://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/intl_studies_review.pdf
TONS of references at the back for you, if you can't get his book at a local library or something.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I like what I am reading by him. I think it is thoughtful, well researched and his points have some validity.
It's Werleman I have an issue with.
He tends to be provocative and there have been some other contentious articles by him posted here in the past.
But, imo, this is just bad journalism.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)(I think you understood that, but just in case, that was in reference to him, not Pinker)
Pinker occasionally comments on his Harvard page, about these sorts of things. It's possible he may have already addressed this claim here:
http://edge.org/conversation/the-false-allure-of-group-selection#sp2
And bonus, a pile of sources.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)The long term historical trend of violent crime is downward.
For example see http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/06/long-term-trend-in-homicide-rates.html
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1147382?uid=3739696&uid=2460338175&uid=2460337935&uid=2&uid=4&uid=83&uid=63&uid=3739256&sid=21103303035117
https://soci.ucalgary.ca/brannigan/sites/soci.ucalgary.ca.brannigan/files/long-term-historical-trends-of-violent-crime.pdf
Shorter term rates:
https://soci.ucalgary.ca/brannigan/sites/soci.ucalgary.ca.brannigan/files/long-term-historical-trends-of-violent-crime.pdf
Etc.
okasha
(11,573 posts)Not on the border.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)press is not carrying it.
Did you hear anything about that?
I'll check out the paper from "across" later this evening, or one of my students may have information.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Not a valid objection.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)homo sapien violence over the last 6 years.
His is not a valid point.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)I've read quite a bit of it, and I see exactly where he's coming from.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)If he has, I haven't seen it.
All I can see is a much longer view. When he speaks about violence over the last decade, he compares it to violence in 1946. And even then he acknowledges that there has been a decrease in global wars that has been accompanied by an increase in civil wars. The only point he can make is that in general less people die in a civil war.
I would bet that Pinker would have real problems with how this article is framing his findings.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)And in the book, he included data to support it. (WRT violence/death related to war.) Yes, at the decadal scale, just this last decade.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)But you can't draw conclusions when you are comparing apples and oranges, and that is what Werleman has done here.
It would be fascinating to see what Pinker would have to say about this.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)the PEW data to Pinker's, where the PEW data isn't 10+ years in duration.
Still, the conclusion he drew isn't... shockingly bad anyway. it seems to be more or less in-line, he just hasn't sourced it with enough data to substantiate the point. 6 years wouldn't include the violence of the worst of the Iraq war, for instance. Let alone the start of it.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)The PEW data is troubling if not outright alarming. Religious violence is a serious problem and needs to be recognized and addressed.
That's why when people object to the State Department having upped it's religious liaison staff, I can only scratch my head.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)The Lancet and some others had opinions on the true body count of the Iraq war. Which was really a war, and then a bunch of little civil wars.
To whom do we tally the ancillary civil wars' deaths to? When the two Islamic sects were unfettered to settle their 30+ year differences, that's when the real killing kicked in. Do we attribute that to the US, or as inter-faith religious warfare? And then between both those groups and the Kurds, do we call the nationalistic effort to create Kurdistan out of northern Iraq religious warfare, or secular nation building?
I don't even know the right answer to that question. That's a big, messy, difficult question.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)statistics.
It has become increasingly difficult to separate out what might be a religious or a non-religious are or act of violence, I agree.
Even the PEW data needs to be looked at critically. Where does poverty (correlated with religiosity), unclear geographic boundary lines, and so many other things come into play.
In the end, I think it's important to look at the roots, but recognize the complexities.
And it is indeed big, messy and difficult.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Bravo!
okasha
(11,573 posts)Apparently all Plinker"s post medieval data are European. That creates a huge honking problem with the article right there. No overlap with the Pew data for the modern ME.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I don't really have an issue with Plinker. From what I've read, he's done some interesting work.
But trying to use his work in this context is just ridiculous.
okasha
(11,573 posts)for what he covers. Pew is pretty reliable for what it covers. It's just that they don't cover the same thing, so it's not valid to use one to exrrapolate from the other
Not a public peep yet on the border violence. Will check again tomorrow.
okasha
(11,573 posts)--or possibly the reporting--are already hopelessly skewed. Where does his information about "thousands of years"of violent behavior come from?
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Studies of archaeological remnants of ancient humans, as well as modern isolate cultural societies that match some of that ancient data in social order.
His book, 'The Better Angels of our Nature' lays out a lot of sources.
Like the Freakonomics guys, Pinker says a lot of things that surprise or even outrage on the surface, but if you dig into the data behind it... Interesting things happen.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/02/26/are-people-getting-dumber/zoom-out-and-youll-see-people-are-improving
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)trotsky
(49,533 posts)when facts meet a form of religious belief.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)in an easily digestible manner, beyond what he himself is capable of. 'Go read his book' isn't the best debate tactic, but this is a weighty issue, with very boring and voluminous data to consider, so it doesn't lend itself well to simple casual discussion, when stark disbelief is on the table.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)And now pretty much commonly accepted. The argument being made against it is motivated by the next part of the op's thesis "except religious" and is dishonest, see for example up above where an attempt is made to argue that regardless of the actual data on long term violence the possibility of a nuclear war negates it.