ARDA resources offer religion data that tell the full story

[cbayer]

http://pressreleases.religionnews.com/2014/05/07/arda-resources-offer-religion-data-tell-full-story/

May 7, 2014

What do Americans really think about issues such as evolution, abortion and the mix of religion and politics?

The answers can be difficult to discern and report amid the plethora of survey results that seem to come to contradictory conclusions, particularly when framed by policy advocates on all sides seeking to claim a national mandate for their position.

Fortunately, journalists, scholars and the general public have a new tool to determine what trends are emerging as a national consensus on controversial topics in religion, and which findings may be the results of loaded questions or a lack of context.

The Measurement Wizard provided by the Association of Religion Data Archives allows users to browse available ARDA data from some 7,700 questions asked in more than 750 major national and international surveys to see for themselves the major findings on hot-topic issues in religion and public life.

more at link

[AtheistCrusader]

1. Mmm-hm.

"About the ARDA.


The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) strives to democratize access to the best data on religion. Founded as the American Religion Data Archive in 1997 and going online in 1998, the initial archive was targeted at researchers interested in American religion. The targeted audience and the data collection have both greatly expanded since 1998, now including American and international collections and developing features for educators, journalists, religious congregations, and researchers. Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. Currently housed in the Social Science Research Institute, the College of Liberal Arts, and the Department of Sociology at the Pennsylvania State University, the ARDA is funded by the Lilly Endowment, the John Templeton Foundation, Chapman University and the Pennsylvania State University."

[cbayer]

2. Where, exactly, do you see a problem in that description?

[AtheistCrusader]

3. Oh let me follow the money.

"The ultimate aim of Lilly Endowment's religion grantmaking is to deepen and enrich the religious lives of American Christians, primarily by helping to strengthen their congregations." Lilly Endowment 'about' page.

"Philosophy and theology

The focus of this area is to support projects that attempt to develop new philosophical and theological insights, especially (but not only) in relation to advances in scientific understanding" -Templeton.

"Motto
ὀ Χριστòς καì ἡ Ἐκκλησíα

Motto in English
Christ and Church" -Chapman University.

PSU is the only secular entity in the money stream. I find that suspicious. It's like finding a GMO study funded by 3 Biotech producers, and a public university. Smells suspicious to me.

Edit: Templeton isn't quite as actively theistic as the other two examples, but it straddles the line.

[cbayer]

4. It's a highly respected philanthropic organization whose stated goals

are clear. This organization is about providing information on religion.

Do you honestly have a problem with the Lilly Endowment? Bill Moyers seems to be OK with it.

Chapman University is affiliated with one of the most progressive, activist protestant denominations in this country. It is, in fact, the denomination I was raised in.

You are just looking for something to object to here, imo. But there really is nothing. These groups are religiously affiliated, but their political leanings are very much in line with your own.

That is, you have more in common with them than you do differences.

So, about that poll…...

[AtheistCrusader]

5. At least two are active pro-religion activists.

Again, I refer you to the biotech/GMO study example.
After all, I've had that thrown in my face umpteen times right here on DU and the general consensus seems to be that such study/investigation funding issues are a valid concern.

I don't special plead. This is a problem for any subject, and in no way related to just religion. I have the same sort of problems with certain pro-gun studies, even though I am a gun owning democrat.

No special pleading. No exceptions.

If that source was affiliated with Dawkins, hitchens foundations, and Secular Humanists of America, I would similarly be suspicious of the output, to be honest. I would at least feel it robbed data of credibility.

Objectivity is important to me.

[cbayer]

6. I'm not following you here.

What is wrong with a group being a pro-religion activist group? And what is wrong with that group funding a program that would help provide accurate statistical information about religion?

Let's be clear. This is not a study and bears no relation to your GMO example. It's a mechanism for gathering and making available statistical information. Were it a study, I would share your concerns, as investigator bias might present a problem.

There are lots of sources of information provided by the foundations overseen by Dawkins and Hitchens. As long as they are not doing studies, but providing resources and information, I've got no problem with that at all.

I think that's the critical difference here.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. If the data is gathered in a biased manner

that would then pollute any downstream study.

An example. To this day, the FDA approval for Plan-B includes a warning that it MAY prevent a fertilized embryo from implantation. Meaning it is an abortifacient, not just a contraceptive.

Here's the problem. That came out of a study done in the 70's, because the study DATA was crap. They based the onset of ovulation on the 'calendar' method, utilizing the last date of the menstrual cycle. Problem is, human females are not digital time-release relays on an assembly line. It was all margin of error predicated on that data. When the study was re-performed using endometrium temperature and another method to detect the onset of ovulation, suddenly we got a totally different picture; in any case in which the drug was taken AFTER the onset of ovulation, the implantation/pregnancy rate was utterly indistinguishable from the 'normal' rate. The warning persists to this day, because they'd have to go through the whole approval process again to remove it, but it is total, outrageous crap. Plan B only works by delaying or preventing the release of an ovum. That's it. It does nothing to thin or otherwise hork up the endometrium lining, or any of the other 'suspected' mechanisms by which it might interfere with fertilization or implantation of a fertilized ovum.

Garbage in-garbage out. If the data is corrupted in any way, you have a major problem in any subsequent studies, and those problems can linger for decades.

The problems can linger long after they are discovered and corrected.

[cbayer]

8. Well, we will have to agree to disagree.

Unless I am reading this incorrectly, this project gathers and provides data and survey results in a fashion that can be sued by others. They don't interpret it and they don't do the studies or surveys themselves.

Would you find something similarly wrong with a program that, say, provided data for meta-analysis for oncologists from the myriad of data sources out there being supported by oncologists? In fact, I would prefer it because they are the most likely to be able to eliminate crap or biased studies such as you describe.

As it is now, there is a lot of data concerning religion, but no central place to look at it for further analysis. PEW does a good job, but they often present data that is different from that from other sources.

At any rate, I'm going to give this a look and use it when I want to look at the demographic or statistical information that is out there. As it stands now, that can often be very difficult to get and even more difficult to analyze. If I can look at a single source and see multiple sets of data, it will be much easier for me to compare them for validity.

[trotsky]

9. I dunno man, I have done a few quick searches on there...

and the data seems to confirm exactly what many of us have been trying to tell cbayer for years, and which she has steadfastly refused to accept. Perhaps she will accept it now.

[AtheistCrusader]

10. I don't feel confident using it as a source, even though

I see the results would be clearly helpful to my position/biases/expectations.

[trotsky]

11. I totally understand, and feel that way too.

Templeton/Lily, clearly have a particular point of view they want to push.

[Leontius]

21. Only atheists or those antagonistic toward religion should be allowed to compile data or comment on

religious trends and practices. Who would possibly know more about the subject certainly not the people involved in religious practices.

[cbayer]

22. Exactly. It's such a silly argument and not based on what is actually being

announced here.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Its data look out of date, and the ultimate sources are unclear

which makes it very disappointing, given the claims it makes for itself.

Take the national data for the UK. It gives the source for the national profile (the CIA World Factbook - 2010 edition, so somewhat out of date - we have a 2011 census count by now, for instance, let alone decent estimates of the 3 years since then). But the religion figures are just stated, with no source at all.

Looking at their claim, we find "Christian: 72.61%" - to 4 significant figures. They seem pretty sure about that. But the 2011 census gives us:

England and Wales: Christian 33.2 million
Scotland: 2.85 million
Northern Ireland: 1.69 million
That's 60%. There were some who did not answer the question (it was optional), but not enough to bring it up to 72.61% (and you can't assume that all those who did not answer were Christian).

Perhaps, from the next page, they've taken the results from the 'World Christian Database'. But they say that was "first published in 1982 and revised in 2001". It's out of date, and how did they arrive at their figure? Not from any UK census, because it divides people as 'agnostic' and 'atheist', and the census has never done that - it has a 'no religion' option.

it should be noted that census number tends to be higher than other surveys. There is a site, British Religion in Numbers, run by the University of Manchester. Here are figures for other 'official' surveys (as opposed to polling companies):

Given that it is commonplace in public debate for various statistics – from sample surveys or from the 2001 and 2011 censuses – to be cited regarding levels of Christian identity amongst the British population, it is perhaps worth revisiting some of the recurrent social surveys which have collected micro-level data on religious affiliation across recent decades. Figure 1 shows overall levels of identification with a Christian religion based on data from three nationally-representative survey series, which have sampled the adult population: the British Election Study (BES), the cross-national European Values Study (EVS) and British Social Attitudes (BSA). The data are taken from the earliest and the most recently-available surveys from each series. Note that the survey series span different time periods, with the BES starting in 1963 and the other two in the early-1980s.

Figure 1: Per cent reporting a Christian affiliation



Source: Compiled by the author from BES, EVS and BSA surveys

The BES 1963 survey showed that that was near-universal affiliation with a Christian religion amongst the electorate at 96.2%. Similarly, the 1959 Civic Culture Study, where Britain was one of five nations where survey fieldwork was undertaken, showed that 94.3% claimed a Christian affiliation. In the 2010 BES, in contrast, this proportion had fallen to 44.8%. The EVS surveys also show a considerable drop in Christian affiliation between 1981 and 2008 (although the fieldwork for the British sample was actually conducted in 2009-10), from 84.4% to 46.1%. The BSA series shows a lower level of Christian affiliation in 1983 (at 66.6%) compared to that obtained by the EVS in 1981. The most recently-released BSA survey, from 2012, shows that 46.3% claimed some form of Christian affiliation. The most recent surveys from these three long-running series therefore show similar levels of identification with a Christian religion, albeit they are somewhat higher than the figure from the YouGov survey cited above. As a further comparison, data for Britain from the 2012 European Social Survey (which began undertaking biannual surveys in 2002) show that 40.5% reported having a Christian affiliation.

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2014/christian-affiliation-in-britain/

That also links to an April 2014 poll. That said only 45% say they belong to a religion; of those, about 88% are Christian (7% other named religions, 6% just 'other').

So, I think the World Christian Database is not accurate enough to pay attention to. Perhaps it was accurate, 13 years ago; but it shouldn't be used as the basis for a 'new resource' on religion.

[cbayer]

13. Perhaps that is a reflection of them just getting this project off the ground.

I will be interested in following it, though.

If done correctly, it would be great to have an easily accessible and reliable data base. There is so much bad information on the internet, as you well know. It's cumbersome to really analyze what is available.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. It seems strange to send out a press release for a 'new resource' that is obviously out of date

I got better data by looking at the first page of Google search results. I'd be embarrassed to put out a press release for something that bad.

[cbayer]

15. I'm willing to give them a chance.

It seems unlikely that UPenn would push a project that is as faulty as you are finding it at this point in time.

I have not taken the time yet to take a close look ...

But we shall see.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. The "about" blurb quoted in reply #1 indicates they're not a new venture

"The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) strives to democratize access to the best data on religion. Founded as the American Religion Data Archive in 1997 and going online in 1998, the initial archive was targeted at researchers interested in American religion. The targeted audience and the data collection have both greatly expanded since 1998, now including American and international collections and developing features for educators, journalists, religious congregations, and researchers."

Perhaps it's just the international data that's over a decade out of date (and even then, I can't see where the WCD got its data from. 1 poll? 10 polls? A British government or EU survey?) But if they've been collecting religious data for 17 years, they shouldn't be bragging about data at least 13 years old in a press release.

[cbayer]

17. I missed that. Perhaps it is just wishful thinking on my part, because I would like a resource

like they describe.

But, again, maybe the funding sources and support are new.

I will wait and see.

[struggle4progress]

18. It's a useful resource

[cbayer]

19. No, no, no!! It's biased and outdated and funded by groups that support religion!!!!

[struggle4progress]

20. Not everybody says something original every time