GSS
razib | October 27, 2009I show that Protestants like Israel; Midwesterners not so much, at Secular Right. Also, many nations are getting more religious, but young people are still less religious, at Gene Expression Classic.
razib | August 28, 2009On a lark I decided to see how Catholics & Protestants broke down in regards to evolution by American region in the GSS. Specifically, I clustered the Census Divisions to create the categories of:
Northeast = New England + Mid Atlantic
Midwest = E & W North Central
South = S Atlantic + E South Central + W South Central
West = Mountain + Pacific
I limited the data to non-Hispanic whites for the question "evolved," which was asked in 2006 and 2008, so recently. Results below the fold for this question....
Protestant Catholic No Religion Humans Beings Developed…
razib | August 13, 2009The use of the word "Darwinist" is to catch the attention of Creationists, normally I'm not too warm to its usage in a scientific (as opposed to philosophical or historical) context. In any case, Jerry Coyne has a post up where he states:
The "new atheists" have been on the scene for exactly five years, beginning with Sam Harris's The End of Faith, published in 2004. But American's attitudes to evolution have been relatively unchanged (with 40+% denying it) for twenty-five years. This means two things.
This is true to a first approximation, and rather depressing. So I thought I would…
razib | August 7, 2009A comment below asks:
Well, good for you for getting me to click through by using an interesting post title. But how do you know women who "know god exists" aren't assuming a female god?
In a vacuum of all knowledge about this sort of topic this is a reasonable question. But there's plenty of social science data showing that American women tend to be more religiously conservative & "orthodox" as a whole than men (in contrast to female ministers or rabbis, who are more likely to be progressive than their male counterparts from what I gather). But I decided to see how textually "…
razib | August 7, 2009On another weblog someone alluded to the sex difference in religious belief among black Americans, to the effect that it was more pronounced than among whites. Is this true? I decided to check the GSS, and found something interesting, though not too surprising. It's a robust cross-cultural finding that women are more religious than men, and it holds for the United States. But how does it break down across demographics?
Know God Exists
Male
Female
Difference
Proportional Difference
All
55.3
70.7
15.4
28%
Whites
52.4
67.8
15.4
29%
Blacks
73.7
86.6
12.9
18%
College+
44.7
58.9
14.2
32%
No…
razib | July 21, 2009I just listened to a radio segment on public sentiments toward the Apollo space program expenditures in hindsight. The polling had a small N, 3 people in Los Angeles on the street. But it got me wondering: who supports the space program? There is a variable in the GSS, NATSPAC, with a large sample size, which states:
We are faced with many problems in this country, none of which can be solved easily or inexpensively. I'm going to name some of these problems, and for each one I'd like you to tell me whether you think we're spending too much money on it, too little money, or about the right…
razib | May 14, 2009I heard on the radio several times in the past few weeks commentators refer to minority opposition to gay marriage, specifically the fact that New York and California have large numbers of blacks and Latinos who are voters. I was curious if Latinos really are notably more opposed to gay marriage than non-Hispanic whites. So I looked in the GSS. I limited the data to the years 2006 and 2008 for the variable MARHOMO, which asks:
Do you agree or disagree? j. Homosexual couples should have the right to marry one another.
The sample sizes for the groups are as follows:
Non-Hispanic whites = 2,292…
razib | April 26, 2009One of the arguments of some younger social conservatives (e.g., Ross Douthat) is that while the abortion wars are in stasis, the Right is losing ground when it comes to opposition to gay marriage. Is this true? Below are charts from the GSS with each column representing a year, from the mid-1970s to the 2000s (not necessarily every year, but every few years).
Looks like Ross is right.
razib | April 18, 2009Update: Readers pointed out that these results are from the cumulative data set from 1972-2002. So the % who favored laws against interracial marriage were ~40% in 1972, and ~10% in 2002, averaging out to ~25% across the years. The relative differences though seem to remain the same across categories. The nature of party identification in the 1970s also likely explains the peculiar results there.End Update
The GSS has a question of the form:
Do you think there should be laws against marriages between (Negroes/Blacks/African-Americans) and whites?
The sample sizes are huge for this question,…
razib | April 9, 2009The GSS has a variable, GENEGOO2, with an N ~ 2,500, that asks:
Some people say that genetic testing may cause trouble. Others think it is a wonderful medical advance. Based on what you know, do you think genetic testing will do more harm than good or more good than harm?
Below the fold are charts which show attitudes based on politics, highest degree attained, vocab score, attitude toward Bible, sex, religion, income, socioeconomic index and race.
Low income at the left:
Low socioeconomic index at the left:
razib | March 10, 2009There are several questions regarding speech which which have huge sample sizes in the GSS:
SPKRAC (Allow Racist to Speak), SPKHOMO (Allow Homosexual to Speak), SPKCOM (Allow Communist to Speak) and SPKATH (Allow Anti-Religionist to Speak) all have sample sizes of 53,000. This means that one can look for trends at a relatively granular scale. I decided to check how people lined up as a function of Age, belief in God, political views and intelligence (vocabulary). Lots of charts below.
A key:
1) Age goes from 18-89, left to right.
2) God goes from (left to right) atheist, to agnostic, to…
razib | March 9, 2009The American Religious Identification Survey 2008 is out. It is complementary to the Pew Religious Landscape Survey, and seems to confirm its findings. But its main advantage is that there was a survey in 1990 and 2001, so you have three points in time from which to observe trends.
As you can see, the number of atheists & agnostics tracks the general increase in the number with no religion, it's doubled in the past generation. But, though only 2% of the population identifies as atheist & agnostic, around ~10% of the population holds to beliefs which are atheistic or agnostic.…
razib | March 7, 2009The Inductivist had a post up bemoaning the cultural liberalism and secularity of today's youth at the same time that I suggested that the culture wars will continue. My reasoning was that polarization still exists, and in fact is greater among the youth than the older cohorts. On the other hand readers observed that the trend is toward more liberalism.
One of the major changes over the past generation which has gone under the radar of the media is that rapid rise of disaffiliation. After the 20th century seemed to disprove a strong form of the secularization hypothesis, some began talking…
razib | March 6, 2009Some have argued that the Culture Wars are in abatement. Out of curiosity I checked the attitudes toward abortion on demand and homosexuality in the GSS broken down by age & political orientation. The ABANY and HOMOSEX variables. Below are the percentages who agree with abortion on demand as well as the contention that there is nothing wrong with homosexual relations.
Yes To Abortion On Demand
Extremely Liberal
Liberal
Slightly Liberal
Moderate
Slightly Conservative
Conservative
Extremely Conservative
65 or older
57
50
34
32
32
26
22…