New study on atheists

[ghostexorcist]

Prof. Jerome P. Baggett, a theology teacher from Berkley, is conducting a study on atheists. I first learned about it from watching a video by the YouTuber ZomGitscriss. Participants are required to fill out a questionnaire, a survey, and a consent form. All three were originally available in a single file in ZomGitscriss' video description, but it became corrupted for some reason. She has posted them to Google Docs. You can access them here:

* The questionnaire - https://docs.google.com/document/pub...4UkxRBb7GXFK5Y (The same document is tripled for some reason. Just copy it up to the point where it is says "Thanks again. Your perspective is very important to us.")

* The survey - https://docs.google.com/document/pub...pZSqy81L4iTYCQ (the survey didn't transfer to Google Docs very good as the lines you mark with an "X" got jumbled up.)

* The consent form - https://docs.google.com/document/pub...I4FFYdkwrm0vdo

Once you are done, email the finished documents to jbaggett@jstb.edu. I've already sent in my responses. He was nice enough to write me back and thank me for taking time to help out with the study.

[David Jamieson]

A theology teacher.... hmmn, I don't think there will be any confirmation bias there whatsoever do you?

[ghostexorcist]

Other atheists I've told about this study have had the same concerns. I'm holding my judgement until the research comes out. There have been numerous video responses on YouTube. Aron Ra (a noted atheist activist) posted his response here. I've posted my responses here and here (split due to size limitations). Even if the study turns out to be a dud, I still have my thoughts written down. I can give what I've written to curious family members who want to know more about my worldview.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I think that, for many believers, they have a hard time understanding atheists.
"Militant" atheists ( for lac of a better word) like Dawkins, Dennet, Hitchens, etc have made it even more difficult.
I know quite a few atheists and I have the previlage of calling some friends and they are great people BUT I do think that because of a very vocal minority, atheists get a bad rap by believers.
Sure some are very mean-spirited, closed minded, arrogant and, well, not very smart BUT so are a lot of believers, LOL !

These may simply be a study trying to bridge that gap and I know that many believers truly want to understand why some people are atheist.

[ghostexorcist]

[...]

These may simply be a study trying to bridge that gap and I know that many believers truly want to understand why some people are atheist.

That's the way I am looking at the study.

[Drake]

A theology teacher.... hmmn, I don't think there will be any confirmation bias there whatsoever do you?

Not necessarily. If he is a professor, one might think he would place the research before the bias, or at least acknowledge it during his paper. During my masters and doctorate studies, we were told not to so much shut down your biases (which is impossible), but to acknowledge them and carefully review your findings to see if you had crossed any lines inadvertently. Peer review, a standard amongst academic journals, is also very helpful for this.

Let's see what he comes up with before assuming confirmation bias. That's like confirmation bias of confirmation bias!

[David Jamieson]

well, I guess it will help people understand that they aren't atheists and actually anti-theists or anti-religious...which is what most of the flavour of "atheism" is these days anyway.

I wouldn't say Hitchens was exclusively an atheist so much as he was an anti-theist. He made the latter stronger than the former.

Dawkins more or less fits the same pair of pants as well i many ways.

[sanjuro_ronin]

well, I guess it will help people understand that they aren't atheists and actually anti-theists or anti-religious...which is what most of the flavour of "atheism" is these days anyway.

I wouldn't say Hitchens was exclusively an atheist so much as he was an anti-theist. He made the latter stronger than the former.

Dawkins more or less fits the same pair of pants as well i many ways.

Yes, I would agree with that term, anti-theist.

[Syn7]

Not necessarily. If he is a professor, one might think he would place the research before the bias, or at least acknowledge it during his paper. During my masters and doctorate studies, we were told not to so much shut down your biases (which is impossible), but to acknowledge them and carefully review your findings to see if you had crossed any lines inadvertently. Peer review, a standard amongst academic journals, is also very helpful for this.

Let's see what he comes up with before assuming confirmation bias. That's like confirmation bias of confirmation bias!

Totally agree. To assume bias in the final data is a huge bias itself.

[David Jamieson]

Totally agree. To assume bias in the final data is a huge bias itself.

The assumption isn't being drawn from the fact there is a study. The assumption is formed because the study is being done from a theological perspective.

Sometimes, it is not unwise to make such assumptions when information can be extrapolated from the event.

An uninterested and non-invested source for the study would not invite such an assumption.

[Scott R. Brown]

An uninterested and non-invested source for the study would not invite such an assumption.

Where would one find such a person?

Everyone has a personal world view that presupposes bias, it is inescapable.

I know, look for someone with lesser bias, but the determination of who has a lesser bias is also formed from a biased perspective. It is once again, inescapable.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Of course we all have biases, look at the case of Marc Hauser and what he, supposedly, did to try and validate his view/bias that morality evolved:

http://www.boston.com/whitecoatnotes...hGP/story.html

Marc Hauser, a prolific scientist and popular psychology professor who last summer resigned from Harvard University, had fabricated data, manipulated results in multiple experiments, and described how studies were conducted in factually incorrect ways, according to the findings of a federal research oversight agency posted online Wednesday.

The report provides the greatest insight yet into the problems that triggered a three-year internal university investigation that concluded in 2010 that Hauser, a star professor and public intellectual, had committed eight instances of scientific misconduct. The document, which will be published in the Federal Register Thursday, found six cases in which Hauser engaged in research misconduct in work supported by the National Institutes of Health. One paper was retracted and two were corrected, and other problems were found in unpublished work.

Although Hauser “neither admits nor denies committing research misconduct,” he does, the report states, accept that federal authorities “found evidence of research misconduct.”

According to the federal findings:

-Hauser fabricated data in a 2002 Cognition paper that was later retracted, which examined monkeys’ ability to learn patterns of syllables. He never exposed monkeys to a particular sound pattern described in the experiment, despite reporting the results in a graph.

-In two experiments, researchers measured monkeys’ responses to patterns of consonants and vowels, a process called “coding” their behavior. Hauser falsified the coding, causing the results to pass a statistical test used to ensure that a particular finding was not just a chance result. Colleagues coding the same experiments came up with different results. Hauser “acknowledged to his collaborators that he miscoded some of the trials and that the study failed to provide support for the initial hypothesis,” the report said.

-A paper examining monkeys’ abilities to learn grammatical patterns included false descriptions of how the monkeys’ behavior was coded, “leading to a false proportion or number of animals showing a favorable response,” the findings stated. In an early version of the paper, he falsely reported that all 16 monkeys responded more strongly to an ungrammatical pattern than a grammatical one. Records reviewed by investigators found that one monkey responded in the opposite way and another responded equally. Hauser claimed that the behavior was coded by three scientists, when in fact he was the only one who measured their behavior. Then, when the manuscript was revised, he provided a false numerical description of the extent of agreement among multiple observers in coding behavior, despite being the only observer. All issues were corrected before publication.

[Scott R. Brown]

Yeah....but at least science corrected itself!

Okay what about all those other studies that have been faked, or slanted due to scientists' personal bias that we don't know about...and form public policy and from which we build our personal lives around?

[Lucas]

Someone who believes in the possiblity of God(s) existance but does not believe in the existance in a definitive way due to lack of knowledge. That same person believes in the possibility of non existance of God(s), but does not believe in the non existance in a definitive way due to lack of knowledge. That is the middle ground, IMO. Neither here nor there. There is not bias agenda for an individual of that standing, they simply want to learn more through experimentation to try and gain any more possible knowledge than they currently have.

I am the One!!

[Scott R. Brown]

I am the One!!

YeaH.....but WHICH One?