Belief in human evolution makes people better persons

[metis]

I say that believing in evolution tends to exacerbate racist tendencies in people. That's what eugenics is based on.

Eugenics in the west has been dead for around a century now, especially since studies showed that the size of one's brain and/or its configuration does not relate to intelligence nor specific behavior patterns.

 

[tas8831]

Or so says a very large international scale study.
https://phys.org/news/2022-04-disbelief-human-evolution-linked-greater.html

Excerpts are quoted below




We see that here is an example of how a scientifically grounded insight into our origins and connections to the rest of humanity and the living world can open our minds and hearts into becoming a better human being.

The study also destroys the claim that somehow belief in evolution is a detriment to our moral character. In fact it is established now that the opposite us true. Disbelief in the scientific understanding of human nature is far more likely to create worse human beings regardless of religious beliefs or ethnicities.

What say others?

Adding the original paper link
APA PsycNet

Not at all surprising - we see this attitude on this very forum and ones like it (not to mention in one particular political party - the one whose members go out of their way to proclaim their great devotion to certain parts of the bible)...

 

[tas8831]

I think that identifying any one belief as making someone better or worse is probably overly simplistic. A number of determining factors go into what people believe typically and saying that a single factor is all that matters is well.. silly.

You could have just written "No, I didn't read the paper."

 

[tas8831]

So one cannot simply dismiss it out of hand.

When one has an agenda to push, they surely can (and do)!

 

[74x12]

Eugenics in the west has been dead for around a century now, especially since studies showed that the size of one's brain and/or its configuration does not relate to intelligence nor specific behavior patterns.

That depends what you mean by eugenics being dead. I'd say it's gone underground for now.

 

[Brian2]

Perhaps you should read the paper and figure out if you disagree with the definitions of "better" used in the paper?
Perhaps you should also read the paper to check if, as the authors have claimed, they have indeed controlled for and accounted for the impact of other factors.

Perhaps, but a statistical relationship between belief in evolution and attitudes is one thing, a causal relationship is another.

 

[DharmaCatLamp]

You could have just written "No, I didn't read the paper."

I mean what we are talking about here is measuring someones prejudice based entirely on their belief in evolution or their lack of belief in evolution. That seems more than a little simplistic when you consider what is also being asked by the questions.

For example in the GSS study one of the questions mentioned is about Affirmative Action. " are you for or against preferential hiring and promotion of Blacks?" Right off the bat this is a loaded question. What does this actually mean in context and how are we using this to determine someone's prejudice? There is also the bit about government aid which seems a little bit sketchy.
Where it's much easier to determine discrimination based on that study is the part about general attitude towards blacks. I might argue even that is a little tricky.

In the 4th study in Israel they do mention controlling for political affiliation among other things. I would say of all of the material presented here I found Israel to be the most interesting.

All I am saying is maybe we shouldn't jump to conclusions over single factors being the cause for prejudice. Usually it's more than one factor that determines this kind of thing. As an example people who believe in evolution might be more educated which affects other factors in their life and assumptions we can make about why certain beliefs are there vs not there. Not to mention since most of this is done through surveys there is the question of honesty in answering questions.

While the research is interesting I suppose it just doesn't make me jump to " Ah yes I believe this. " Where I am wondering if it's statistically significant as well as not desiring to jump to conclusions.

 

[rational experiences]

If humans first and equal as the human ask basic human observed questions.

It's not scientific.

Science for a very long time by rich man control of life pursued the idea a scientist human is more intelligent than a natural human.

Yet as your planet maths machine studies thesis God status destroyed life on earth several times.

So humans think the idea you represent is very Nasty and they are not wrong.

Your claim the scientist is a scientists argument science theist versus science theist. Humans.

Were natural humans first and family.

Not scientists

Science hence said my evolution argument was against ground dust God chemistry hologram image emergent theists. Who claimed as humans the spirit of a God emerged.

Witnessed as occult converters of earths mass. As humans only.

Had to placate an argument closest theme ape was living to humans living biology to disallow that type of human theism in science as lying.

As the ape as two bodies is a total non present human. But it's our closest living comparison.

Compare I Son.

The human theist I am the son human hence said Sion theisms was total biological removal.

By anti Christ theists.

Actually about human scientists on earth as human sciences history.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

The study shows a positive correlation exists that is unlikely due to chance.

It doesn't, and cannot say that (not correctly, anyway). Pretending for the moment that the garbage statistical methods used were actually robust, appropriate, and altogether decent and the sampling likewise unproblematic, the analyses rests on the use of statistical significance using p values. Now, personally I (like many) think that the modern combination that is in most of the textbooks and used in this and many other studies is abominable, and find it deeply problematic that one of the most widely used frameworks for statistical inference is the only method I know of that has been wholly, severely, and soundly rejected and fundamentallyha flawed and unsound since before it existed. Normally, this is not possible, because you have to wait for this or that method, tool, metric, model, etc., to exist before it can be criticized. In this case, however, the use of p values, significance, and inference comes out of a merging of two warring factions in the earliest days of modern statistics: Ronald Fisher on the one hand and (Eagon) Pearson and Neyman on the other. Fisher's work was earlier, and Pearson and Neyman introduced their approach partly in response to Fishers and as a rejection of fundamental components of Fisher's approach. Fisher attacked their approach visiously. The "modern" union still taught today is mainly a combination of components of both approaches that would have disgusted followers of either camp (and the founders).
That said, even if one believes that the use of p values and significance testing as used in the study is not seriously flawed and a primary factor in many of the "replication crises" and similar problems across numerous fields with flawed findings and failures to replicate and so forth, then we are left with the fact that the interpretation of p values still doesn't allow for the researchers to conclude that the results are "unlikely due to chance".
Rather, the ONLY conclusion one can give a "significant" p value is that, under the assumption of the null AND under the assumption that the variables are i.i.d. THEN the results found or more extreme results have a probability of occurance by chance less than that given by the p value.
Of course, the treatment of the variables, the correlation measures used, the assumptions about the distributions, the selection of years, the aggregation methods, etc., used in the study are deeply, deeply problematic. That's without getting into issues of the exclusion of data for people who answered "unsure" about evolution, the differing and problematic methods used to determine belief in evolution, the fact that the measures of "better people" (e.g., measures of racism, attitudes, towards LGBTQ, etc.) are based on questions that might be suitable if one were using them singly rather than throwing them into some GLM-type model you can crank out with a few lines and clicks and SAS, and the overall data massaging just to get outputs that are all so very, very problematic (and, unfortunately typical).
Mining large surveys conducted by other institutions or groups can be and is fraught with difficulties, not the least of which is defining just exactly what constitutes the random variable one is assuming to be i.d.d. and with what justifications. A lot of work has to be done to ensure robustness even with relatively few factors or parameters and comparisons among different methods to determine the weights or coefficients. Little of this was done, but instead a large number of variables across survey years and across surveys of very different types were aggregated poorly and investigated using undergrad modeling methods to spit out p-values.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Eugenics in the west has been dead for around a century now, especially since studies showed that the size of one's brain and/or its configuration does not relate to intelligence nor specific behavior patterns.

This is ridiculous. Even the study doesn't hide the fact that is hasn't been a century since the worst eugenics-based horror of the 20th century (and arguably one of the appalling atrocities in human history) occured; namely, the holocaust. And it was the NAZI atrocities that caused what had been a growing Eugenics "science" to suddenly disappear or at least go underground. From the study itself:
"Darwin’s theory of evolution (1859, 1871) has undoubtably affected the way human beings think about themselves and others. It has particularly influenced the way people think about race, and it has historically been (mis)used to perpetuate racism, prejudice, homophobia, and intergroup violence...It has been utilized by prominent eugenicists (Helfand, 2020) and White supremacists (Kendi, 2017), and was central to the genocidal Nazi ideology (Weikart, 2004, 2009) as well as other prejudicial ideologies (Rose, 2009). It has also been used by evolutionary psychologists and sociobiologists to argue for genetic differences among races in intelligence and other attributes (e.g., Rushton, 1995). Aside from being utilized as the fuse for what was the spark of genocide and prejudice, the theory of evolution has also propagated prejudice in people’s attitudes at the implicit level.."
The article is an attempt (and thankfully not the only one) to show that this may be changing, in that they seek to "test the hypothesis that disbelief in human evolution is positively associated with racism, prejudice, discriminatory behavior, and support for intergroup conflict." They fail rather horribly but its the kind of research where if you massage the way you ask the questions well enough with the way you use factors and aggregates and what you exclude, you can always get the answer(s).

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I can't find a link to the paper in this article. Is there one that I have missed, or do I need to look it up independently?

I have not read the full study. Its only 15 dollars so lets see.

I've attached the study.

 

[firedragon]

I've attached the study.

Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

 

[sayak83]

Perhaps, but a statistical relationship between belief in evolution and attitudes is one thing, a causal relationship is another.

Causal relationships are inferred from statistical relationships only.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Belief in evolution can encourage racism.

You mean, misunderstanding evolution can do that.
Ironically, the specific type of misunderstanding required for that, is also the strawman that creationists tend to invoke when making religiously inspired emotional "arguments" against modern biology.

The Nazis used it as an excuse for their racism

They also had "Gott mit uns" inscripted on their belt buckles.
But likely you'll have some type of double standard as to why that isn't important or whatever.

They really thought they were the most evolved race

Yes, and that also shows how they really misunderstood evolution theory, as there is no such thing as "the most evolved" in evolution.

and that they needed to cleanse the gene pool. Such ideas are certainly not exclusive to Nazis however ...

Indeed. They were also quite common in white christian slave traders, defending slavery by pointing out how god allows it in the bible.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

which family?

Ultimately, "life".

In closer ties, the family of Homo Sapiens.
The family of Hominidae
The family of apes.
The family of primates.
The family of mammals.
The family of tetrapods.
The family of vertebrates.
The family of eukaryotes.
...

 

[sayak83]

It doesn't, and cannot say that (not correctly, anyway). Pretending for the moment that the garbage statistical methods used were actually robust, appropriate, and altogether decent and the sampling likewise unproblematic, the analyses rests on the use of statistical significance using p values. Now, personally I (like many) think that the modern combination that is in most of the textbooks and used in this and many other studies is abominable, and find it deeply problematic that one of the most widely used frameworks for statistical inference is the only method I know of that has been wholly, severely, and soundly rejected and fundamentallyha flawed and unsound since before it existed. Normally, this is not possible, because you have to wait for this or that method, tool, metric, model, etc., to exist before it can be criticized. In this case, however, the use of p values, significance, and inference comes out of a merging of two warring factions in the earliest days of modern statistics: Ronald Fisher on the one hand and (Eagon) Pearson and Neyman on the other. Fisher's work was earlier, and Pearson and Neyman introduced their approach partly in response to Fishers and as a rejection of fundamental components of Fisher's approach. Fisher attacked their approach visiously. The "modern" union still taught today is mainly a combination of components of both approaches that would have disgusted followers of either camp (and the founders).
That said, even if one believes that the use of p values and significance testing as used in the study is not seriously flawed and a primary factor in many of the "replication crises" and similar problems across numerous fields with flawed findings and failures to replicate and so forth, then we are left with the fact that the interpretation of p values still doesn't allow for the researchers to conclude that the results are "unlikely due to chance".
Rather, the ONLY conclusion one can give a "significant" p value is that, under the assumption of the null AND under the assumption that the variables are i.i.d. THEN the results found or more extreme results have a probability of occurance by chance less than that given by the p value.
Of course, the treatment of the variables, the correlation measures used, the assumptions about the distributions, the selection of years, the aggregation methods, etc., used in the study are deeply, deeply problematic. That's without getting into issues of the exclusion of data for people who answered "unsure" about evolution, the differing and problematic methods used to determine belief in evolution, the fact that the measures of "better people" (e.g., measures of racism, attitudes, towards LGBTQ, etc.) are based on questions that might be suitable if one were using them singly rather than throwing them into some GLM-type model you can crank out with a few lines and clicks and SAS, and the overall data massaging just to get outputs that are all so very, very problematic (and, unfortunately typical).
Mining large surveys conducted by other institutions or groups can be and is fraught with difficulties, not the least of which is defining just exactly what constitutes the random variable one is assuming to be i.d.d. and with what justifications. A lot of work has to be done to ensure robustness even with relatively few factors or parameters and comparisons among different methods to determine the weights or coefficients. Little of this was done, but instead a large number of variables across survey years and across surveys of very different types were aggregated poorly and investigated using undergrad modeling methods to spit out p-values.

what is i.i.d.?
Can you explain by an example about what you find problematic in the treatment of the variables and the correlation measures used?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

That's not the discussion here. We're just talking about people who believe in evolution. Are they more or less racist? Or about the same?

It is very much the topic. We're indeed talking about people who believe in evolution. The theory of biology.
Social darwinism is not that. You are talking about social darwinism, which is not the topic.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

And the eugenics notion is not entirely simple ─ a non-racist version might well be made to work in modern hands eg in the West most mongoloid pregnancies don't go to term.

That has nothing to do with evolution.
Nor does evolution ever come up, not even implicitly, as a factor in making the decision to abort in such cases.

 

[Heyo]

Ultimately, "life".

In closer ties, the family of Homo Sapiens.
The family of Hominidae
The family of apes.
The family of primates.
The family of mammals.
The family of tetrapods.
The family of vertebrates.
The family of eukaryotes.
...

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Suborder: Haplorhini
Infraorder: Simiiformes
Family: Hominidae
Subfamily: Homininae
Tribe: Hominini
Genus: Homo
Species: H. sapiens

from Human - Wikipedia

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Suborder: Haplorhini
Infraorder: Simiiformes
Family: Hominidae
Subfamily: Homininae
Tribe: Hominini
Genus: Homo
Species: H. sapiens

from Human - Wikipedia

I know.

I assumed he used the word "family" colloquially instead of meaning the taxonomic jargon.
And I think that was a safe bet.