Thursday, September 29, 2005

Is the United States worse than other countries because of religion?

Steve Sailer:

Paul's basic gimmick is an old chestnut, one I've seen dozens of times before: to make America look bad by comparing crime and other statistics for the entire American population, which is 27% black or Hispanic, to Europeans countries that are at least 90% white. That way you can prove that secularism or socialism or soccer or whatever you like about Europe is better for people than whatever you don't like about America.

This sleight of hand can be highly effective in duping readers into making apples to oranges comparisons between the U.S. and European countries. Why. Because we aren't allowed -- in polite society -- to write about how much higher the crime rates, abortion rates, STD rates and the like are for blacks and Hispanics than they are for whites or Asians,

But let's just put that key point about the racial make-up of the populations aside for the moment and look at some recent crime statistics for the overall American population, all races, versus various European populations. And America still comes out looking pretty good. Europe (not just Britain) has been undergoing a moral decline, at least as reflected in crime statistics, whereas the U.S. seems to have been on the moral upswing since a recent low point in the early 1990s.

Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'

Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies

How Much Ruin In A Nation? UK vs US White Working Class

More bad analysis

1 Comments:

At 5:43 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Rebuttal to critique of Paul study
(most important single item here):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/distributism/message/3414

Other comments regarding reaction to Paul study:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/distributism/message/3397
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/distributism/message/3405
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/distributism/message/3406
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/distributism/message/3419

Original post, with excerpts of Paul study:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/distributism/message/3383

 

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