Graph by Tony Piro. Please keep it mind that it shows a correlation, not causation.
It is a very similar curve to that found in a Pew survey of 45,000 people globally (and includes Africa).
In his book, The Moral Landscape, Sam Harris offers a commentary on the U.S. as outlier:
“While most developed societies have grown predominantly secular, with
the curious exception of the United States, orthodox religion is in
florid bloom throughout the developing world.
Religiosity is strongly coupled to perceptions of societal insecurity. In addition to being the most religious of developed nations, the United States also has the greatest economic inequality. The poor tend to be more religious than the rich, both within and between nations.
And on almost every measure of societal health, the least religious countries are better off than the most religious.” (p.146)
But there may be more to it. Americans believe all kinds of crazy stuff, and it begs the question whether it correlates with insecurities as well.
In a class I co-taught with Larry Lessig, we used a pre-print of
Posner’s book, which relates the following statistics on American adults:
• 39% believe astrology is scientific (astrology, not astronomy).
• 33% believe in ghosts and communication with the dead.
Ponder that for a moment. One out of every three U.S. adults believes in ghosts. Who knows what their kids think!
People’s willingness to believe untruths relates to the ability of the
average person to reason critically about reality. Here are some less
amusing statistics on American adults:
• 49% don’t know that it takes a year for the earth to revolve around
the sun.
• 67% don't know what a molecule is.
• 80% can't understand the NY Times Tuesday science section.
Posner concludes: “It is possible that science is valued by most Americans as another form of magic.”
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solerena 22 months ago | reply
:) oh, good for you:) neither do I...
KadoKeshi 22 months ago | reply
"Believe" in evolution? Evolution is a scientific theory (and not a hypothesis). You either accept it or not accept it.
Olli1999 21 months ago | reply
I find it interesting that other wealthy countries with deeply rooted religious views (Kuwait, Indonesia, etc.) are missing in the graph. I bet they were outliers in the graph, too.
jurvetson 21 months ago | reply
Yes for Kuwait, no for Indonesia (not that rich). If you look at the Pew chart that is in my first comment above, you'll see Kuwait as an outlier. Indonesia is "on the curve".
You can look at the original Pew data here. On p.52., for example, you can see that 77% of Indonesian Muslims think that men and women should be allowed to work in the same workplace, and this is the highest percentage of any Muslim nation surveyed. Malaysia is opposite, with 80% of Muslims saying they should not be in the same workplace.