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AR 22:8 - Exposing the "perverse incentives" behind bad science
In this issue:
AMERICAN RELIGION - here's an answer to the claim that conservatives have all the money
ISLAM - serious resistance to Saudi efforts enabling ultra-conservative Islam in Muslim communities across the globe
+ refugees in Germany are uncomfortable attending highly "conservative" Arabic-speaking mosques
SCIENCE - the damage done by a growing trend in scientific studies being published without their hypotheses ever being tested
Apologia Report 22:8 (1,328)
February 24, 2017
AMERICAN RELIGION
"You'll Be Surprised at Which Religions Have the Most Members with $100K+ Incomes: They're not conservative Christians" by Brad Tuttle -- Money magazine came up with this and Time magazine ran with it. Impressed? Read on.
"According to data collected in a huge 2014 Pew study, 44% of American Jews live in a household with total income of $100,000 or more. That's the highest rate in the nation, followed by Hindus (36%) and Episcopalians (35%). These three groups also had high representations in the $50,000 to $99,000 income bracket. Altogether, roughly 70% of members of the Jewish, Hindu, and Episcopalian faith have household incomes of $50,000 or above. ...
"Meanwhile, about 20% of Mormons, Muslims, and Catholics have $100,000+ household incomes, which is roughly the same rate across all U.S. adults. Jehovah's Witnesses appear to have the lowest incomes of any religious group, with only 4% earning six figures and nearly 50% earning less than $30,000 annually. Two historically black church groups, the National Baptist Convention and the Church of God in Christ, are also at the low end of the income spectrum, with nearly half of households earning under $30,000." Time, Oct 11 '16 <www.goo.gl/ZGqrSt>
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ISLAM
"Fighting for the Soul of Islam" by James M. Dorsey -- "A gathering of prominent Sunni Muslim leaders in the Chechen capital of Grozny that appeared to have effectively excommunicated Saudi-backed ultra-conservatism potentially opens not only a theological but also a geopolitical rift in the Muslim world. The conference, sponsored and attended by some of Saudi Arabia's closest allies, suggests that Saudi funding of ultra-conservative worldviews may be meeting its match in more liberal interpretations of Islam backed by the United Arab Emirates and Russia. ...
"In defining Sunni Islam, the conference explicitly excluded Wahhabism, the Saudi state's adopted version of Islam, as well as Salafism and Deobandism from its definition.
"In a frontal assault on [the aforementioned] Saudi-backed ultra-conservative movements ... the conference charged that the label Sunni had been hijacked by heretics whose deviant practices distorted Islam. ... The assault is all the more significant given that Saudi Arabia has over the last four decades invested tens of billions of dollars into promoting globally ultra-conservative interpretations of Islam.
"The conference suggests that the UAE, together with Russia, is succeeding in countering the Saudi effort that has enabled ultra-conservatism to make significant inroads into Muslim communities across the globe. The heavy Egyptian presence suggests further that the UAE, which together with Saudi Arabia is Egypt's foremost financier, has effectively driven a wedge between the kingdom and the Arab world's most populous state.
"It also serves as evidence that Russian efforts to woo mainstream Muslim as well as Islamist leaders have begun to pay off, despite Moscow's support of the Assad regime in Syria." Redress Information & Analysis, Oct 8 '16 <www.goo.gl/7CgLg9>
For important background, see also "The Sunni Conference in Grozny: A Muslim Intra-Sectarian Struggle for Legitimacy" by Abbas Kadhim (Johns Hopkins University) in The Huffington Post, Sep 9 '16 <www.goo.gl/eoBhPR>
"Syrian refugees in Germany find country's mosques too conservative" by Joseph Nasr -- "Over two months, a dozen Syrians in six places of worship in three cities told Reuters they were uncomfortable with very conservative messages in Arabic-speaking mosques. ...
"Last year around 890,000 asylum-seekers, more than 70 percent of them Muslims, entered the country. Around a third came from Syria. Many of them do not want to go to Turkish mosques because they do not understand the sermons. They prefer to worship where people speak Arabic.
"Yet in these mosques, other problems arise. They are often short of funds, or else supported by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Some back ultra-conservative or highly literal interpretations of Islam, such as Wahhabism or Salafism.
"'Unfortunately it is true that a large majority of Arabic-speaking mosques are more conservative than Turkish mosques,' said Professor Mouhannad Khorchide, who heads the Centre for Islamic Theology at Muenster University. That poses problems for integrating those who are less conservative. ...
"Germany's domestic intelligence agency has recorded more than 320 attempts by Salafist Muslims to contact refugees last year, often by offering food, clothes, free copies of the Koran and help with German to asylum seekers living in shelters. ...
"The intelligence agency has advised local authorities against housing asylum-seekers near Salafist or Wahhabi mosques.
"'We know of at least 90 Islamist mosques where activities aimed at refugees are taking place. These mosques are largely Arab-dominated and influenced by Salafism,' said Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the agency. ...
"The problem may be rooted in the schisms in Islam, but it is made worse by the structure of religious funding in Germany. Since the start of the 20th century Germany has had a system of collecting taxes for worship, which are then paid out to religious groups like Catholics, Protestants and Jews.
"Muslims cannot benefit from this, because the four main organisations that represent Muslims in Germany can't agree to merge into one religious body, a requirement to receive taxes.
"'Most communities can't even afford a proper mosque. ... And most can't pay a well-educated imam to serve their community,' said Daniel Abdin, co-chairman of the Shura Council in Hamburg, an umbrella organisation for the city's Muslim community.
"'So you end up with a situation where people with little or no knowledge of modern theology are serving as imams.'" The Independent (UK), Oct 27 '16 <www.goo.gl/24g0z6>
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SCIENCE
"Is Modern Science Polluted?" by Patrick J. Michaels -- "For years, scientists and non-scientists alike have complained.... Karl Popper, the 20th century's pre-eminent philospher of science, said that science without a testable hypothesis really isn't science at all, but rather a 'pseudoscience.' Much of today's so-called science, which relies on scary projections without tests to back them up, fits this description."
Michaels isn't the only one who has connected <www.goo.gl/NCcN7w> Popper's criticism to America's growing lack of confidence in science. "This is a serious charge because it means that more and more government policy - from limiting carcinogens to regulations on carbon emissions - is based upon an increasingly polluted canon of knowledge. If that were somehow corrected for, we would live under a far less intrusive government.
"Last week, this view received strong support when two researchers, Paul Smaldino and Richard McElreath, published a bombshell article in a journal of Britain's Royal Society <www.goo.gl/4hKDlQ> called "The Natural Selection of Bad Science." Put simply, it is a closely argued, mathematically rigorous demonstration that the way we now reward scientists is actually making science worse.
"The things that scientists crave - like tenure and research funding -- incentivize frequent publishing of massive numbers of academic papers. To publish that much, you need a tremendous amount of financial support. And when it comes to scientific work that could have regulatory implications, almost all of the money comes from Washington. ...
"So, instead of being rewarded for research that supports a prior hypothesis, no matter how sloppy it is, those involved in climate studies get published a lot not by testing (which can't be done in the prospective sense) but by producing dire, horrific results. Because these often appear in prominent journals - which love to feature articles that generate big news stories - the greater the horror, the more likely is promotion, citation and more money.
"This then generates more and more of these perverse incentives in a vicious cycle." Investor's Business Daily, Oct 4 '16 <www.goo.gl/rpqt5L>
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