You may remember a few months back Pew published the results of a poll that showed Agnostics and Atheists knew more about religion than people of faith. Quiz is gone on their site.
And here is the link to the Pew article on the results of their poll: U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey
Writing in the Scientific American Charles Seife disputes their methodology and analysis of the results. The article is The Science of “Disestimation”: The Shortcomings of Opinion Polls with a subtitle of Why we shouldn’t put our faith in opinion polls.
Mr. Seife is probably correct in his assessment. Statistical analysis is way beyond my realm of knowledge. I would assume, though, that an organization like Pew would have some statisticians on board…or maybe they should.
Anecdotally from my experience I would tend to agree with Pew. Most of the Atheists that I personally know have gotten there after much study and thought. It is not an easy thing to discard the powerful meme that is religion. Continue reading “Another Point of View on Pew Poll on Religious Knowledge Among Americans”