Wednesday 28 May 2014

Estranged Notions: Do ‘Religiously Knowledgeable’ Atheists Believe in God?

Today's post:

Do ‘Religiously Knowledgeable’ Atheists Believe in God?

Short version: survey statistics are not worth much, especially in fringe small-N subcategories of larger surveys. (A proportion — sometimes a nontrivial one — of any survey sample are people giving a purely random or maliciously hostile response; for unpopular or socially marginalized beliefs this can easily skew the results. It has also been found that Americans overstate their religious observance and beliefs to pollsters.)