All of us base our actions on a mixture of beliefs and conclusions. "Beliefs" are principles, generally inculcated by upbringing and tradition, to which we are attached emotionally, fervently and certainly. "Conclusions" are more rational, more tentative and based on evidence from daily life or information sources such as newspapers. This distinction is subtle, sometimes ambiguous, but crucial.
There is ample evidence in the turmoil and tragedy of nearly every Mideast nation today that a population's strong attachment to extreme beliefs leads to disastrous public policy. I would also argue that the social success of northern Europe demonstrates that nations operating more on conclusions and less on beliefs are more successful. I'm painting with a broad brush in the two preceding sentences, and there are plenty of exceptions, but the general point is valid. For just one example, a 2015 CNN poll of national happiness listed 7 northern European nations plus Canada, New Zealand and Australia as the 10 happiest nations in the world. In my opinion, this is partly a consequence of the low level of religious belief in northern Europe, along with their moderate and rational politics (welfare state capitalism).
America is an anomaly in that it is rich, highly dysfunctional socially and highly religious. There's strong evidence the latter two are linked, much as they are in the Mideast. In 2009, paleontologist and sociologist Gregory Paul published a study of religion and dysfunctionality, based on existing statistics, of 17 prosperous nations including most of western Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the U.S. He ranked nations on the basis of 25 social indicators such as homicide rates, teenage abortion rates and poverty rates, and nine religiosity indicators such as belief in God, frequency of prayer and biblical literalism. Paul found a high correlation between religiosity and social dysfunction. The U.S. was an extreme outlier, being by far the most socially dysfunctional and by far the most religious. Ireland and Italy were similar but less extreme. At the other end of both scales were Japan, Sweden and Denmark as least religious and least dysfunctional.
America is also exceptional in basing national policy on beliefs rather than conclusions. Here are a few examples.
Global warming: A remarkable scientific consensus agrees global warming is real, it poses a serious threat and it's caused primarily by humans. Yet only 67 percent of Americans think Earth is getting warmer. Breaking this figure down politically, 84 percent of Democrats, 46 percent of Republicans, and 25 percent of Tea Party Republicans agree Earth is getting warmer. Thus we see a cultural divide between "thinkers" and "believers" on this issue.
Biological evolution: Only 47 percent of Americans agree with the overwhelming consensus among biological scientists that humans developed from earlier species of animals. Incredibly, according to a 2014 Gallup poll, 42 percent of Americans believe that God created humans within the past 10,000 years. Among Gregory Paul's 16 other prosperous nations, agreement with the scientific consensus ranges from 64 percent (Ireland) to 80 percent (Sweden, Japan, Denmark, France).
Abortion: It's superstitious dogma to argue that a new fetus -- a fertilized egg -- is fully human and to argue, as Republican candidate Mike Huckabee does, that it should be accorded full constitutional rights. This would imply that abortion is always murder, in which case nature or God would be the world's most prolific murderer, because most fertilized eggs either do not implant in the uterus or else miscarry after implantation. A fetus only begins to become fully human when organized brain waves appear, which occurs in the seventh month of pregnancy. Ironically, the evidence shows that legal restrictions on abortions actually increase abortions. Internationally, the legality of abortion is negatively correlated with its frequency. Thus those who oppose abortion should, rationally, support organizations such as Planned Parenthood and oppose restrictions on the procedure.
Guns and violence: A committed core of true believers continues to resist rational restrictions on gun ownership in America, despite massive evidence that widespread gun ownership is strongly linked to homicide and injury. Peer nations with much stronger gun restrictions have far lower homicide rates, and Americans living in states such as Arkansas having high gun ownership rates are four times more likely to be killed by a gun than are Americans living in states having low gun ownership rates.
Could America find solutions to its social dysfunctionality by relying less on emotional beliefs and more on rational conclusions? The evidence seems to answer "yes."
Commentary on 08/25/2015