The thing that annoys me most about science communication and science in general is when people abuse it to make lazy claims.
Here is the methodology:
"Two hundred fifty eight Finnish participants (63.6% women) took part in the online study. Their mean age was 31.81 years (SD = 9.89, range 18–65). Of the participants, 38.1% were working, 44.4% were students, and 17.5% were employed in activities other than those mentioned earlier; 1.2% had grammar school education, 44.2% had vocational or upper secondary school education, and 54.5% had polytechnic or university education. Religious affiliations were none (61%), Christian (37%), or other (2%)."
Tell me if you think you can make the claim that "religious people understand the world less" from that. The title should be 'Christian Finns understand the world less compared to non-christian Finns" and even that is being lazy.
If I did a behavioural study with male and female rats and mice of various ages I would be laughed out of the room. So why so much leeway with these studies when there are so many confounding variables?
Here is the methodology:
"Two hundred fifty eight Finnish participants (63.6% women) took part in the online study. Their mean age was 31.81 years (SD = 9.89, range 18–65). Of the participants, 38.1% were working, 44.4% were students, and 17.5% were employed in activities other than those mentioned earlier; 1.2% had grammar school education, 44.2% had vocational or upper secondary school education, and 54.5% had polytechnic or university education. Religious affiliations were none (61%), Christian (37%), or other (2%)."
Tell me if you think you can make the claim that "religious people understand the world less" from that. The title should be 'Christian Finns understand the world less compared to non-christian Finns" and even that is being lazy.
If I did a behavioural study with male and female rats and mice of various ages I would be laughed out of the room. So why so much leeway with these studies when there are so many confounding variables?