Tag Archives: Study

News

New study shows how capitalism and religion promote co-operation

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From the National Post.

Excerpt:

Free-enterprising, impersonal markets may seem cutthroat and mean-spirited, but a provocative new study says markets have been a force for good over the last 10,000 years, helping to drive the evolution of more trusting and co-operative societies.

“We live in a much kinder, gentler world than most humans have lived in,” says anthropologist Joe Henrich of the University of British Columbia, lead author of the study that helps topple long-held stereotypes.

The finding, reported in the journal Science, suggests people trust and play fair with strangers because markets and religion — not some deep psychological instinct inherited from our dim tribal past — have helped shape our neural circuitry over the eons.

The 13 researchers on Mr. Henrich’s international team spent time — and played clever psychological games — with more than 2,000 people in 15 different societies.

[…]The study found that the likelihood that people “played fair” with strangers increased with the degree people were integrated into markets and participated in a world religion.

[…]The study also suggests world religions, such as Christianity and Islam, were a potent evolutionary force, favouring the growth of complex societies by reinforcing fairness and trust.

Science is the number one peer-reviewed journal in the world. Capitalism, for lack of a better word, is good. Capitalism works.

News

New studies on promiscuity at Catholic colleges and cohabitation

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First, women at Catholic colleges. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

Researchers from Mississippi State University looked at a survey of 1,000 college students nationwide and were surprised to find that “women attending colleges and universities affiliated with the Catholic Church are almost four times as likely to have participated in ‘hooking up’ compared to women at secular schools.  A “hook up” is defined as a casual physical encounter with a male student, without the expectation of an ongoing relationship.

[…]Overall, the study found clear differences in the sexual activity of Catholic students who attend weekly Mass.  Whereas 24 percent of Catholic women who attend Mass weekly have “hooked up” (compared to 38 percent of nonreligious students), the rate more than doubles to 50 percent of Catholic women who attend Mass infrequently — far more than their nonreligious peers.

[…]In the same journal issue, Calvin College professor Jonathan Hill reports on his study comparing the experiences of students at Catholic colleges, mainline Protestant colleges, and generally more fervent evangelical colleges.  Hill examines student attendance at religious services and finds a marked difference at the more conservative Protestant colleges, where religious convictions are shared and embraced by strong “moral communities.”

And then the study on cohabitation. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

Dr. Pamela J. Smock, a research professor at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, has published a study in the Journal of Marriage and Family of data gathered on cohabitation in the United States and the implications of cohabitation on relationship stability.

“From the perspective of many young adults, marrying without living together first seems quite foolish,” said Prof. Smock. “Just because some academic studies have shown that living together may increase the chance of divorce somewhat, young adults themselves don’t believe that.”

“Cohabitation is increasingly becoming the first co-residential union formed among young adults,” the study said. “As a result of the growing prevalence of cohabitation, the number of children born to unmarried cohabiting parents has also increased.”

[…]However, the study revealed that, with differences based on race and ethnicity taken into account, children born to cohabiting versus married parents have over five times the risk of experiencing their parents’ separation, showing an exponential increase in relationship failure for couples currently or ever cohabiting.

[…]The study concludes that couples who live together before they get married are less likely to stay married than those who don’t move in together until engagement or marriage.

The social costs of irresponsible and immoral choices about sex, marriage and parenting are $112 billion a year in the United States, charged to the taxpayers.

Those who make poor decisions about sex and marriage will often turn to taxpayer-funded social programs as a means of equalizing life outcomes with those who do not make poor decisions about sex and marriage. The net effect is that the frequency of responsible, moral choices about sex and marriage decreases as the benefits decline while the frequency of irresponsible, immoral choices about sex and marriage increases as the costs decline.

It’s true that many people can get away with making irresponsible and immoral decisions because they are wealthy and well-educated and can avoid many of the consequences. But what happens when ordinary working people start to take on ideas like hooking up and cohabiting? Does that help them to make ends meet? Does that help their children to succeed? Shouldn’t we be encouraging more sexual restraint and stronger marriages instead?

News

How green lobbyists shape energy policy in the Obama administration

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Story here at the Washington Times. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

In 2008 and 2009, Mr. Obama told Americans on no fewer than eight occasions to “think about what’s happening in countries like Spain [and] Germany” to see his model for successful “green jobs” policies, and what we should expect here.

Some Spanish academics and experts on that country’s wind- and solar-energy policies and outcomes took Mr. Obama up on his invitation, revealing Spain’s policies to be economic and employment disasters. The political embarrassment to the administration was obvious, with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs asked about the Spanish study at a press conference, and the president hurriedly substituted Denmark for Spain in his stump speech.

Team Obama was not amused, and they decided to do something about it. The crew that campaigned on change pulled out the oldest plan in the book – attack the messenger. The U.S. government’s response to foreign academics, assessing the impact in their own country of that foreign government’s policies, was to come after them in a move that internal e-mails say was unprecedented. They also show it was coordinated with the lobbyists for “Big Wind” and the left-wing Center for American Progress (CAP).

What emerged was an ideological hodgepodge of curious and unsupported claims published under the name of two young non-economist wind advocates. These taxpayer-funded employees offered green dogma in oddly strident terms and, along the way, a senior Obama political appointee may well have misled Congress.

[…]What is clear is that the Department of Energy then worked with Center for American Progress and the industry lobby AWEA to produce an attack that would serve all their interests.

First we had ClimateGate, and now we have WindLobbyGate.