School's In for Summer

Back when I was a kid, school started on the Tuesday after Labor Day. Not anymore. My daughter starts next Monday (August 19th), and she has Freshman orientation tomorrow. One of her friends started today, and in some parts of the country, school's been back in session for a week or two (or more). It seems like we're slowly creeping toward little or no summer vacation. That'd be a shame. Kids only have so much time to be kids, and it appears that we're slowly taking a good chunk of their childhood away.

God is Alive and Well in the U.S.

One of my uncles, complaining about the findings of a recent survey, questioned its accuracy, noting that "no one interviewed me." His remark reflects a common misunderstanding about surveys: that you have to interview a lot of people in order for a survey to be accurate. That, however, is not true. What matters is that the sample that is drawn is representative of the population at large. As George Gallup once noted, sampling a population is like taste-testing soup; a single spoonful can reflect the taste of the whole bowl, if the soup is well-stirred (similarly, doctors don't have to drain all the blood out of our bodies in order to test it for various diseases; as long as the blood sample drawn is representative of the rest, the tests can be quite accurate.). In other words, a survey can accurately reflect a much larger population so long as the sample is well-stirred -- that is, as long as it's representative of the whole.

Survey research is the subject of a recent Research on Religion podcast ("Frank Newport on Survey Research and America’s Religiosity"). It not only explores how surveys can be conducted accurately (i.e., getting a well-stirred sample) but also whether the recent rise in religious "nones" should be interpreted as evidence that America's becoming less religious. The interviewee, Frank Newport, Editor-in-Chief at Gallup (yes, that Gallup) thinks not. In fact he has written about it his most recent book, "God Is Alive & Well: The Future of Religion in America." Here's a brief description of the podcast:

Dr. Frank Newport, the Editor-in-Chief at Gallup, discusses the process of public opinion research and what it tells us about America’s changing religious landscape. We spend a significant amount of time discussing how polls are conducted, what their limitations are, and how survey companies like Gallup try to overcome these problems. This is a fantastic primer for those who are unfamiliar with survey research. We spend the second half of the interview discussing Dr. Newport’s book, “God Is Alive & Well,” which argues that America is still a vibrantly spiritual nation.

As I noted in a previous post ("How Religion Benefits Everyone, Even Nonbelievers"), although approximately 20% of Americans indicate that they have no religious affiliation, we should not interpret this to mean that they are irreligious (as many have done). For instance, of the religiously unaffiliated,

• 18% consider themselves religious
• 37% consider themselves spiritual but not religious
• 33% believe that religion is somewhat or very important
• 41% pray weekly or more
• 68% believe in God
• 30% have had a religious or mystical experience
• 30% believe in spiritual energy in things like mountains, rocks, and crystals
• 31% have been in touch with someone who has died
• 25% believe in astrology
• 24% attend church, synagogue, temple, etc.
• 19% have seen or been in the presence of a ghost
• 15% have consulted a psychic

I'm not sure how you would categorize such folks, but "atheist," "irreligious," and "secular" aren't the first words that jump to mind.

The Sabbath: A Gift of Rest

Here's a book that pleasantly surprised me: Senator Joe Lieberman's, "The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath." As many of you know, not only is Joe Lieberman a former Vice Presidential candidate and a Senator from Connecticut, he is also an Orthodox Jew, who regularly observes the Sabbath, which in practical terms means he doesn't work from the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath on Friday afternoon until it's conclusion Saturday evening. And in this book he not only explains how an Orthodox Jew celebrates the Sabbath (which is different from how Conservative and Reform Jews and some Orthodox Jews celebrate the Sabbath), but also why. In short, his message is quite simple:

The truth is that we--and the world--will survive just fine if we stop working or shopping and stay home with our families one day a week. Our lives will continue. Our careers will go forward. Our families will flourish... The fact is that none of us is essential every minute of the week. I am here to testify that laying your work aside for one day a week is a responsible and ultimately productive choice. The big Sabbath lesson and insight may be as humbling and anxiety-producing for you as it used to be for me, but it is ultimately liberating (pp. 33-34).

How is it liberating? In one of those lovely paradoxes that crop up in life from time to time, Senator Lieberman notes how adhering to laws can set one free:

Our true freedom as human beings is dependent on our acceptance of the responsibility to serve God by obeying His laws. The laws of the Sabbath... may seem burdensome at first glance, but without them, the gift of rest that comes with the Sabbath would be almost impossible to enjoy... if there were not a divine law commanding me to rest, I would think of many good reasons to go about my normal routine on Friday night and Saturday. That is my nature. I am, for example, addicted to my Blackberry (p. 28).

I suspect there will be some who will not pick this book up because they disagree with Lieberman's politics. That would be a mistake. This is not a book about politics. It's a book about how it's possible for us, regardless of our political and theological leanings, to live full, productive, and enjoyable lives without giving in to the frenetic pace of today's world. That strikes me as a good thing.

P.S. I picked up this book because our church was invited to participate in a discussion of the book with a local Jewish congregation (Congregation Beth David). Because the discussion was held on the Jewish Sabbath, we had to turn our cell phones off, refrain from writing, and for those of us who read the book on a Kindle or a Nook, we had to leave "the book" at home (or at least turn it off!).

Boys vs Girls: America's Demand for Sons

Many readers are aware of the Asian preference for baby boys over baby girls. What you may not know is that the introduction of the ultrasound machine in Asia has led to the disappearance (i.e., through abortion, infanticide, etc.) of an estimated 160 million females in Asia. Aside from the morally problematic nature of gender-based abortions, as Mara Hvistendahl has pointed out ("Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men) this has led to higher rates of sex-trafficking, incidents of AIDS, and crime.

Asia's not the only area of the world where people prefer boys over girls. Americans do too, as they have for over 70 years. The table below summarizes survey results from 1941 to 2011 to the question, "Suppose you could only have one child. Would you prefer that it be a boy or a girl?" As you can see there is very little change between 1941 and 2011. There's a bit of an uptick, but that's probably due to sampling error ("Americans Prefer Boys to Girls, Just as They Did in 1941"):

	Boy	Girl	Either	Unsure	No Opinion
	%	%	%	%	%
2011	40	28	26	3	3
2007	37	28	26	5	4
2003	38	28	27	5	2
2000	42	27	25	4	2
1997	36	23	38	2	1
1997	41	29	25	--	5
1996	41	31	25	--	3
1990	38	34	24	--	4
1947	40	25	27	--	8
1941	38	24	23	--	15

The consequences for this in America are not as profound as they are in Asia (probably because of America's more restrictive norms concerning abortion), but the preference for boys over girls does have some negative effects: For example, a recent study ("The Demand for Sons") found that

• Couples who conceive a child out of wedlock and find out that it will be a boy are more likely to marry before the birth of their baby
• Parents who have first-born girls are significantly more likely to be divorced
• Fathers are significantly less likely to be living with their children if they have daughters versus sons
• In any given year, roughly 52,000 first-born daughters younger than 12 years (and all their siblings) would have had a resident father if they had been boys
• Divorced fathers are much more likely to obtain custody of sons compared to daughters
• For children and families with absentee fathers due to a first-born daughter, family income is reduced by about 50 percent and poverty rates are increased by about 30 percent 

Why? Well, that is the subject of a recent Freakonomics podcast (“Do Baby Girls Cause Divorce?”), which can be downloaded from iTunes or listened to at the Freakonomics website. 

Why the Giants Shouldn't Panic

In early May I noted that in the world of sports we often mistakenly see patterns in random events and interpret them in terms of cause and effect when there is none ("Randomness and Winning (and Losing) Streaks"). A team will go on a 5-game losing streak, and fans start asking what's wrong when, in fact, there's probably nothing wrong. Randomness has simply played a role. For example, a basketball team, which typically makes 50% of its shots, can have a series of games where an unusual number of shots roll in and out, and consequently they lose a number of games in a row. Or a baseball team suffers through a losing streak when it keeps hitting line drives that are caught, while the other teams' bloops all fall in. Add in a key injury or two, and a mild slump can turn into a season-ending one.

To illustrate, consider the following graph. It plots the possible distribution of wins for a professional baseball team that wins, on average, 90 games a season. As it shows the number of possible wins in a given season for such a team ranges from 59 to 112 although the probability of the two extremes is exceedingly low (0.01% -- that's 1 in 10,000). Nevertheless, there's still just under at 10% chance (9.21%) that the team will finish at or below .500 ball for the season (i.e., they will win 81 games or less). And if this were to occur, the fans and the owners would probably be asking, "What Went Wrong?", when it's possible that nothing went wrong, except that the team had a really, really bad run of luck.

Which brings us to the Giants and why they and their owners and their fans shouldn't panic. Most are wondering what went wrong. Indeed, Giants GM Brian Sabean recently remarked,

We're all going to have to take a step back and a deep breath and find out what went wrong, why it went wrong, who we want to go forward with and how we add from the outside.

Chances are, however, all that went wrong was simply a run of poor play and bad luck, illustrated and compounded by the injuries to two of the Giants key players, outfielder Angel Pagan and pitcher Ryan Vogelsong. In fact, if the Giants were able to put together a nice run and sneak into the playoffs this year, they could end up surprising a lot of people since by that time, Pagan and Vogelsong would be back in the line-up.

To Sabean's credit, he didn't panic and make a mid-year deal like the one he did two years ago that brought Carlos Beltran to the Giants for half of a season and sent one of its top prospects (pitcher Zach Wheeler) to the Mets. Going forward, the key will be for him to adopt the same approach. This isn't to say that a tweak here or there wouldn't be good for the team. And since the cost of signing all of the Giants' free agents may be too high, they could be forced to sign a new pitcher or two. Nevertheless, there's no reason for Sabean and the Giants to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

PS: Before Pagan was hurt, the Giants were 27-22 and averaging 4.5 runs per game. Since his injury, they are 22-39 and averaging only 3.3 runs per game.

PSS: For more on the nature of randomness, winning, and losing, see the earlier post noted above ("Randomness and Winning (and Losing) Streaks").

The Branding of Christianity

Here's a brief summary of an interesting study of the web sites of the 20 largest religious groups in the U.S ("Images of Christianity: How America’s Top 20 Churches “Brand” Their Message"):

I thought it would be insightful to see just how the top 20 churches in America... go about visually communicating their messages on their respective official church websites... 

I found that of the top 20 Christian churches, only 3 actively use images of Jesus Christ on their site. Most churches don’t visually emphasize church doctrine or principles, but rather emphasize recent news in the church or upcoming conventions, concerts, and speaking series. Most of the churches choose to advertise programs or other websites and they promote their bookstores and other products for purchase. Some churches emphasize healthy living, taking care of the poor, and providing relief during disasters. Some have a really strong emphasis on the leadership of their church, directing readers to church hierarchy and important people.

In addition to these summary remarks, the author presents and comments on visual images of each of the sites. One of the more interesting findings is the difference between whether the websites are *.com or *.org sites:

One thing you’ll want to notice from each church is whether or not they are incorporated. You’ll find an interesting connection between the churches that have a “.com” website address and their visual emphasis on money-making conventions. The .org sites tend to be focused more on doctrinal and faith-based issues (but not all).

Finally, note what groups appear on the list. The largest group in the US, is the Roman Catholic Church, followed by the Southern Baptist Convention, the United Methodist Church, Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), and the Church of God in Christ. Of the remaining fifteen, there is a good representation of mainline denominations (e.g., Presbyterian, Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran, American Baptists) but the list is dominated by evangelical and black churches. Interestingly, one Greek Orthodox church is on the list: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (#17).

Note: I became aware of this article when reading economist Michael McBride's excellent blog, "The Religious Marketplace."

The Filibuster: Not How it Used to Be

In the United States the term, filibuster, typically refers to any delaying tactic used by a Senator to prevent a measure from being brought to a vote in the U.S. Senate. The most common form of filibustering is when a senator attempts to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a bill by extending the debate on the measure. Senate rules permit a senator, or a series of senators, to speak for as long as they wish and on any topic they choose, unless three-fifths of the Senators (usually 60 out of 100 senators) brings debate to a close.

The image that comes to mind for many of us when we think of filibusters is Jimmy Stewart's filibuster in the movie, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. This is the image of the lone senator, rising to his feet to protest a piece of legislation that he finds morally bankrupt, and not sitting back down until he has literally talked the bill to death:

This image probably holds even for those of us who haven't seen the movie, so influential and compelling Stewart's performance has been, which is why so many Americans (and US Senators) are loath to get rid of it.

There's a problem with this image, however. It isn't how it is done any more. Now to filibuster, Senators don't have to walk out on the floor of the Senate, they don't have to talk all night, they don't even have to talk at all! All they have to do is pick up a phone. Or better yet, they can have one of their staff pick up a phone.  Thus, it's not surprising, that filibustering is much more common than it used to be as the graphic below illustrates:

There have been attempts to make filibustering more difficult, back to the way it used to be, but most of these attempts are, well, filibustered. They are typically put forward by the party in the majority and fought by the party in the minority. Thus, currently you find a number of Democrat Senators supporting limits to the filibuster when just a few years ago (when they were in the minority) they opposed it. Similarly, Republicans, who are in the minority, oppose such limits, but just a few years ago, they supported them.

Back in December NPR's Planet Money produced a interesting podcast on the filibuster ("Schoolhouse Rock Was a Lie: Or, How The Filibuster Ate Washington"). You can listen to it at the Planet Money website or download it from iTunes.