| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Eris" |
| Date: |
28 Dec 2004 04:47:23 PM |
| Object: |
O.T. Sociological question |
If I can remember back to 1966 and my required soc class. I remember
them saying in group dynamics in a large enough population, there was
a GAUSSIAN distribution of personality traits. Like 16% had trait A,
16% had trait B and 69% had variations of trait A . Say you had a
million people. 16% would be extremely religious and 16% would be non
believers and the rest of the populations belief would be somewhere in
between, from very little belief to almost complete belief.
Also if you removed the 16% from either end, the population would
readjust and there would still be 16-68-16 distribution.
Is there a cite for this theory? What is the name of this theory.
Is this theory still accepted?
5
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| User: "wcb" |
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| Title: Re: O.T. Sociological question |
29 Dec 2004 03:24:37 PM |
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Eris wrote:
If I can remember back to 1966 and my required soc class. I remember
them saying in group dynamics in a large enough population, there was
a GAUSSIAN distribution of personality traits. Like 16% had trait A,
16% had trait B and 69% had variations of trait A . Say you had a
million people. 16% would be extremely religious and 16% would be non
believers and the rest of the populations belief would be somewhere in
between, from very little belief to almost complete belief.
Also if you removed the 16% from either end, the population would
readjust and there would still be 16-68-16 distribution.
Is there a cite for this theory? What is the name of this theory.
Is this theory still accepted?
Bell shaped curve, basic statistics 101.
And often bull doo doo. Not everything fits
a bell curve, data often fits a skewed curve.
I am sure almost any competent sociologist
would read that and laugh.
I doubt it is a theory in sociology.
it most certainly won't work in many places.
Much of europe is now distinctly skeptical,
some places say Pakistan, are going to be rather more
religous.
--
Dance, monkeys, dance!
Cheerful Charlie
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| User: "Gregory Gadow" |
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| Title: Re: O.T. Sociological question |
29 Dec 2004 08:31:58 AM |
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Eris wrote:
If I can remember back to 1966 and my required soc class. I remember
them saying in group dynamics in a large enough population, there was
a GAUSSIAN distribution of personality traits. Like 16% had trait A,
16% had trait B and 69% had variations of trait A . Say you had a
million people. 16% would be extremely religious and 16% would be non
believers and the rest of the populations belief would be somewhere in
between, from very little belief to almost complete belief.
Also if you removed the 16% from either end, the population would
readjust and there would still be 16-68-16 distribution.
Is there a cite for this theory? What is the name of this theory.
Is this theory still accepted?
Gaussian distribution (named for 19th century mathematical genius, Johann
Gauss) is also called normal distribution. It is a function that shows the
likelihood of a given event having a given outcome. It is what describes
the statistical "bell curve" and yes, it is still considered a
foundational bit of statistical science.
Your religious/non-religious supposition is really a trick question. I
expect that the 16% on either end represent the first and fourth
quartiles. In other words, if you measure religiosity on a scale of 1
(extremely religious) to 100 (extremely non-religious), you would find
that 25% of the people measured at 16 or below while another 25% measured
at 85 or above. The remaining 50% of the people measured would be between
17 and 84.
As for "removing the ends" of the sample, this is just a graphical trick
to show that the distribution is "regular", ie that the highest number of
people tend towards the middle of the scale. This can be an important
thing to check, as it only takes one or two people to seriously skew your
sample to one side. If you take only the middle 50% of the sample (that is
to say, only those people who measured at or between 17 and 84), reapply
the distribution curve and take the quartiles, you will find the first 25%
of your remaining sample range from 17 to about 34, and the last 25% from
about 67 to 84. That show that the "extremists" in either direction are
pretty few while the majority of people are further towards the middle
between religious and non-religious.
Granted, I've not seen the study to which you refer; I can only assume I'm
not too rusty on my college math and that I'm understanding you correctly.
--
Gregory Gadow
techbear@serv.net
http://www.serv.net/~techbear
"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in
the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary,
self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition
of tyranny." - James Madison, _The Federalist_, #47
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| User: "J Forbes" |
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| Title: Re: O.T. Sociological question |
28 Dec 2004 05:00:56 PM |
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Eris wrote:
If I can remember back to 1966 and my required soc class. I remember
them saying in group dynamics in a large enough population, there was
a GAUSSIAN distribution of personality traits. Like 16% had trait A,
16% had trait B and 69% had variations of trait A . Say you had a
million people. 16% would be extremely religious and 16% would be non
believers and the rest of the populations belief would be somewhere in
between, from very little belief to almost complete belief.
Also if you removed the 16% from either end, the population would
readjust and there would still be 16-68-16 distribution.
Is there a cite for this theory? What is the name of this theory.
Is this theory still accepted?
I guess you'd have to be careful setting up your criteria for fitting
the traits so it would come out that way :)
Sounds like hogwash to me....
--
Jim
Visit the Selectric Typewriter Museum!
http://www.selectric.org
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