It's funny that you keep harping on the one variable in the article that *is* actually irrelevant to the whole thing, which is comparing across different populations. The whole point of a *scientific* study is to change one variable and see the effect, and clearly when you do that the difference is highly (statistically) significant.
Science seems to have more techniques than you are aware of. Studying the differences between societies was a major purpose of the study. The author reference that. This isn't a yield study, or lifetime testing, or any of that. Note that no titration is involved. Note (FTA): "...the first cross-national study of religion and spirituality among scientists." That seems pretty easy to understand.
And secondly - you are making a complete straw man to try to disprove the OPPOSITE correlation, ie. atheism leads to scientific study, when the obvious causation would be scientific study leads to atheism.
If you were more observant you would notice a common theme in Slashdot discussions that only atheists can really do science. What rubbish. I'm not sure how people maintain that cognitive dissonance given that many of the great scientists in history and even today believe in God. Nonetheless it keeps popping up.
Anyway, this thread has gone exactly nowhere as you keep repeating the same irrelevant statistic. I'm not even sure why I'm debating with a known /. troll. My own fault. Sigh.
It is difficult to get anywhere if you keep going down the wrong path, or asserting false things as you have.
It isn't that I'm a "troll" so much as I bring unwelcome perspectives and facts to the argument that many people would prefer to not acknowledge. Calling me a "troll" is much easier than assembling facts and good arguments. That is why you refer to me as a "troll."
You are indeed responsible for your own actions so I can understand the despair. "Sigh."
