Religion Makes You Live Longer By Making You Behave?

(Image adapted from Energizr on Flickr)

Back in 2000, psychologist Michael E. McCullough and colleagues published a meta-analysis of several dozen studies indicating a strong correlation between religiosity and lower mortality. For the pious, this seemed to be proof that God had their backs and that their belief was paying off. To the rational minority, this data was a curiosity that begged deeper analysis. What other aspects of these individuals’ lives were also correlating with longevity? Could it be something other than their belief in God that was responsible?

MCullough did not rest on his laurels,. Rather, he did another meta-analysis in 2009 with his colleague Brian Willoughby, this time looking at hundreds of research papers, revealing that religious people are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors, like regularly visiting the doctor or dentist, and they are less likely to smoke, drink, take recreational drugs and engage in risky sex, Michael Shermer reported in this month’s Scientific American. This healthier behavior is clearly the more likely explanation for the longer life span.

Shermer, who writes the monthly Skeptic column for SciAm, went on to suggest that religion reinforces positive behaviors and rewards self-control by providing a tight social network and by promising Heaven and other delayed rewards. However, he suggests that we are all capable of this without belief in God or participation in organized religion. Meditation, for example, can help people exercise greater self-control and change bad habits. Parents and teachers try to reinforce impulse control and delayed gratification for children so that they will focus longer on the task at hand and refrain from disruptive behaviors.

Of course this notion of living a healthier lifestyle seems implausible in light of the high profile examples of religious leaders engaging in promiscuous sex and drunkenness and the Catholic Church’s ban on condoms. It also seems unlikely in light of the fact that the Bible Belt is the most obese region of the country and has among the highest smoking rates.

Nevertheless, let’s assume the data is valid, that most pious people do engage in healthier behaviors like visiting the doctor more regularly.  Does this mean that their religious affiliations are the cause of this health consciousness? Isn’t it possible that religious people are more likely to have health and dental insurance? It would be interesting to examine the data to see if pious people do in fact have better health plans or, for that matter, higher paying jobs. While the latter seems unlikely—we all hear about how religious the poor are—it is possible that the average wealth of religious people is actually higher than it is for the nonreligious, even including the religious poor.

Regardless of one’s religiosity, the biggest influence on one’s health and longevity is wealth and social status (see here, here and here). Being poor and/or black dramatically increases the odds of having a stressful, low-paid highly demanding job, food and housing insecurity, and lack of access to healthcare and leisure time. It also dramatically increases the chances of developing diabetes, cancer, heart disease, hypertension and an early death.

The debate about whether religiosity or faith improves one’s health is a red herring. If we really cared about improving health outcomes for all, we would focus on ways to improve the wealth and social status of all. Universal health care, for example, would significantly reduce the rate of preventable deaths in the U.S.

Denver Judge Blocks Vouchers For Rich Christians

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Colorado's first school voucher program was put on ice Friday by a Denver judge who called the program a "substantial disservice to the public interest," the SF Chronicle reported today. The program would have given checks to parents in the state's wealthiest county for tuition at religious schools.

Some of the schools authorized for the voucher program require students to attend religious services.

Return Prayer and 10 Commandments to Public School

Here are the Top 5 most outrageous statements from Rick Perry’s prayer rally (from the Secular Daily News)

5. Public Schools Should Bring Back Prayer and the Ten Commandments

4. Jews Should Convert to Christianity

3. Humanists Can’t Be Good Without God

2. Jesus Was Anti-Gay Marriage and Anti-Choice

1. God Is Not Political (Says the Would-Be Presidential Candidate Hosting the Prayer Rally)

Few High School Biology Teachers Accurately Teach Evolution

I hate to bag on my own colleagues, but the evidence is overwhelming: most high school biology teachers either do not teach evolution or undermine their own teaching by giving nods and winks to creationist ideas. (See Most high school biology teachers don’t endorse evolution, by Valerie Strauss.)

 

Tom Schmal

The result is that few U.S. high school students are really being taught evolution in an accurate or comprehensible way. Not only is this unfair to students who graduate believing they have mastered biology, when many have not, but it is a violation of teachers’ responsibility to accurately teach the content standards, including the scientific process (how scientists obtain data, analyze it and determine the validity of their hypotheses).  

Here are some of the details from Strauss’ article:

• Only 28% of biology teachers consistently teach the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) recommended evolution curriculum,
• Around 13% of biology teachers explicitly include creationism or intelligent design for at least part of their curriculum
• The remaining 60% either fail to explain the scientific process sufficiently, undermine the authority of evolution experts, or legitimize creationist arguments
• Many teach evolutionary biology as if it is only applicable to molecular processes, but not to populations or the process of speciation.
• Many tell students that they don’t have to “believe in evolution, but they have to know it for tests, which, for many students, implies that it is just one of many explanations that may or may not be true.
• Others tell students to decide for themselves what to believe, even though scientists are as certain of the validity of evolution as they are about any other scientific fact. We would not tell students to decide for themselves if the Holocaust or slavery occurred (although I wonder, based on the evolution data, if there are many biology teachers who are also climate deniers).

This is Not Simply a Problem of Religious Teachers Refusing to Do Their Jobs

Just like a Christian pharmacist should be required to sell all legal drugs, including birth control, a Christian biology teacher should be required to teach the content standards, including evolution. However, the problem is not just an issue of religious activists deliberately refusing to do their jobs. For some teachers, the last two examples above (e.g., “you don’t have to believe; just know it for tests” and “you decide what to believe”) may result more from a desire to respect their students’ cultural and religious beliefs and not insult or alienate them, than from their own religious biases or activism. I regularly have students tell me that they don’t have to learn evolution because it’s against their religion. My response is, “Well, actually you do. It is an important part of biology and it is in the content standards. Furthermore, it is impossible to understand other parts of biology without a foundation in evolution. Evolution helps scientists to develop new medicines, understand certain diseases and even make predictions about climate change.”

My response is not insulting or demeaning, nor does it undermine the science by implying that evolution is just one of many explanations that one can choose to believe, or not. On the contrary, it emphasizes that evolution is a lynchpin of biology, not just a stand-alone branch of the discipline. It is important to emphasize that evolution can be taught and misconceptions about it can be corrected, without engaging in the kind of hostile and insulting discourse expressed by people like Richard Dawkins. This sort of behavior probably does more to shut down students’ curiosity and openness to new ideas than to dispel their faith-based misconceptions.

In order to correct misconceptions is important to clarify the scientific process, particularly the meaning of the word “theory,” which many people misuse to mean “belief” or “opinion,” rather than its actual scientific meaning: “fact, based on a collection of related hypotheses that have been repeatedly verified.” Also, before I even get into the nuts and bolts of evolution, I emphasize the distinction between the scientific process, which is evidence-based, and faith-based thinking, where one believes without (or despite) evidence. I even go so far as to tell students that in certain circumstances faith-based thought is sometimes the most effective way to think (for example, having faith in oneself can help one remain motivated and focused during sports or academic challenges), but that in science, evidence is required, lots of it, and it must be verifiable by independent researchers using controlled experiments. Faith that a scientific hypothesis is right (without evidence) can lead to deadly consequences.

Another problem is that many science teachers have little or no experience doing “bench” science, having earned a degree in biology and then a teaching credential without having worked in a lab. As a result, they sometimes do not fully understand the scientific process themselves. For example, many cannot explain why a randomized, double blind, controlled study is more compelling than anecdotal evidence. Even doctors sometimes have this problem. Consider all the times you have heard doctors give advice based on their anecdotal experience with other patients.

Many Americans (including some biology teachers) do not truly understand evolution, making it difficult to believe and even harder to teach. This is due in part to the considerable misunderstandings and oversimplifications that are perpetuated in our culture (e.g., “we came from monkeys,” which implies that monkeys gave birth to humans or had sex with humans; in contrast to the idea that we share a common ancestor).

Even without the misconceptions, evolution is not an easy theory to understand. For example, the idea that an organ as complex as the human eye could be the result of random mutations and natural selection seems really far-fetched, until one realizes that the rudiments of vision, proteins that sense and respond to light, have existed for millions of years and have been utilized in sensory organs of animals that existed long before the evolution of the modern eye. It is also difficult to really get a handle on the slow rate of random mutations and how they can accrue in organisms without some background in biochemistry. For example, I don’t think that most biology teachers understand or teach that human DNA polymerase, the enzyme that builds new DNA molecules during replication, has a natural mutation rate of about 10^-8.

Of course none of this is to say that there aren’t creationist biology teachers who deliberately try to undermine the teaching of evolution. A recent Gallop poll shows that 40% of Americans believe in young Earth creationism (i.e., the Earth and all its life were created by God 10,000 years ago), while another 38% believe in a form of evolution with God playing a role in it. No doubt some of these folks have made it into biology classrooms as teachers.

10 Things Charter Schools Don't Want You To Know (About How lousy they really Are)

Here is an amazing reposting from Chaz' School Daze, of an article originally published yesterday, in the Wall Street Journal, by Sarah Morgan.

The Things That Charter Schools And Their Supporters Don't Want The General Public To Know.

Now that the unqualified Cathie Black is expected to become Chancellor on January 3rd we can expect her to follow in the footsteps of Joel Klein and be a strong supporter of the ever increasing Charter Schools as an alternative to the local public schools. This means more neighborhood schools will have reduced funding as Tweed allocates more of their scarce resources to the Charter Schools at the Public school's expense. What is very interesting are that Charter Schools have very serious problems that they hide from the general public. Some quite serious and are ignored by the pro-Charter School education reformers. Let's look at some of these issues closeup. A must read is what Smart Money published, an Article called "10 Things Charter Schools Won't Tell You". Many of the statistics come from the article.

1.Many Teachers Are Inexperienced And Not Certified:

Believe it or not, many teachers who are offered teaching positions in Charter Schools are not certified. Furthermore, once they achieve certification they leave for the local school district teaching positions.

According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, charter school teachers are, on average, younger and less likely to hold state certification than teachers in traditional public schools. In a 2000 survey, 92% of public school teachers held state certification, compared to 79% of charter school teachers. A 2008 survey found that 32% of charter school teachers were under the age of 30, compared to 17% of traditional public school teachers. Charter schools often recruit from organizations like Teach for America that provide non-traditional paths into the profession and are known as the "two year wonders" because they do their two year obligation and leave., More-experienced teachers who already have jobs in traditional public schools may have little incentive to give up the protection of tenure, pension, and health benefits to work in a Charter School.

Relying on relatively untrained, inexperienced staff may have a real impact in the classroom. “A lot of them don’t have classroom management skills,” says May Taliaferrow, a charter-school parent.

2. Large And Constant Teacher Turnover:

Another fact deliberately ignored by the pro-Charter School reformers is the high teacher turnover in most Charter Schools. In some cases the entire teaching staff could turnover within a five year period!

As many as one in four charter school teachers leave every year, according to a 2007 study by Gary Miron, a professor of education at Western Michigan University, and other researchers at the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice. That’s about double the typical teacher turnover rate in traditional public schools. Charter schools typically pay teachers less than traditional public schools do, and require longer hours, Miron says. Meanwhile, charter school administrators earn more than their school-district counterparts, which can also make teachers feel underpaid, he says. The odds of a teacher leaving the profession altogether are 130% higher at charter schools than traditional public schools, according to a 2010 study by the National Center on School Choice at Vanderbilt University. That study also found that much of this teacher attrition was related to dissatisfaction with working conditions.

3. Charter Schools Are Always Trying To Skim The Best Students And Will Advertise For These Students:

The Charter Schools will do just about anything to get "good students" to go to their school and will send out flyers to the parents of these students to get them to attend their school.

Walking around New York City, it’s impossible to miss the ads on buses and subways for the Harlem Success academies, Haimson says. The school is legally required to reach out to at-risk students, and it has been opening new schools over the past couple of years. However, some schools elsewhere have gone beyond marketing. A charter school in Colorado gave out gift cards to families that recruited new students, and another school in Louisiana gave out cash.

4. Charter Schools Discourage Students With Disabilities & English Language Learners From Applying:

Another well-kept secret is that the Charter Schools don't want students with disabilities, discipline problems, attendance issues, or English language learners.

Six-year-old Makala was throwing regular tantrums in school, so her mother, Latrina Miley, took her for a psychiatric evaluation, eventually ending up with a district-mandated plan that stated the girl should be taught in a smaller class where half the students have special needs. The charter school’s response, Miley says, was to tell her she could either change her daughter’s educational plan, or change schools. She moved Makala to a nearby public school – where, she says, teachers have been more effective at managing her daughter’s behavior issues. The school says it can’t talk about specific cases.

Critics say charter schools commonly “counsel out” children with disabilities. While a few charter schools are specifically designed to serve students with special needs, the rest tend to have lower proportions of students with special needs than nearby public schools, according to a review of multiple studies conducted by the University of Colorado’s Education and the Public Interest Center. Charter schools also appear to end up with students whose disabilities are less expensive to manage than those of public school students. A Boston study, conducted by the Massachusetts Teachers Association, found that 91% of students with disabilities in the city’s charter schools were able to be fully included in standard classrooms, compared to only 33% of students with disabilities in the traditional public schools.

5. The Charter Schools counsel out students who struggle Academically:

To keep up with the propaganda that Charter Schools have a greater percentage of graduates than the local public school, the Charter Schools counsel out low-preforming students so that they do not count in the percentages.

For all the hype about a few standout schools, charter schools in general are not producing better results than traditional public schools. A national study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford found that while 17% of charter schools produced better results than neighborhood public schools, 37% were significantly worse, and the rest were no different. (Not that public schools are perfect, as many parents know.

A host of other studies on charter school outcomes have come up with sometimes contradictory results. As with traditional public schools, there are great charters – and some that are not so great. “There’s a lot of variation within charter schools,” points out Katrina Bulkley, an associate professor of education at Montclair State University who studies issues related to school governance. “In fairness to organizations that are running high-performing schools, many of them are very frustrated with the range of quality, because they feel that it taints charter schools as a whole,” Bulkley says.

6. Charter Schools Do Not Preform Any Better Than Public Schools:
Despite the propaganda by the pro-Charter School supporters that the Charter Schools provides better educational opportunities, the reality is quite different.
For all the hype about a few standout schools, charter schools in general are not producing better results than traditional public schools. A national study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford found that while 17% of charter schools produced better results than neighborhood public schools, 37% were significantly worse, and the rest were no different. (Not that public schools are perfect, as many parents know.

A host of other studies on charter school outcomes have come up with sometimes contradictory results. As with traditional public schools, there are great charters – and some that are not so great. “There’s a lot of variation within charter schools,” points out Katrina Bulkley, an associate professor of education at Montclair State University who studies issues related to school governance. “In fairness to organizations that are running high-performing schools, many of them are very frustrated with the range of quality, because they feel that it taints charter schools as a whole,” Bulkley says.

7. Where Does The Money Come & Go?:

Unlike public schools where all the money has to be accounted for, the Charter School funding can be a mystery.

An investigation by Philadelphia’s City Controller earlier this year uncovered widespread financial mismanagement among the city’s charter schools, including undisclosed “related party” transactions where friends and family of school management were paid for various services, people listed as working full time at more than one school, individuals writing checks to themselves, and even a $30,000 bill from a beach resort charged to a school.

Financial scandals have come to light in schools around the country, but what’s more troubling, says advocate Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters in New York City, is that charter schools have opposed state audits of their finances. The New York Charter School Association won a lawsuit against the state comptroller last year, with the court ruling that the legislature had violated the state constitution when it directed the comptroller to audit charter schools. Charter schools in the state are already overseen and audited by at least two other agencies, Murphy says. “We have never objected to being audited, being overseen, and being held accountable. In fact, this organization has come out in favor of closing low-performing charter schools,” he says.

Walking around New York City, it’s impossible to miss the ads on buses and subways for the Harlem Success academies, Haimson says. The school is legally required to reach out to at-risk students, and it has been opening new schools over the past couple of years. However, some schools elsewhere have gone beyond marketing. A charter school in Colorado gave out gift cards to families that recruited new students, and another school in Louisiana gave out cash. Talking about bribing?

Are Charter Schools really better than the neighborhood public schools? No they are not.