Everybody is linking to some boring study that is supposed to prove that Americans are growing less religious:
The study, by the Public Religion Research Institute, used an intriguing method to try to measure exaggeration: It asked the same set of questions in telephone interviews, and in an online survey, and compared the results. Researchers say that online surveys, with their lack of human questioners, significantly reduce “social desirability bias” in polling — the tendency of people to exaggerate behaviors that they think will impress others. In this study, the group that took the online surveys reported much lower levels of worship attendance than those interviewed by telephone.
All such questionnaires demonstrate is that people have chosen to say something or other for a completely unknown reason at this particular point in time. Using them to prove anything beyond that is sheer idiocy. Landline telephones and the Internet are used by very different kinds of people, which can also have an influence on the results.
Besides, the US is predominantly Protestant. And for Protestants church attendance does not correlate with religiosity.
The only things such “studies” prove is that sociology is a pseudo-science par excellence.
Clarissa's Blog 
I wonder if it is sociology that comes up with the weird studies. When I studied sociology it had very little in common with social psychology. We learned about policies governing industrial relations and about social institutions and how they worked, within the context of looking a the whole society and we were taught about how people reacted to pressurized situations in industry in various socially unpredictable ways.
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In the US, “let’s ask people XYZ and take it as gospel truth without any attempt to analyze why they might have said it” is what sociologists do. It’s the only thing they do.
What you describe sounds fascinating but I’m yet to see a Department of Sociology or a book by a sociologist where there’s anything more than asking people questions and reporting on what the answers are.
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I guess the concept embodies something totally different in Australia. Actually under the auspices of the anthropology department, we studied a whole range of situations, in lectures that went on for two hours or more. One of course comes across Structuralism and Foucault, and then lots and lots of data about modern developments like the history of criminal law and the mindsets of workers in the Philippines. It’s a mix of psychology and politics and history, with legal features and discussions about the perpetuation of tradition. So we learned that there are myths, such as about a kind of zombie in the Philippines, who has a brief case and a business suit but no line between the nose and the mouth, which means the person isn’t really a person. And the mode of striking on the job which is a form of hysteria, where underpaid workers suddenly catch a weariness disease from each other and lose control to the point they do not seem able to function. All sorts of interesting facts.
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“So we learned that there are myths, such as about a kind of zombie in the Philippines, who has a brief case and a business suit but no line between the nose and the mouth, which means the person isn’t really a person. And the mode of striking on the job which is a form of hysteria, where underpaid workers suddenly catch a weariness disease from each other and lose control to the point they do not seem able to function.”
– This is really fascinating. I now wonder what made the fields of anthropology and sociology in the US to go so far off track.
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Lots of things in the US are relatively cheapened it seems. Who wants to sit through two hour lectures on something that does not immediately boost one’s self esteem or give one some kind of tool to use to gain an advantage over others?
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“Who wants to sit through two hour lectures on something that does not immediately boost one’s self esteem or give one some kind of tool to use to gain an advantage over others?”
– Ha ha ha! Absolutely brilliant!!!
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