Biblical Orthodoxy

A traditional survey question for those who study religion is to ask about people's perception of the Bible.  Is it literally the word of God?  Inspired by God but written by men?  Or merely written by men and full of fables and fairy tales?  Often we use this as a standalone measure or combine it with the "born-again Christian" question to create a measure of doctrinal orthodoxy.

Have beliefs about the Bible changed over time?  Not so much.

Using Gallup data, we can see the following:

• The question was first asked in 1976, with 38 percent professing a belief that the Bible is the literal word of God.
• This climbed to 40 percent by 1980.
• After this peak, it dropped as low as 27 percent and no higher than 34 percent over the next several years.
• The latest poll, in May 2011, pegs it at 30 percent believing literally in the Bible.

Okay, but what about the fables and legends response?  Any change there?  There's been a slow, persistent growth in this position.

• In 1976, only 13 percent believed the book is fables, legends, and moral precepts written by man.
• This peaked at 22 percent thinking so by 2008.
• It's now at 17 percent, according to the May 2011 survey.

What can we take away from this?  Attitudes about the Bible remain relatively stable over the last 35 years, at least as measured by Gallup.  Some change.  Nothing dramatic, but I do think we're seeing a slow, modest shift to secularism, but it's one so small that current events can easily shift it one way or the other.  The campaign of a couple of GOP candidates (Bachmann and Perry) will bring such views in full relief over the next several months.  It'll be interesting to watch.

Herman Cain Part 2

Despite living in Georgia and despite having eaten quite a few times in a Godfather's Pizza place, I don't know much of anything about Herman Cain other than his announcement recently to seek the GOP presidential nomination (lovingly covered by the press with no complaints by him) and his recent gaffe about the Middle East (less-than-lovingly covered, so therefore in his opinion biased). 

But since I write about what people know and how they learn from the media, and also about political knowledge, this brief piece caught my eye today.  In it, Cain says: "Knowing how Washington works isn’t necessarily an advantage."

Er, yeah, kinda it is -- if you're running for office in which you'd have to work in Washington, deal with people immersed in Washington, and basically run the nation from, yes, Washington.

I have no feelings one way or the other about Cain.  Let's face it, he's a non-starter as a likely GOP nominee.  But it's nice of him to provide blog fodder in the last couple of days as Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann have been strangely unable to say anything really dumb or demonstrate a lack of political knowledge, thus fitting into this blog's theme.

I'll get back to writing about research on media and knowledge very soon, once the easy stuff (Cain) is over.

Do Gaffes Matter?

The political chattering class loves it when a politician stumbles.  The most recent example is Herman Cain's gaffe, if you want to call it that, about a Palestinian right-to-return.  Sure, Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin get all the attention for saying dunderheaded things, and Vice President Joe Biden has turned the verbal gaffe into an art form, but Cain had loving attention all this weekend when he announced his unlikely bid for the GOP nomination. 

Are people paying attention?  Nope.  Do most Americans care deeply about the Israeli-Palestinian difficulties?  Hardly.  Will Cain's gaffe matter?  Not at all.  So in terms of what people know, the "gaffe" might as well be invisible.  I suspect the more the press hits him on this, the more support Cain will get from hardcore Republican voters who tend to participate in primaries.  In other words, piling on by the pundits will win the guy sympathy.

Is Michelle Bachmann Smarter than a 10th Grader?

That's the question, right there above.  And I'm not the only one asking it.  Bachmann has been challenged by a high school kid to a debate.

"I have found quite a few of your statements regarding The Constitution of the United States, the quality of public school education and general U.S. civics matters to be factually incorrect, inaccurately applied or grossly distorted," Amy Myers wrote in early May in an open letter to Bachmann. "Though politically expedient, incorrect comments cast a shadow on your person and by unfortunate proxy, both your supporters and detractors alike often generalize this shadow to women as a whole."

Woo hoo, a political knowledge duel!   One, obviously, that is not going to happen.  But wouldn't it be cool if someone paid this kid's way to some standard Bachmann appearance, like a town hall, and she posed a question or two to the historically-challenged U.S. representative?  Great fun, but ain't gonna happen.

In all seriousness, I think we're going to see a lot more of this kind of thing.  So Amy Myers gets some attention today, but as others try the same thing it'll lose its luster and won't get reported on to the degree this did.

Has the Birther Movement Peaked?

Despite a New York Times poll that finds a quarter of adults, and nearly half of all Republicans, believe President Barack Obama was born somewhere other than the U.S., I think we're seeing signs that the candles on the birther movement cake may be burning out.  Yes, state legislators keep trying to keep the candles lit through various laws, but even Tea Party favorite U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann admitted, upon being shown Obama's certificate of live birth, that the issue appears to be "settled." 

Donald Trump may not have gotten the inter-party memo, but I sense those at the top of the GOP, who are not above feeding the crazies (Dems too, in their own special way), are starting to edge away from the Cliffs of Despair.

In other words, I argue that the movement has peaked.

You'd hope so, with 45 percent of GOPers believing Obama was born somewhere other than where all official and semi-official evidence points -- Hawaii.  Trump may have hijacked the issue for a while, but most folks assume this will play out when he ducks out of actually running for office.

A year ago, 20 percent of adults thought Obama was born elsewhere.  Earlier this month it was at 24 percent.  Now it's 25 percent.  Not coincidentally, confidence in the U.S. has reached a two-year low.  When things are bad, we latch on to easy answers.  For many, it's easy to suspect the worst of someone, even a president, we may not particularly like at the moment.  Policy reasons are hard, so we use something simpler and easier -- a heuristic, as social scientists would say -- and good ones are that Obama is secretly Muslim.  Or born elsewhere.  Or the Anti-Christ.  Or whatever.

As the theory of motivated reasoning suggests, we often believe what we want to believe.  Or as the article I linked to in the previous sentence says: "our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that’s highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about."

And it's easier.  Faster.  And in many ways, satisfying because we have a bad guy to blame.

But let's face it.  The only reason the movement has been trending up is Trump and a handful of others playing this tune, over and over, to the joy and chagrin of journalists.  It's a fun story.  But it's the wrong story.