mellowtigger (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mellowtigger) wrote2010-09-15 12:21 am
mellowtigger) wrote2010-09-15 12:21 am
religion and literacy
The internet connects society, and it permits the collection of huge amounts of data about people. You can be sure that companies are mining that data. I know only three cases where the results are shared back directly with the population base that contributes the raw data.
Today's example comes from a social dating website called OKcupid.com. People there post detailed descriptions of themselves. People also answer multiple-choice questions generated by other users of the site. Those questions make for a very interesting mix of ideas and potential interactions.
They occasionally mine their half-a-million profiles for nuggets of interesting knowledge. The news last week was specifically about findings of racial differences. Click on the gender image at the top of each racial profile to switch between male and female results. Being an infovore, I enjoyed reading through the revelations about various trends in the data.
Buried towards the end of the long entry, however, are some nuggets about literacy that are separated by religious identity. They used a formula called the Coleman-Liau Index to rate the "readability" (grade level) of the text that people write into their profiles. This formula ignores word meaning and instead focuses specifically on structure complexity (characters per word, words per sentence).
Here are the literacy charts by race, religion, and religious fervor. The results practically write their own punch lines.
As they summarize at the end of the blog:
Kudos to the Buddhists and the Jews for keeping pace (almost) with the freethinkers. That almost all of these groups operate at an average Junior High (7th and 8th grade) reading level is a testament to the efficacy of the American education system.
Today's example comes from a social dating website called OKcupid.com. People there post detailed descriptions of themselves. People also answer multiple-choice questions generated by other users of the site. Those questions make for a very interesting mix of ideas and potential interactions.
They occasionally mine their half-a-million profiles for nuggets of interesting knowledge. The news last week was specifically about findings of racial differences. Click on the gender image at the top of each racial profile to switch between male and female results. Being an infovore, I enjoyed reading through the revelations about various trends in the data.
Buried towards the end of the long entry, however, are some nuggets about literacy that are separated by religious identity. They used a formula called the Coleman-Liau Index to rate the "readability" (grade level) of the text that people write into their profiles. This formula ignores word meaning and instead focuses specifically on structure complexity (characters per word, words per sentence).
Here are the literacy charts by race, religion, and religious fervor. The results practically write their own punch lines.
As they summarize at the end of the blog:
"Note that for each of the faith-based belief systems I've listed, the people who are the least serious about them write at the highest level. On the other hand, the people who are most serious about not having faith (i.e. the "very serious" agnostics and atheists) score higher than any religious groups."
- http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-real-stuff-white-people-like/
- http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-real-stuff-white-people-like/
Kudos to the Buddhists and the Jews for keeping pace (almost) with the freethinkers. That almost all of these groups operate at an average Junior High (7th and 8th grade) reading level is a testament to the efficacy of the American education system.
no subject
Perhaps in the American audience, Islam tends not to be the religion that kids are exposed to, so it requires greater inquisitiveness amongst those who would leave their "native" religion to join it?
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I also wonder if a test can be made with all kinds of criteria, then selects criteria which favor a desired group ordering. The reason I mention this is due to the same problems with various kinds of autistic vs non-autistic performance tests with language, spatial ability etc. That said, it doesn't surprise me if some of these results were unbiased/true. Any doctoring or pre-design testing would be bias. I can't make a judgement or keep an opinion without more information regarding the test itself. Not that I would try to spot problems but so I could relieve me worry that there is some glaring problem not seen by most. (autistics lives are often full of seeing everything differently)
no subject
A detraction from the generality of these results (and it's a big detraction) is the "self-sorting" that may have happened prior to anyone filling out any profile. What sort of people end up using an online dating website? Perhaps the well-educated fundemantalists of any group are so exclusive that they search for mates only amongst specialized social gatherings of their own group (Brigham Young University, Liberty University, Bob Jones University).
no subject