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I think you're right about the timing of elections. Governments tend to prefer to hold elections in summer and close to the weekend too.
Irrational voters
Sevenscore and ten years ago today, Abraham Lincoln coined the phrase "government of the people, by the people, for the people." He omitted to add that the people can be systematically wrong, as a new paper neatly shows. Michela Redoano and colleagues estimate that, in the UK, women whose husban...
I think the correlation between religion and the benefits you mention above are actually affected by a third variable, namely community. It is a sense of community that makes people more trusting (of fellow members of the community). Religion isn't the only source of community, nationalism is another one.
I would still argue that the negatives of religion greatly outweigh the benefits. Of course not all religious people are like the Taliban, but the reason religion isn't so bad in Europe is that it is so weak and diluted. Were the Catholic church to have the power it had in the Middle Ages, it would be just as bad. It is secularism that is holding the worst abuses of religion in check.
A look at the history of Ireland shows the horrendous abuses committed by the Church. The negatives far outweigh the benefits.
(One quick final point, can we avoid name calling? A militant is someone who advocates violence to further their aims. Atheists do not.)
Some benefits of religion
Francis Sedgemore says: Atheists will never “call off the faith wars”. We are in this battle to the end of religion, which poisons everything. I fear this overstates things. There's lots of research - much of it summarized here (pdf) and here (pdf) to suggest that religion has some positive ef...
Great post. I think people need to realise that the market is not perfect and that inefficient firms do exist and stay in business. If we view the market as it is, not as it should be, then we can properly understand and use it.
The markets paradox
A new paper (pdf) by Nick Bloom and colleagues shows that there is "substantial dispersion" in the quality of management across US manufacturing establishments, which confirms earlier research. This raises a paradox. The very fact that many poorly-run firms stay in business shows that market for...
Agree. Economics is determined far more by power than by supply and demand.
Inequality: power vs human capital
David Ruccio points to labour's falling share of income in the US and says: We need to talk much more about profits and who owns capital. And, in addition, who appropriates and distributes the surplus and to whom that surplus is subsequently distributed. This is like saying a man should put hi...
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Dec 15, 2012
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