The Los Angeles Times publicizes a badly—designed study intended to impugn faith in God. "The dark side of faith: "It's official: Too much religion may be a dangerous thing." By correlating expressions of faith in God in various nations with selected "quantifiable societal health" indicators in 18 prosperous democracies, the study infers that faith is unhealthy.Buried inside is the admission that "correlation is not causation" — which is only the start of the problems with the study.

Bad sociology and bad journalism.

Ed Lasky  10 01 05

UPDATE: Antonio Mendez has kindly sent us links to a study he has written critiquing the research in question, as well as an article by Rabbi Daniel Lapin on the same topic. See here and here.

Of course, the Los Angeles Times is most unlikely to publish an op—ed citing the debunking. Junk science receives enormous publicity from the MSM when it pushes an existing agenda, in this case the idea that religious faith is harmful.