Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
Over at GetReligion, I pointed out something curious about the way a new study was being covered by the mainstream media. The results of a study of 268 adults showed that Protestants who don't identify as "born-again" had larger hippocampal volume than Catholics, born-again Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated. Guess how the study was reported everywhere from the Houston Chronicle to USA Today?
Study: Born-again Christians have smaller brains
I thought that was interesting. Why didn't the headlines say that nonbelievers or Catholics have smaller brains? Turns out it's even worse. The study ranks various groups according to which have the largest left and right hippocampal volume.
In both cases, the two groups with the smallest volume were those with no religion and those with a non-Christian "life changing religious experience" from years ago. Those with larger brains include other Protestants, Catholics, Protestants with born-again experiences years ago and Protestants with recent born-again experiences.
I wonder why the media headlined their articles so misleadingly?
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Nov '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
That's a rhetorical question, right?
Aug '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
Christians and Jews are now the wold's designated scapegoats, because they are the only people left in the world who have the knowledge, integrity, and strength to resist the onslaught of global collectivism and one-world tyranny. These days were prophesied three thousand years ago, and our age is the preparatory period for genuine transformation.
Mar '11
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
Of course the media hates Christians, they don't like being reproved; and why does it matter anyway; junk science with no practical value.
Jun '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
What about Progressive Democrat Presidents who travel a lot, and think they ARE God?
And a related question: What if you have a brain, large or small, but never use it?
Mar '11
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
How do they get brain size from hippicampi size? The hippicampi are tiny - that is, relative to the rest of the brain - seahorse shaped elements, thought to have some relation to memory, buried deep inside the brain. So, quite literally, every word in the article's title has no basis in this study.
I agree with DocStu, this is nothing but Junk Science.
Aug '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.:
I wonder why the media headlined their articles so misleadingly? ·
Hmmm. I wonder? Could it be they have an agenda?
Nah.
May '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
Only 268 adults? Isn't that sample size too small to be able to draw any conclusions?
Sep '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
Due to neuroplasticity and the small sample size I'd say the only thing this headline proves is that the headline writer has a small hippocampus.
Jul '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
Stephen Jay Gould's mortal remains (if he hadn't been cremated) would have just hit 7200 RPM.
Sep '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
I abhor the junk science but even more so the federal funding.
May '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
The subjects in the study were all age 58 or older This study is not about brain size. It is about the change in brain size. It measured the effect of religious belief and practice on brain atrophy later in life, not the effect of your brain size on which religion you choose to follow.
Edited on May 26, 2011 at 9:14amFeb '11
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
I wouldn’t be surprised if a real scientific study were to find some differences between those who had a religious experience and those who did not. In any case, knowing virtually nothing about the subject, my first thought was about this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein's_brain
May '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
They did not account for income and career differences. And their method of accounting for stress, which is a known factor in brain atrophy, was "global self-reported stress experienced over the past 6 months", which is entirely subjective. I wonder if religious belief and practice would have any effect on someone's self-reported stress level?
Also:
"Limitations include the geographically and religiously constrained nature of the sample (largely Southeastern Protestant Christians), as well as the small sample size of participants reporting a life-changing religious experience."
Aug '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
It's on the smallish size but not necessarily too small. By point of comparison most scientific or opinion surveys have about 1000 people, which gives you a margin of error of +/- 3% for yes or no questions. The gap between 1000 and 268 is not as big a gap as it sounds because statistical power is proportional to the square root of degrees of freedom (i.e., sample size minus variables). So the difference between 1000 and 250 is really half as much statistical power, not one fourth the statistical power. This is enough statistical power to pick up large differences. A bigger concern is (as Mark noted) the sample size for subsamples.
Jun '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
"I wonder if religious belief and practice would have any effect on someone's self-reported stress level?"
Well, there are so many variations in what different religions expect from their followers that I think it would be too broad a category to study with any accuracy. I imagine being a Muslim woman forced to wear a burqu and live in constant fear of beating and assorted abuse is rather stressful. Somehow I don't think any of those women were invited to self-report in this silly study.
Being a practicing Unitarian appears to be fairly stress free. And some religions have meditation as part of their core, so stress, presumably, is relieved through practice.
May '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
anon_academic
It's on the smallish size but not necessarily too small. By point of comparison most scientific or opinion surveys have about 1000 people, which gives you a margin of error of +/- 3% for yes or no questions. The gap between 1000 and 268 is not as big a gap as it sounds because statistical power is proportional to the square root of degrees of freedom (i.e., sample size minus variables). So the difference between 1000 and 250 is really half as much statistical power, not one fourth the statistical power. This is enough statistical power to pick up large differences. A bigger concern is (as Mark noted) the sample size for subsamples. · May 26 at 10:35am
Thanks for the explanation. My confidence interval is restored.
Nov '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
I wouldn't say this is junk science. The methodology and the nature of the work seems perfectly adequate. Leaping to far-flung conclusions about what this means about religion is junk science reporting. But it is worse than junk journalism to emphasize conclusions that either have nothing to do with the study or spin it to lead readers to conclusions that flat-out contradict the simple outcome of the study.
As readers have pointed out, volumetrics for the hippocampus say little about whether "brains" are bigger or smaller, as this is a tiny substructure. What's unfortunate here is how this reporting obscures anything of value that might have come from the study by misrepresenting its goals. Why, for example, was the hippocampus focussed on? I'm sure the answer is interesting, but it's lost in the story. What would the principals in the study infer from these results? We may never know, now.
May '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
The hippocampus, though a relatively ancient part of the brain, is interesting for several reasons. 1. It is involved in navigation in both mammals and birds. 2. Navigation is a form of intelligent behavior. 3. In humans the left hippocampus may have been co-opted for episodic memory creation and/or recall. 4. The hippocampus, unique among brain parts, has the capacity to grow, i.e., generate new neurons, not just new connections. 5. London taxi drivers have larger hippocampi, presumably due to their enhanced navigational loads. 6. Damage to the hippocampus interferes with the creation of long-term memories. 7. The hippocampal cells used to determine location, orientation, and relative motion have been identified.
However, the hippocampus is only a small part of the brain and the actual operation of the brain is overwhelmingly complex and weird.
Nov '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
Kervinlee
anon_academic
It's on the smallish size but not necessarily too small. By point of comparison most scientific or opinion surveys have about 1000 people, which gives you a margin of error of +/- 3% for yes or no questions. The gap between 1000 and 268 is not as big a gap as it sounds because statistical power is proportional to the square root of degrees of freedom (i.e., sample size minus variables). So the difference between 1000 and 250 is really half as much statistical power, not one fourth the statistical power. This is enough statistical power to pick up large differences. A bigger concern is (as Mark noted) the sample size for subsamples. · May 26 at 10:35am
Thanks for the explanation. My confidence interval is restored. · May 26 at 11:02am
Well, I LOLed.
May '10
Re: Non-Christians Have Smallest Brains
R. Craigen:
Why, for example, was the hippocampus focussed on? I'm sure the answer is interesting, but it's lost in the story. What would the principals in the study infer from these results? We may never know, now.
Thank you to Mollie for scrupulously linking to the abstract of the study, which USA Today apparently didn't think was important. From the abstract, with footnotes removed:
"The hippocampus has several important functions, including spatial, contextual, and episodic learning and memory. ... Rates of atrophy for the hippocampus have been found to accelerate during late life. ... This atrophy has been associated with mental health outcomes, including depression and dementia in later life. Studies have also identified the hippocampus as a brain region potentially involved in religious beliefs and spiritual practices. ...[T]his study focused on the potential role of religious factors in hippocampal atrophy."
As for what the researchers infer from the results, there are six paragraphs of discussion at the end of the abstract.