There’s a widespread belief here in the U.S. that evolution contributes to social dysfunction because it inspires disbelief in a moral creator. Most Americans assume that religiosity is socially beneficial, that believing in God brings about positive outcomes such as low rates of violence, suicide, promiscuity or abortion, as well as high economic growth. All these assumptions are largely based on the idea that people become unruly and ungovernable when they don’t held any religious beliefs. That’s why evolutionists and atheists are perceived as a threat to the stability and the “moral fabric” of this country.

In this respect, I came across an interesting study (thanks to Rafael for the link), which uses data from various existing surveys, such as the International Social Survey Program and the UN Development Program, to correlate religious belief and practice with societal health indicators such as homicide, sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs), abortion and teen pregnancy in 38 developed democracies.

Contrary to popular belief, the study shows how, in general, higher rates of religiosity correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in these prosperous democracies. Although these links are not surprising (at least to me) they’re interesting because the assumption that religion is good for society has rarely been tested quantitatively. The following are some more specific findings from the study:

1) Correlations between popular acceptance in the theory of evolution and belief in and worship of a creator are negative. The least religious nation, Japan, exhibits the highest agreement with the scientific theory and the lowest level of acceptance is found in the most religious developed democracy, the U.S.

2) There’s a remarkable positive correlation between pro-theistic factors and juvenile mortality, especially regarding absolute belief, and even prayer. Life spans tend to decrease as rates of religiosity rise. Higher rates of religious affiliation, attendance, and prayer do not result in lower juvenile-adult mortality rates on a cross-national basis.

3) Although the late twentieth century STD epidemic has been controlled in all prosperous democracies, rates of adolescent gonorrhea infection remain six to three hundred times higher in the U.S. than in less theistic, pro-evolution secular developed democracies.

4) Increasing adolescent abortion rates show positive correlation with increasing belief and worship of a creator, and negative correlation with increasing non-theism and acceptance of evolution; again rates are uniquely high in the U.S. Claims that secular societies aggravate abortion rates are therefore contradicted by the data. Early adolescent pregnancy and birth have dropped in the developed democracies, but rates are two to dozens of times higher in the U.S. where the decline has been more modest.

Although it is impossible to establish causal relations from these correlations it is quite reasonable to conclude that the widely held hypothesis that a Godless society must experience societal disaster is basically false.

Here’s the paper, in case you want to read the whole thing.

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