经济学人227:教育与宗教信仰 此消彼长

 　　Education and religion

　　教育与宗教信仰
　　Falling away
　　此消彼长
　　How education makes people less religious—and less superstitious 1, too
　　接受教育越多，宗教倾向越少—迷信倾向也越少。这是为什么？
　　JUST one extra year of schooling 2 makes someone 10% less likely to attend a church, mosque 3 or temple, pray alone or describe himself as religious, concludes a paper* published on October 6th that looks at the relationship between religiosity and the length of time spent in school. Its uses changes in the compulsory 4 school-leaving age in 11 European countries between 1960 and 1985 to tease out the impact of time spent in school on belief and practice among respondents to the European Social Survey, a long-running research project.
　　多上一年学，成为教徒（在教堂，清真寺或佛寺等宗教场所独自祈祷）的概率就少10%；10月6日发表的一篇论文得出了上述结论。这篇论文是一项长期项目的成果，它通过社会调查的方法，调查了1960-1985年间，11个欧洲国家中义务教育年限的变化，以求揭示受教育程度对宗教倾向（包括思想上的皈依和行为上的尊奉）的影响。
　　By comparing people of similar backgrounds who were among the first to stay on longer, the authors could be reasonably certain that the extra schooling actually caused religiosity to fall, rather than merely being correlated with the decline. During those extra years mathematics and science classes typically become more rigorous, points out Naci Mocan, one of the authors—and increased exposure to analytical 5 thinking may weaken the tendency to believe.
　　比较了背景相似但受教育程度不同的人群之后，作者可以负责任的说：上学越多的人，越是不容易信教。两个现象之间确实存在因果关系，而非仅仅具有相关性。作者之一的南茜·莫肯声称，研究所面向的那个时期，数学和自然科学课程变得愈发严格，这就强化了学生分析问题的能力。而一个人愈是习惯于用分析的眼光看问题，就愈是具有怀疑精神；相反，宗教则要求人们不经思考就加以接受：二者有着内在冲突。
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　　Another paper, published earlier this year, showed that after Turkey increased compulsory schooling from five years to eight in 1997, women's propensity 6 to identify themselves as religious, cover their heads or vote for an Islamic party fell by 30-50%. (No effect was found, however, among Turkish men.) And a study published in 2011 that looked at the rise in the school-leaving age in Canadian provinces in the 1950s and 1960s found that each extra year of schooling led to a decline of four percentage points in the likelihood of identifying with a religious tradition. Longer schooling, it reckoned, explains most of the increase in non-affiliation to any religion in Canada between 1971 and 2001, from 4% of the population to 16%.
　　今天早些时候发表的另一篇论文表明，土耳其于1997年将义务教育年限从五年增加到八年之后，女性的宗教倾向下降了约三到五成（不过没有调查土耳其男性的情况）；宗教倾向通过被调查者的自我评价，是否裹头巾，是否支持伊斯兰政党等变量加以度量。2011年发布的一项研究成果，着眼于20世纪50至60年代之间，加拿大各省义务教育年限的延长。研究发现，接受学校教育的时间每增加一年，固守宗教传统的概率就减少4%。这项研究认为，1971年至2001年的30年间，加拿大人口中不信教的比例从4%上升到16%，其中主要原因是受教育程度的提高。
　　The most recent paper also showed that each extra year in the classroom led to a drop of 11 percentage points in superstitious practices, though these remain common. Two-fifths of respondents said they consulted horoscopes, and a quarter thought that lucky charms could protect them. Other research has shown that religious beliefs and practices seem to make people happier, and in some circumstances healthier and wealthier, too. But to argue that such benefits more than offset 7 the gains from extra education would require a leap of faith.
　　最近发表的这篇论文还表明，每多上一年学，迷信行为就减少11%（虽然后者依旧盛行）。四成的被调查者相信占星术；另有四分之一认为护身符能保佑他们。其他研究早已表明，宗教信仰可使人们内心更充实，并在某些条件下，使人更健康、更富足。不过为了这些好处，就希冀人们少受些教育的话，恐怕只能说是“诸君北面，我自西向”了。