[lbo-talk] Appeal to Ignorance

ravi gadfly at exitleft.org
Wed Jun 15 13:46:04 PDT 2005


On 06/14/05 16:42, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>> ravi gadfly at exitleft.org
>>
>> what/who exactly is an "asian american"? also, could i see some data
>> to back up the above claim (regarding 'asian americans'), please? does
>> the above hold because chinese americans overwhelm (in number) all
>> other asian immigrants to the US, and they (chinese americans) are
>> claimed to be "irreligious"?
>
> According to the American Religious Identification Survey (2001), "while
> nearly half of blacks say their outlook is religious (49 percent), only
> 37 percent of whites, 30 percent of Hispanics and 28 percent of Asians
> agree" <...>
> So, while the Chinese are indeed the largest component,
> they constitute only 20.6% of the total Asian-American population of
> 13.1 million ("Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: May 2004,"
> <http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/001738.html>,
> 19 Apr. 2004).
>

yoshie, your own data suggests that your initial statement:


> is (the United States, where only scientists, Jewish Americans, and
> Asian Americans are largely irreligious, being among few exceptions).

is incorrect. since way less than 50-37=13% of white americans are scientists or irreligious jews (i would think).

also, from above: if i was to remove the chinese immigrants (since, wildly theorizing, they may be irreligious due to lack of organized religion in their country of origin), then i get about 36% of asian americans considering themselves religious, bringing it on par with white americans. i admit this is a bit of a stretch. i am quite puzzled by the data, since my hunch is that asian indians from india/pakistan/sri-lanka/bangladesh (i would guess the the 1.9 million above + a bit more) are predominantly religious.


>> could you elaborate on why you think its probable that indian
>> scientists are less religious than american (lets say white, black)
>> scientists?
>
> Since Asian-Americans are less religious than other races, I thought it
> probable that Asian-American scientists are also less religious than
> those of other races. But that's a hypothesis only, highly probable
> though it seems to me. If anyone has evidence that shows that, in
> contrast to Asian-Americans in general, Asian-American scientists are as
> religious as or more religious than scientists of other races, I'll be
> all ears.

i do not have any sort of hard evidence. but neither have i seen evidence to contradict my experience that indians (scientists or otherwise) -- indian americans -- are as religious and perhaps more so, than white americans.

--ravi



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