Europe's Anti-American Obsession

I could elaborate some argument as it seems you are indeed making an artifact of the statistic methods of the different countries.

But, as usual, it would be useless, given my experience with these never ending arguments in these threads.


But let's get back to the original quote:



What difference would it make if the above figures were:

America: #1 in Bibles. #17 in Infant Mortality ?

What would be the obvious conclusion?

More accurately, the artifact is already there, and I'm merely highlighting it. It's not like I'm personally responsible for the different accounting methods used by the various countries, I'm just inconveniently bringing it up.

Would it make a difference? Well, I mean, shouldn't it? There are, quite arguably, twenty or so Western countries who are "doing it right" in terms of government and economic system, who should expect to rank highly among any such accounting. The US is but one of those, and it should be stated, one with several challenges to the smooth delivery of public health that improves the infant mortality rate. (To put it bluntly, we don't have socialized medicine and we have tremendous immigration, almost all of it poor.) Because of that, I wouldn't expect the US to rank #1 in any event. But there's a big difference between "solidly in the middle of the pack of advanced nations" and "being outperformed by ex-Soviet-bloc republics", which is precisely the kind of point you're trying to bring up when you're quoting a statistic like that -in the first place-.

At the same time, it also says something about the relative availability of health care that the US routinely attempts to save low birth weight babies that other advanced countries do not provide care for, even if we have a relatively high failure rate. It could indeed be a reflection of widespread Christian values in the body politic, or it could be more widespread availability of the kind of advanced neonatal units that can actually save little premature babies, or maybe it's just that people who do have access to health care here (and granted that that's not 100% of the population, which ain't good) really do have access to superior resources compared to socialized systems.

I guess that's what I'd call an obvious conclusion. Maybe it's less obvious to some people. ;p

Avoiding the former part of the question, aren't you?

Uh, no. I addressed pretty much everything you put in your post. If you had an additional question in there that I didn't address, you must have typed it with invisible pixels. ;p

Good question.

What would the obvious conclusion be?

Americans care more about Bibles than babies?

I would like to know because it will help me assess the nature of the peoples of all of the other nations on the infant mortality list.

Chances are pretty good that each of them is #1 in something. France, for example, is #1 in per capita wine consumption.

Wrong: the Holy See (Vatican State) and Andorra lead the league here ... :wink:

In the first place I am developing a greater sympathy for your earlier point about the endless arguments on these threads. Argumentation itself takes over and the original point or bit of understanding that ignited the discussion is eventually lost entirely...

With respect to the question above, I would say that no conclusion whatever is obvious or indeed warranted - that is apart from the reported facts themselves. While bibles and babies are equally enumerable, there just isn't enough comparable information even to support the inference that the originator of the assertion apparently has in mind.

I suppose that high among the salient traits that distinguish America from the more 'progressive' modern states are our relatively greater inclination towards religion, and the observable fact that the several, originally European, forms of evangelistic Protestant Christianity that have died out in Europe, continue to thrive here. There are, of course, other salient differnces less often cited, but significant nonetheless. What all this may indicate about us both is something that I suppose could occupy us for a long time. Once you get past the obvious stuff though, it is very hard to know how this will appear on a longer time scale -- what pattern or cycles may emerge? do we merely occupy different points in one of these patterns? which of us is now the exception and which the rule; etc..