Excellent piece. I'm grateful for the information and it answered many of my questions. Censoring this poster was clearly a terrible decision. It is increasingly hard to believe that SPSP is a serious scientific organization.
My only complaint about the piece is the comment that the poster did not have "...obviously weaker empirical grounds than, say, common claims about 'whiteness' or 'unconscious racism' or microaggressions." It is hard to be worse than the theoretical bottom of a scale. Having weaker grounds than microaggression research may literally be impossible, thus setting a bar so low that no one can get under it.
"More generally, Muslims mostly say that suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam are rarely or never justified, including 92% in Indonesia and 91% in Iraq. In the United States, a 2011 survey found that 86% of Muslims say such tactics are rarely or never justified. An additional 7% say suicide bombings are sometimes justified and 1% say they are often justified."
Superficially, this seems to provide a counterpoint to the data you discuss. I suspect some of the discrepancy is in the "rarely" category. This Pew statement categorizes "rarely" as the same as "never," and your analysis (and presumably the poster's analysis, though I didn't get to read it because...it was banned) categorizes "rarely" in the "supports terrorism" category. Though it does seem clear that most Muslims disliked ISIS (for example) in the survey. Taken in total, based on what little I know so far, my read is that the data are mixed on the question, and maybe we should have a discussion about the best place to conceptually place "rarely" responses.
Is there a meta-analysis on this question? Pew aside, I know many social psychology, political psychology, and cross-cultural studies have directly or indirectly used measurements that are relevant. Has anyone summed them?
Given that the term "white supremacist" has been thrown around so loosely these days, I'm not inclined to believe such an accusation (and the tweets provided no links that I could see). Further, I read some of the author's writings for the Indiana Policy Review and could see no evidence of such beliefs (quite the opposite, there were direct denials of them). But it would help everyone, I think, to give the author a chance to respond to those accusations specifically.
As a biologist who is trained in research, I would’ve rejected that poster on the merits.
The key survey questions were poorly worded and his interpretation of them problematic.
“Terrorism” is his interpretation. But that word wasn’t used in the questions. That’s sloppy at best, disingenuous at worst.
“Violence against civilians in defense of Islam” to a fanatic could mean trying to murder Salman Rushdie, or to a reasonable person could mean defending your mosque from an angry mob or shooter.
So the wording of the questions is way too vague, and to be honest seem designed to be trap questions.
Also, lumping together the “Always” and “Sometimes” response data is ill-advised as it is likely to give misleading impressions, and in light of the other faults of the presentation appears likely to have been deliberately misleading.
I don’t doubt that the conference organizers failed to thoroughly vet the poster, and I also don’t doubt that they failed to vet it in response to the complaint(s) but rejected it for purely political reasons. That doesn’t change the fact that it lacks merit.
Excellent piece. I'm grateful for the information and it answered many of my questions. Censoring this poster was clearly a terrible decision. It is increasingly hard to believe that SPSP is a serious scientific organization.
My only complaint about the piece is the comment that the poster did not have "...obviously weaker empirical grounds than, say, common claims about 'whiteness' or 'unconscious racism' or microaggressions." It is hard to be worse than the theoretical bottom of a scale. Having weaker grounds than microaggression research may literally be impossible, thus setting a bar so low that no one can get under it.
On a serious note, a couple of follow-ups. (1) The only X post I could find that provided a rebuttal of the poster based on actual data (which I appreciated) cited a Pew study showing that Muslims don't support violence. Independently, I looked at a Pew 2017 report (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/08/09/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/), which among other things has this statement:
"More generally, Muslims mostly say that suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam are rarely or never justified, including 92% in Indonesia and 91% in Iraq. In the United States, a 2011 survey found that 86% of Muslims say such tactics are rarely or never justified. An additional 7% say suicide bombings are sometimes justified and 1% say they are often justified."
Superficially, this seems to provide a counterpoint to the data you discuss. I suspect some of the discrepancy is in the "rarely" category. This Pew statement categorizes "rarely" as the same as "never," and your analysis (and presumably the poster's analysis, though I didn't get to read it because...it was banned) categorizes "rarely" in the "supports terrorism" category. Though it does seem clear that most Muslims disliked ISIS (for example) in the survey. Taken in total, based on what little I know so far, my read is that the data are mixed on the question, and maybe we should have a discussion about the best place to conceptually place "rarely" responses.
Is there a meta-analysis on this question? Pew aside, I know many social psychology, political psychology, and cross-cultural studies have directly or indirectly used measurements that are relevant. Has anyone summed them?
(2) Some of the twitter comments suggested that the author was a white supremacist and that his work had been "cited in the manifesto of a racist mass shooter." (https://twitter.com/Tarik_Endale/status/1756108619223851178).
Given that the term "white supremacist" has been thrown around so loosely these days, I'm not inclined to believe such an accusation (and the tweets provided no links that I could see). Further, I read some of the author's writings for the Indiana Policy Review and could see no evidence of such beliefs (quite the opposite, there were direct denials of them). But it would help everyone, I think, to give the author a chance to respond to those accusations specifically.
As a biologist who is trained in research, I would’ve rejected that poster on the merits.
The key survey questions were poorly worded and his interpretation of them problematic.
“Terrorism” is his interpretation. But that word wasn’t used in the questions. That’s sloppy at best, disingenuous at worst.
“Violence against civilians in defense of Islam” to a fanatic could mean trying to murder Salman Rushdie, or to a reasonable person could mean defending your mosque from an angry mob or shooter.
So the wording of the questions is way too vague, and to be honest seem designed to be trap questions.
Also, lumping together the “Always” and “Sometimes” response data is ill-advised as it is likely to give misleading impressions, and in light of the other faults of the presentation appears likely to have been deliberately misleading.
I don’t doubt that the conference organizers failed to thoroughly vet the poster, and I also don’t doubt that they failed to vet it in response to the complaint(s) but rejected it for purely political reasons. That doesn’t change the fact that it lacks merit.