I never expect much of The British Humanist Association (BHA), but their opinion poll- well, it almost defies belief in its absurdity. It’s difficult to know where to start with it.
The article quoted above from the new Philosophers’ Magazine blog criticises the recent survey findings of the British Humanist Association, where they claimed that 36% of UK adults are in fact Humanists in their outlook. The main criticism is related to the use of questions to identify Humanist traits in the respondent that are not necessarily reliable indicators of a Humanist outlook (at least, that’s the gist I got).
An example given is a question about whether the respondent’s belief in religion or science gives them a more complete understanding of the universe. The main flaw with this question is obviously that many religious people are willing to accept Darwinian evolution theory, Human Genome research and the Big Bang as plausible explanations for life, the universe and everything – while they still believe in God. You may disagree, but Humanists don’t have the monopoly on rationality, and religious people are not all as stupid or insane as George W Bush.
What the BHA survey does is attempt to corral people into the category of Humanist, simply because they have ticked a few of the right boxes. In matters of spirituality and religion, many people I know have ideas which mark them as Humanists in their outlook, but they are unlikely to classify themselves as Humanists simply because they don’t even feel the need to be categorised in the first place – why wear a badge when you’ve had enough of religions asking you to and you’re happy as you are? Maybe 36% of UK adults are Humanists, but 36% of UK adults won’t be wearing any badges or joining the BHA any time soon, so the entire exercise is somewhat academic.
To be fair to the BHA, most surveys are a complete waste of time. A percentage figure works when you talk about food ingredients or fundraising totals, but not for surveys where Humans have been asked to give an opinion. The two reasons for this – Humans write the surveys, and Humans respond to them. The Humans writing the surveys ask questions either too preoccupied with what questions sound good or what answers they want to hear, and the Humans responding to them either don’t understand the questions, lie, tell you what they think you want to hear, or don’t know what they think in the first place.
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