• Liz@midwest.social
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    5 months ago

    Emphasis mine.

    The authors offer the hypothesis that the greater hippocampal atrophy in selected religious groups might be related to stress. They argue that some individuals in the religious minority, or those who struggle with their beliefs, experience higher levels of stress. This causes a release of stress hormones that are known to depress the volume of the hippocampus over time. This might also explain the fact that both non-religious as well as some religious individuals have smaller hippocampal volumes.

    You can’t look at a person’s brain to determine if they’re religious or not.

    • blahsay@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Eh that just means it’s not an exact science and there are exceptions like anything. You’ll find qualified statements like that in any good scientific study.

      • uis@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        We found correlation

        It’s not science

        ???

        Just in case correlation != causation.

        • blahsay@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Pfff the theory gravity is not an absolute. Most things that go up come down though.

          What you want is a solid P value in a study, large datasets and a significant result, which that study finds.