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The USA (2/3 conservative by some surveys which have been quoted in criticising wikipedia's disproportionate liberal voice) has some of the highest murder rates in the world - 5 to 10 per 100000.  Europe and Australasia (both liberal and secular by comparison to the USA) have much lower murder rates.  Officially atheist China reports a lower rate still.  Clearly, conservativism is correlated with high murder rates.

The USA (2/3 conservative by some surveys which have been quoted in criticising wikipedia's disproportionate liberal voice) has some of the highest murder rates in the world - 5 to 10 per 100000.  Europe and Australasia (both liberal and secular by comparison to the USA) have much lower murder rates.  Officially atheist China reports a lower rate still.  Clearly, conservativism is correlated with high murder rates.

Of course this is a rubbish argument, for two reasons:

Of course this is a rubbish argument, for two reasons:

- Correlation does not imply causation.  There could be a number of reasons for a correlation between conservativism and high murder rates.  Perhaps more conservative nations have stricter laws about their definition of 'murder'; the more liberal nations more often call it 'manslaughter', making their figures look lower.  There are many many possible reasons.

- Correlation does not imply causation.  There could be a number of reasons for a correlation between conservativism and high murder rates.  Perhaps more conservative nations have stricter laws about their definition of 'murder'; the more liberal nations more often call it 'manslaughter', making their figures look lower.  There are many many possible reasons.

- The brief survey I've done here, even assuming the figures are correct, hardly counts even as 'correlation' when it comes to statistical science.  In order for you to even say that a correlation exists in this example, we need a consistent measure of 'conservativism', and we need to include all relevant countries, not just hand pick several which happen to illustrate the point.  Then we should graph them all and see how closely conservativism is matched with murder rates.  Only then could we even claim that there is an undisputable correlation.   

- The brief survey I've done here, even assuming the figures are correct, hardly counts even as 'correlation' when it comes to statistical science.  In order for you to even say that a correlation exists in this example, we need a consistent measure of 'conservativism', and we need to include all relevant countries, not just hand pick several which happen to illustrate the point.  Then we should graph them all and see how closely conservativism is matched with murder rates.  Only then could we even claim that there is an undisputable correlation.   

The USA does have a lot of liberal viewpoints, but then compared to Europe and Australasia it's very conservative in many ways - for instance, in New Zealand, few ever even debate whether abortion should be legal. Yet Europe and Australasia have lower levels of depression than the USA, according to the article cited.  This should count as evidence against the hypothesis that correlation between mental illness and liberalism even exists.  It's also a very poor way to measure mental illness as depression is only one (and one of the MORE spurious, debatable ones at that) of a whole range of mental illnesses recognised by modern psychology.

The USA does have a lot of liberal viewpoints, but then compared to Europe and Australasia it's very conservative in many ways - for instance, in New Zealand, few ever even debate whether abortion should be legal. Yet Europe and Australasia have lower levels of depression than the USA, according to the article cited.  This should count as evidence against the hypothesis that correlation between mental illness and liberalism even exists.  It's also a very poor way to measure mental illness as depression is only one (and one of the MORE spurious, debatable ones at that) of a whole range of mental illnesses recognised by modern psychology.

Finally, like my analogy of murder rates and conservativism, in order to draw even a correlation we need to see more than several countries' match of liberalism and high mental illness rates.

Finally, like my analogy of murder rates and conservativism, in order to draw even a correlation we need to see more than several countries' match of liberalism and high mental illness rates.

== Reversion of edits ==

== Reversion of edits ==