Today, Grand Theft Auto 4 is released. With it, we're going to hear and read more people using supposed "science" to support their beliefs that violent video games such as GTA are bad influences on people, especially the young.
The simple truth, according to this MPR blog entry, is that the scientific link does not exist. The entry cites research by the co-directors of the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media, who, in this article, examine the claims made by the group "Save the Children" that "children are struggling to make friends at school because they spend too long playing computer games." The Harvard researchers also look at the same data used by "Save the Children" and others to support claims of the supposedly clear "cause and effect" relationship of violent video games and various negative situations, and this is what they (the Harvard researchers) say:
"The real puzzle is that anyone looking at the research evidence in this field could draw any conclusions about the pattern, let alone argue with such confidence and even passion that it demonstrates the harm of violence on television, in film and in video games."
My point today is not that these games are good for young people, or any people, in fact. I'm also not saying the games are bad for them. My point is that I'm troubled that people who oppose these games distort science and the data collected through scientific means in order to support what is really a moral argument.
The "hero" of the GTA games does things which, in the real world, are wrong. They are illegal. They are often violent. It may seem natural to assume that a person who likes playing this game would learn something from them and act in illegal or immoral or violent ways more readily than others, but the data does not show that.
If a person objects to filling one's mind with images that are wrong (immoral (sinful)) because one should try to focus on things that are right (moral (God-pleasing)) then that's understandable. But it's an expression of morality, and ultimately of faith.
Clergy of most any faith will espouse the view that your limited time on earth is better spent focused on Good than Not Good. But if a person is going to claim a causal relationship between Not Good images and Not Good behavior, then it is merely a belief unless it is backed up by scientific data. Distorting the data to claim support for a position is Lying, and Lying is Not Good.
1 comment:
Amen Steve. This is a great post, as always. It used to be that "the Devil could quote scripture to his purpose." Nowadays, because science and the scientific method has become the arbiter of reality and the church has relinquished or been deposed of that role, the Devil seems equally adept at quoting data to his purpose. What would please the infernal guy more? Hell bent youngsters virtually carousing, drinking, stealing, etc., or the upright moral brigade lying to support their position?
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