Ok, if the book Freakonomics teaches anything, it's that discovering whether a relationship between two events is causal or correlational is damn near impossible, and can result in some wild theories. The increase in abortions versus the decrease in crime 15 years later is a prime example. Well, I got two relationships I think need the Freakonomics check.
First relationship, as the number of gods in the pantheon has decreased, scientific and technological advancement has exploded. Back when every bush was worshipped, there was little technology, and even less science. Now we are at less than 93% of Americans who believe in god, giving us .92 gods left in the pantheon. And look all around, medical miracles, computers, the Internet, space sciences, the list goes on and on. Think where we will be if we get to .50 gods!
Second relationship, as the number of strong, national poltical parties has declined, the gridlock and partisanship has increased. Whigs, Federalists, Democrats, Bull Moose, Republicans, the list goes on and on, but as we ended up with just Democrats and Republicans, and their centralized national comittees, political debate has degenerated to a "I know you are, but what am I" type discussion. Whenever there has been a "strong" thirdparty, we ended up with some pretty good leaders, even if they were less than perfect presidents (Anderson gave us Reagan, Perot gave us Clinton). Again, not really a theory yet, just a hypothesis, an intriquing one. Maybe we need to convince John McCain to run as a 3rd party and get us a worthy leader in 2008!
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