The consequences of bad journalism

There are two things I've noticed as a consequence of the 'We are born to believe in God' story in the Times. I said a couple of days ago that it seemed like poor journalism, and not surprisingly it has led to Christians claiming that it is evidence for God's existence. Secondly, the Daily Mail published a similar story which was written in an almost identical manner. Two newspapers, two different authors yet the articles are so similar that if I was a University professor I would cry plagiarism.

Of course, said that this study doesn't prove we innately believe in 'God', only that we have the tendency to believe in supernatural things as children. However, the Christian in this blog takes it a step further. He decides that a tendency to have supernatural beliefs means we are all born believing in God.

'But really, how can all of this be explained? I'm really glad that scientists were able to figure out that belief in the supernatural, or God, is inherent within every individual, but what does this really mean? Why does this happen? If you're a Christian, or even if you're not a Christian, but just a rational non-believer, you know the answer; because God exists. Why would every person be born with a belief in God if God didn't exist?'

This statement has already been better debunked at the Blag Hag blog, so I won't do it again here. The only thing I would point out is that supernatural beliefs don't just mean God, and it just shows how easy it is to twist bad journalism. If this study had been better reported, then misunderstandings like these wouldn't happen (or at least if they did, anyone who bothered to check the original article would see any religious ravings were just that).

So now my real question is why are the Daily Mail and Times articles so similar? Let's take the Richard Dawkins mention:

The Daily Mail: The findings challenge atheists such as Richard Dawkins, the author of The God Delusion, who has long argued that religious beliefs result from poor education and childhood 'indoctrination'.

The Times: The findings challenge campaigners against organised religion, such as Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. He has long argued that religious beliefs result from poor education and childhood “indoctrination”.

I don't think the Times and Daily Mail are owned by the same people (I may be wrong, but the Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch and theres no mention of him owning the Mail on his Wikipedia page). Why is it these articles are similar? This research hasn't been published in a journal, and had not been presented at a conference at the time these articles were published. I therefore find it unlikely it came from the researcher Bruce Hood.

Someone decided this research would get more press if it refuted Dawkins, which these two major newspapers then latched onto. Perhaps one newspaper copied the other, doing minimal research into the issue themselves. If this is the case it says something about the reliability of the news we read, since a mistake by one paper is just reprinted in the other without any effort to check the facts are correct.