tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post7983328615572664790..comments2024-03-27T01:01:09.785-07:00Comments on Probably Overthinking It: Religion in the United StatesAllen Downeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01633071333405221858noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-62247424672886919332017-11-24T05:38:15.945-08:002017-11-24T05:38:15.945-08:00Very interesting article. I think there is a missi...Very interesting article. I think there is a missing piece to the analysis though. The rise of the "nones" tends to undo itself. Specifically, as individuals and groups become less religious, their birthrates tend to plummet and fall below replacement rate. Religious cultural groups like Mormons, Muslims, etc. tend to have very high birthrates comparatively, so each generation less "Nones" are born than die, while highly religious groups see their populations increase from generation to generation. There may be some religious individuals who become "nones" later in life, but gain, they will tend to may later, have children later and have less children overall. So while we might see a temporary rise in the number of non-religious individuals, over the long-term religion is here to stay for the simple reason that religious people have a lot of kids and non-religious people don't. I've always thought it a great irony that so many religious people don't like evolution, when it's clear that evolution really likes them.Tom Hhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14386158128681389406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-4334673450263988762017-07-24T06:30:49.135-07:002017-07-24T06:30:49.135-07:00So, I am wondering about the likelihood that what ...So, I am wondering about the likelihood that what you're seeing in those data amounts to, "people without a religion (in America) used to all say they were Protestant, but now some of them say they have no religion." Trying to think of a statistical way of testing this theory, and I'm not coming up with much...rosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02587634589065610863noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-76186844286320870002017-06-19T07:26:34.113-07:002017-06-19T07:26:34.113-07:00Thank you for your kind words!Thank you for your kind words!Allen Downeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01633071333405221858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-55261796629716828572017-06-18T17:38:07.453-07:002017-06-18T17:38:07.453-07:00Professor Downey,
I just want to write a message...Professor Downey, <br /><br />I just want to write a message of appreciation for you and your work. By studying your books on my own, I went from working a pretty crappy job chopping carrots in a kitchen to working a great job as a data engineer at a startup. I now feel like my opportunities are endless.<br /><br />You're books are amazing. They are accessible, yet not-watered-down. They are fun and pertinent. By doing the example problems, and by building my own projects using your libraries, I not only learned a ton about object oriented programming in python and statistics, I was inspired by things like "the relationship between fractals and pink noise" (which I read about in ThinkComplexity and which led me to read ThinkDSP) and Bayesian decision science, which I never would have been exposed otherwise. <br /><br />These books are an incredible gift to the world. Thank you.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com