Revisit Of Loomis'S Growth Predictions 10-Years Later

[jskains]

We lost the use of our Uniqueness. In other words, we stopped reminding people why we are NOT a traditional Christian Faith, and tried too hard to look like everyone else.

If we went back to our interesting doctrines, I think we would change that.

Though if Romney is elected, I think that might do something too.

[Pahoran]

This thread is a bit perplexing.

Clearly some one had a better forecast. So what of it.

Perhaps it might help to know that the thread originator is one of the people who made a prediction. I.e. the purpose of this thread is to let him toot his own horn.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Analytics]

Perhaps it might help to know that the thread originator is one of the people who made a prediction. I.e. the purpose of this thread is to let him toot his own horn.

Regards,

Pahoran

Maybe, but I would have revisited the prediction on its 10-year anniversary even if I would have been spectacularly wrong. Maybe I took some satisfaction in tooting my own horn, but I was far more interested in observing how you would choose to berate me on this topic.

[Scott Lloyd]

Maybe, but I would have revisited the prediction on its 10-year anniversary even if I would have been spectacularly wrong. Maybe I took some satisfaction in tooting my own horn, but I was far more interested in observing how you would choose to berate me on this topic.

Will we hear from you again a decade from now to see how well you did?

[Scott Lloyd]

This is anecdotal, but it may or may not add some perspective to this discussion.

I just interviewed one of the new members of the First Quorum of the Seventy who were sustained this weekend. He spoke of being in the first group of missionaries called to serve in Spain after the initial group was reassigned from South America. He opened the city of Elche to missionary work in 1972. He told me he had been speaking with another General Authority, a man from Portugal, who told him that Elche now has a stake that is on the verge of being divided to form another stake. That was remarkable to him, because he remembered having to knock on doors for three days to find someone who was willing to rent a room to Mormon missionaries.

I might have expected this sort of rapid growth in Latin America or perhaps the Philippines. But this occurred in Europe, where one might be inclined to regard the people as largely being too self-satisfied to be open to the message of Mormonism. And 1972, the year I graduated from high school, does not seem all that long ago to me.

Edited April 2, 2012 by Scott Lloyd

[Pahoran]

Maybe, but I would have revisited the prediction on its 10-year anniversary even if I would have been spectacularly wrong. Maybe I took some satisfaction in tooting my own horn, but I was far more interested in observing how you would choose to berate me on this topic.

So you only started this thread to see how I would react?

I suppose I should be flattered, but I confess I find that a little creepy.

Regards,

Pahoran

[jskains]

Creepy is the world of the day. Technically you are supposed to scream real loud.

JMS

[Analytics]

Will we hear from you again a decade from now to see how well you did?

Presuming I'm still around, sure.

So you only started this thread to see how I would react?

I suppose I should be flattered, but I confess I find that a little creepy.

No, I started this thread because I thought the 10-year mark was a good time to revisit this topic. You've made a habit of responding to my posts with personal attacks, and hence you've conditioned me to wonder what your next clever insult will look like. It isn't creepiness on my part that you are so predictible.

[Scott Lloyd]

Presuming I'm still around, sure.

Are you going somewhere?

[Mark Beesley]

LOL! His prediction is far more impressive than anything Joseph Smith or any of his predecessors have said about the future.

Who preceded Joseph Smith???

[Mark Beesley]

Xander: Take a break for a week.

Skylla

I guess Xander won't be telling us who preceded Joseph Smith.

[Analytics]

Are you going somewhere?

Eventually, LOL. Part of me fantasizes that I'll be doing something far more important like sailing around the world in 10 years, but my guess is that we'll all still be here.

[Scott Lloyd]

Eventually, LOL. Part of me fantasizes that I'll be doing something far more important like sailing around the world in 10 years, but my guess is that we'll all still be here.

I know I will. I have four kids to put through school. If anything, I'll die in the harness.

[Pahoran]

No, I started this thread because I thought the 10-year mark was a good time to revisit this topic. You've made a habit of responding to my posts with personal attacks, and hence you've conditioned me to wonder what your next clever insult will look like. It isn't creepiness on my part that you are so predictible.

I hope you weren't disappointed by the lack of any "clever insult" in this thread.

Still, they say that getting there is half the fun. Think of all the delicious anticipation you can enjoy for the next ten years!

Regards,

Pahoran

[Teancum]

Roger

Thank you for the update on this topic. Growth trends and demographics are fascinating to me. I well remember much of the excitment surrounding the Stark predictions. I even recall your comments about the growth trends being slower.

Interesting to me personally is when I hear Marlin Jensen speak on this in the mid 1990s. He referred to the Stark study and said that internally the Church believed that the growth to 280 Million by 2080 to be way over stated. Rather that church statistical predictions were for about 65 million members by that date and that is what they were planning and preparing for. And 65 million still I think would make the LDS Church a major new religious movement.

So what do you think of a prediction of 65 milion members by 2080?

[KevinG]

I think we can continue to expect a slowly declining growth rate but steady growth in convert and covenant baptisms. Like any idea or product there is a natural life cycle of acceptance and market share.

The uniqueness of the LDS message is in its content not its delivery. Missions, preachers and media communications is nothing new and we should use the best practices from inspiration as well as the world to continue to deliver our message.

As we go forth into the world there will be new areas hungry for the message that expand quickly, areas that are familiar with the message that will expand slowly and other areas that will due to declining population or cultural changes decrease at times. Overall we are still well on our way to spreading the Gospel throughout the world. Rogers predictions are very good.

If a critic gains some satisfaction from gloating that the overall rate of increase is slowing that says much more about the critic than it does the correctness of the LDS church.

[rodheadlee]

Slow growth is just a sign of the times. We're running out of people who care about Jesus Christ, being Christian, belonging to His Church..

2Timothy 3

This know also, that in the ^alast days perilous ^btimes shall come.

2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, ^acovetous, boasters, ^bproud, blasphemers, ^cdisobedient to parents, ^dunthankful, unholy,

3 Without ^anatural ^baffection, ^ctrucebreakers, ^dfalse accusers, ^eincontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

4 ^aTraitors, ^bheady, ^chighminded, lovers of ^dpleasures more than lovers of God;

5 Having a ^aform of godliness, but ^bdenying the power thereof: from such turn away.

6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly ^awomen laden with sins, led away with divers ^blusts,

7 Ever ^a<a href="http://classic.scriptures.lds.org/en/2_tim/2_tim/3/7a" mark="a" title="TG Learning." type="B">learning, and never able to come to the ^bknowledge of the ^ctruth.

[Analytics]

I know I will. I have four kids to put through school. If anything, I'll die in the harness.

I can just imagine us all turning into these old men who have been playing the same checkers game in Central Park every day for 40 years...

I hope you weren't disappointed by the lack of any "clever insult" in this thread.

Still, they say that getting there is half the fun. Think of all the delicious anticipation you can enjoy for the next ten years!

Not disappointed at all; I found "analytically retentative" to be quite clever.

Roger

Thank you for the update on this topic. Growth trends and demographics are fascinating to me. I well remember much of the excitment surrounding the Stark predictions. I even recall your comments about the growth trends being slower.

Interesting to me personally is when I hear Marlin Jensen speak on this in the mid 1990s. He referred to the Stark study and said that internally the Church believed that the growth to 280 Million by 2080 to be way over stated. Rather that church statistical predictions were for about 65 million members by that date and that is what they were planning and preparing for. And 65 million still I think would make the LDS Church a major new religious movement.

So what do you think of a prediction of 65 milion members by 2080?

Maybe. Looking at the trend over the last 10 years, the intial dip was faster than I've predicted, but since then it's been more leveled. Stark predicted 30% to 50% growth per decade. The current growth rate of 24% per decade is more sustainable, and would get us to close to 65 million by 2080. I'm going to stick by my guns and say 30 million, but 65 million is quite plausible at this point.

If we are at 18 million 10 years from now, both Jenson's forecast and mine will be on target. If it's above 19 million, Stark should be the one gloating.

[Evergrow]

Ten years ago, a commonly held view amongst apologists was that Rodney Stark was correct in his view that the church would continue to grow exponentially for the next 100 years, and possibly reach 280,000,000 members by 2080. I commented on ZLMB that if you took a closer look at the growth rates, the church's growth rate was obviously slowing down and that Rodney Stark's assertion that it would grow exponentially for several decades was highly unlikely. An apologist balked at my views, with a logical argument that amounted to an appeal to Stark as a noted authority.

I ended up writing a paper about church growth that I later presented at a meeting for the Association for the Sociology of Religion.

One of the ZLMB threads on the topic is archived here:

http://pacumenispage...ng#.T3hriHiLH0c

You can read the paper itself here:

http://www.lds4u.com/growth2/Index.htm

I marked on my calendar to review the predictions after 10 years data have come in, and here we are.

10 years ago, I predicted that the Dec 2011 statistical report would say there were 14,826,382 members. This compares to the 14,441,346 that was actually reported.

However, what I was more interested in was the rate of growth. I predicted that the rate of growth for 2011 would be 0.02168. The actual rate of growth was 0.02169.*

So far, not too bad.

I recall those discussions, yet I remember it being that most "Apologists" were pretty "conservative" in what they said. They didn't actually believe in either side, your's or Starks..... That was because we knew there would always be "eb and flow", that one period might more match your predictions, and another period would match Starks.

So, I don't really see what you are gloating about?

[Chris Smith]

Or a statistician.

As statistical tools get better and better, it's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between statisticians and prophets. And it's not just demography, either. Statistics are now being used by the Feds to predict things like the onset of war and the outcome of diplomacy with startling accuracy. Stuff like this kind of blows my mind. And that's just one example. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita makes a killing performing these analyses for the government using strictly public information.

[Analytics]

I recall those discussions, yet I remember it being that most "Apologists" were pretty "conservative" in what they said. They didn't actually believe in either side, your's or Starks..... That was because we knew there would always be "eb and flow", that one period might more match your predictions, and another period would match Starks.

So, I don't really see what you are gloating about?

The issue wasn't whether anybody "believed" one estimate or the other, and it wasn't whether these numbers proved anything about the church's truth claims. My point was always about why I highly doubted Stark's numbers--that was a discussion nobody wanted to engage in.

In response to my views 10 years ago, common responses were along the lines of what Dr. Peterson said:

Stark is a world-recognized authority on the sociology of religion. I'm not. You may be, but I haven't heard of you in that context. In a discussion between one self-acknowledged non-authority and one who has, to the best of my knowledge, never claimed any subject expertise, citing a recognized authority seems useful rather than logically fallacious. If you wish to take Professor Stark on, feel free to do so...

In any given dispute between a world-renowned expert on a subject and a person whose qualifications on the topic are unknown, it is probably safe to assume (unless one has lots and lots of time and a considerable degree of interest) that the world-renowned expert is more likely to be correct than the other person.

The burden of proving otherwise rests on the challenger.

Or what Pahoran said at the time:

I see you've relied upon the calculations of one Duwayne Anderson.

Interesting.

Of course the 280 million prediction could be wrong. So could Duwayne's "scientific" model. All predictions about the future are really only guesses, unless they are revealed truths. However, it seems likely that Stark, being a noted sociologist, could be at least as competent in the use of statistical methods as Duwayne is. Duwayne, if I remember correctly, is an optical engineer.

(And no, my analysis had nothing to do with Duwayne Anderson's. While I referenced Duwayne's analysis in my paper and we got similar results, my analysis was quite different from his simplistic curve fitting).

The fact is, most people wouldn't even address my views, but rather accepted what the "world-renowned expert" said. It's fair to say I got a chip on my shoulder as a result.

[blackstrap]

Anyone who can be accurate in predictions of the future even 5 years out,gets my admiration.I have always relied on the "goat entrails" method and found it to be at least as good as the local weather forecaster.

One a separate note,if one follows the BoM scenario,we should expect increased difficulties in maintaining the growth of the church.200 years is about the lifespan ,ie. 8-10 generations,before things begin to unravel.The parable of the wheat and the tares must first be played out within the church.

I offer a prediction--- in 10 years Xander will be banned from a thread somewhere.

Edited April 3, 2012 by blackstrap

[KevinG]

The fact is, most people wouldn't even address my views, but rather accepted what the "world-renowned expert" said. It's fair to say I got a chip on my shoulder as a result.

OK now you are gloating.

[Pahoran]

The issue wasn't whether anybody "believed" one estimate or the other, and it wasn't whether these numbers proved anything about the church's truth claims. My point was always about why I highly doubted Stark's numbers--that was a discussion nobody wanted to engage in.

In response to my views 10 years ago, common responses were along the lines of what Dr. Peterson said:

Or what Pahoran said at the time:

(And no, my analysis had nothing to do with Duwayne Anderson's. While I referenced Duwayne's analysis in my paper and we got similar results, my analysis was quite different from his simplistic curve fitting).

The fact is, most people wouldn't even address my views, but rather accepted what the "world-renowned expert" said. It's fair to say I got a chip on my shoulder as a result.

If you actually read what Pahoran said at the time, you might notice that Pahoran started out by agreeing that Stark could well have been wrong.

In fact, as I read Pahoran, he doesn't seem to merely have "accepted what the 'world-renowned expert' said." Rather, he seems to have suggested that the "world-renowned expert" was just as entitled to an opinion as you and Duwayne were.

Neither Pahoran nor anyone else on that thread seem to have held Stark's predictions as a position to be defended. So maybe your chip has something in common with the Amlicites' mark.

I believe Pahoran did make one unequivocal assertion: the word is "rolls," not "roles." Even after ten years, that has not changed. You might want to look at your post #39 in that regard.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Evergrow]

Exactly well said Pahoran..... It's as I tried explaining to Analytics. LDS weren't really at all as "pro-Stark" and simply against him as he and Xander believes.

Of course, I do recall some "other" anti-mormon statistical theory's we've been against (which we have been proven correct), but not really this one.

Maybe Analytics and Xander are "mixing" information, and mis-identifying viewpoints thus making false conclusions? But what's knew in that regard?