The Rise and Fall of Fuzzy Fidelity in Europe

Two issues have been especially contentious in debates over religious change in Europe: the unity or diversity of the trends observed across the continent, and the significance of the large subpopulation that is neither religious nor completely unreligious. This article addresses these problems. An analysis of the first wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) shows that each generation in every country surveyed is less religious than the last. Although there are some minor differences in the speed of the decline (the most religious countries are changing more quickly than the least religious), the magnitude of the fall in religiosity during the last century has been remarkably constant across the continent. Despite these shifts in the prevalence of conventional Christian belief, practice and self-identification, residual involvement is considerable. Many people are neither regular churchgoers nor self-consciously non-religious. The term ‘fuzzy fidelity’ describes this casual loyalty to tradition. Religion usually plays only a minor role in the lives of such people. Religious change in European countries follows a common trajectory whereby fuzzy fidelity rises and then falls over a very extended period. The starting points are different across the continent, but the forces at work may be much the same

Acceptance Criteria for Critical Software Based on Testability Estimates and Test Results

Testability is defined as the probability that a program will fail a test, conditional on the program containing some fault. In this paper, we show that statements about the testability of a program can be more simply described in terms of assumptions on the probability distribution of the failure intensity of the program. We can thus state general acceptance conditions in clear mathematical terms using Bayesian inference. We develop two scenarios, one for software for which the reliability requirements are that the software must be completely fault-free, and another for requirements stated as an upper bound on the acceptable failure probability

Is the secularization research programme progressing? Debate on Jörg Stolz’s article on Secularization theories in the 21st century: ideas, evidence, and problems

The methodology of scientific research programmes, developed by Imre Lakatos, can help us to identify which theories are strong or weak. Applying this approach suggests that the secularization research programme is progressing, as Stolz argues. Some of the recent advances have been more successful than others, however. In particular, we have done better at understanding how secularization happens than why it happens

Intentionality, Numerical Growth and the Rural Church

A recent report on church growth argued that there are no strong connections between numerical growth and worship style or theological tradition. Instead, what seems crucial is that congregations engage in reflection: choices should be made intentionally, rather than by default. This article summarises the evidence for that claim and considers the implications for rural churches. To the extent that congregations are inward-looking, follow inherited practice and are resistant to change, it may be difficult to avoid stagnation and decline. The revitalisation of tradition is a challenge for rural clergy and congregations

The Dawkins effect? Celebrity scientists, (non)religious publics and changed attitudes to evolution

The role of science popularization remains relatively under-explored in research on contemporary public acceptance of evolution. In this study, we analyse national survey data to interrogate the role Britain's best-known celebrity scientists David Attenborough, Brian Cox, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking may have played in changing public views of evolution, as well as the role of two creationists: Ken Ham and Harun Yahya. We investigate how well known these public figures are, what their views of religion are perceived to be and, drawing on social identity theory, whether they exert different effects on attitudinal change to evolution among different religious and non-religious publics. Binary logistic regression analysis shows that among Muslim and Pentecostal Christian publics, those familiar with Dawkins as both a scientist and as someone who holds negative views of religion are more likely to have become less accepting of evolution. Conversely, among non-religious publics, Dawkins was the only celebrity scientist associated with higher odds of becoming more accepting of evolution. We suggest that engaging certain religious audiences with the science of evolutionary biology may be more effective when their religious identities are not threatened

Sacred Canopies or Religious Markets? The Effect of County-Level Religious Diversity on Later Changes in Religious Involvement

Secularization theories, such as Berger's Sacred Canopy argument , hold that religious diversity leads to a decline in religious participation. Religious market models (e.g., Finke and Stark) argue the opposite. Voas, Olson, and Crockett found that nearly all of the vast research exploring this important question prior to 2002 was flawed due to a previously unrecognized noncausal statistical relationship between measures of religious diversity and measures of religious participation. Since 2002, this methodological issue has largely stymied research on this important topic. We first describe how, following Voas et al.’s recommendations, longitudinal models can overcome these problems. We then apply these methods to data measuring the religious composition of all U.S. counties found in the Religious Congregations and Membership Studies from 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010. Using multilevel longitudinal regression models, we find that greater county‐level religious diversity is followed by later declines in county‐level religious participation rates. The negative effect size of religious diversity is large and robust to changes in the control variables and different methods of measuring religious diversity

Attitudes to Evolution amongst Christians, Muslims and the Non-Religious in Britain: Differential Effects of Religious and Educational Factors

According to poll results and media reports, Britain has a significant and growing number of creationists. However, little scholarly research has been carried out to explore this phenomenon. We present results from a national survey of 6020 individuals to give a comprehensive picture of contemporary public attitudes to evolution in Britain. Furthermore, we explore the effects of religion and education on attitudes to evolution. Unique to this study, we analyse the effects of attending a religiously-affiliated school (“faith school”) on acceptance of evolutionary theory. We examine these effects in the general population, and additionally, across different Christian, Muslim and non-religious subpopulations. Results give strong evidence that the number of creationists has been overstated previously. We find the effect of education is complex and varies between different religious groups, but that faith school attendance is associated with more acceptance of evolution for people belonging to groups that tend to reject it.This research was made possible through a grant (UAB018) awarded under the Uses and Abuses of Biology Programme funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation

Psychological type theory, femininity and the appeal of Anglo-Catholicism : a study among Anglican clergymen in England

This study draws on psychological type theory as operationalised by the Francis Psychological Type Scales to test the hypothesis that, among Anglican clergymen, the appeal of the Anglo-Catholic tradition is connected with higher levels of psychological femininity. In this context preference for feeling in contrast with thinking is taken as an indication of psychological femininity. Drawing on data from 1,107 clergymen who participated in the Church Growth Research Project, comparison is made between 405 who identified as Evangelical Anglicans, 328 who identified as Anglo-Catholics, and 374 who identified as Broad Church Anglicans. While 47% of the Evangelicals identified as feeling types, the proportion rose to 60% among Anglo-Catholics. These data support the underlying thesis. However, the proportion rose even higher to 69% among Broad Church Anglicans. These data qualify the underlying thesis, and suggest that it is the Evangelical Anglican clergy who stand apart from a more pervasive appeal of Anglicanism connected with higher levels of psychological femininity

The Artificial Society Analytics Platform

Author's accepted manuscriptSocial simulation routinely involves the construction of artificial societies and agents within such societies. Currently there is insufficient discussion of best practices regarding the construction process. This chapter introduces the artificial society analytics platform (ASAP) as a way to spark discussion of best practices. ASAP is designed to be an extensible architecture capable of functioning as the core of many different types of inquiries into social dynamics. Here we describe ASAP, focusing on design decisions in several key areas, thereby exposing our assumptions and reasoning to critical scrutiny, hoping for discussion that can advance debate over best practices in artificial society construction. The five design decisions are related to agent characteristics, neighborhood interactions, evaluating agent credibility, agent marriage, and heritability of personality.acceptedVersio