As the Witness youth are leaving or not even getting baptized, it would seem that the average age would increase, right? Wouldn't that affect the 1% allowed for death? Does anyone know the average age and whether it has increased or decreased? Maybe having a lot of third world families, with lots of kids could have brought it down. I would like to know. Thanks for all the work on this.
The number of jw is reducing?
by Nicolas 12 Replies latest jw friends
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ozziepost
Moxy,
I appreciate the clarity and presentation of the stats but I would question part of the second graph (the projections).
The historical data plotted shows a definite increase and for the USA it shows a flattening out of the growth trend. Yet in the forecasts the line takes a loop and heads downwards. On what basis is this made? I can't help feeling that wishful thinking can influence us at times. That's not to say it would be good news but just on the facts........
Cheers,
Ozzie"It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."
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Moxy
ozzie: bascially, these are projections based on the second derivative, in other words, the rate of the rate of change. ie if you think of the number of pubs as the position, and the yearly increase as the speed, the 2nd derivative is acceleration. and as we know the increase has been slowing or decelerating. i havent specifically studied much about predictive statistics, so i just took the numbers and tweaked the formula until i got results that showed consistently even numbers for the last 15 years, ie if i had applied this method to the stats in '85, the projected curve wouldve closely resembled the actual numbers up until today.
of course, there are many factors in prediction that do not enter into this relatively simple mathematical analysis, but i think it serves to show that the reality of the numbers as they are today is a plateau and drop in the very near future. no wishful thinking or fudging is at play here.
i keep all my stats here http://members.home.net/aghull/stats/stats.xls
feel free to check my math.mox