6533b824fe1ef96bd127fed4

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Computational Demography of Religion: A Proposal

subject

description

This paper proposes a new approach to the demography of religion and non-religion that builds on and expands agent-based modeling and social simulation techniques developed in prior work by the research teams led by the authors. Traditional demographic approaches to religion and non-religion understandably focus attention on self-reports of religious identity or affiliation, where longitudinal data is most readily available, and they employ a cohort-component methodology to make projections. We argue that demographic projections of religion and non-religion could be enhanced by using multi-agent artificial intelligence models of societies. After artificial societies with suitably cognitively complex agents are validated using existing demographic data, projections of religion and non-religion could be made by measuring religiosity within the artificial society not only as affiliation but also in three other dimensions: belief, service attendance, and private religious practices. Artificial-society religious demographic projection could also take account of non-linear feedback loops and interaction of variables, produce narrower error estimates, and integrate a rich array of disciplinary insights relevant to religious and non-religious identity and change—all of which are weaknesses in traditional religious demographic projections.