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membership per ARIS

US Census figures estimating 339,000 members in 2008 up from 194,000 in 2001. Authoritative figures from government agency, I suspect. Low was 190,000 in 1990. I suspect this is the closest figure we are likely to find. Collect (talk) 19:54, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

There's something wrong here. The number of Christian Science churches has been steadily declining for decades. Either the number (of members) was over-estimated in 2008, and/or under-estimated in 2001/1990. There is no evidence of a recent revival in numbers - quite the opposite. The other possibility is that the criteria for defining "members" may have changed, but I don't know enough about this to say whether or not that's the case.Be-nice:-) (talk) 21:47, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

That source was discussed here. There's something wrong with it, as it seems to contradict itself, and definitely contradicts other sources. Because it's a primary source that's hard to interpret, we should leave it out. SlimVirgin 22:42, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

The Census report is a secondary source- the poll is a primary source. This is an official report of the US government, and should be treated as such (I can find no instances on Misplaced Pages where the Census Bureau has been regarded as not RS!) As for fluidity of people self-describeing as members of any group - look at the political changes where one year can show a 10% shift in self identification as members of the GOP or Democratic parties!. Fluidity is, in fact, to be expected in any such poll, and if the numbers were constant, there would have to be a fudge factor of immense weight <g>. Chers. Collect (talk) 00:22, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

The census report is a primary source reproducing the poll figures as given. More importantly, there is something wrong with the figures, and it contradicts all the reliable sources. I can't see the point of reverting over these objections. Please look at the figures for yourself and you'll see the problem. SlimVirgin 00:31, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

It represents the Census Bureau interpretation of the original data (50K+ people surveyed) thus is not the "primary source" you seem to assert, and moreover, as an official government document, has an air of authority greater than the unnamed "scholars" referred to in the NYT. The number of members of a political party (for examples) may have varied over the past two decades by quite nearly a factor of two. Political associations are fluid, as noted by pollsters. Yet we do not assert the polls must be wrong because people can not have fluid religious associations, do we? Collect (talk) 01:18, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

This is the survey. I can't see how to interpret it, and it contradicts all the secondary sources. For example, what does it mean that "54,461 interviews in 2008," and 57,199 were Catholic? And look at the Christian Science figures: growing between 1990 and 2008, and significantly between 2001 and 2008, when everyone says they're declining, the church included. Religious affiliation isn't going to be as fluid as that. SlimVirgin 01:45, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Read the study -- they made no such claim in the study. There were over 50,000 interviews, which is enough for a statostically valid sample, and the statistics point to 57 MILLION Catholics. That is why they wrote in bold type In thousands (175,440 represents 175,440,000. See probability and statistics. BTW, self-identification is frequently labile on religion and politics. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:35, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Please don't keep restoring this without consensus. Unless we know how to interpret it, and how to explain the discrepancy, it should be left out. SlimVirgin 23:15, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

See the discussion at WP:RS/N where your opinion, so often expressed here, woithout others backing your opinion up, seems to have been dismissed. At this point, you are engaging in a bootless edit war, and I suggest you self-revert. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:30, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

You didn't say you had started a discussion at RSN. It would have been considerate to let people here know about it. SlimVirgin 23:56, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

The purpose is to get new voices on a topic - not to iterate ones already present here. If the aim is to have the same people at multiple venues saying the same things at every venue, then that should be added to Misplaced Pages guidelines <g>. Collect (talk) 00:01, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

No, no. If you are given a voice and an argument at a noticeboard, but those who oppose you are not, what kind of skewed results are we to expect? Binksternet (talk) 00:10, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I've left a comment there explaining my objection. SlimVirgin 00:18, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

At RSN, Stephan Schulz said that very small groups such as CS would have the poll results be dominated by the 0.5 reliability factor. Only with very large groups are the number going to be within acceptable error margins. Binksternet (talk) 00:21, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Just so you know, Collect has taken this to the science reference desk. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 00:24, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Since so many weird interpretations have been made about simple statistices, I trust that a mathematician will explain just why the error is highly unlikely to be "a factor of three". Cheers. Collect (talk) 00:37, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Collect, when this was raised in March, you didn't seem concerned one way or the other. What happened to make you so keen to include it now? SlimVirgin 00:43, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

• Hi, all. I became aware of this topic as a result of the query at WP:RSN. I have several observations to share, in no particular order:

(1) This issue isn't unique to Christian Science. There are discrepancies in estimates of members/adherents/believers for many denominations. The denominations themselves often are accused of inflating their memberships, but Christian Science doesn't publish membership figures, so that's not an issue here, but other-source estimates also can be dubious.

(2) The U.S. Census doesn't ask about religious affiliation, and there are no official U.S. government-developed data on this topic. ARIS is a totally independent entity. The fact that the government chose to include it in the Statistical Abstract of the United States gives it an imprimatur of credibility, IMO, but it doesn't make it government data.

(3) The next page of the 2012 Statistical Abstract includes a table from the National Council of Churches Yearbook of Churches that lists denominational membership, largely based on numbers reported by the denominations. Christian Science isn't in the Yearbook. If you compare the tables for other denominations, you can see big differences between the numbers. For example, for the LDS church, ARIS lists over 3 million adherents in 2008 and the Yearbook lists membership of over 6 million. For Episcopalians, ARIS lists 2.4 million adherents in 2008 and the Yearbook lists 2 million members. For Catholics, ARIS lists 57.2 million adherents and the Yearbook lists 68.5 million members. For Assemblies of God, ARIS lists 810,000 adherents and the Yearbook lists 2 million members. For Jehovah's Witnesses, ARIS lists 1.9 million adherents and the Yearbook lists less than 1.2 million members. This wild variability tells me that no one number can be treated as true -- and statistical error related to sample size cannot possibly explain the differences. It's likely that a lot of people self-identify with one religion but publicly affiliate with another.

(4) That New York Times piece isn't exactly the gold standard of information reliability. First off, the newspaper is not an authority on counting church members. Furthermore, the article says "scholars estimate that the church’s numbers have dropped to under 100,000 from a peak of about twice that at the turn of the 20th century" -- these "scholars" aren't identified by name, and there's no information on how they counted or whether they published their methods. The source of information on the number of churches also isn't identified, but that's likely to be more reliable, as it's reasonable to think that it's much easier to find and count churches than it is to figure out how many people affiliate or identify with Christian Science.

(5) The ARIS website has a "Summary" report of the 2008 data, plus several other reports based on the 2008 data, but none of the reports on the website includes numbers for Christian Scientists. (In one table in the Summary, they are lumped with several other small Protestant denominations.)

In view of all this -- and remembering the importance of no original research, there is absolutely no verifiable basis for choosing one number as correct, and excluding other numbers. IMO, the article should clearly and explicitly state that there are divergent estimates of the number of Christian Scientists, and all recent estimates should be given with an accurate indication of the sources. Note that neither the Census Bureau nor the New York Times is a source; the sources are the ARIS survey in 2008 and a New York Times article saying that "scholars" gave a particular estimate. Another source to use is this 2012 article quoting Christian Science officials on the number of churches. --Orlady (talk) 04:19, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. So, something like: "Unknown - estimates range from approx. 100,000 to 400,000" for the number ? Alexbrn 07:49, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I think the numbers should not be in the infobox at all, that they should be described in prose and attributed to the sources. Binksternet (talk) 14:31, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

RefDesk is in: The figures are governemnt figures, reliable per Misplaced Pages, and the inane claims about "error rates" are not valid. Rejecting these figures in favour od unnamed scholars' surmise does not work. Barring any actual bnjection, the ARIS figures published by the USCB are more than usable. Note also thay I never removed the NYT unnamed scholars numbers -- it was SlimVirgin who repeatedly removed the church's own estimte (400,000) as well as the UUSCB published study. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:30, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I've never removed the church's estimate; I added it to the article in March, and I've just added it to the lead, so now we have the full range right at the top. I hope this can be dropped now, because the recent edits based on ARIS have been really problematic. SlimVirgin 17:05, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

You misrepresent the RefDesk discussion to be in your favor. Experts there identified how the results of the poll could thrown way off by fairly simple factors. Also, you continue to push this independent ARIS poll as if it were backed by the Census Bureau when it is simply being quoted. Binksternet (talk) 14:27, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Statistically unless you show that those factors are present, we preent the figures as stated. In otther articles with polls, we do not say "the results could be off by a factor of three" (noted to be on the likelihood of one in many millions) or the like -- nor should we do so with a report published by the USCB. And statistics on the official USCB site are indeed "published by the USCB." BTW, presentation of a report is past "simply being quoted" as most people understand the term. Collect (talk) 15:20, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

• In case it's helpful, Eugene V. Gallagher, professor of religious studies at Connecticut College, wrote in The New Religious Movements Experience In America (2004), p. 54, that the Christian Science church had a following of around 100,000 in 2003. He doesn't cite a source. SlimVirgin 17:32, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

So we have the official figure which was ruled "unduly self-serving" (400,000), a strong statistical source (339,000), which is deemed a strong RS, and several unsourced claims by individuals. Um -- does it seem odd to reject the one actual statistical study on the matter? Collect (talk) 19:46, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

The survey seems problematic and misleading, so it's not appropriate for the lead, but it is in the article. What you wanted is that the lead reflect the range of estimates, so now we have that range, 100,000 to 400,000, with each attributed. I asked above why you didn't seem that interested when this was raised in March, but now you're very keen to insert the survey into the lead. What changed between then and now, as a matter of interest? SlimVirgin 20:07, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I have opined when it was convenient to do so - I do not sit on any articles at all -- but watchlist well over 3,000. And I see no reason why the only estimate based on actual solid statistics fails to meet your approval here - it is, by far, the only one with any solid foundation at this point. And since I have no dog in the hunt, I assume you will take this as truth. Collect (talk) 21:21, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Membership over the years

Discussion

Note: Most of the estimates appear to be entirely guesses .. the only ones with a statistical foundation are the ARIS values, and the official church values which were asserted to be "self-serving." There is a distinct possibility, in fact, that the 100,000 figure cited by several is from a single unidentified source, and thus picked up by media as undisputed fact. I find no (as in "zero") actual solid places for the "under 100,000" claim at all, and the lowest ARIS figure for CS was way over 100,000. I suspect it is a "self-sustaining fact" which frequently permeates articles based on anecdotes. Collect (talk) 00:22, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Your suspicion is not supported by the fact of multiple church closures, the which has been observed over decades. Church closures are taken by experts as a sign that membership is in decline. The ARIS poll is problematic because it contradicts the decline story. Binksternet (talk) 01:50, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

And where a church has no requirement for church attendance - that means bupkis. BTW, your argument also applies to (say) Wicca which had lots of self-identified adherents - and no churches. Arguning that you know something which is contradicted by an actual study is not how Misplaced Pages functions - we have a reliable source, which is statistically sound, and we use it. Cheers. Collect (talk) 07:18, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't give a hoot about how many people go to CS churches, but in looking into this matter I have seen that there are those who study the problem of membership, and they assign this or that attendance number to the average CS church in order to arrive at CS membership estimates. My argument is about CS only, not about other religions. Binksternet (talk) 14:30, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

PRay tell how do they acquire such information? I suggest that measuring attendance at a church which does not even suggest attendance is pretty silly, indeed. AFAICT, the "reading rooms" are not churches, and are open for a great many hours each week - during which random folks can enter and leave without ever being counted at all. Further that there is no requirement that an adherent use a listed "practitioner" either. In short, the only rational basis for any number is actually "self-identification" for which we have a reliable source. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:55, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

You are setting up a straw man argument to knock it down. The debate is not carried forward by such maneuvers. Binksternet (talk) 14:59, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I note you added Rodney Stark who assumes average church attendance percentages in 1936 are identical today (87 per church). That is CHURCH ATTENDANCE IS THE SAME TODAY AS IN 1936. I suggest that if you can find a single source making that assumption with a straight face that you tell us! Meanwhile Stark accepts ARIS as accurate - which would seem to indicate 1. average percentage attendance is down (d'oh) and 2. the number of people self-identifying with a religion is labile. And since Stark accepts and uses ARIS, he would also accept 339,000 for a current figure. BTW, when you cite "Table 7-1" that is not the same as "page 71". Cheers. Collect (talk) 17:19, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

There are scholars who have studied and written about this, and they are cited in the tables above and below. The most cited and most detailed is Rodney Stark, "The Rise and Fall of Christian Science," Journal of Contemporary Religion, 13 (2), 1998, pp. 189–214. He examines the number of members according to various polls over the decades, the number of Christian Science practitioners according to the church, and the number of churches, and reaches certain conclusions based on that information. It is guesswork, but it is educated guesswork. It would have been his work in part that the 2010 New York Times estimate was based on. It makes no sense to pick out one primary source (the 2008 ARIS figure) and present it on a par with that kind of detailed overview from a secondary source. That's precisely what WP:PSTS warns against, namely trying to present primary source material as straightforward when in fact it requires background knowledge to interpret it. SlimVirgin 22:24, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Christian Science practitioners in the United States

Note: Barrett uses the listings in the "Christian Science Journal" which may or may not have any actual relationship to the number of people self-identifying as "Christian Science" adherents. What it actually shows is how many people will pay to be listed in that journal. I would hazard a guess that if folks do not get results from an ad, that they will not run an ad. But I might be wrong on that - that people will keep running ads even with returns less than the cost of advertising. Collect (talk) 22:16, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

He is not talking about adherents, but about Christian Science practitioners in the United States. My understanding is that the Christian Science Journal directory keeps a list of them all. SlimVirgin 22:32, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

IIRC, we had a discussion wherein it was stated that the CSJ charged for such ads. And we have no sources saying that a self-identified adherent of CS needs to use an "official proactitioner" in any event - just as it does not really promote church or reading room attendance as a religious duty. One might note the number of classified ads in newspapers is down by 90% from the peak, but that does not mean the businesses which used to pay for them have all ceased to exist, as far as I know. Maybe all the old advertisers in the NYT are well and truly dead. Collect (talk) 22:37, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

According to Rodney Stark: "While Christian Science no longer reveals its membership, the movement does continue to list every Christian Science practitioner (including address and telephone number) in the world in each edition of the Christian Science Journal" (Stark 1998, p. 192). It is therefore possible to make certain projections about overall membership based on the decline in the number of practitioners. SlimVirgin 22:45, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

From the website:

The men and women who advertise in these pages represent that they are devoted full-time to helping others through the prayer-based system explained in the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, experienced in the healing ministry of Christian Science, and available to give treatment through prayer for life challenges.

No pay - no list. Which rather conflicts with the idea of a "complete list" it is actually "a complete list of advertisers who gain an imprimatur by advertising." I can not find the actual rate card and suspect it is kept private. shows the listing for a competitive site at $69 per year if I read it correctly, so I doubt the CSJ price is substantially different? Collect (talk) 23:38, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

You're making a distinction between those listed and those eligible to be listed, but there's no reason to suppose those numbers differ significantly, if at all. The point is that the number of members, practitioners and churches is declining, according to all secondary sources and most primary sources. The only exception is the 2008 ARIS poll. SlimVirgin 00:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

No reason to suppose those numbers differ? Hoo-Haa!! You are now asserting a "fact" without a scintilla of evidence to back it up -- which is not exactly how Misplaced Pages operates. I just showed it is advertising for a fee and thus is not in any way warranted to be a "complete list" other than being a "complete list of advertisers." Collect (talk) 01:03, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Doctors in the UK (for example) have to register with the GMC; there is a fee for doing that. The list is nevertheless (I believe) a complete list of doctors licensed to practice. With respect, you're engaged in OR in order to argue for the inclusion of a primary source, but it's not clear what you hope to achieve. The source is in the article, but not in the lead, and you haven't presented any arguments for placing it in the lead. SlimVirgin 01:29, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Because it is unsupported by any secondary text, I consider the 2008 ARIS number to be a statistical anomaly or even a mistake. Where are the happy CS announcements of greatly increasing membership? Where are the surprised responses from religious scholars who thought the church was in a decades-long decline? These expected publications are not to be found, not even with five years passing from 2008 to now. The ARIS number is a curiosity, an outlier. It should be quoted in the article, attributed, but not given any sort of factual status. We should not simply relay the number in Misplaced Pages's voice. Binksternet (talk) 00:55, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

As the overwhelming consensus at the refdesk was that it is not a "statistical anomaly" your personal opinion does not count for a hell of a lot. And since the CS church stated about 400,000, it would be amazing if it surprised that church. Who it surprises are those who for some reaoson or other were trusting that the number was under 100,000 -- and since Misplaced Pages uses what solid reliable sources say, and not what editors "know" that is where we must follow. And, IIRC, I did not place the figure in Misplaced Pages's voice in any case -- so where that snark came from I do not know. Cheers. Collect (talk) 01:03, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

There is no snark in my recommendation not to represent the 2008 ARIS number in Misplaced Pages's voice. When Misplaced Pages editors are faced with multiple sources in conflict we attribute the various conflicting reports. In representing to the reader that the church has been in a long decline since about 1941, the fact being reliably sourced, any increase in membership will be hard to accommodate in prose. Binksternet (talk) 01:12, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

There is absolutely IDONTHEARTHAT in your "decision" not to allow a strong reliable source in tthe article -- and the claims that it is "statistically invalid" were unanimously derided at the RefDesk, and the claim it was not RS was derided at the RS/N board. What mmore do you need? And the idea that we must support what you know to be true and that all sources contrary to what you know must be suppressed ,,, is Orwellian. Facts are messy things -- but when they conttradict what folks know, we use the facts. Collect (talk) 12:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Collect, I've left a note on your talk page to ask you to stop restoring this. This is similar to the "infected/affected" situation, where you argued that Christian Scientists were "affected" by measles during a measles outbreak, but not necessarily "infected". The similarity is that it's important to read all the sources and to gain an overview, rather than to focus on the wording of one source. If you read the scholarly papers and books, you'll see that the 339,000 figure is an anomaly. It is in the article, but it's inappropriate for the lead; and it would be inappropriate even if there were nothing odd about it, because it's too much detail for the lead. What we need for the lead is the church figure and independent figure, and just leave it there. SlimVirgin 22:30, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I did not restore the infobox but it is inane and silly to keep the only actual scientific figure out of the lead! That you find facts to be an "anomaly" which should be buried is not how Misplaced Pages works -- and Binksternet agreed at RS/N on this now. Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:42, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

RfC: Should the lead contain the 2008 ARIS membership estimate?

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• The second paragraph of the lead says, as in this version:

A census in 1936, at the height of the movement's popularity, counted nearly 270,000 Christian Scientists in the United States. The church does not retain membership numbers, but estimated in 2008 that there were 400,000 members worldwide. Independent estimates place the figure at around 100,000. There were around 1,100 Christian Science churches in the United States in 2010 and 600 elsewhere.

1. For the 1936 figure of 268,915, see Schoepflin 2001, p. 119.
   • For the church and independent estimates, see PBS 2008: "Membership in the church has steadily declined since the 1930s. Mrs. Eddy forbade her followers from keeping an official membership tally. The church estimates it has about 400,000 members worldwide, but independent studies put membership at around 100,000. In the US, the number of churches has dwindled from about 1,500 10 years ago to 1,100 today."
   • Also see Stark 1998, p. 194, who estimates that the church had 113,000 members at that time, and Gallagher 2004, p. 54, who writes that it had almost 100,000 members in 2003.
   • For the number of churches and under 100,000 members, see Vitello (New York Times) 2010, p. 1.

• Should that paragraph also say, as in this version:

According to a poll conducted by the American Religious Identification Survey in 2008, 339,000 people in the United States self-identified as Christian Scientists.

1. "Self-described Religious Identification of Adult Population", American Religious Identification Survey, 2008.

SlimVirgin 23:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Survey

• Don't include ARIS figure in the lead. It's in the body of the article in the "Members" section, third paragraph. Given that the figure is an anomaly and contradicts all the scholarship in this area, which says numbers are declining and are around 100,000 – e.g. see Rodney Stark, Rennie Schoepflin, and Eugene V. Gallagher – it shouldn't be in the lead. But given that the lead is intended only as an overview, it's better to leave out detailed figures anyway, and simply to give the church v. the independent estimates. SlimVirgin 23:18, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

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