Is this HARD evidence that the INTERNET is hurting the Watch Tower Society?

by cedars 87 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  cedars

  breakfast of champions...

  I wouldn't bother even counting any of the countries with less than 100k pubs. Any increase/decrease is statistically unreliable at those numbers.

  I hear what you're saying, but allow me to demonstrate...

  

  As I've already mentioned, the Falkland Islands are, well, tiny. They have a total population of little over 3000, plus a few sheep. Quite why the Argentinians bothered to try and invade in the 80s is beyond me, but I digress.

  At some point over the last 12 months, the numbers at the "Falklands Congregation" swelled from 5 (in the previous year) to 10 (in 2011). This gave them a 100% growth increase. But does this affect our crucial statistic of 0.92% growth? The answer is very little, if at all. The reason for this is because the numbers you see at the bottom (i.e. 32,994 and 33,299) are the totals for the average publishers for all 5 countries, including the Falklands. This is what was used to arrive at the statistic of 0.92%, and NOT the percentage figures that you see in the table. This means that whatever goes on in the Falkland congregation is virtually irrelevant, because the five countries have effectively been merged into one big hypothetical country with 90% to 100% internet penetration. The 5 to 10 Falkland islanders are now stood alone in a crowd numbering 33,299 - and are citizens of the newly formed state of "Optimum-internet-penetration-land", which had a 2011 growth rate of only 0.92% over the previous year.

  The same method applies to all other tiny countries who would appear to be spoiling the figures. And, as I've explained to Zid, this is exactly the same method that the Society uses when calculating the yearly worldwide growth figure.

  I hope this explains things?

  Cedars
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  Jazzbo

  Congratulations, this is nice work. With reference to the thread title, as many have already pointed out, this is not "hard" evidence but it is very interesting.
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  ziddina

  Thanks, Cedar, you've explained things well....

  I'm no statistician, and so don't completely understand the process. However, it is interesting that you used the same methodology as the Watchtower Corporation - that does make the statistics more significant - and interesting...

  As I said before, the anomalies really interest me - the personal stories behind increases in the very tiny countries - and decreases in the larger countries, many of which were formerly highly "Christian" in nature.

  Again, thank you for all of your work! It gives a clear and unique perspective on the situation.

  Zid
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  cedars

  Hi Zid

  I'm glad I managed to explain things. Yes, it is interesting to think what it must be like in some of these smaller isolated communities where even the slightest change in numbers has a drastic impact on that "country's" growth figures in the worldwide report. I bet there are some stories to be told. I would suspect the Society aren't much bothered by these fluctuations either way, because like I said, it has little bearing on the final figure that gets spat out at the end.

  I would personally be interested in how the "Palestinian Territory" was magically pulled out of thin air. How was this formed? Were new brothers drafted in from Israeli congs, or what? I suppose it's not all that important.

  Anyway, thanks for your kind words!

  Cedars
• 

  ScenicViewer

  Breakfast of champions said,

  I wouldn't bother even counting any of the countries with less than 100k pubs. Any increase/decrease is statistically unreliable at those numbers.

  I agree. When I first reviewed the chart I noticed some very large and very small percentage numbers. Then, looking over at the actual number of Publishers, and the number that were added or subtracted for the following year, I could see why the percentage was so big.

  When there are only a few Publishers an increase/decrease of 5, 10 or 20 people can make the percentages look huge, but they are not very meaningful.
• 

  FreeAtLast1914

  Great work! I expect this downward trend to continue. The more dogmatic they become in their positions, the more likely they will break in regions where the populace isn't in the dark. Hopefully in my lifetime!
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  cedars

  Thanks FreeAtLast1914 - yes, I agree that this shows a downward trend in Internet-savvy countries - even if it isn't "hard evidence" as such.

  ScenicViewer - thanks for your comments also. As I've explained above, there really is no reason to worry about the percentage figures for smaller countries ruining the overall percentages. This is because the overall percentage is worked out, not on the country percentages, but by recalculating based on the combined publisher totals for all countries in the group. This is the same method that the Society uses to calculate their final growth percentage, and it is the most accurate. I would prefer to keep those tiny countries in, because it shows ordinary Witnesses that we are being thorough, and not "cooking" the figures to our advantage.

  Cedars
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  JW GoneBad

  These numbers definitely confirm that the imploding process of the WTBTS has begun!
• 

  Weana

  No, this is NO HARD evidence that the internet is hurting the Watch Tower Society.

  Rather, this IS HARD evidence that the JWs are growing in particular in countries which have a large population growth rate, and that is not surprising at all.

  I have refinded your statistics: I multiplied the 2010 publisher average figures for each country with the corresponding "population growth rate"-figures from the CIA-World-Factbook. That way I could calculate target figures for the 2011 publisher number for all countries. Then, I compared the real publisher figures for 2011 with those target figures. So I could calculate a real growth rate of publishers per country.

  Just one example to illustrate that: For Nigeria the growth rate for publisher average figures is 1,80 % (rounded to 2 % in the yearbook). In 2011, population growth rate for Nigeria was 1,94 % according CIA-World-Factbook. So you could expect that the number of 298,476 publishers of 2010 would increase to 304,266 publishers in 2011 (298,476 * 101,94% = 304,266). But the real figure for 2011 was just 303,837. So the "real growth rate" for 2011 is: minus 0,14 % (303,837 / 304,266). That is a much more meaningful figure than the 2 % growth given in the yearbook.

  So compare such "real growth" figures for the 10 categories of countries according to internet penetration rate that Cedars presented:

  % internet penetration	growth rate (Cedars)	real growth rate
  > 90	0,92	0,69
  80 - 89,9	1,02	0,62
  70-79,9	1,37	1,20
  60-69,9	1,07	0,42
  50-59,9	1,67	1,01
  40-49,9	1,72	1,52
  30-39,9	2,89	1,94
  20-29,9	1,89	0,09
  10-19,9	3,51	2,55
  < 10	4,58	2,08

  Based on real growth rate, there is only very weak evidence for the influence of internet on the growth rate of JWs.
• 

  cedars

  Hello Weana

  Thanks for your efforts. Far be it from be to dispute your claims without first seeing the evidence. Do you have a country-by-country analysis that shows a direct correlation between publisher growth and population growth? I noticed you cited Nigeria as an example, but I would need to see the figures for more than one country before I can decide whether you're correct.

  I'm afraid I couldn't understand your chart. Perhaps you could explain it to me?

  Cedars