pineapplemike wrote: Tue Jan 08, 2019 8:18 pm
you ask for a source and then trash his source? lol
I didn't trash his source.
His source was trash.
His prediction is that the British Muslim community could eventually grow to make up around 10 per cent of the population, but predictions of much higher percentages are “a bit bonkers”.
Prediction is a fancy word for "guess". When you don't have data, but want to sway people to your beliefs, you take flimsy things like guesses and try to lend them credibility by having credentialed people say them. If that "professors" name is Bob Voas, then we could rephrase the "source" thusly:
"Bob's guess is that Muslims will eventually be 10% of the population. He thinks higher guesses are dumb"
Trash.
Another sign of flimsy, slanted, and misleading "sources" include the use of weasel-words and phrases, like we see in these passages:
But the suggestion that Britain could have a Muslim majority by 2050 is likely to be scaremongering.
(Speculative opinion)
It ignores the fact that, while Muslim birth rates tend to be higher in most countries, they also tend to fall over time and approach the same level as the rest of the population in the end.
Professor Voas told us: “Birth rates have been higher amongst immigrants generally, and perhaps Muslims particularly…the Muslim birth rates converge fairly quickly to the national norms.”
Bob and the Author use a lot of vague statements to convey a pretty specific impression. Though they reluctantly admit at the end of the article that none of their guesses ... er ... "predictions" actually mean dick.
However, predictions like this depend on forecasts of migration from Muslim countries. Very high net migration could change the demographics.
Again, trash.
Not because of me - because of the source.
I merely identified the trash.