From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

BBC has a report out on a new study that predicts religion will become extinct in nine countries. The study applies mathematical models to human behavior. Hmmmm.
In the Good Book, we read in the story of Nicodemus, that the Spirit blows where it will, and that like the wind which moves the leaves of the trees, we know not whence it comes or whither it blows.
But, in the modern research university, the Spirit cannot be measured mathematically and so we get reports like this. The editors at the BBC, I presume, are like most news reporters and editors. They consider the Church to be the Easter Bunny with real estate. But, me thinks there is more than a little evidence of the tooth fairy at work in studies such as this. Reductionism, even mathematically precise reductionism, is an affront to human knowledge, not evidence of that knowledge at work.