The Jesus Look

Bob Sagers, cheesemonger, models as Jesus (Raff/WSJ)

Pictures of baby Jesus are common during this time of the year. Utahans take it a step further:

Models who look like Jesus are in high demand in Utah. That’s because for a growing number of people in the state, a picture isn’t complete without Him. They are hiring Jesus look-alikes for family portraits and wedding announcements. Models are showing up to walk with a newly engaged couple through a field, play with young children in the Bonneville Salt Flats, and cram in with the family for the annual Christmas card...

Finding a model can be difficult. Areas of Utah with high concentrations of Mormons—who also call themselves Latter-day Saints or LDS—tend to lack potential Jesus doppelgängers. Some men who work or volunteer for the church, one of the state’s largest employers, are required to shave every day and keep their hair short.

I doubt that historically accurate representations of Jesus are what is being demanded. The WSJ interviews of Jesus models indicate that customers think that He looks like a healthy white American male with a beard. Oh, well, give the customers what they want; their hearts seem to be in the right place,

Interesting Trend, But I Wouldn't Put Money on It

Pew Research forecasts that Christians will be an American minority by 2070:

The projections, released in a report Tuesday, used surveys and other data to figure out what religion in America would look like in the next 50 years. Pew created four different scenarios for its projections, including if Americans continued to leave Christianity at current rates or if that trend stopped. It found that the number of those with no religious affiliation would grow in all four scenarios.

Three of the four scenarios showed Christians as comprising less than 50% of the population. Only one--Christians will stop leaving the faith (Pew: "unrealistic")--had Christians above 50% in 2070. Even here the percentage dropped from the current 64% to 54% because Christian deaths outnumbered Christian births.

The projections, to be sure, aren't encouraging for Christian denominations, but the actual results never turn out as smoothly trending as the models predict, whether we're talking about climate change, the stock market, or human health. The Pew analysts themselves admit:

New patterns of religious change could emerge at any time. Armed conflicts, social movements, rising authoritarianism, natural disasters or worsening economic conditions are just a few of the circumstances that sometimes trigger sudden social – and religious – upheavals.

In American history there have been at least three "Great Awakenings" from the 18th through the 20th century, when a sizeable part of the population returns to the faith of their fathers because they became disillusioned with the ability of society to prevent natural or human-caused calamities.

I wouldn't count on a 21st century Great Awakening to reignite faith, but it would be foolish to bet against it.

Fake Science

Ptolemaic system: forcing the data to fit the theory (emaze.com)

In the Ptolemaic system the Earth was at the center of the universe. The heavenly bodies were thought to move in perfect circles, though from the Earth's perspective they clearly did not. Ptolemy added "eccentricity" and "epicycles" to his theory to not only explain but predict the movements of the sun, moon, stars, and planets. The theory sufficed for over a thousand years.

As observations became more accurate in the 15th century, tweaks were added to the Ptolemaic system to fit the data to the model, which finally collapsed under its own complexity and the rise of the superior predictive heliocentric model.

While the historical parallel isn't exact, climate-change models are in the same state as Ptolemy's was, that is, they are unable to explain or predict Earth's temperature with any reliability. Only through tweaking and adjustments are the models able to explain what happened in the past.

Two factors, the sun (obvious) and cloud cover (not so obvious) appear to have a far more important effect on global temperatures than carbon dioxide. Arguing that man-made CO2 is the primary factor in global warming could be as mistaken as claiming that the Earth is the center of the universe.

Even if global temperatures are rising, it's far from clear that the world overall would be worse off; for example, a little warming might be appreciated in Northern Canada and Siberia.

Also, if global cooling instead of global warming has greater than a remote possibility, it's more practical to spend $billions on increasing society's adaptability to change in either direction, rather than place all bets on curtailing carbon dioxide.

But then again I'm no scientist.

Putty in Their Hands

There is an apocryphal tale in which psychologists place a dummy button on a wall, and everyone who passes by feels compelled to push it. The contemporary version—at least for males--is the Internet link with a description such as social networking site for models (hat tip: Dan Schawbel).

I only resisted for a few seconds, then clicked to a story about the site. Because I like to research these matters thoroughly, I went to the actual site itself, modelfeed.com. Before I knew it, 15 minutes were gone. They sure know how to push my buttons.