Will Durant's prediction in 1968 was a simple projection of demographic trends that were occurring in 1968. This was a time when everyone knew the noisy Catholic family down the block with the 8 kids. Durant failed to account for the possibility that when those Catholic kids grew up (baby boomers) that they might not have 8 kids of their own, but be typical boomers having one or 2 kids like everyone else. It simply shows that mindless projections of existing trends are not always an accurate predictor of the future. Mark Steyn should take notice of this. The question is if the birthrates of the Arab and other Muslims, both in the Middle-east and Europe, are declining as well. If so, they are not about to "take over" Europe the way that Steyn and certain European nationalists predict. If the Catholics went through this demographic transition from 1970-2000, perhaps the Muslims will go through it over the next 30 years. North African as well as Turkish and Iranian birthrates have dropped dramatically over the past 20 years. I have heard that second generation muslims in Europe have birthrates comparable to the white Europeans. This suggests that the Muslims are going through the same demographic transition the Catholics did and that Mark Steyn is the Will Durant of 2010.

Income likely correlates with internal locus of control vs. external locus of control. Heavily doctrinal versions of Christianity appeal to those of external locus of control whereas the more rational and moderate versions of Christianity (Episcopal) appeal to those of internal locus of control. People with internal locus of control have little interest in religious doctrine.

The real question is why a woman would be willing to spend the large amount of money to use reproductive technology to have a kid if she cannot be troubled to change her personal habits (at low or no cost to herself) such as to effect a healthier pregnancy and child? This makes no sense to me.

John Derbyshire's is correct, but is completely irrelevent to those of us who seek an open-ended lifespan. It is true that most people will not accomplish anything more than they do now with post-mortality. But this is a stupid argument to deny those of us who do seek greater accomplishment the right to post-mortality. I am sick of these kinds of arguments from "deathists". If the Derb has no interest in post-mortality, that is his choice and I respect it. However, he has no business suggesting that his choice should also be my own as well. 
 
The reality is that the "deathist" position, with regards to radical life extension, is inherently anti-freedom and individual free choices, and that is entirely unacceptable. John Derbyshire should understand this.

The U.S. is definitely the outlier on the graph.

You're right this is a Spengler shell game. The way most people see it is that religion is based on beliefs, race is based on heritable physical characteristics. What Spengler wants is for the world to accept the definition of Judaism based on heritable physical characteristics, but that it shouldn't be called race. This is as transparent as the lawyer's promise. 
 
Its clear that Spengler does not want this physical definition of Judaism to be race-based because he wants them to be able to discriminate on this basis without having to accord all of the same rights of discrimination to everyone else. He wants discrimination for me, but not for thee.  
 
All I can say is, whats fair for one is fair for all. If he wants it such that Jewish people can define and discriminate on the basis of such physical characteristics, he must accord the rest of us the same right. I should be able to create a new religion, called "Germanism" or perhaps "Germanic Gnosticism" and have its members being defined as the literal decedents of whatever Germanic historical figure I can come up with and we should have the same right of discrimination as Spengler. Somehow, I don't think he would go along with this. 
 
The only way that Spengler can be consistent with this belief is if he argued that discrimination on any basis whatsoever should be perfectly legal.

sg, 
 
I agree with you completely with regards to the national socialist health care bill that was passed this weekend by the House. Pelosi did a considerable amount of horse-trading to flip the three key democrats to vote for the bill. It appears that extending the Hyde Amendment into national socialist health care with the most significant part of her horse-trading.  
 
You will be pleased to know that I have already written both of my Senators (both of whom are liberal-left) to oppose the health care bill in its current form because it restricts access to abortion by young women who will end up on the public option, if this bill goes through. 
 
I think this issue will detonate on the democrats in the next week or so.

I think half-sigma hit the nail on the head when he said that the republicans will never gain traction with the more intelligent people in this country on an anti-abortion platform. To most intelligent people, especially women, the ant-abortion message is interpreted as "crazy Christians want to force me to become a welfare mom", and they are quite correct to interpret it this way. For people who seek an SWPL life style (international travel, good night life, comfortable material standard of living), getting pregnant and having a kid can be the worst possible disaster. There is a reason why women insist on being able to decide if and when to have kids.

Razib, 
 
You need to include the Pacific Northwest in this analysis of yours. New England might not be very European like, but I think the Pacific Northwest will score more Europe like in your analysis. We are certainly less religious than New England and may well be less nationalistic as well.

When are you going to do the relation between teen birthrate and welfare rate?

Kevembuangga, 
 
Who was the guy who said he would never join any organization that would invite him? I think it was some comedian or entertainer.

Why do they spend money on this kind of research? Everyone knows that women want what other women have or what they can't have. I figured this out 20 years ago when I lived in SoCal. When I went out to, say, a restaurant or a club with a woman, the other women were always checking me out. If I want out alone, they did not check me out as much. 
 
Anyone who lives in the real world ought to know this. They don't need to pay academic people to figure what we already know.

It could be caloric restriction or it could be that people drank alcohol less during the depression than during the roaring 20's (when everyone went to speak easys).

I take it most NFL players do not invest in car dealerships when they retire from the NFL like John Elway did.

Actually, I think Agnostic is mostly wrong, at least with respect to the news media. The U.K. media market is an example of a "mature" stagnant market. You have one good paper (Financial Times) and the rest are all tabloids. Looking at the U.S. media market, you will note that the WSJ has had a pay site from the beginning of the internet and it has been quite successful. The other media outlets have never been able to pull it off. I believe what we are seeing here is the internet version of how the U.S. media market will evolve into the mature market that exists in the U.K. One good paper (WSJ) and the rest as tabloids (including the NY Times). 
 
The success of the WSJ's pay site clearly demonstrates that people will pay good money for good news, but what constitutes good news is a very high standard. However, it is unlikely people will pay money for anything less than that. 
 
I would say that the internet equivalent of U.K.'s two-tier media market is that there will be the WSJ and its equivalents, and there will be Web 2.0.

I would like to see data on non-Western societies as well. East Asia, South Asia, Middle east, and Latin America. I would like to see if this is global rather than just a western phenomenon

You see, just walking around the streets of Shanghai and it is obvious that the Han are clearly made up of many ethnic groups. Unlike, say, Taiwan, the Chinese look very different from each other. The notion that the Han are a single ethnic group is clearly rubbish. China is kind of sort of the Asian equivalent of the U.S.

This is not a problem for men as mens clothing waistline are directly measured in inches (e.g. size "30" waistline). My waistline has not changed since college either, even though I am in my 40's.

Collins is a classic bureaucrat. He was also rumored during the 80's and 90's to hire young women and to promote those who gave good blow-jobs, literally.