Survivor bias distorts the study of religious success

Evidence

It is easy to miss this dynamic process, because the enduring religious movements are all that we often see in the present. However, this would be an error. It is called survivor bias. When groups, entities, or persons undergo a process of competition and selective retention, we see abundant cases of those that “survived” the competition process; the cases that did not survive and flourish are buried in the dark recesses of the past, and are overlooked. To understand how religions propagate, we of course want to put the successful religions under the microscope; but we do not want to forget the unsuccessful ones that did not make it—the reasons for their failures can be equally instructive. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 27

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Defines survivor bias as it applies to religious history — a methodological caution the reader should keep when testing Big God claims.

Related

• Studying only surviving religions introduces survivor bias (similarity 0.95)
• Religions succeed by offering greater comfort against existential threats (similarity 0.79)