Thursday, January 27, 2011

Apocalypse deferred (indefinitely)


In 2005, right-wing bloviator and professional Islamophobe Mark Steyn wrote an article for the Jewish World Review with the title ("U.S. can sit back and watch Europe implode"), which adumbrated the argument of his book, America Alone, that Europe was in the process of being overrun by Muslims. Money quote from Steyn's article:
"By some projections, the EU's population will be 40 percent Muslim by 2025."
These projections has never been clearly exlained (for some speculation, see here), but (as I've pointed out before) the figures are wildly wrong, as is clear from a a recent study by the PewForum (here), which places the Muslim population of Europe at barely a fraction of Steyn's number:
"In Europe as a whole, the Muslim share of the population is expected to grow by nearly one-third over the next 20 years, rising from 6% of the region’s inhabitants in 2010 to 8% in 2030."
The difference is, frankly, enormous and leaves Steyn's analysis is shreds.

(h/t Dawg)