The usual assertions are (1) that this kind of religion is today on the defensive; (2) that the defensive posture is occasioned by the flourishing of «conservative churches» (although the alleged liberal enervation is also seen in more autonomous terms); (3) that the growth in religious conservatism and conservative churches is itself the result of
widespread reaction against «secular humanist» values and against those who hold such values; (4) that our society as a whole has been experiencing a breakdown in moral consensus, a loss of moral coherence somehow connected with a
decline in oldline Protestant dominance; and (5) that some or all of these happenings have been quite
sudden, so that the early 1960s can be taken as a kind of benchmark — as a time before the fall.
While the new study is not a definitive explanation of the
widespread bumble bee losses, which are likely the result of many factors, Cameron said, it challenges a popular hypothesis about the
sudden declines of wild bumblebees in the early 1990s.