A study released in March about the correlation between the Internet and religious affiliation, titled “Religious affiliation, education and Internet use,” received nationwide attention, though one professor on campus believes the study could be misleading to readers and inadequately executed. 
Allen Downey, professor of computer science at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, authored the study that claimed an increase in Internet usage over the past decade has a direct correlation with the number of people who identify as religiously unaffiliated. 
Downey drew information from the General Social Survey, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, and pulled questions aimed at discovering religious upbringing and affiliation as well as general questions regarding economic status, education and Internet usage. 
According to Downey’s research, the Internet, as a cultural phenomenon, accounts for almost 25 percent of the decline in religious affiliation over the past 20 years. 
Stephen Finley, LSU assistant professor of religious studies, said the study is “terribly inadequate” and does not reference any religious authorities in its methodology. 
In his research at the University and in his class curriculum, Finley studies different cultural effects on religion, including religion and hip-hop.
The study was widely critiqued by publications, including Religion Dispatches Magazine and Jessica Ravitz of CNN.
“My initial reaction was that a computer scientist, who had not given enough attention to defining religion, made some grand assumptions [about this correlation],” Finley said. 
Finley said defining religiousness is difficult because affiliation is no longer defined by attendance in traditional religious institutions. People may identify as being individually religious but do not necessarily identify with a traditional institution, Finley said. 
Finley said he has developed an ideology he calls “hegemony of the sciences,” asserting there is an assumed authority that accompanies many scientists. This authority leads many people to believe that scientific or analytical research is taken as fact simply for being  “science,” and this study is an example of this, Finley said. 
Finley said he would have approached this subject differently by collaborating with computer science experts while still providing his religious insight. 
“I think there is enormous potential [to create research] across departments to provide the most accurate information possible,” Finley said. 
“My initial reaction was that a computer scientist, who had not given enough attention to defining religion, made some grand assumptions [about this correlation].”