Average Age of Apostles over Time

[Corsair]

I am learning the Python programming language for some new work duties. One of the best ways to learn a new language is to find a project to implement. So I decided to write some code that would calculate the average age of apostles over time. The ages and dates of service for every single apostle is not hard to acquire. I had to adjust some dates since most apostles leave the quorum through dying, but a few manage to get excommunicated (I'm looking at you, Richard Lyman). I also classified the prophet and First Presidency as apostolic quorum members since what we are looking at is the age of the governing body of the church. I also understand that it was under Brigham Young that this truly came into force, but it works as means to examine age and attitudes from 1835 onward. I chose the April and October conference dates for performing each average. Here is the plotted graph built using Exel:



Raw results are available here

No surprise, the high water mark was April 2015 general conference just before Packer, Perry, and Scott joined the choir eternal. The average age in April 2015 was 79.5 years old. The lowest average age of all apostles was 28.8 years old in 1835 when the apostles were first called starting with the much maligned Thomas Marsh.

I think it would be a bit overstepping bounds to draw too many conclusions. But modern medicine in the 20th century helped the age along coinciding with some of the more dramatic exits from the quorum due to the end of polygamy. Also noticeable is the unbroken line from April 1995 (Henry Eyring joins Q15) through October 2004 (Dieter Uchtodorf joins Q15). This is the longest period of no changes to the quorum throughout almost two centuries.

Demographic attitudes based on age are perhaps another interesting, but less precise topic. The average age of high school graduation of current apostles is class of '59 (2016 - 75 = 1941. 18 years past 1941). So the bulk of the quorum came of age in the 1960s and were very likely ensconced in the BYU counter counter culture established by Ernie Wilkinson's additions to the BYU Honor Code.

I used Python 3.4 to write this script. The full source and data is available and I will gladly rebuild the results if anyone detects an error in my coding. If you come up with some additionally intriguing questions based on publicly published data I could easily be persuaded to produce more graphs.

[SunbeltRed]

I don't know Python, but I love the analysis you have done.

Well done my good and faithful servant.

[Enoch Witty]

This is cool. I'm just starting to learn to code, but with C++ (for now) in my case. I enjoyed looking through your code. It's encouraging to see that it should be pretty easy to transfer knowledge from one coding language to another. Thanks for sharing!

[Zadok]

I am thrilled to see the average age increasing. It means I still have a chance.

[fh451]

Good work, Corsair. Apostles (along with everyone else) have obviously benefited from the great improvements in medical technology of the 20th century. As Greg Prince observed on Mormon Stories, while modern medicine has made our bodies live longer, there hasn't been a lot of improvement in dealing with age-related cognitive decline. Interestingly, there was a long plateau of apostles averaging about 70 years old from the 50s through the mid 90s. But in the last 20 years, the average age has pushed up to be closer to 80. This is prime territory for cognitive decline. Since about half of the apostles are older than that (it would be interesting to calculate the median age rather than the average), those with seniority and thus more power and influence over the quorum are the ones who are even more likely to be experiencing some form of Alzheimer's or dementia. I think the case could be made that this mental decline of the most senior leadership has become a critical problem in the last decade, and will be for some time.

As Prince said, if the church (and its members) value dynamic and capable leadership, they really need to do something such as creating emeritus status for the Q15.

fh451