Social scientists must be a brave and hearty lot. Those who research the American Jewish population, even more so.

The fallout from the Pew Research Center’s study of Jewish Americans — a reasonable effort to characterize our national demographics and trends — feels like a media meteor shower. Seemingly everyone who has a perspective has seen fit to express it, forcefully and immediately.

But hey, that’s just a really big Jewish dinner table, right? One topic, six million opinions, all shouted over each other.

The trouble is, when one tries to read across the vast array of articles, blogs, emails and whatever else is the Next Big Thing for instantaneous communication (can you say Google Glasses?), it’s hard to come away with anything but one loud, amorphous mess.

The study is accurate. It’s not accurate. It overstates the problems of assimilation and intermarriage. It understates those same problems. Comparisons to the 2000-01 National Jewish Population Survey are misguided or they’re not. The Orthodox were fairly represented and examined or they weren’t. And so on.

There’s nothing inherently immoral or unethical with frenetically responding to serious data research. But trying to seriously contemplate such a weighty tome of information in such a rapid-fire manner seems almost frivolous and disrespectful to the time, energy, expertise and resources expended.

Whereas academic research tempers knee-jerk reactions to some degree, today’s instant gratification media world serves more as a vanity mirror than anything else. The 24/7 commentators, forced to make deadlines, fill hyperspace and direct attention toward themselves, are likely to find what’s most comfortable or consistent with their own predilections. It takes much more time and patience to be open-minded than to be familiar.

This doesn’t mean the reactions aren’t smart, and some of them are. But many are obvious and few are sufficiently broad-based to stand the test of deliberate reflection.

We know there’s still some good number of Jews in America, and maybe even more than we previously thought (a recent Cleveland study also found the overall Jewish population there to be relatively stable since the previous survey). We know that there are fewer than before who consider themselves religious Jews outside the Orthodox movement; that Jews continue to intermarry and the resultant families are less associated with religious Judaism when they do so; and that Orthodox Jewish communities have larger families than those in other movements.

That’s all great, but at face value and without more contemplation, so what? It’s pretty much what we knew, and it’s the stuff that has already served as the basis for so many Jewish programs, both in St. Louis and elsewhere, to try to create connections that will build Jewish identity.

Jewish camping and early education. Concierge programs for young families. Outreach through college and young adult programs. Birthright Israel. Online and social media to build community, as utilized by the Jewish Light, by the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, through its jewishinstlouis.org and related digital media, and by other organizations. Innovation grants to encourage new and different ways to inspire and build stickiness.

Some of the successes will help to build secular bonds, some religious. We shouldn’t kid ourselves; we’re Americans, and other than in the most observant sects, our residents are dissociating with organized religious institutions at a fairly consistent clip across theologies. The trick is finding wins, in whichever institutions and less formal associations we can, that build on as many elements and attractions of Judaism as we can.

A few ticks left or right, up or down, in one particular demographic segment isn’t going to, or at least shouldn’t, supplant the lessons we’ve already learned in how to reach out to Jews to maximize connectedness.

It’s not that we’re anti-enlightenment by any means; it’s just that there are an awful lot of our communal professionals who through trial and error have developed effective ways to create an open and inviting community. And if they listen to such experts as Ron Wolfson, our speaker at last Monday’s Can We Talk? event, and welcome an engaged approach of listening, sharing and understanding, the bridges may continue to strengthen, even elongate.

It’s always good to have dialogue, but the frantic nature of the Pew reactions, so shortly after the study’s release, risks the prospect of course changes based on harried, visceral and one-dimensional views. Only after professional and lay leaders can meld the data with their own practices, learned instincts and collaborative strategies will we know whether the Pew study makes any difference whatsoever.