Power Laws and the Growth of Religious Sects

Dan Dennett has this idea that the spread of religion is basically about competition in the intellectual marketplace - an idea is offered up and people attach to/accept it based on some sort of free market kinds of dynamics. My idea is to pursue a "natural" ramification of this - that is to look for a power law in the way in which these market dynamics evolve. I.e., can we see if we find a power law in affiliation - i.e., numbers of people in various "sects" or religious groups - basically like wealth distribution related to religious ideas. It has a natural generative model, so it would be an interesting little note, but needs a good source of data.

Along similar lines, I wonder if it would be possible to construct a phylogenetic tree that shows the diversity/disparity growth in religious ideas - again, charting the development of sects, splinter groups, etc.

Finally, one could try to do the same thing w/respect to the evolution of terrorist groups (pick your favorite - ugh - conflict).