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澳洲, 奧地利, 加拿大, 捷克, 芬蘭, 愛爾蘭, 荷蘭, 新西蘭, 瑞士
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197 z6 d& N( B, {$ `7 ]
1 K% I' q y2 D22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer* k% T& O/ D6 e0 G2 }
, D2 Y1 W" E; zScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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1 D- b6 ~% B& [* j2 J* k0 `5 ~( ~" s6 qA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.6 c5 E% `% D" v r
$ C: Q: K) _9 v$ f! GThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.4 G) i; L( ]0 g* ~5 ^$ \4 O
/ _ a: I6 N: M7 [" {The team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.9 O( y- b4 I; \. J
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The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.
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" f* C. Z6 O9 e7 [The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland. a# `# h$ b1 v1 ?
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Their means of analysing the data invokes what is known as nonlinear dynamics - a mathematical approach that has been used to explain a wide range of physical phenomena in which a number of factors play a part.: h& M5 Y) o' i) b+ s
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One of the team, Daniel Abrams of Northwestern University, put forth a similar model in 2003 to put a numerical basis behind the decline of lesser-spoken world languages.' l: K7 G0 o. f. a" q3 c) R
( `. m* I& p5 L7 }/ \) z( uAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.
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4 r2 o4 G% q" b\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
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( a' B9 R1 n5 O8 O2 ~& Q' @' @: H8 f\"It posits that social groups that have more members are going to be more attractive to join, and it posits that social groups have a social status or utility.. F% l( t2 f0 U: x
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\"For example in languages, there can be greater utility or status in speaking Spanish instead of [the dying language] Quechuan in Peru, and similarly there\'s some kind of status or utility in being a member of a religion or not.\"- D: D7 v8 l& E. k; @2 n; d& T/ j
$ C" }2 Z, z8 [+ dDr Wiener continued: \"In a large number of modern secular democracies, there\'s been a trend that folk are identifying themselves as non-affiliated with religion; in the Netherlands the number was 40%, and the highest we saw was in the Czech Republic, where the number was 60%.\"
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& A; v$ Q- ^, e3 ?The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.& d4 E k% C2 v% z" {. b4 L0 Y
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They found, in a study published online, that those parameters were similar across all the countries studied, suggesting that similar behaviour drives the mathematics in all of them.
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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- h& H( ~+ ^4 N |; J0 eHowever, Dr Wiener told the conference that the team was working to update the model with a \"network structure\" more representative of the one at work in the world.) N6 S" z3 P) w+ h2 `( g
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\"Obviously we don\'t really believe this is the network structure of a modern society, where each person is influenced equally by all the other people in society,\" he said.; x, ? l* U* X) o. m8 x
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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". ; y4 m4 c; e5 ]9 f6 v+ P
6 t4 r; L' E4 Q c4 j& T/ [\"It\'s interesting that a fairly simple model captures the data, and if those simple ideas are correct, it suggests where this might be going.; ~5 I3 Q% z# D2 q" C+ @& C. W
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\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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