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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0 F: L/ [% L; Z1 _
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197* C' C. |1 ]$ j" P
' ^" H& C5 B7 `/ U8 K' h1 o6 `22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer c \1 t8 Q- Z" ]6 A4 T
9 d" A0 Z2 j P, v B* B+ wScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas6 M4 }# m4 n, O9 j8 h! s" a
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A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.: p# Q! R Q1 t$ E. k1 }/ c2 t0 E
# g9 U) O# I6 K6 U- wThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.# W, `- K# |% I3 R2 i
) e+ Z; B: q* x, D1 R' x( u9 ]1 bThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.
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! ^+ z) Q. G( N& b+ Y& HThe result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.3 [! P0 D2 |7 n6 `! Z
- E, Q! i# N' l9 B) ^; [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.
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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.
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@/ ?5 Q- Z4 d4 b1 T" D$ c5 G; tOne 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.- l8 G: B/ L# C+ p& Y. Y, z5 R' A# |
9 h( X; G2 o. f$ Y; A tAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.
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( v8 w2 ], J. H% a4 W\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.4 ^5 n z3 H5 q2 e
6 b; S! @3 p7 v4 z$ q/ R# w\"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.
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9 ^! p' R* V M+ E" ~% |+ w @\"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.\"" N/ n' j/ E# b9 Q& ^" P6 n) I
' J/ C5 c, C3 \% ]* F8 [: ODr 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%.\"5 @& l0 k7 ^5 t
( E6 Q+ f# k" n0 U+ wThe team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.# t @& J4 R9 K3 D) q
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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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& _) E( x6 N: T) L6 ^And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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However, 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.3 l! ` R- z7 Y2 d
4 l7 U( ?& A& X' j$ M\"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.! K- }! x: [' `5 J' w5 E
7 i" c; \7 \5 o8 \However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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; E4 G+ {# B$ c( ^3 O\"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.* F0 X' S' ~6 R1 Y% f0 p
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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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