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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- m& }8 \# z# f, g8 C3 q) j
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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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( ~: b7 q- T1 D' y7 S
7 A0 z+ X9 w1 i |0 WScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas7 p4 I y2 c) t+ f2 S
1 L a) D1 I0 n* n5 e# A# TA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
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1 {' ?9 R! \2 h* Z7 O- m, |The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.& @2 g! q( I, X" ]% Q
$ k. [; w" u# K* o1 V1 a9 IThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.& U3 r0 m7 x; z4 Y6 h" G% h: m
' s l" H& P; JThe result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries." b8 N x3 g( z3 j y. M' h) C$ p% D
, y0 f- V- C$ \& k" ^* K0 PThe 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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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., Q. R; y0 o; h' n, @( h
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At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.0 X) p# P& ^* v7 {
% J3 N) b5 N" c% P5 P\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
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\"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.0 ^! H2 R, Y7 L# o; ^
6 E7 q# b9 r9 h\"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.\"
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" o5 Z6 \' C" E0 kDr 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%.\": S3 Y6 H" I4 `* n+ k
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The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.9 x0 |9 Z: t9 q/ N% N
6 \3 Q' ^+ Y2 [- W# x8 D- o' FThey 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.. L- R: k1 l7 N/ B; f7 T
2 c4 @/ z8 P" I5 S: QAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.9 `5 a6 g$ q4 G3 c$ Y& w7 A a) ]
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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.
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' [. [ t8 h E/ I) D" x+ B9 _\"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.6 ^" u; `- n5 d, c% t
/ }2 U- I. f z F; C# {6 s8 ?% _However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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\"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.% @4 r- ?$ [. t! d
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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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