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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) n# F0 m& P; `; \4 v
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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
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas/ D) z1 W4 ?* B! e b. z2 [
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A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.- m$ J, ]1 p; W$ y' `. P* \' I
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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9 s" N9 x k, vThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.9 y0 z2 t2 A$ G+ @
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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.: y2 c* S% m4 m( K' U# @$ i
* o! P5 w* \- p Z7 L0 D$ d7 KThe 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.4 L s u9 n% Q( V$ b8 N% Z! r
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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.! X0 Q8 E6 k5 M9 q- u& G3 d
7 V7 c y, \2 T1 U# T! Q+ EOne 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.! M; z& W. r7 V6 j% I
. ^% d- L8 ~+ ^1 a% G: h- kAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.) U, g" d% S4 E/ w8 ?; H3 f8 t
" \. [( V3 \ r- y2 t8 ?\"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.
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2 J3 B" V5 m i* V\"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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. @: m a( ~ ~7 K( f4 G# sDr 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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The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.
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7 C, b5 y; _. I6 }! S- @4 ^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.4 `$ S6 ]0 g( |
- j8 D4 Z( ~+ `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.5 m! c. R' z3 w, B0 [5 U) _
8 U4 y& F6 L( q# s% k6 ^\"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.
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5 K2 ]% A3 A9 D$ j7 U( H: H' _However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". 3 S* g9 o+ _" K- T% K
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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.
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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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