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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-128111973 B- R$ x8 w% |/ ^
- o7 U B, ]" [: Q7 j+ y* H22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer1 a: j( [. z2 }3 H2 r" o
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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( g' F, O5 o1 v3 u% xThe 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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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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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.( x7 o& U/ X( D- x2 P: @- p
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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.3 l5 w" [6 k* _' o- c
5 S( ?; ~# ^: V9 ~At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.
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) \4 E5 s) I+ {% f+ a/ [1 _- r\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.% n0 `5 D( B# Y5 v$ H6 f9 r' H
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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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4 s: N) L1 M5 B6 z/ n\"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.\"6 l% j" Q0 d% E$ t; ?% x0 k
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Dr 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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) w$ K* {9 |$ H( T5 M0 I- YThe team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category., P3 P4 d% E! U e1 G
1 @# v) j4 v7 h7 S6 i+ XThey 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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/ H) J! k( H* Y5 [And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.1 p) c m! e9 ]' S- }0 g
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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.: e9 Z6 b; Y- G: a* F8 d8 k
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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.3 s( J# n7 P7 Y A4 b8 y
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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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( D7 M5 R% [- U\"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.& J _0 \6 q/ t8 l b: G) F
6 |# O: }4 h6 L4 y% q/ q8 H i\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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