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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; c1 w4 Y( V* G( m9 T6 u2 f
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9 s9 ^% n9 a' E# _2 whttp://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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* p0 }; X8 ?$ d$ V5 }: IScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas( ?' w: n' x' _; _' ^5 s+ e
. Y& Z1 |* P+ YA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.3 T9 \" Y* N4 |6 O; F9 x1 \
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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$ N, x K: |- t. q, k* FThe 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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/ \3 I# n- P" x) Q0 G3 _7 IThe 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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& P' f: _/ }* N* cThe 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 Z( m0 E: u9 P* A; R/ W' c" o# _
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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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( j) W$ N4 P' V* n9 C GOne 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.6 p7 k7 X9 [# h. S1 g4 B
; X9 f" C3 Z$ W* E% l% BAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.% t2 x! U! g( q4 q5 m, R0 g) d. c
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\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.. w$ U( J9 F6 V$ n+ l% p
. t. g) z- A1 F0 ]" X* { 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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* B& T# s7 u. X6 e0 U5 i\"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.\"$ _- l; u, M% E# Y
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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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The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.. N2 O6 z9 ~5 g
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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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7 c: o3 \. k" P+ UHowever, 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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\"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 X; Y0 h" B( B0 Z! Z2 \However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". . c- p" y$ E) {' a% C! T( T
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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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