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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: \) c B% `( E0 |( |
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+ z" E7 q# E4 o$ H4 M! y& mhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-128111975 c8 K$ b2 M; v
1 z+ q# H* @! R6 r5 f% L1 ?. k+ h22 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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/ G/ f9 G0 u4 I$ q3 DScience 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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* A0 L2 Q- W9 Y! ~2 dThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.- E3 P: }6 [1 J0 V: ]
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The 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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4 t' ~* y+ ?: i! XThe result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.( {9 O3 v6 M. o/ \
! o j$ V2 T/ j- rThe 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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& d! {6 b |5 N7 f& e7 {- qTheir 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. [. x# h, ^3 _
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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.
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At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.
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# ~1 q, g+ ?% f1 e( p9 X8 S\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
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+ r+ E, [& B* h4 `7 E) [\"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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\"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.\"- M' x9 |2 R9 z
7 ~: W5 n0 W- g6 \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%.\"- Q5 t2 V8 b8 c# i. X
, w3 y6 z- o' p: Z% gThe 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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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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3 ^- U, P5 V+ B9 q2 jAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.4 @6 I8 N9 G0 k
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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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\"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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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". * y' v+ y; l: s) }: r
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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.( _9 J- p+ z& W% C1 g
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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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