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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
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-128111977 v' `& `# h0 }
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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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) T) ^7 I# b. m2 O- JScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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% U8 H* J. v7 L) F, r) Z+ LA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.& L p! M/ k8 D. R4 l7 H8 W
6 c3 O6 q3 ?( UThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.) G4 b! a- a4 s" T) H
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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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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.
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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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3 G: Z2 D9 c: m& e# A; QOne 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.9 L6 n! V- |% T2 U8 Q4 ?# U
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At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.* b9 C8 @0 v o4 o, a/ e; 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.1 v' R2 h( x% o: x; v6 s2 _% o5 Y
+ O7 }; c6 t6 N7 L9 Z) S8 A, k\"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.* y) N6 [! G5 E. {" D
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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.\"
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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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1 D& j, ?( B" Q* wThe 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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" w o/ k2 Q/ M% f% T" sThey 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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6 J& e6 C, R* v: |- zAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.1 X" E) p& K6 s
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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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) e; N% X' p1 i+ C- f. z n- r3 Z6 n\"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 ?9 y2 U w5 s$ \* }' i
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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". 9 l- {/ F$ t$ I
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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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