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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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% l# X4 r u- J1 _. M9 chttp://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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. f& B9 D; ^- \* b3 `Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas) Z3 e( ^/ |2 {' a$ W5 K( O9 s
( ~+ f5 W" f, V1 [. h: E; aA 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.9 J" F$ F0 b& F% J7 H6 O+ {, c+ B# ?
! ?6 Y$ P9 y' n# t) H: _- s' ^6 cThe 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.0 M% f" R6 _0 p. A% L
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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.% z/ J% c) c6 ~# Y- H5 S; h% |; ^5 Q. 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.. A. B! Z8 V9 \$ ^, x; w7 e9 {
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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.4 J$ v5 C; \, [; k
* X& i, m6 n0 ?! x, k\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.; a) }5 Z: g% K, U2 r* ~1 e
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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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$ L+ q* U! L# f+ U5 B6 l0 N% { B\"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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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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: ]0 L6 k6 i7 @# {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.8 e* Z0 m; f5 p0 y9 _0 a
2 l% R* r9 u. I$ KAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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' Z$ G" w. s' ^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./ E2 R& t0 k9 X1 f9 b7 E. R, |1 h
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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.( ?. `# } k. x# y# q
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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". ( q0 S! x" T. g
& Y) Z$ F* J4 i. t\"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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