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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-128111970 [# g8 [. x& H
: M3 a. C5 k1 B* A# L5 K+ e% y22 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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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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: k. j% R7 Q4 KThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.: a( ~$ S; v; E* z% w$ j
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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.' ?) q. d: ~& z+ n6 q0 a# u9 o
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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.( s3 F! F3 p4 T5 F+ l7 R2 Z* S
& ]" e+ M" f3 z f' lThe 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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: _$ \+ B+ h% x1 f% W4 k5 }9 yOne 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.# P+ u% H& m9 K" ?' Y2 A
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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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! {3 ~! b+ {! W6 U7 [7 p; {\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona. n0 @# I K$ C' N% U
# d$ r) R2 e) \/ r\"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.\"9 H( H# ]$ C# a* T! {
3 q, M4 }" c8 h! I7 A' c9 zDr 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%.\"( a+ s9 j4 a, n2 M
, g* R( F1 I. H1 a8 z& MThe team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.1 G. n: C: V, K' j+ s2 g
1 C& A4 Q, x5 w2 H. VThey 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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4 \; e1 l# G% \( e% k# m7 [6 NAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction." o& l- W9 t2 T6 K; A! T( e! L
8 {$ k6 n6 i ~1 ^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.! W) i3 \- q" A t: D
; n/ O, @* b( V9 o/ [\"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\".
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- b. g+ _) _6 K4 Q\"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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0 w7 e) d4 `2 f4 V7 q\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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