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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/ n" J( i" u$ l% i5 {1 ]6 Q3 }
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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& O; {& m/ p2 f7 g! N" P22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer- a" |" ?6 F5 V% r2 E( X
! s0 ~; f1 B# V, k+ gScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas/ x: ~+ r! v Q! V- c# |- A
) P [" B8 x" nA 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.
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; ^! W- C+ U7 yThe 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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/ m8 A7 g8 b& m1 G% L# hThe 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.6 E( g2 i; N9 c h' y! _" @
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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.3 E6 s/ w `( i! E; I
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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.2 t9 r- C. b+ E; s/ e3 ^ C8 Y) l
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At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.9 z3 H( J( k: p. L/ t9 t v" r
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\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.% K$ M0 k \- P* S; {( a) U
~0 y3 m) V1 u( D7 B9 }\"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." o6 Y" k* |3 a9 y' 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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; ^6 f' b/ I/ w2 m$ e- u" {! W: I! xDr 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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5 @% s+ _$ Y3 u" }, j. A8 FThey 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.; O" m% x5 a5 G# x# ?4 c6 o, M4 h7 |
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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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, J7 g4 d0 d ?* q9 Q+ G R% v\"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.9 I1 c8 T3 C( B+ b
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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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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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% P5 Q( ~" g! j ?* ]; h\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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