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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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, M* v O/ _1 S7 l9 D) l: `# Whttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197# K- C9 S& z$ ^* P) h7 |1 B' m
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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. ?2 Z3 t! S6 m# y: {5 x+ m
# @1 { W+ R% f: y; h; a) h3 NScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas& N* ]# I @ B2 F9 X$ R& }
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A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.1 Q: S. D- y# x7 K
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.* U# _1 r! S+ `8 M
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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./ C/ n0 ]/ ^9 y! z
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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.' e; b! F/ @, I" ~" _, D0 v
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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.- Q1 V- N, h8 I/ W
5 C: a' Q: y4 F$ E# k" nTheir 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., w- \; F$ s- d! `/ f- }( h5 D
4 O7 X# ]9 S) c% S% d0 i. Z gOne 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.# T, C, u3 ?1 s- K7 L0 {1 x) Q
, ^0 ~/ T( u O, \& YAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.) F3 X, x) d5 ]2 ?
* f) k$ W. ^( U2 w3 e\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.1 P+ ?+ Q' d1 r g8 x, o+ h
1 S F5 ~9 o% c& _" i2 y, J1 K$ s\"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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# C9 A6 w8 a! \1 c\"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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, z. W u' y2 Y) D; X* fDr 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%.\"! i% @' S& ?3 l. G3 X2 a* `) _ Z
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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. U* @/ W- i S/ q. f5 k1 T2 r3 Z E
# U" U$ _5 u5 c3 _: t) OThey 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.- l$ D# n* l+ }( n7 e' L
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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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.* H* `0 ]; P( M$ d+ q+ a% {
/ ]! ?3 N4 O8 u2 T) T- r- L/ U\"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. x1 R2 u& o, l$ p& X+ A- a4 P
, U: {% X/ L( f: YHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". 0 d. G# P% G8 u9 r
% C5 N% {$ M/ J" |. `\"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.! q' ^, P/ A$ ~/ E/ b, Y# r0 [4 e& C
, h: j* }: ?4 C( @\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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