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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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+ w5 J- L+ {( m3 Vhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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5 J, N h8 E9 V5 F* L, ~$ a0 g3 ]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' l" {9 f! o- R2 @
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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7 d8 |2 h0 u# Y1 b+ Y ~A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
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5 }, R% Q7 z! v Z! O4 XThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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3 }9 z) A# P! ZThe 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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) j0 n1 A4 e: @1 `- \0 gThe 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.# m* y k9 o4 c$ ^' i
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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.9 E+ x: r5 G" z0 V, W( U
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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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7 J! M7 S+ w3 K+ }3 e" nAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.
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\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
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6 y, q$ ]% F! ~7 t\"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.\"
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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.5 D1 Y6 r9 Y/ A. |4 G
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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.) e) z$ q, E: F* }& @8 I' X) }% H; G7 F: G
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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M; x' \& E1 O/ R" e; K6 K" CHowever, 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.$ R1 s- e+ V% m( l' }) l7 R
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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.. D( Y& a$ i# u
U7 H9 X& V% |3 xHowever, 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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\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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