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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: \( C# Q9 o& s* c
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-128111976 X% P: n+ I- k
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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) D3 U' L1 {# Q9 J7 G/ p
; Y# e8 a% c% u+ e2 y' r9 AScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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0 }( T% p: b! _ }# E: G F, \3 j" WA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.( u: [8 X3 L4 I7 Z" K! J( ?0 }$ F
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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* {/ w, R. `7 V( ^( N) YThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.7 [$ Q1 o6 d E: g
9 q& Y% s C$ C8 q; E! \$ wThe 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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' t0 |/ x4 {# UThe 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.! s3 k, @+ M$ I, n9 M% K' s! ?
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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.7 E/ w& `2 r& q) 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.
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At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.' w T; I0 Q8 i7 M( d* }
/ B$ M6 c: c/ C\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
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: [$ E" w9 V" g/ @\"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./ P! I. f. b- z: Y5 V8 x
/ E. j" \( l k5 ~) h# ?\"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.\"2 q1 s0 P: L5 B2 b( ]; J: y7 X5 t
% q% H: V, Z/ o! M- V$ pDr 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%.\"1 M2 D2 K( f; L- R/ l6 ~
4 s) g. E5 t+ E3 b3 CThe 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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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., \4 V; ?* V9 t- d7 ?
0 A8 U# z# T# u1 m& i6 vAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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2 h* M6 f( w1 C8 L* u0 }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." g) v0 S4 `$ r" i) B- z$ d
# ?' j! `+ g1 `& L\"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.2 L u. h- T% N: L; j
$ d4 b: }; W% BHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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6 p: v5 v1 x* U `/ X: q/ Y\"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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