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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' Q, c# ?* `6 n) S0 \, O) M
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: \' N' f8 }! F4 l fhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197% ?' s9 ~" D L7 f% \6 M/ Q
2 L& `5 S4 Y4 e* B22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer, N2 }8 A! {* O4 f8 S- W
6 R; q( g- h+ b9 VScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas; n. j, a# [ r- m4 Z) T# r
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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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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.' T7 r" M& b# A$ }5 z. q# d
, I! c4 l7 n7 _5 V7 n$ F) PThe 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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7 D! H" t& I: O6 o# i! e! JThe result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.' A/ e# ^0 a3 R; V7 X
) }+ s: R, h7 K. P7 q; }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.
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3 l6 }; o4 Q9 r) E5 Q3 }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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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., y+ }! O; R9 y6 o4 c9 _
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At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.5 T# Q; Z; z: e: M! E' i; U% 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.5 I9 `: `* W/ B" ~" w; e7 X5 R
' u9 n( _& r- e9 A\"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%.\", B5 ` E; i) p! x3 ?0 a
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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.2 D/ V& z' g9 C3 w: P
8 K% e! ]7 s/ u% P2 ~, \9 gThey 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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/ X# @3 h# ^1 ?$ ^7 B; h; mAnd 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.( t2 `0 y& ]% A2 X! ]/ K( o3 y" q4 |! L
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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.
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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". $ G" n F: ^) f2 ?
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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." d2 {4 W. l$ J8 l) H$ r4 b
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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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