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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1 W- b4 V# ]+ ~# V# x8 z" K
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-128111974 ], d, Z }: w) V4 D- c- J9 z+ W
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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/ h2 q( m1 o, G6 Y: L; |
1 d S3 C+ Q1 ~; UScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.* q" D- `2 t3 E; M, q
) v5 L1 j6 h U/ U! s2 b) H w' xThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.! R. _+ M; M# J
+ U+ p5 Z# @( r; E. S% h- L! b1 C/ RThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.$ E$ j+ U- X, u& h% b
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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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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.. e3 B) ^ o- i; C( c
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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.0 @/ Y9 }3 @) ?, k
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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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3 @; j' C! {/ e* BAt 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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" f* g4 q2 `9 z: _3 |( N8 ~\"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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# `/ [9 I2 k( w! e* }$ Q\"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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2 ]4 ]$ d; M) F4 }& W% v- aDr 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.1 _) E( {6 x. Z* ]4 s: {) r
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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.
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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; H8 G# s7 k4 bHowever, 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.5 J9 x$ C" m! t/ ]" f
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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.& x) X7 I) f* N3 {
' [# w# `5 Q; m kHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". & @7 A9 i- W$ J% o; m8 T# L4 l" x
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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.) c1 `0 d0 M- e ^9 b; A
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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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