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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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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-128111973 S) w2 e: F, ~" \, d" \4 k! L
: Q8 r0 _$ a9 v22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer
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3 v. P$ s5 \2 F, f+ a+ iScience 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.8 q1 C/ @) S, [. E- \9 H% @
* G& F- v/ S) k5 E; o" eThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.4 }) I) s! ?6 a0 i/ f% Y+ X" @3 }
6 |- J$ V+ o8 GThe 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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The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.% C2 B _8 [* e1 R7 i. @2 ~, g
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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.6 U& o- [# F. U# N# b; v- y
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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.
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2 J/ H1 C/ y2 A/ VOne 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. M& h( N2 k% J# R" Y6 o# O
0 O: W+ x8 Q1 q+ a. f1 |' K' `At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.
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) X: ~' v3 }9 a7 h3 c8 G: u2 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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\"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.\") X& I# \# P6 \+ v/ X/ C
# C( p9 j( `. {7 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%.\"+ Y! `) j3 P3 r: S9 g( e/ @
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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.
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) [/ _: X. ^: F( M- B6 B4 `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 q% c, p) c7 ^9 B6 D r7 O
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.: p P4 a7 p4 `2 Y z( ?
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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.! e _3 e* K, L8 p! v4 j
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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.' ]8 O- W4 {2 y1 {' k# U; T
5 ]; m$ M, J0 ~1 Q; d' Z# o* jHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". ?( @3 p( g2 o! N6 e2 d
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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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