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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: }7 w9 E* I6 X) A* ~* Y
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( N2 o' q# E7 f6 `) @# ]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197- G% Y$ ]& Z8 c5 d$ Q
1 k5 M8 x* a7 J f: n22 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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Science 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.: F: S6 R$ z6 Y1 k8 u) T* \
2 w6 p0 N1 _7 s C& }6 EThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.% X( W' Z! N' B! X4 X
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The 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.- o$ I/ @$ V) X5 x9 E( l
# a" f0 h6 R0 D( L; ^/ BThe 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.) B- m2 n) [$ v" ^! y/ w; F8 [* O# b
) w: h6 H( {7 D* l1 JTheir 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./ p' g7 g& p. f, J
4 Y. o5 i3 K7 o2 R' g4 |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.8 ~. V+ L0 z7 M/ s* ~" ]
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At 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., D* K! E, A; X; M6 B- V. d3 v
2 V q2 R+ ?4 b- k% o- G# I/ Z3 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.& X c) K, N2 W: B
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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.\"& S6 R# d, ^7 ?7 N1 o6 x
* S+ L! G3 m9 M }1 i$ x4 ~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.
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) }7 L- ^. K1 |+ g$ T0 U- ^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.3 _$ G. h# a: j5 F, T
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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3 ]) o5 _( l0 x1 k; R+ @+ ~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.( s) U2 n8 P( A7 S% e6 o
7 v: @) J& M/ S- E: b+ C' C\"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.- t( ?! [5 s9 s" d. Y
: z e4 E2 t9 Y% K W$ ]( `However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". 2 ]; s. }5 S, \! ^/ u0 R5 f
3 i* g+ e, z: J7 _2 M8 U+ c7 J\"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.& w; m6 {: R: Z0 [. N
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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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