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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-12811197# Z, R y0 H4 h6 t n
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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, M4 Y+ e6 N5 _
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas/ Y9 o/ C+ i; F+ O$ X2 s' u& K/ o
) i p* t& ]8 I( w; p8 R/ C2 E3 |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.8 v4 _ X4 S( R ^$ ~1 s
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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.2 R3 Z+ i; B# }6 `8 r) l
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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.& J) P$ H% W4 |, {: T
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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 p% b! k3 L/ C# c6 i$ w8 X
. U4 r" u% V7 _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.* r7 S4 H. p( y& X! h8 }* U
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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.3 Z m K G! C1 a
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At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.4 c O; ?# b% X% M1 Y+ ~, r: H
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\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.' H: X' S1 I% r7 J S
5 H; v5 i# {' ~\"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.\"$ c2 v# T Z N
4 k1 e) i# O, {' [6 eDr 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%.\"8 _5 ^8 x, r$ {0 m
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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.4 i; p& y3 |# E: v
v6 F$ g# h4 R z5 VThey 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 W5 {2 q- U' _( U0 A7 j3 S
( _% a, T; V3 Q2 e, o. v% TAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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: D7 k: L6 l1 IHowever, 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.$ d: H+ Q# i5 X: t1 q8 J
% `. N4 q/ u! v2 x- V& k\"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\". # r# b V9 P9 X( F1 ` w. J3 K
: o/ _0 ?: X( f) c/ v* F\"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.1 b% Z- b; e7 V @; M3 _1 l
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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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