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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8 E' I* i5 N' t3 `( ~+ \9 [
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3 X6 }) l9 N* U1 F7 l+ _5 d% W, ohttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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! r2 U5 @. ^- |; m1 J+ ?$ ?/ F! h22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer3 \" X5 o. z: Q: K/ u2 }7 T
& u- b; c0 k1 G4 y# s0 `Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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& [; Z! g G$ P7 e J( mA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.) n8 F1 a$ y5 y
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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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.' ~# H; t4 W2 y
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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.' u9 v* _. u% G8 Z0 W# r
& w; O) T$ s5 i" w( k/ S, ~; STheir 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.! ]+ ^! C6 U8 V
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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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( @) m7 ~" }) TAt 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.0 Q5 c1 X1 S: ~2 A9 U2 }/ j
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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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% T( t% `# ?$ d. L9 b) y9 W\"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.\"# P# B1 C$ S5 B" ~0 A7 g n! T
* D3 S+ i9 i7 x: P$ Q/ h& C, T1 DDr 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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) V6 h) |8 n5 C2 o) CThe team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.$ P7 ~. }+ n6 Q
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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.: W, g- M9 Q5 r. m- a
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.; L$ M8 K; q7 {
1 ]2 [1 P% E- D- `$ dHowever, 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.. g' T# T4 R* ~7 Q7 }
4 B' `8 P3 _2 Y4 e7 c' Q* W5 y\"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.0 N$ K7 h7 J2 ~. g2 d! b C1 V1 i
1 H C+ `% M; L9 H) kHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". 7 F7 \9 p8 B' v5 w
: T& G: E* n# C' v1 u% x1 K\"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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- l3 x+ V2 m; U4 d Q3 ~\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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