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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 |( J5 m% D" u7 i
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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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# f% o6 ~( P+ K/ |1 J! L+ s: v* M
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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.+ R5 i O8 L0 Z9 d
! c6 A* r" L' ~8 m+ R- V1 W7 aThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.* Q4 S H6 y; G* ~+ F0 m
, G- P& p2 v1 h% q$ {The team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.7 M6 x# [) B# A. @# c Y4 {# u1 q! T
, A% I! g* {6 _0 MThe 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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) y3 B* W1 e# ]7 S6 ? }" MThe 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.
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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.7 |% j4 f) s/ b
8 Y+ `; x9 Z' ?( W( j* j* m$ OOne 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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4 j+ j# R2 a' T3 n0 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.9 S0 {6 ]4 @8 `
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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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( X- ~& U( W6 v) @0 G\"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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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%.\" B9 r) d; @) }3 o$ f2 w
# r. o0 a5 w% k1 I' ?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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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.5 Y& c7 @* l. c q% G$ }
. l4 t. p7 C' A VAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.# D" H3 N7 Q j1 {% R
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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./ }- r, K* T+ {
7 V7 s, Y( F- x\"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.- {* O3 e" f2 I2 _; a8 c$ Z
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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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K7 Y- G [& }\"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.) ]& J1 C- v5 T
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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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