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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' p- \1 a" h4 T
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2 V2 Q- r" `- p( w k1 @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
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas5 b5 s0 c; |5 ~
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A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.2 u) P& ^; @0 H9 p' J& n9 X2 o# a, k
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation./ O0 G8 i5 F1 l f, Y8 U* s1 x5 w4 h) \
, s! D: X% F2 v2 x$ U- p/ RThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.4 S- _' a4 J4 g- Y1 S) _# e7 P
. j2 y" N/ X e b; h( TThe result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.2 E* Z# D- W' Y! Z/ t5 d. C
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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.
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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.1 k' C# l( W2 n0 _; e
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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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% j! d# y% H2 f% U' w; yAt 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.
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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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Z2 P1 q8 m2 U0 o. T\"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.\"; Y' m/ g1 J+ z" K& w
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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%.\"
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, S; g# o9 w gThe team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.2 g. ^' k" C0 S7 ^3 I2 |$ g( h
s$ F5 G. r* [/ m5 K( |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." `7 o: `7 ~$ F. Z
! M q+ q. E3 ]4 ?. e* h7 u7 zAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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, q$ d7 a7 H1 v: v) 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.
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8 ^# t& U9 v0 n% G R\"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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: V* b$ e. I8 I; x2 X" WHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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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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q' O' r$ E4 a: T9 l% N. |\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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