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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2 D1 O) W/ c" s+ U# M! o
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7 n; n+ `0 D/ d* lhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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# ~- R+ | A) ~9 e$ _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; @" J+ v- Z2 J" {
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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.8 ^1 ` z& i! }7 n: h$ g# z
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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.6 B9 F* j3 k, w5 F9 V
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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.% m/ ?9 o! w+ |9 y5 u
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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.
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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.* ?: v& F) Y/ g' \
2 D2 E' S! N, k* |3 sAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.
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5 E- i4 [# x s/ ]+ Z5 \\"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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\"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$ P6 Y. I/ q
$ R4 K' N. }1 M' r9 i# u! CDr 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%.\" d" N# h! J$ Q, o" c- Y6 Y
$ e: F0 @) v6 t j+ Q$ i# d- KThe team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category./ Z8 u- g$ D# `; ^# p$ U
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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.
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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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.6 x3 V) p* ^# C$ @+ l
9 H" i E4 O0 J6 _9 v6 q: 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\". 6 I8 v7 X$ w1 g* d1 s" d
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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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4 o) v4 h0 `3 l! R9 F' M\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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