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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. x* Q. L u$ C* [1 C2 @: I6 m
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% } A$ ~. u7 [' G3 d& E4 ]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197+ R% Y( _4 _& w) U/ d, @
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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 Palmer0 Z5 Q2 m% z- F
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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.7 z* ]$ J. P; l1 M( r. W
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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+ z1 j' W+ D9 o7 H P0 u& H- Q4 oThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.# V3 ?3 a6 u) W) F- i
, a `7 T6 p1 q h9 }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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& {! \5 q* w0 U9 bThe 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.. j: z: T" E/ Q/ ?
& e5 P P4 N4 Y# ^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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8 z: \% z$ C: K4 ?7 G# vOne 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. T+ ~: f9 s$ G( O8 _
% f, W+ t- ?, o- w, F0 y4 oAt 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.' E3 c( N/ l% N
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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.6 N3 J; {# G5 I& Z/ X3 B6 S
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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.\"
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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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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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0 G+ y7 k ?; D3 |) [& G4 q$ uThey 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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$ q' x9 o! i) Y6 C G% KAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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6 V! T8 h, s$ S0 \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.0 j5 }4 Y+ k4 `/ N( z# e" E+ ^
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\"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.4 D& E" U2 H o$ O" P
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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". * w) f+ l* \ O4 Q/ }9 L
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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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\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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