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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* C. U* C) W, D) ~+ l9 r
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- Y2 d" H" x% ~/ ~1 jhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197' b/ C& P( {# v' U& y- k
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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 Palmer1 |6 a' W# t d8 P& {
0 _0 X) g' r* `. f6 KScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas) e7 p9 [ t6 y- ?! A& J% G+ ^/ H
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A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
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0 }+ C" B: a# ~; @+ f7 y: p8 P. uThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation., P, G' e3 A, @9 `6 x. P' \
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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.$ i$ I) G" [6 P# G& X! s- ~) y
5 k ]. @% \- ~6 Y1 b# |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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6 M/ N& r8 k6 HThe 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.. n0 w( `4 Z3 ~+ x9 a9 k
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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.& K) X# I! \" j
6 R) @5 u1 n2 l% p9 F/ [: QOne 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., n* _; T, K& ^% P; r# a
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At 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.: ]) a2 ^3 ?7 i, G
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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./ y% n! v2 s8 R
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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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, d; v, ^# B' o, ^/ }! _& \; n2 aAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.! D8 `$ d* h9 C0 o$ v) \: S* _
- q |- A. ^ g: N1 l5 NHowever, 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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* H9 Z' z8 d5 G/ t% _\"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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& ]& O6 i9 K/ I8 T4 q. 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.7 \, C% z! v/ X7 b! i
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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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