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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
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1 A7 ?0 Q3 c2 _1 Ghttp://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& I, \$ F8 O3 h9 z
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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.
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# Z/ e, G. S) V A/ a# iThe 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.
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& `% P9 ~( I( D) iThe result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.& m1 q- n& S5 |2 t
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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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0 u- h3 d G3 j1 x2 sTheir 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 r- k a R6 N/ @- N/ C* y( C2 k
. B: f7 Q& D* 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.
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" I, V& M# c( ?6 a W9 jAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another." u3 J. @# i9 q) z, B" P# C6 Z
$ W8 L( E9 k0 J) ~\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
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( g% O9 D; l/ J- T5 `\"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.( n( W: C6 h/ b! g* d2 v' Q' t$ y
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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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3 O) i9 y1 v5 P7 w" ^0 ^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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- t$ Z! }9 V4 L- w; a6 G- D1 ]The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category. f2 `, Y0 C! A( Q
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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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! I) f0 e5 d# {0 E. m3 m2 k; vAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.& c' {8 C! b. ~; B: r
9 O! I' U" D- M0 Z& vHowever, 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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\"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\". , m' S1 `. i+ S3 R9 A7 _
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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.: l* P9 h6 [; e# \1 M8 W: D! P
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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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