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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6 ?; D1 L9 `- b. ~
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8 _7 w1 v( `$ {9 { Zhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197- u ^% _: u* T: E! p
* R. H5 P" J, b4 ^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% |0 A4 J! Z4 G$ v; v
) s) \; @" ?3 k0 S6 ^7 ^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 W% U$ h
! y# o1 G1 L' P' d; h" \The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.# F p( J* U) i S
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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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7 C1 o2 A) n2 M2 ?" j7 ]7 k xThe result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries., E- C$ O$ c: F3 |' V5 x( S
, D& F2 R6 f" UThe 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./ S# e; e4 G/ b e5 h
- }) N3 w) ^7 oOne 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.$ l- P$ k% q& R7 m
' }8 O! N4 O5 Z+ p. [6 ~( h& _- vAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.! K/ B# V+ k, k0 Y
' [6 L: S$ X& Z5 T/ ^\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.7 Z7 J% I' w" @+ j6 z; j3 N
5 t7 n8 k2 ^# Y! `4 H8 L9 x\"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.& O8 E0 v( i1 X% [" P1 ~" H3 Y' Q1 K. J
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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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' @* J* c$ `9 t* t1 iDr 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%.\"/ E4 M( K l9 w
* `, @5 W5 ~! T6 ~; n- FThe 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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& {6 ]9 U4 d+ y0 KThey 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.8 e& s" k7 r3 l. q- K2 A1 G
$ a6 q0 }: @5 hAnd 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.& g( j6 K! F" e( a
$ D7 e- f! D4 h% X/ _: @' V+ {\"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\". R3 k) n# Y/ a9 @
4 }6 T5 S" ]# Q d' C/ c; D- e\"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.' A. F; G, d/ g7 l' n/ Z- i- q
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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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