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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8 p1 [8 R, X2 D r% J5 M
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197, f" r. P' |: ]- }
+ H- A+ J6 ~$ Z22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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3 L& @) x4 L+ T) O/ Q# P* [A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.: j: M. l0 V) f/ D
9 B1 X {; T9 i3 j8 y( pThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.: i9 \8 t6 {, b, b
* m3 T& S1 U7 |; W$ d2 u1 PThe 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.5 A, S, Z& k' }) V, y
- y- t) d" H8 @) CTheir 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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: ^% U. |9 u2 o% l- r8 a) B. SOne 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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3 q& H$ ?" J0 l) h5 l. u8 eAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.8 y3 o+ T: s+ L+ \+ S# u3 D% O" n
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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.
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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.\") @" f" e1 z. @$ i
& q1 j- D5 G+ O( ^) B7 V2 \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%.\"+ G/ m' c! k3 H8 e
. i- e2 f4 n' d5 m8 b% F: v/ ^ C: kThe 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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+ v& S; ` s$ ]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.0 `, D% x: o" U2 J$ U+ @( p( t
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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' _ _2 |1 }7 L) RHowever, 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 p/ O# C. t/ h$ N9 F/ I
4 w* [& B- ]- F2 ~\"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.) T% w/ \' k+ ?5 e9 ^, @
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However, 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.
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3 }( z1 f+ G5 T; `+ f! X' a# f\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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