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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# y0 V, {7 P% p( M! l2 e7 |
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1 P# Z+ r4 }0 Z4 K% lhttp://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
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% [% K ]' U( q1 t' A$ N. m' e$ PScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas/ F! i" k. t, D1 w, g
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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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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation." t1 S) ~! n1 d" f6 u2 n
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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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The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.! Q" W0 M# [0 `9 q4 G$ u& V1 ?& U& I
! o: W5 h! _4 Y% z0 }$ P% oThe 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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! g N" R+ ]0 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.# M2 E- g( X2 [( ]* C6 W/ l
2 Y+ F: q/ {: o8 nOne 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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At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.* N# _4 I9 f, r# z, }/ |
) E* b, q& ~" E, q\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
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; O! f: [! [8 {1 n$ Z# |7 z\"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.% h( j4 @, E: I) @2 F
~0 j& h# Y- Y! R6 ~6 y8 h" J\"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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% l( G) a9 Y3 A$ r/ n3 {, i% WDr 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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# ]" y9 Q! g# W4 W' M1 @6 ~& K" IThe 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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% `2 S9 y! h4 L% DThey 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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And 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.
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$ y9 \- N$ T* ?# Z\"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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, d; R4 p& `$ Z& \! CHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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0 {/ C3 _+ _, l/ b# [6 z" A& o o\"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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, l; ]/ f; Z1 _ l+ I\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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