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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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6 ^7 n+ V/ ?7 [3 p9 O. |, mhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197* Y* ^0 R& l5 W! V# `2 r4 b
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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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" C6 s- ^* q$ w/ `; AScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas2 u. ?4 M' n8 ^& @% h5 f2 t
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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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# g$ y4 J6 G% D% E' H ]0 }The 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.+ z6 n' i A$ t/ A/ ]+ w4 E
3 Z2 |1 v8 @3 ^, Z R9 S; YThe result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.3 |: [) K5 m. @3 }& R( Q
* M! T0 j! \: Y5 RThe 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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/ _$ B. p( f3 k7 U, WTheir 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.% }4 m5 o" D( C
# D$ x* t0 B, S1 w+ E2 lOne 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: o5 d5 d1 J O1 ~* Z U' Q
, g7 o1 {1 G+ q: ~' A# LAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.: \3 c# E6 v3 Y+ x( w
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\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.1 S% p4 y9 g# i( {, R, _0 \
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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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0 }8 |& r6 o$ D9 m( v. |* C) Q6 a F\"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.\"& K& L3 s) B4 L7 E
1 R4 D6 \% U- `3 lDr 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%.\"& O5 Z/ N' }8 U0 C
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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.+ U" m* `# z( d- F+ {2 X- J" ~
T% _+ }1 G" F+ m% A' b4 LThey 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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! A$ K: p$ E$ `- DAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.. k( V5 x3 U: u( g, j
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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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\"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\". 0 c) D. H% ?( U+ E8 `' R
) C8 D1 A' t0 ]0 q0 A( ]. [\"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., b3 P+ B: l u8 I8 {# T9 {9 X7 L" J4 a
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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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