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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5 x7 d9 E- L" P5 | ?
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197, [ x& j$ m( W% {
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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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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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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.- ^0 R$ {' l/ X3 N' S
0 c" W, l. F' p8 lThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.3 ^. T8 \) O8 l
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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.& u: Y, Y' a J% ]
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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.4 ?4 S; G# R/ i; x" H( `
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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.3 |4 Y+ t7 n# b# _+ s# U- M
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One 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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& \$ }$ g T; H4 }At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.* H; G9 }& E; K5 d( z
0 L# b2 t2 s2 w* Y4 Y) y\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
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; n. G' u# Q4 I. C6 o" 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.$ y0 ^8 ~- _0 U: n n, E, ?
) g7 F5 ?% W! \: I" k6 T\"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.\" R* j4 }+ g4 X) U$ O3 Y$ S8 I
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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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) [7 i/ ^3 `5 B" bThe 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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! J m4 e7 y; P8 qThey 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.2 E$ s" {9 Z6 H# Q
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.5 J l! b+ E9 n
# `. H' [+ J, P: ^7 i4 n8 i, CHowever, 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." d0 N" g2 h4 M4 J5 u
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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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4 l- g# W3 B1 [: KHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". 2 d6 W' b% i8 N; S6 [2 p) k
0 e. f5 l6 Q/ s; Q; V* S\"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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\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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