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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2 V" O, c/ U* c; Q3 F
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197- b! u8 q/ h c- O0 e
" \# q: J9 p0 E% R) h22 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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. q, {9 F6 h9 T' z- ZScience 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.* J& @' h1 |- w, x
; V s# B- h, D+ h' o2 zThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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7 a, [8 d7 v; ]& b+ Y( A% f5 N% N- ZThe 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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], ^4 U5 _. ~) ?: [ {The 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.
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! z3 ?8 z" e' h9 n+ r8 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.7 `* Q! _6 n- K& \6 t
* {& ?6 P* K0 C+ W$ }* 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.7 V% f8 ]7 [) F+ g
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At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.
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7 h4 s+ g6 c. ^6 r# N\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.# u) v7 v b8 a# c
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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.\"
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/ u4 r1 p1 a$ [7 r2 I, o) Z+ TDr 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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The 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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1 s+ d e8 b0 n% ^1 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.* [( A0 ~2 |; }! K" G* `6 G
8 X7 ]' O/ J3 E1 [/ ^And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.8 ?+ r2 F+ e/ 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.0 J* T8 E* J: w& _3 M& M9 y
. J" J" H4 T7 s$ Z: s( h7 h\"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.5 L. ^$ `& {- W- L. G) R% J1 Y
$ N/ X! B w' _9 t9 @$ z2 THowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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7 `% L9 C8 N+ D# ~% _) F: G& K; f& ~\"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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