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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9 s0 p {' w/ v8 x
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- W! e6 {9 o& M! i. E; [4 Uhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197) ?& ` J$ d5 @
- [! |, ~9 T2 S( H$ V N22 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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4 W9 j3 l. V2 p( j- R' v1 FScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas" @5 D1 W$ O B* i; B
$ G( O8 C4 X( V' X4 Q, x8 _0 A6 WA 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.
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( r% k" ` {. Q" }) uThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.& a4 v4 Z& o6 F; V
5 W3 v4 Q3 {& Z9 {$ SThe result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.! A2 D- E8 A# D( @" O* i* s
/ m) v2 ^4 F3 r% x! e; |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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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.
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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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$ S8 h+ F+ n7 y: J' b HAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.3 d# F. {+ ], @) y6 N0 B! S. b
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\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.3 V( ^* }5 |4 d
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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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. S3 S I, v; o( \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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# w" d, g- v3 {/ ~9 TThe team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.+ O5 ~( `$ g2 }! ~7 T! G
. f! s9 y" j% n, y* GThey 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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6 C3 G, V1 v, pAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.' s6 J2 W$ x0 Q- \* N. }; Q
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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.# g$ ]' ~2 m: j/ i, F: v) n8 V
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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.) q; U& D2 T! f2 ~, |; D& Z C' S
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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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1 V2 f, d) }8 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.7 `* b, E( C' J$ P3 l$ | y3 Z5 n/ Q
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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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