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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3 \; V* K; c1 L8 u' x
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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+ V- s5 e# w$ g A22 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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3 c% x( R" k3 {+ r8 D8 T) B% WScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas4 z+ T( l7 w. s! r3 i, O$ ^2 M
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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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7 V1 o- ?7 ~8 S" D: Q2 i' _The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.. J; b3 U9 }4 E$ Y' k
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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.
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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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4 Z) U9 s( Z! _4 Z" }$ nTheir 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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# F! f2 e$ D, J N9 ~At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.( a$ y. k2 a1 y; ?$ X3 ^
6 u, I2 H( V, s/ A5 B" E9 v* r\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.) B& Z1 @( r. X; H
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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.* v* D3 ^9 m; Y3 {0 C# b) [4 v6 y2 X
/ E X% r1 p( r+ k: B! o3 {# g\"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.\"- Y" p. l# H& X
. M& j7 J. H) O9 r9 p3 F7 {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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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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% z7 @- V" Y' n" ?! C" 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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0 Q0 F1 C0 z/ L/ ?! LAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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8 E% I; Q9 @* _# vHowever, 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.% p+ I2 e/ ?8 u8 X& g/ B
4 x0 K5 o$ C+ W, I- w+ @. Z$ }1 e: s; I( s\"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\".
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/ j) A9 E) V& q- `6 E\"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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