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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8 U, S6 a) Q1 E4 G
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" A) F6 f* D* k1 y3 qhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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4 I9 i. F8 \3 Y# a5 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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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas& c$ _5 s# i0 K6 j% m
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A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.- X& U0 @" z, h# D0 H3 A; z
/ K& V5 s' H* a; x+ h. JThe 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.) N& k- M4 c; U; y" H
$ A* g9 h J( `3 l+ Q2 O; IThe result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.. ]6 S% v6 P, q# x# }' z
) ^, e# k: S# ?3 M0 s" K% K/ q! iThe 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./ v) f0 _$ a" ^$ i, \+ U8 d% \- v
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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." I0 A5 X2 I: x$ G6 F# d+ @
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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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0 K/ C3 }9 @4 z2 A6 S+ p% sAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.4 z2 {( P6 b2 U7 F1 w/ g6 S' i
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\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.) j- t8 S" L. g1 ?
3 g& W3 i6 i( s$ i' o4 Q, Z* ^% Q- G\"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.% Q, ^$ P c6 c! \: w
# A' |5 S' ]2 F# m3 S8 V\"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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' @7 V& p6 @ ~; C9 mDr 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%.\": D2 R/ S+ q! _7 W7 u
' R1 ]7 B. U2 L/ Y7 xThe 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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They 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.8 t Y. ?% h/ N! E+ r0 F* N0 u
5 v3 i. ]$ b+ D& sAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.5 g8 Q9 I! L; _, G- n
& B" A% b- v9 X" f+ ~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., x C! `3 Y D. L
7 | W/ u, k A' K, j' 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.
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" v) o0 j, Y: A4 YHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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\"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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/ ~2 C5 M4 d; t1 ~\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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