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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 k5 m6 y1 L5 |" [% L
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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1 K, ?5 ^" r l X22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer" A& q1 i+ M! Z6 p
/ M" j3 P6 z6 @7 F$ MScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas3 Z7 n2 l$ R9 E& @/ @
5 \4 [% g6 }6 k! G Q: r: v$ kA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
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2 ]2 N6 E8 ?' SThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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6 y! Q ^, y' }9 ~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.1 w5 L( u, W, ~- C0 \# E$ Q
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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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( f. \4 f: ?; V# B* Z, ATheir 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.* p9 V. g8 H5 `5 j5 @* ~6 i
0 {6 H [6 w# U; Q; d0 H9 HOne 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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At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.3 G/ b' l- r* J. R
: E, C( u3 J* G- k+ F/ p* f' Y2 \* i\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
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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.7 \' d9 P% u; x: I! \
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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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3 Y! B+ f; n( C* E/ K; d; I0 b* wDr 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%.\"# j5 h$ ?! b# x2 g- v
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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.0 ?* A; E- k2 O: n
% ^# G3 X6 p# a c, ^0 S8 CThey 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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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.1 r9 ~5 {# Y/ H, ]
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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.
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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 r- Q4 z4 X4 UHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". ' r8 @4 u3 i5 b* E1 U- h) a$ x
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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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\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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