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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
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$ f3 W0 F+ z/ h. a/ Hhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer! ~: `7 V4 d# N9 z: i
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Science 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." I* N4 ^$ N( @3 E% R" T' t* ^
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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2 E; f# f2 t6 C3 s7 i9 W: |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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4 [8 @! s5 B4 QThe 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.4 A2 U' j5 W h9 O6 L! ~6 l( ^- t" ~
. q% o0 o- m6 @$ ZTheir 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 z5 E, E% k0 p# C& C: m
* f# b8 P$ }. l+ O" Q% G0 WOne 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.) T% ]' K% d" Z) O# {; t
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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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/ _2 h! }' M/ d\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.8 v' s& R8 d1 s7 `# S* k8 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.& r% G0 d$ J8 m# B$ P) }
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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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# \5 i6 t: }2 y7 ~) _3 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%.\"" o# B+ U% n% `7 i3 ^
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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.9 v6 O7 X4 V9 |. y+ f2 j7 r% Q
9 f% e2 y: l& r) N" `" ~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.
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.; ]- U2 J3 P7 d1 c3 X9 P
7 F' Q" ]" I+ s$ ^* w: G$ MHowever, 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: c* \3 L$ z
! E# b& N1 y0 {; e\"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.. L5 o* }/ @& l1 n. O
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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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( O( q9 T4 a; i9 }\"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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