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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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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197! f0 B" C4 S4 l/ Q o, S7 S$ ?- a
/ b& |* j8 c0 p2 b7 \. |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
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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.
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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0 V+ {2 ?$ f5 a+ l4 |The team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one." g; I$ E+ i( W4 |
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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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: S) {* s. u" P hThe 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 [; o( x, f+ G1 Z
& k9 E% R& T) H/ J( F) \. i( K) b4 yTheir 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.' W" r8 h: e) ^3 {
' i7 y6 F4 d9 Y1 r v' J5 FOne 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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+ Z* y9 N( _8 U) w3 N( oAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.
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\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona. q9 L1 u' l/ n
6 r6 \" S% f% s/ T- }; W4 e( A\"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.! x! Z( T6 b: Z7 p- \& @
- H+ @% N7 X$ A- u\"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.\"7 @6 x) j; ~, V& B6 d
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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.5 A, ?% \, r2 i; J% `
g: S }. }" F, M5 w* TThey 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.- h( [2 e( i& q; `2 @5 K* B
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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& M3 T- v4 v; 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.
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" W; |9 R- `& [ b6 p. X+ K' S I\"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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. y% p& V! |6 v9 \/ DHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". 2 x) r$ |+ F+ n6 c8 e( U0 l. l& z5 s4 r0 n
* T6 [; h4 E) @2 E- L8 Z\"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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