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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-128111974 }0 k) `6 R) i
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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
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas" u: v$ x, j3 h' W2 Y0 Q( 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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The 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.
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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.3 z$ m' o0 b/ q$ l6 k8 D" u
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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.+ G2 f+ X, c% P9 w/ l% m% t
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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.4 e4 @/ B% n9 K) s) |8 Z2 j) u
' j1 c. Y8 q- p5 l" a0 o" H' f3 T# s4 wAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.! r; y* l( a2 _, e6 z3 \$ U- S
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\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.( B* T0 w3 F: 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.
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; C2 g/ K* ]0 {. c5 c3 z\"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.\"4 x D8 C* c' m$ J
' S4 d" w+ D: }( p3 J# ~/ ~7 O4 H# nDr 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%.\"0 G/ [3 S1 a( B. B
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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.! X t5 B5 x# T5 X4 }) d
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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.
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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7 {: `) P b- T# i7 h3 r2 rHowever, 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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$ N, t" y5 b" ?6 A+ x L6 Z\"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.$ d) w- f" s# {4 c' n5 [) ^
; K/ j, ^, T1 G& AHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". 2 v& E8 X( `% I+ B. d6 e0 {
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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.: C( E W9 p1 e: {' a% K
7 T% k8 `/ e" o3 ^0 g, m\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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