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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3 L$ ?5 G) Q4 S1 g; h2 |. y3 D) ?% Y
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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0 {5 U8 Q# Z3 _ u' a22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer' Z5 V" C O6 O, l0 ?; y, S8 Y
6 _- v3 i( U/ c1 Q% |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.% K8 @7 {& g1 j/ J
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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+ j2 k( s( [8 g. z. f* W1 p+ uThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.# Z7 |8 o/ U0 t a2 N
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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.; O7 }! k* a& h8 A R0 ^( {
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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." o7 x3 q( N* a, E7 r& 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.
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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.$ ~. ?% T( ~+ T$ w
& t! }( ~: y+ S; w+ {4 w0 |At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.( B* h- E8 E' h& M8 a( v" Q
; ~3 g1 @$ L0 m! U7 X% z9 H$ N; H; ?\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona., V) ?# k% g* N# N4 F* d9 |
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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., E: }/ O- c) }/ S: a4 Z1 W
3 h. T' @' x( L8 Y\"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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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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7 S2 c& ]* y7 ?/ D% jThe team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.+ [3 c9 x; O4 o( |$ p4 Y% }/ [
1 K8 b, o5 T( f9 [& R9 ^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./ Z" L w; }* W
' Q" h) b7 T5 B! M @; }* nAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.2 `# W6 ?; M! L D
+ ^3 ], M A6 ~* F. P0 p* [. EHowever, 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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However, 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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. l2 d8 T+ q: s6 c2 s\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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