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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
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8 K$ { ?0 E$ g1 a: q0 v22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer% T* z2 y( V. p6 L7 W) n+ j) S& K3 k
1 K% P8 @) `' U) I: qScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas6 ~" m# E1 j) r* l' ^3 K
7 ^6 E) _1 y `& S/ z$ x4 jA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.$ q O/ E; _ c. R
7 G0 m2 x0 X! VThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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8 `7 F$ X" Y. P' a' OThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.) B" F: w* C- M* s3 d" L- [
" P/ D) q* ~; e+ z& F3 W9 mThe result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.- }8 B% t' [7 x7 \
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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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, G ^! ^6 M# n- R9 D% q" MTheir 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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! x r5 z1 K" ?6 M0 Y* zOne 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.* M1 Z9 O) D* [! m7 o' I. P
, y$ v- B. u3 o0 K4 u' i5 nAt 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.' q! E* e d# U, }0 T
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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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( L! f! F; }; Z7 G! ?' \7 p" R\"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.\", E$ L, k: |& `: ]2 w. e
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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%.\") Z) O- H# k3 Y5 q9 f# s( ]/ ]! _2 o# e% }
B5 T g! _& n4 X8 Y B1 FThe team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.0 k f9 R" r b/ r
% e) ?2 d& E( ?6 g# W; mThey 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." O8 E/ b) N- y) q5 C
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.' E* {5 I0 w' u$ x% I
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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.) B+ Y" O& N" Y5 G( e2 I v* i4 v
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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\". : e( J4 g: q5 A2 T E r8 m! b* A
( m* k# J4 k- L0 ^\"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.# Q7 \9 U* [7 y' @( Y4 g
4 E4 Q# Y. I, h- x- @! c\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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