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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, V& N3 v1 I6 {; ^! z
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197. ^8 Z1 F6 r- ]$ v
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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 Palmer8 [6 M6 C/ a% z. V& p4 t4 a
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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+ Z- ?. {. e# I0 a, Q2 _. z4 NA 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.7 f9 a4 ~1 y" N4 o# D7 G3 ]
8 ~9 H1 |2 p. @0 @: G& P5 a4 nThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.: }2 j; t: ]1 m4 P8 v& V2 r
- L, q) H. h% Y- _The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.* U( F8 N3 J# V
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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. q$ g& k. n/ Q" G0 {
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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." {9 i3 t8 w; K7 s9 \, w; m
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At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another. w2 O. f e5 s
. o7 {! a2 n' _% F. k/ f/ F% i: W\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.2 m4 s' b d2 \5 G% A! ]2 S
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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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\"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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_% h& a. F" 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%.\"2 o5 d5 X1 f+ S: Q4 y4 t
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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.
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- d. J. l2 u/ I+ I- W0 P$ LThey 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.. {8 r' v2 R% N; n
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction. Q# V# j5 d# j8 y* X
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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.
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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\". 2 O5 D* F M0 r3 n, P5 i' V* H
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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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\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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