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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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2 K9 t" ^2 M2 w" X0 f- dhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-128111973 R7 v( B# h+ G+ L# P/ o' o
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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, Dallas7 v0 n0 _/ j" o
! b) s2 A! J# a4 v, I! ?# [A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.9 q: j3 U- J. X5 Y
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.+ j9 x- K/ E- z ^ v# U4 [
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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.$ H# F# }7 F! _ z& s
/ C* n; J) F# v1 bThe 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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$ K! R$ W7 V) qThe 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.) P3 [- W0 c0 r$ d# R' z8 t4 r3 i
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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., z. r) l$ b: m N6 o+ I1 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.
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\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.* m" a1 h; n7 ?8 b5 J& X
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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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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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& R9 l, w3 _. B9 FThe 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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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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; R! \( X$ B+ zHowever, 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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# v0 H: v# f9 L6 _\"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.. A0 E) F2 f6 B2 n: U: I
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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.! g3 m/ @/ }9 c3 u
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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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