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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8 Z, C7 p, ^ ^0 u( c: U% L
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+ |% G' E7 E3 I' W8 e% i" O$ thttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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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 Z( K7 u; R1 n5 F1 y6 `
7 U5 p$ b% F5 l# x, p! GScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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3 a$ E5 M9 ~# {! zA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers. N0 u1 P. ?3 r7 B- R7 t
& Q/ C2 v$ T; E' o0 v" D1 b1 xThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.# ~9 M: j1 q3 E" V5 o G1 S
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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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( W/ ~: E5 ?0 a4 j& X9 `The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.- D. ` o2 A) q$ M5 T
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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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# _. H3 l; J2 `5 P6 e" ~! GTheir 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.7 w! r/ _( M; P: K
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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 }& Y; Y9 P. |9 `# L" B- P
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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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$ ?/ c& l6 b' `3 ^\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.# Q% t' E6 s1 O$ h9 i8 Z
8 j7 @, H* X( j/ F7 n\"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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- Q- |" B' C: B5 T, \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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The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.% r" x6 F) \, J9 @* n, r
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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.% n) o8 m7 l% `0 n2 y3 G5 |" t
+ F) j! E# _3 Z6 a( vAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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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." Z2 a7 ~1 {' Y6 a9 i
0 o) n3 U) N; l- {- P3 ~8 X1 I2 v\"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.' X! T& Y# m# P8 C; v
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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". , `! A9 ^: v; Q9 B
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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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' M' k# U3 D5 V, R4 \/ b1 H! O\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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