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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* E6 X, ^ i. ~
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-128111979 N& k& L0 T4 ?" M0 m+ H7 d* ]
9 p w/ O/ f1 e5 c& x( j3 o" `; h22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer; v+ r$ V% v( o/ ^
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas6 n0 T; P: a( T) n
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A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
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- ]1 D$ W$ c7 v7 m- EThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.% t2 ~# Z. F% F2 o/ I* f7 q
0 A: G& d! k) l, Z3 cThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.' z$ n. Y. |! Y8 F: P
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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.
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$ G( ~! f- ]% D0 d6 nThe 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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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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' n9 B" e, {$ z3 s* H* }+ UOne 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.6 f5 u0 D4 x" t# k9 K
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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.: O# ], T! N! l6 V0 D+ t# A
3 q, ^ I/ a! J! q1 [0 I3 b\"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.. L/ l% N7 H, F3 `3 U
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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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, F" V1 {# n+ C; b( z0 mDr 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%.\"% r0 _8 K# e$ c) e% O
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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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2 S V' b# k' @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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8 v7 f& x# A U+ @( C4 z3 \ sAnd 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.7 ~* a) f0 q }4 o
7 m; X; [( G1 {! B& 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.# B- U) G0 V9 J* J1 [+ K
' a5 x/ i) H5 d2 V. p9 t( @; DHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". & u2 a: i6 ~* ~
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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.2 H d$ L6 I1 J P7 n( {/ V
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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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