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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- G4 s: u' m+ B) t$ w5 A4 ]1 e
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http://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 Palmer
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas( r+ j' D; {( @% u. K
7 z& o% A2 W8 r2 H3 L$ q gA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
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. R: P; v* d4 NThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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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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1 N6 f8 w* m/ F& x7 p) q# eThe result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.) ^# }; @# @ X
" j5 {6 W4 U+ o. ]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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9 _( Q5 a- l$ Y0 m! z0 \, |0 FTheir 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.: l' [6 h; k1 ^+ O8 P9 c X
9 r- D* \3 X; f6 h! QOne 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.
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% z( }' `' `/ ~8 R# x7 d% oAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.$ }: }) D+ P: Y3 u1 F y* \
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\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.; `/ w" R3 _6 X% u3 D: D3 m
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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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4 d1 ~. R' q0 F: _6 u2 W! w( t f\"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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7 \6 R( Z) C1 E# b) d. XThe 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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, P1 s; t; ^' w3 ^And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.8 c4 M9 E$ V% v7 A& o
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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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. e( @) z. K5 ?# c7 V1 x5 R\"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\". 9 A. E, a' ~3 r" R
; X1 X' _" ~& ` o, |0 \, Q! J\"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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# ?9 y- O5 x* c4 }+ E5 ^- r\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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