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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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4 a7 n6 }1 A: U6 F3 u, u4 B6 V$ Ehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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# M0 _% S! s4 H# A. E7 I22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer$ U* f9 p* ?2 g4 A4 N0 E9 K
5 j* n* K5 o+ o6 VScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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% F4 U1 U6 }3 W/ X7 ^# gA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.3 Y" \* B) |; R( |/ _2 D& |
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.4 X; J0 H. n5 @5 V# I- f
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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.- w3 w# P4 T2 a% T& [+ Q" G
$ s, x7 r& L- DThe result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.3 e! W9 t* v6 o( g9 w) L+ ~/ ^; `
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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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; j: Q u" P9 R! T1 p% {% K6 ]. zTheir 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.& u! l; w; o) E% W5 T9 R4 ~
5 K( i; N1 N! T+ ?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.
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At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.3 A& ]; f! q2 |. f. s0 {) o
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\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.. @# n; l& A$ @& H7 K
2 [0 E, L; K) t* \5 q- N8 O' a; i\"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.\". D A) R) i' P$ {5 A
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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%.\"9 z# o, I3 }- O, }3 u1 \
4 ]$ q. ]5 H) @2 R% W& T: M1 Z' Z6 ]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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: x4 [# x+ \" x9 P& h- YThey 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.% j2 A( o; j: Z! E' V! Q, ?9 e
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction., I6 i4 w% Z. }( r9 E' G$ |
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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.+ k; [; u# E+ Q
- N- f$ D7 [( o/ K" w7 ]( }8 mHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". 4 J; W7 H! b" I7 h1 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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\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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