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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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( h* G2 D4 p/ z1 X4 n/ s) Chttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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' m5 b5 d' `* C+ M6 {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- G3 c0 j0 \ B) Q; h% H
1 v* l. V& t% k+ i; X8 aScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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0 `: t+ O5 o6 iA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.+ L$ p! g8 s2 D2 f9 b
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The 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. q+ q' U' t: U
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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." p7 G1 `0 E) x$ N' G) v+ d% M
7 {% J' P1 U5 }; ]$ @# j& u& oThe 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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6 A) J: f/ S6 x# S) M, Y% w3 k9 uTheir 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. C! x4 S$ | `0 l
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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.
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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.
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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.: B) _ i1 ?* P5 _8 G7 l7 d. ~
( h& Z% N" b3 b& J5 M\"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.\"9 j+ j2 d: H" O2 i# w, n' a
: a9 D$ C: ^- m+ A: F6 rDr 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%.\"1 s1 g1 I9 A8 ]) g. u5 i7 @" ]/ 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./ f( O2 n* [' e5 r) d
" C: w6 W4 w$ I8 `/ M3 sThey 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.& [! M- a# p( h& B! Y e6 z
( Q& N/ U9 D& E1 W7 @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.
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& W/ _$ F1 S% N5 ?$ P$ yHowever, 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.7 L W) g6 f* m- t1 X, m- i3 n
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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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