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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 d2 Y: m$ Q* r% vhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197! B2 \' `& \- U5 \# r! ^
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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, Dallas0 h, ]& \- E4 N% i1 d+ Q
3 F' Y) E' x' O; |% XA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.3 v2 ?. S' _6 N. ?( K6 [( V: T' K
3 U) ?" v, N8 m9 z8 p$ M( pThe 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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The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.6 V% u1 i" |5 _; q
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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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/ d2 c# V& a# }* b* Z7 L& ^( k8 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/ F7 }/ V: X4 [6 W! [% C
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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.5 ?! l1 y3 X! x, y4 P& _5 C% |# O
9 Y2 |- Q- d% l, v5 oAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.
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' Q! m% u5 z$ W- h. ~7 c\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
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& T7 e/ m8 N3 k) P' j* J4 A\"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.\"; C3 A2 v/ l0 J6 N
9 k: y4 }. L X; Z" {; ]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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# \ b/ i S* {' m+ y" G$ N; j& FThe team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.8 r) `5 H& r6 \* n& [4 G7 Z G4 S
7 B( ?0 G- B0 T0 b' g7 gThey 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.
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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.6 q$ V, E4 [5 G, ?& U
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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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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". 8 X- V6 m3 Q3 @; v$ t0 V
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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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