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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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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- ~$ M U1 L, |9 _6 ?, P
3 O+ O n: {7 g0 d0 U3 h+ m) @9 T NScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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/ F4 g& C B1 `* U) \% u" d U5 d, WA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.( a0 z5 p. r6 L5 O3 r/ m
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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.+ k7 l; Z; Q- w: G
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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.5 f3 r- C3 a* d1 o6 L
+ j% J! {; T5 q I+ _8 r% PThe 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.$ y# G$ a0 c7 b. X0 I2 U2 @
2 ~! E6 l ~8 p; [$ ~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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" h) n8 S/ T8 XOne 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.8 B$ p2 n' e7 P" T! p# h; Y7 \
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\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.7 x5 y' t2 a$ I7 g
( m6 C5 ?: B- e# O# X) w\"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.# H" a. @6 J; h& B
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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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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%.\"& l6 \$ S" U0 B# ]2 K
, E" d( J9 a; Z v6 W* Q2 ~: Z, _" lThe 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.4 x5 E$ V% B6 ]/ s* l
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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.
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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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- N7 u0 J6 u- W4 t" z" E) AHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". $ _, w: k0 n5 T+ h' E b" N6 {* N, l
% J( c9 Y8 J E9 U( ]; f3 C4 F6 ?\"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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. K7 `; _$ n( w, X0 h\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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