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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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S0 j2 { J$ j1 X! N* z# [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197( Q1 S5 r) Z' W
% U# d0 i3 {1 k! k+ ?( a22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer1 E3 i2 t1 [9 a$ ?. N
' c- _ _' |" K- X; T9 D2 V0 o( aScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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& p/ ^+ P$ q* q @/ n c" l$ eA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.: {3 n2 t+ T- e$ O( U9 D
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.% C6 r* l9 Y5 Q* h4 ~7 `. J! T
% a& e) m+ X' QThe 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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+ x; w* n5 N) n# k& Z9 P5 r3 ^The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.
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& i7 W+ l2 y' IThe 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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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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+ o' A- R9 T2 `) ], p6 {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.8 R1 O) A6 ]0 n8 B8 Z) R8 D
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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.# O9 m1 M9 ]5 o2 E1 h. L; ~
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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.( q3 d* b0 l6 y* P
3 w; `7 k' _% h0 r: W4 M5 B# z6 b\"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.\". ~; K) f7 e% f0 B0 k- }
) r7 M- m0 x& C9 ]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%.\"* I3 d, x& O8 i+ {" z1 ~$ I3 q
; R* e; K" f- M+ p: ~The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.( S* @' g( F' P) [5 B4 M) ^2 x: d: C0 k
: F' G+ ]( A( C- ^" dThey 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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' N0 `8 Q5 Q4 EAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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^8 t# L- A+ n+ J$ Z" YHowever, 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.% }* h! K# I% b$ |3 j0 O
, y4 T; {6 c* K/ M1 ]! ^\"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\".
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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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- o1 W' ]/ ?6 J\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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