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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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" e5 E9 ]. E5 S9 I/ Fhttp://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 Palmer1 o7 e0 A. H& u( }4 B4 | L
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas: z) q5 M2 l0 I3 S4 S
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A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.; [6 ?5 @& a! I0 L+ _ L
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation./ U1 O2 W0 R% }* o4 T, P2 j4 X
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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.
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/ f3 W8 a: M8 a% VThe result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.) Y4 |" z; {5 k7 h* V6 O
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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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; L4 ^8 u- V* e8 J- K+ q5 U* r; wTheir 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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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.5 J6 {0 q# Q) I& q! z
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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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6 v; n& w+ R& r8 E0 {3 k\"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.7 E6 i2 g5 m! b$ i+ c: r
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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%.\"; A& W+ H+ |0 p5 n1 t4 d1 z4 W
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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.
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6 K0 m# u4 a$ u2 }" e/ k: z6 s- NThey 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.% m9 {! H- h; o
# g* y$ F" p$ T" bAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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; V# D; {% f6 Q' o6 v4 j A$ W# iHowever, 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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. l" P9 O2 T. S\"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.) N: j* X: L# i. I+ _, ]- M
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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. ~" i& S' Y' o- L
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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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