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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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' Z1 ^' s% z8 S! T1 ~8 [5 @2 dhttp://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" C! U" f* g3 ~$ a
3 Z+ { ~! X( q6 D' w5 G7 N- TScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas3 Y: K( c1 a4 {3 ]! _5 S
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A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.3 a! v2 o$ D- _8 t- Q
; ^3 K& k8 L8 X/ d3 k2 N& TThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.& v6 T5 w6 N& V. R
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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.' C1 ^$ ~8 j- `9 Q2 Y! X! `& U
3 E, E, M R7 WThe 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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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.) w: p7 Q6 D Z0 ]& N
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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.+ N( F/ C2 N, }7 x) u j6 Z
& H( g5 F$ g; h' u$ |7 OOne 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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0 y8 z! n2 b* J' ?8 I% x3 s* Q- fAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.
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% r! m& }( n6 o ~5 e\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
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3 O: ^/ v2 w! s$ R\"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.\"
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h( V$ L, y6 o. y$ w6 e( c3 H8 vDr 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%.\" r- Z9 M' H) w0 U9 F3 f0 }
6 b+ a9 B" ^+ C# eThe 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.
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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# q# m" |0 S6 H" }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.) P( S1 L3 E9 O# r7 X
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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.& r% J4 o5 h# |8 O6 S4 s3 {6 H
1 n1 I# Q! Q+ K/ x( r! y/ ?$ UHowever, 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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\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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