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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3 g4 M, T1 \' A, K7 ]# m! M4 j
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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: _4 k3 D; R1 i# e+ |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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9 v- `1 g& {9 Q4 IScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers., I/ W& A% r: S! ^6 V; L: T
# {5 Q( T" i. v! g6 IThe 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.
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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.$ a0 P! ]) O9 R
8 N; \- C; X% Y3 t5 e* j( JThe 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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0 z. } R/ l, ~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./ x' M" G1 {2 Q6 T
6 x8 P' }9 E' AOne 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.) t7 m1 R* g @/ G4 [
0 P; r' l* q8 L5 ZAt 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.
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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.
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7 K2 }, |! v" s' l p\"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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7 Z8 c. x4 O7 aDr 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%.\"* ]* u3 N" c& @, O5 |; z3 M. G
& b9 _/ P5 D: r3 @0 S! G; yThe 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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" |( w5 t" q9 _& ]: I& o- r0 t$ eThey 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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; `: P$ h) r# y$ q. YAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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" W( d9 T8 t! K& q2 {& DHowever, 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." ^9 y/ j- M, N7 Z5 y
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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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+ E+ I* l# D% R: j\"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. w+ F+ h. \, Q% \0 k G4 r
; ~+ |2 n% l6 q# P; I3 a\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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