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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. o5 E( Z) ^& e7 ^& `5 n9 f
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-128111979 |; a9 ^- p% ~! {4 P" V
0 e$ }3 h5 a, U3 D22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer a+ @0 h, `7 L8 F Q, X3 t) z. K
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas" @, V2 N1 k x3 F
* F0 u0 p Y( J% _A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
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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.
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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.$ j: V' G1 x0 `4 J! K( G
9 [8 N8 `. o( M' TThe 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.2 R: u N2 ?1 O7 E
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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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4 ]: p% \) y( c% o. iAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.5 E7 l0 U! ~2 T. `
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\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.9 H* M' O0 Q2 _. q2 N/ N
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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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5 g8 G) E. X# F9 T) |% E V% r/ V\"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.\"( [! Z& U4 _; j4 J" X
) S/ x( ^) z$ |) G, IDr 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%.\"
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# Y' u4 z% L& \( rThe 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.: k! d& y r1 x6 B8 e* B5 F
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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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1 \9 Q* z9 g( m9 B\"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., E# Z! A% w+ j1 c. Z0 I/ i6 b
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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". + T7 \8 l5 [% Q4 Y' O: ^
% o t, W) N8 U\"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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v$ ^: z* S* c$ e* p( J$ 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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