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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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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-128111971 X$ B) W; Z2 s) M, l# w9 e+ S
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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
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas* v+ T# O2 V$ W7 O- O* d( U/ |
( Z* t2 V* j9 K" K6 UA 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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* a+ K+ I4 ?1 P3 J! q8 l& BThe result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.( H1 h$ V+ o+ b; s3 {
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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.# q8 [- n1 G0 }5 @6 a
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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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3 a$ B# {" ?4 F4 Y; H4 L; ZOne 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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+ }- p1 w6 |% vAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.- k6 T2 f) f5 h0 c$ N! W
1 l' |3 v0 f9 P\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
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# |' l- ?9 @% H: X0 H\"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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* y! Q" S% R9 b+ q8 u\"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.\"4 d- r% v ]0 P# ?
+ g( x- \5 y) D) T/ `9 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%.\"; ?0 n6 q; P) n
2 U9 K/ K, f) v& n0 S8 p6 s/ cThe team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.* k! |: \ t) t* O8 x
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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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" o5 r; H* Z# S, WAnd 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.4 E1 J e* {$ b
( I/ `! N2 O4 O' w\"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* X& f+ R0 A5 D3 ~' A' c
5 H# c. H7 w1 A/ r3 p# J7 B6 SHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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) s- V$ b" ]; f) _4 `/ M q\"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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A! v5 ?( v6 i& B3 m% M% Q\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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