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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* ~0 k4 e7 Z& R( r9 }
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1 B _9 V; p2 P7 Thttp://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
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+ R6 s. B/ E1 n- ~* c. jScience 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.. K. h- [$ p5 }& p
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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.& [4 n) ?8 f. y4 r( t
+ t$ B3 O, ]- O2 a0 hThe 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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. [6 E [+ }! _' W+ J0 A/ h2 Y X3 gThe 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.3 I$ r) c; B; X2 t! ]
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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 [" _* n# }9 y
9 G' \# o" G: g. W0 l" b# L# m& HOne 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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+ k3 j' w: R8 H2 L4 E, xAt 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.! t3 B) v: p1 v7 j
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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.8 m; _8 M# P- X. b& P- V
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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.\"3 g& }# U9 |) j8 j
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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%.\"
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1 j: r- d* j, s" j' FThe team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.! h2 n' O& `% _/ J
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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./ q+ r N$ s0 X) t% E
' H, n6 C1 j: l( pAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.2 D$ i: J. ~/ D' R- T
% A: W4 l+ r0 {( d% F% EHowever, 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.5 U. o; C! Q/ R, j1 d3 l8 O6 E2 L/ a
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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.1 \; L2 ]1 s5 K+ H
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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". 1 u* q' }. G4 Z" _* @' _& \
4 N1 N% d, j. p5 r5 g" _\"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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. \* m( ^1 t( S\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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