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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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1 [ o* ]3 m+ g ^3 u) dhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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$ |7 l5 } E$ C: F/ _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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$ l$ ~ ?' S- d) q2 j$ sScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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6 b! H+ A6 {" NA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.; b' x; a3 w9 c
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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.) J7 n9 \$ k6 B# j
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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.
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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.; q& I8 \" i/ P6 w" m5 u, P/ S
. E9 Y2 d' v* q2 ATheir 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.6 q% t7 J3 v; f% h1 x
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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.6 O+ T6 @4 n' L. W3 O
6 `2 R. j" m6 l/ fAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.
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* J) T- K7 M* E+ V+ [\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.; W6 R5 V& ?) K6 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.! d3 n# N, X/ N: m; h( u/ \
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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.\"! X9 l) P% }/ `( }2 I0 e
& s9 i# J6 L2 u3 MDr 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%.\") A, w$ d: [& Y; i2 q6 h% ]* V
) I9 X6 ^1 W- k7 IThe 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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$ B$ d; X. {: E( I3 hThey 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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0 i; V' O+ H5 ?, r. 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.
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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.( X9 E6 r, ~8 I$ o' Z% P
3 X: y. u# \' ^7 ?& cHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". / X1 T0 W# |6 O* ^1 `8 u( ?
/ H$ X% I# @5 n\"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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3 x4 e# e( ~" _5 Z\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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