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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-12811197# _. M+ l, V3 c( X" n( ?
- g7 d, u: ]7 V3 Q5 Y+ V7 L, c22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer3 ^0 d+ Y: f* ?. r' v
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas
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* }6 x2 S4 a: I) b. x# E- b% WA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
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# {1 f5 B [& ]0 j8 PThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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9 L; C' C I3 @5 e7 i2 W8 @0 l0 JThe 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.5 G( K/ A8 O+ z% O. ?2 ]. m& m
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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.
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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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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.. I. `1 i4 q$ @5 L" ]- c
1 }2 t( a! f- K0 a7 a4 iAt 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.+ i7 Z( |: B: ?% X. Q ]' T8 Q5 ?
b, Q6 U* ~) k) a- x7 F\"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.+ _1 S. i! W' ]7 x; U( Y: A/ S
! r5 S3 T2 U, D7 g! A' R4 C\"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.\" h. x2 h3 J, @
- E6 l( \ I0 K1 |" L& vDr 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%.\"* B$ @# I6 O% t6 K9 G$ y4 U
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The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category. X" H9 h2 {1 U8 y& `: E+ a0 c
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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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- T/ u$ k9 [$ r7 a) l( L0 l" `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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\"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. z; ]% L7 U2 F2 w# q% n U
; }, e( i; h3 l& [However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". ! }$ }& O5 [% P7 D. E3 O$ H# q
$ E; |& K& P! c6 j% p\"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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+ r$ ?5 u$ m" j8 E0 [% j! m; v: d9 N\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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