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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8 o/ h) z2 r2 U6 }2 m
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-128111971 H2 O8 B" n- R. @! v4 R" @' B3 X
, D: X( ^; I: g4 [2 D( p22 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
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A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
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4 O. B5 S, h/ v. O7 y1 AThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.8 A3 m+ \3 N& n8 s5 n; A
/ Y. u g3 a( _( c# o& U$ |The team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.# F' g. U0 o. x
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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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7 e! ~& |8 O2 L4 z/ W9 H/ qThe 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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5 @; j( F$ U2 g# l$ {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.
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3 G! V' V- }. Y6 lAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another./ T3 f" j4 C. Y6 c% X8 Z
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\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
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8 u" Q& ^2 [: E0 ~! P: X2 y* C/ E\"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 H( a. f) ~/ ^# e, @
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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.\"& Z( C6 G b- u6 t; A B+ @
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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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The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.$ p7 K! b4 C! a' Q5 @' A
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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.% h! o; `* R; }, U6 y: } B5 ?
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.6 \4 X8 c6 a, ^' k6 z$ j, h/ n
( z, X: A1 i( {2 N4 N; d, AHowever, 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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8 c6 j6 t. m5 p0 K( T* {9 ^: d\"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.
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However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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' a( g6 q1 ~3 W0 w/ ^' D\"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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8 A; X# z4 ~% U A\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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