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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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+ q" r5 ]# g1 Y( r& Z# L$ chttp://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; J! L9 H6 [5 a; Z! @8 Z
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas0 O) D" l3 Y2 C9 d5 m/ z
5 v0 f7 J. r0 G% o, tA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.4 r4 z, Y3 B# V+ G0 H% v
1 [8 S P& e7 zThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.* B6 c! s) t& F, R
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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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. @9 t; C1 G" w4 r* z! P5 XThe 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., k" a* E7 i% O3 N
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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.
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# F/ K, t: c! s( TAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.$ y- j; b( T) d% s) k2 o
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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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) e; M7 I- f$ g8 d: O0 O2 |0 ]\"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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2 F% q! }* t0 g d. S. w* A\"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.\"
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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%.\"2 Z0 L: r, ?% d. s( l: ~ t
) n6 n3 r# \1 o3 n5 bThe 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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! U0 `' A8 h- v) t$ f/ \. B$ }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.1 q0 q) {4 t- L: H" v# `+ h8 K
+ Z; g3 H C5 f( q. ]4 ?: zAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.' s$ s) g2 T o* m- a4 o
9 a" T# ]0 M/ {3 e! v& @5 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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' H* M2 c7 K3 I$ M, F+ P\"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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7 |' j% r8 M, {! e\"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." I0 {6 q0 G$ ^1 }. E% z+ r6 V
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\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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