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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& R8 \7 J: q8 C2 y& _: A
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0 n% T, t1 K- s5 I) q+ nhttp://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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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas3 k7 K. L8 \% d \7 }0 n8 Q) i
( H6 e M, V, O r2 `: z( KA study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.7 w7 n) o% p" @8 E# D; L6 G0 v
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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.3 w! V+ o+ @; \5 N3 d# N& B
8 T# x6 s2 H7 y$ f4 sThe 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.& R5 O2 E/ |2 B4 S# p7 f; r5 `: _
- o4 y' f. O6 R! t' T7 r! J Q% ]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.% Y Q2 i' G; D, A. Y7 I8 u: d
. I7 c7 b" e% y9 GTheir 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.( X1 J: u+ }5 {6 H) u' H
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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.; w/ y( k1 {4 V U! `9 u
* W9 r) M* g" pAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.+ K* g3 l% r; ~* |" z9 ]
. b5 [/ ]. B! h3 ?) J\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.
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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.
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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.\"
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8 G1 X4 C/ }# Y4 JDr 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.+ V7 l( Q3 f6 h5 l( [! W8 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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; n" n& y2 l1 c2 V$ UAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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/ }4 t* R3 T, XHowever, 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.
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* q n ^- |" O, D) A: ~, [However, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\".
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\"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.( H) P0 c6 I6 i3 R8 d% `
: S0 R( | n- X\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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