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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/ G9 E- s2 u, D, o4 p! \
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3 M" e$ G6 n$ @ i& ihttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-128111977 ~$ `% r- q/ D( r7 G
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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. o! P( d; D# R2 L8 y. l- W
1 f# M7 L( y& m0 v p9 g) j7 Q8 pScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas Q2 o0 I% @: k
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A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.6 a! E' G* ^9 j. o; S
4 w( Q8 Z' ^4 m- ZThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.5 B$ s8 |% V/ H( j1 N5 }
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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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The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.0 q' r3 G" `! |1 b* W+ s2 s
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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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6 Y& b" R( X! i* ~ E v1 EOne 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.4 ^) B! L- {, G% X/ d
2 ^- J5 \6 e( d/ K; V" ^, YAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.$ l; J' x6 M7 E% T' q9 a/ T
5 V4 w/ a6 q) Y2 ~9 C\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.2 [4 ?4 g; X o3 P" u1 n0 r
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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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; q+ A, I8 K' J/ P, q* D\"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.\"+ K7 }( @: p# A0 C7 R
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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.
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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.. a* k+ z# K9 f( x+ x
, F1 T: h4 Z3 xAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.1 f: y& U7 ^0 `: ~; T
) [+ I) b; R+ Y2 p7 |) a1 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.) ~' }. i& r- B
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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./ h& A, g9 w7 q+ A
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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.
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9 q4 i$ }; t" R ]: ^% d' ~\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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