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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
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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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/ u4 J& P! e& [+ }' s+ xScience 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.0 |7 H/ e& e0 c: Y
# o% q0 J, ? `+ a z. a' XThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.+ j8 V2 F) b7 h" M8 b* a7 ?6 d2 |
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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.
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: D, H$ U' Q2 t: x! G1 }0 w+ kThe 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. j* w# N+ b3 f0 B
+ E4 Y* [: A7 j5 `* JTheir 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 Z5 e- R0 I. Y6 AOne 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: n" i3 b! J1 q6 B' N4 eAt its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.7 p+ k6 ]8 Z; X0 n$ L1 n8 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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) \+ d4 @3 s3 ]7 |9 K1 I\"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.\"# _; q" |/ ]/ }/ h
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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.
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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% E0 H$ |2 j1 n; K5 SHowever, 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. H7 x( B6 L3 q, L: i2 g M2 L
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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.- }+ v6 J; T& m7 g; [/ o* D6 A/ x+ z
% }3 w6 x9 J b* O4 rHowever, 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.* w3 k) t! K% h# C* e# L
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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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