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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$ b/ W3 }7 p2 h$ v) A3 F
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197
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& ` E% q$ B+ ]1 _ n0 h22 March 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET Share this pageFacebookTwitter ShareEmail Print Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysBy Jason Palmer& X( }. }/ e. c% P& M# o8 o7 f0 y8 n* Q0 O
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Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas3 x1 I: @) J4 U p
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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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The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
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6 @6 m/ g8 z! R9 j/ VThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.8 `1 G1 H6 }, G& b5 T
e% W- e+ j& v& E1 b; }" FThe 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.; l! S4 g. Z6 S' Y" ]8 ]% {0 g
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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.2 M7 M- ?" b" N" h. d2 S& w/ p9 }
3 [4 l! V6 j( sOne 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.8 R4 h6 {5 f! \/ W+ _8 O' o
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At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.
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8 T( y& S* n/ ~% s; t\"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.( q- o6 M: ?8 i, t- M+ g! I
8 S& j: |& \( g- G8 j\"For example in languages, there can be greater utility or status in speaking Spanish instead of [the dying language] Quechuan in Peru, and similarly there\'s some kind of status or utility in being a member of a religion or not.\"
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1 c& }1 ~. a' I1 @ W* ADr Wiener continued: \"In a large number of modern secular democracies, there\'s been a trend that folk are identifying themselves as non-affiliated with religion; in the Netherlands the number was 40%, and the highest we saw was in the Czech Republic, where the number was 60%.\"1 }" n' D( `0 i8 K+ n3 C! y6 U, n& c' I' v
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The team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.* D# h; y$ b+ N% d4 C
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They found, in a study published online, that those parameters were similar across all the countries studied, suggesting that similar behaviour drives the mathematics in all of them.' D' H) _/ ^6 Z8 S6 m: |) B
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.
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However, Dr Wiener told the conference that the team was working to update the model with a \"network structure\" more representative of the one at work in the world. N$ b( c8 }* Q, E! u
V% @0 n9 F* y. w, _) E\"Obviously we don\'t really believe this is the network structure of a modern society, where each person is influenced equally by all the other people in society,\" he said.
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( v9 \* v7 B# G4 w2 c; `% E& qHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". 5 w: `7 G& ]6 T% ]" j: \) s1 Q4 A; y
5 N8 H/ \/ _- r0 @ S\"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., G0 V! w. X' w+ N6 d6 T, {
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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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