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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: ]0 @! n1 Q; x6 b5 |- |; W# M
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1 ]# K- M' \4 v8 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 Palmer1 A% G6 L$ c" m u3 U! D; D2 W1 @
) E2 G# t n% y7 ^1 q$ ]1 S8 lScience and technology reporter, BBC News, Dallas b( X* V; @8 X) ^' U' q7 B+ H% S& F
' z6 ?) N+ e7 |* T! i; ?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.( v2 r# {# x* V8 Z
0 [) j# u6 s! @9 h9 I: uThe team\'s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.! B" ^1 Y; O* s& {: m( `4 u. W
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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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# ]' W% v) T! \% xThe 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.; r! Y' b" h; P# S. t1 D4 z
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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.: L. R9 N6 u& Z- c7 }. Z; T3 T: O2 X7 I
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At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.( E" t4 H& }/ W
7 d! z6 C. i* P: e\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.9 y1 G. d/ j6 H' Y4 F
% N0 O( p# J3 }' K" r- N\"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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- Q5 l7 e' q, N$ K8 D3 O\"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.\"' c1 @! G. y* z ?' _* y! H) A
- ~ t) c2 L& s/ Z6 K( F# h0 D2 gDr 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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2 K7 e& d' o) |% Z+ VThe team then applied their nonlinear dynamics model, adjusting parameters for the relative social and utilitarian merits of membership of the \"non-religious\" category.3 Q: N$ ]2 D2 P7 J
' i: X1 Q% O/ ^2 IThey 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 C. F. A% _! g; L4 v: V
8 t: D" H/ S) S KAnd in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.4 o% n" ~$ I, x- S/ [
9 B) N- }' }* 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.' x4 l9 w2 q0 B1 c, z$ j$ ]& ^$ d/ x
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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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$ k9 q. w( M) z* h0 Z. z2 hHowever, 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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# R" \8 p6 g$ s9 {% b& c! q6 N\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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