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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/ ^1 \# _& m" F2 e! q
* `+ O, i9 A/ k! t4 ?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- ~3 _; ?/ h4 U4 D5 K7 B+ N
- f! S6 j& J7 |+ k) o. L) W! }, \Science 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.
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+ x4 j/ q ~5 Q4 r, TThe study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.- }4 ?$ ^) i% G2 U3 t# H' |
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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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5 C) _( l/ X+ mThe 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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1 m" _4 \4 N4 STheir 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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$ O" y+ U6 z4 fOne 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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At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the \"utility\" of speaking one instead of another.3 O- [1 s; Z/ z( f: G
% Y8 ?% D( g( U/ J& E' L& Y\"The idea is pretty simple,\" said Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona.0 p6 W& }2 C# m# ^% U
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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.' w1 L/ n! H A) [! H" e9 B, q' B
+ n% ^5 Z; w$ r: q" _\"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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0 q) z, f$ ^4 C0 g# j1 b; tDr 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%.\"; d% A; E9 E" ~# n/ e8 a2 u
# B4 B" a; `1 Y( F/ l lThe 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." y4 D% {5 D( Z0 J/ i% G4 `+ X
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And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.' w3 I) x+ J; U+ p$ N
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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.
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' u/ X' D+ j% K# d+ u! O z\"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.5 L; I6 |) z& N: U3 A" F# k' _
+ \5 m4 D& B8 T1 fHowever, he told BBC News that he thought it was \"a suggestive result\". ) t4 ?" v; \( k& w3 Y8 c6 r; F. o- f
+ h) i! u- x5 f/ K( \\"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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\"Obviously much more complicated things are going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages out.\" |
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